Friday, January 28, 2011

 

House Blessing, Shaun Cassidy & the Exorcist

I had just gotten my driver's license, was driving my first car (a Monza 2+2), and this pop star was, well, popular.

Unbeknownst to me, about that same time two little Houstonian girls were waiting by their mailboxes, daily, for Mr Pop Star to reply to their letters.

The year was 1977.

Even now, all these years later, one can sense some bitterness; no reply was ever received.

Was it this snub that jilted one of them toward becoming a popular possessed girl?

I hesitate to answer.

Anyway, the gals are all growed up now, one's behind the wheel, one's driving from the backseat, and we've got 30+ house blessings to do.

Strap your belt, make your Cross, and come along ...

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

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Could be ...

Possibly, like the tail-ends of the Roman and other Empires, the West is in danger of losing faith in itself. Nations are now burdened with fear, anxiety, hubris, xenophobia and popular ignorance. This time around, the women are joining in. Could it be that everything nowadays is just too easy and too available? For many of us, both men and women, there is enough to be done just watching the world go by--and being entertained. Spectator sports are at the apex of popularity, and the gladiators are the top earners.

Taken from Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letters - subscribe here.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

 

2011 Festival of Orthodoxy

The 2011 Festival of Orthodoxy conference sponsored by North Texas Orthodox Missions is entitled “From Conception to Dying: Orthodox Christian Views in Today’s World”.

It will be held Feb. 18-19 with sessions in both Ft. Worth and Dallas, TX.

The featured speakers are:

Kh. Frederica Mathewes-Green

Kh. Frederica is a past Festival speaker. Frederica is the Khouriya (Presvytera) of Holy Cross Orthodox Church near Baltimore. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Christianity Today, the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. She has authored several books, including The Jesus Prayer.





Dr. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.

Dr. Engelhardt will be appearing for the first time. He holds doctorates in philosophy and medicine and teaches at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. His major contribution to Orthodox Ethics is his book, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics.

Read a list of Dr. Engelhardt’s published works here.



For more information and registration please go HERE.

Thanks to FWD from Deacon Peter Winson.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

 

Pro-Life Heavy Lifting?

From The Washington Post:

Unlike evangelical Protestants and Catholics, the Orthodox in this country haven't been known for taking to the streets as antiabortion activists. What I did find on the official Greek Orthodox Web site was a statement calling abortion "immoral" and "murder." Likewise, the Antiochians condemn it in this statement on their site, adding that church fathers from apostolic times opposed it as well. They also posted an encouragement to take part in Monday's march. Plus, Frederica Mathewes-Green, one of the best-known antiabortion activists of any denomination, is married to an Antiochan Orthodox priest.

So, why weren't higher-ups from other Orthodox bodies out there braving the 25-degree weather Monday?

Read about it in Julia Duin's article in The Washington Post.

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Sunday, January 23, 2011

 

Are babies better than abortions?

From The Wall Street Journal ...

That's not a question we are accustomed to hearing. For the most part, abortion—America's most divisive issue—plays out as a question of competing rights. So it will be this weekend as pro-life and pro-choice legions each mark the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.

Yet a simple figure released earlier this month by the Chiaroscuro Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, provokes a different question. After crunching the latest statistics from New York City's Health Department, the foundation reported that 41% of pregnancies (excluding miscarriage) in New York ended in abortion. That's double the national rate.

So again the question: As a society, does this figure say anything about the choice between a baby and abortion? Even for those who believe the choice for an abortion belongs to a woman alone and ought to be unfettered by city, state or federal law, is there any ratio such a person would say is too high?

The question becomes even more compelling when broken down by race. For Hispanics, the abortion rate was 41.3%—i.e., more than double the rate for whites. For African-Americans the numbers are still more grim: For every 1,000 African-American live births in New York, there were 1,489 abortions.

These numbers can make Roe seem very distant. Years ago, Bill Clinton famously summed up the pro-choice argument as "safe, legal, and rare." What can the qualifier "rare" mean, however, unless it means that in some fundamental sense, a baby is better than an abortion?

Some, of course, will argue that what they mean is that America ought to devote more resources to helping women prevent getting pregnant in the first place. Whether or not that's as easily done as said, a focus on not getting pregnant does nothing for the woman who is pregnant and finds herself with a hard choice.

So how is New York responding? Earlier this month, the Chiaroscuro Foundation put together a high-profile press conference that brought the archbishop of New York and the leader of the one of Orthodox Jewry's most distinguished organizations (Agudath Israel of America) together with the African-American pastor of a large, Harlem church and a Latina who serves as a spokeswoman for Democrats for Life. As the New York Sun pointed out, notwithstanding all this ecumenical focus on New York's distinction as America's abortion capital, it elicited nary a peep from the mayor.

Read it ALL.

Thanks to FWD from Gayle Born.
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MARCH

REMEMBER

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Friday, January 21, 2011

 

80's "Icon" Returns 18th c. Icon

NICOSIA, Cyprus – Cyprus' Orthodox Christian Church on Thursday thanked former Culture Club singer Boy George for returning an icon of Christ that it says was stolen from a church in the breakaway north of the divided island.

Boy George agreed to return the 18th century icon he bought from a London art dealer in 1985 after being presented with proof of its true origin, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site.

"Before this, I had no idea who Boy George was," Brussels-based Bishop Porfyrios who led efforts for the icon's recovery told The Associated Press. "He was positive about returning the icon."

The church said it was alerted about the icon's whereabouts by an informer who saw the singer with it on a Dutch TV show last November.

Boy George, who said he was unaware of the icon's history when he bought it, personally handed the icon over to Bishop Porfyrios in London on Tuesday. In return, the bishop gave him a modern icon of Christ as a token of gratitude and "with the wish that others soon follow his example."

The leader of the Cyprus church, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, lauded the singer for doing the right thing.

"The moment he heard that the icon was stolen, I think that he did right to return it to the Church of Cyprus to which it belongs," the archbishop said. "We thank him and if he ever comes to Cyprus, we will certainly welcome him."

The church statement said Boy George ...

The whole story here.

Mollie has MORE.

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Thanks to FWD from Ron Ford.

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Monday, January 17, 2011

 

A Linten Story & a One-Story

ROSCOMMON (AP) — A northern Michigan woman has put her own spin on Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" by making a replica out of laundry lint.

Laura Bell of Roscommon collected lint from her dryer and fashioned it into a 14-foot-long, 4-foot tall reproduction of the Italian Renaissance painter's masterpiece.

Bell says she needed about 800 hours to do enough laundry to get the lint, and 200 hours to recreate the mural. She bought towels of the colors she wanted and laundered them separately to get the right shades of lint.

Here's the story.

And, here's One-Story that you don't want to miss:



Conciliar Press has just made Fr Stephen Freeman's book, Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe, available for pre-ordering. It is due to be released on March 1.

Fr Stephen is a prolific blogger and a sound theologian. This is one story one book I look forward to reading!

Details - HERE.



Finally, in honor of St Anthony the Great (feast - 1/17, ns), there's this old thing with a few bits of sanity:

St Anthony and the Flying Spaghetti Madness - Aarr!

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Friday, January 14, 2011

 

Illuminated Backboard, Digital Blackboard

Back when I was a kid, my father had a wonderful basketball goal constructed in our back yard. Those were the days before they sold the now common mass produced basketball goals, with the plastic base you fill with water or sand. This one was the real deal – metal, wood, light pole, cemented in the ground.

No problem with that goal; no, the problem was chubby me.

But that all changed when, each night after supper, I would head out to throw the ball at that basket until time for bed.

Back in those days, when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I would often stand back as far I could between the goal and our house – probably right about the current 3-point range – and try to make the basket.

I would sweeten the deal by saying something like, “If I hit this shot it means that Miranda Scott likes me …”

BOOM!

I hit it.

Then, to up the ante, I would say something like, “Hit this one and she will marry me.”

Bonk bonk bonk … missed it.

Okay, if I hit this one, she’ll marry me …

Bonk bonk bonk … almost.

And so it would go.

Miranda Scott, not her real name, was the smartest girl in the class and I figured my mom would like that, me hitching up with a smart girl.

There was another girl, I don’t remember how smart she was, but – at least back then, before political correctness – she was what we understood as, forgive me this, ugly.

We’ll call her Mona Pitts.

From time to time, I’d shoot a wildly impossible shot at the basket saying ...


The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

 

[Polamalu] Walks a Spiritual Path

By KAREN CROUSE

PITTSBURGH — Steelers safety Troy Polamalu opened his red leather-bound playbook to a dog-eared page. “The life of a man hangs by a hair,” he began reading in a voice as soft as falling snow. “At every step our life hangs in the balance.”

It was three days before the Steelers’ A.F.C. divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, a matchup in which the Super Bowl aspirations of two worthy contenders hang in the balance, and Polamalu was getting himself centered.

“How many millions of people woke up in the morning, never to see the evening?” Polamalu read. And then: “The life of a man is a dream. In a dream, one sees things that do not exist; he might see that he is crowned a king, but when he wakes up, he sees that in reality he is just a pauper.”

The book in Polamalu’s hands, “Counsels From the Holy Mountain,” guides him in football and in life. It contains the letters and homilies of a Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Ephraim, whom Polamalu described as his spiritual doctor.

Polamalu, 29, sought out the octogenarian monk ...


Read it all here.

Thanks for FWD from Jim Kees.

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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

 

Health Care in a Secular Culture



Click the above image to enlarge.

Here's the ad in TOUCHSTONE.

Here's the INFO and REGISTRATION.

Hope to see you in Houston at the end of April!

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

 

St Seraphim & the World Surrounding "Arizona"

Not fair, I suppose, to copy the final paragraph of an excellent reflection by Dr Anthony Esolen thereby shortchanging readers of the best of the mess; please read it all - here.

I am reading about the beloved Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who observed a ten year period of silence, and who retreated to the forest to live a life of prayer and fasting. Out of his mind, the knowing secularist would say. Yet when Saint Seraphim, in his old age, returned to "the world," he became the spiritual director of a convent of nuns he established, gave counsel to hundreds of people who came to him every week, dictated to one of his friends a work of deep and humane instruction in the ascetic life, healed the sick, and radiated a profound joy. Saint Seraphim was sane in the old sense of the word: he was whole and sound. If the political wranglings of our time -- and the amoralism that goes along with them -- are sane, then give me the madness of Seraphim. I'd be nearer the Lord, I'd be wiser and happier, I'd be of more use to my family and friends, and I'd get more done.


Again.

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Friday, January 07, 2011

 

Troy Polamalu says 'Kala Christougena!

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The most famous Orthodox Christian in Pittsburgh, if not the nation, has a greeting for his fellow believers today:

"Kala Christougena!" said Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. That's Greek for "Merry Christmas!"

Mr. Polamalu and his wife, Theodora, actually celebrated Christmas 13 days ago, but they keep the same Orthodox traditions as those who observe today. Most Orthodox celebrate on Dec. 25, but many Slavic churches tie liturgy to the old Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. The Greek Orthodox Church and some others have adopted the Gregorian calendar -- except at Easter.

"We all celebrate Easter on the same day," said Mr. Polamalu, 29. Orthodoxy is the Eastern wing of the earliest Christian church, which split into the Orthodox and Catholic churches in 1054.

He and Theodora converted to Orthodoxy about five years ago. His background was Catholic and Protestant, hers Muslim and Protestant. They were Christians in search of a deeper, more consistent experience of God.

"Orthodoxy is like an abyss of beauty that's just endless," he said. "I have read the Bible many times. But after fasting, and being baptized Orthodox, it's like reading a whole new Bible. You see the depth behind the words so much more clearly."

That fasting is a Christmastime difference between Eastern and Western Christians. While many Americans pile on the food from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Orthodox Christians ...

Read it all - here.

Thanks to FWD from Jan Pedersen.

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Thursday, January 06, 2011

 

A Poem for Theophany

This is a repeat -- an annual posting.

How is it that my Creator comes to me?
I'm not worthy.
To quench is my fate.
THIRST
All can relate.
Before Eden thou wast; even before the flood.
I parted for Thy people at the behest of Moses, Thy chosen one.
I’ve whetted e’ery path man’s trod; every field he’s plo’d.
At Thy command I came to be; my rest shall be in Thee.
Tell me Lord, what brings Thee to me? I’m not worthy,
I must confess.
Me? I cleanse from sweat, dirt, sand, and disease.
Washed away are cares and burdens -- the soot of the day --
in my waves.
John calls forth the people.
In their salvation I participate.
Yet, to Thee, how can I relate?
For without, I’d not be.
Jest it seems!
(Agent of cleansing feels dirty in the presence of the King.)
Cleanse me, O Lord, that I may be worthy of Thee.
THIRST
I am water.
I lack nothing but Thee.
At Thy baptism, O Lord, Thou hast found me worthy.
Quenching, cleansing:
paths, fields, people,
salvation;
I
shall ne’er be the same.

Come Lord Jesus,
cleanse Thou me!


Published in 2005 on the Antiochian Webpage - click the link for other Epiphany offerings.

ALSO ... here.

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Tuesday, January 04, 2011

 

When Snowmen Go Bad



What you can't see, in this snap from my cell phone, is the other Snowman, the one with the stick gun at close range.

Note to parents: All those coffee table Calvin & Hobbes books you've got? Hide them from young boys.

"Frosty the Snow Murderer" by Basil in North Carolina.

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Monday, January 03, 2011

 

RESOLUTION: Deadline Looms


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