Faërie

2012-01-07T12:19:00.003-06:00

On the Ordinary, from 'The Thing: Obstinate Orthodoxy'

G.K. Chesterton

I am ordinary in the correct sense of the term; which means the acceptance of an order; a Creator and the Creation, the common sense of gratitude for Creation, life and love as gifts permanently good, marriage and chivalry as laws rightly controlling them, and the rest of the normal traditions of our race and religion.

It is also thought a little odd that I regard the grass as green, even after some newly-discovered Slovak artist has painted it grey; that I think daylight very tolerable in spite of thirteen Lithuanian philosophers sitting in a row and cursing the light of day; and that, in matters more polemical, I actually prefer weddings to divorces and babies to Birth Control."

St Alcuin: An Act of Penitence and Preparation

2011-12-28T09:50:00.000-06:00

Draw near to me, O Lord and Saviour, that I may seek you with my whole heart; then I can ask for what I ought, and finally may adhere to the result of my prayers. Liberate me from my past sins, protect me from the present ones that threaten me, and guard me against future sins. Give me food and drink appropriate to the spirit of abstinence, the girdle of chastity, purity of heart, kindness and modesty; grant me spiritual joy and a perfect disdain of this world.

Enable me to guard against any occasion of scandal; grant me to love simplicity and purity, and always to seek after those things that make for peace. Keep far from me hypocrisy: give me instead true humility, that I may make a full confession and a perfect amendment of my life. Keep my tongue from the habit of swearing, from the clouds of deceit, and from the disease of detraction of others; also from addiction to gambling, and from the vanity of gossip and foolish talk.

Set a guard upon my mouth, and protect the doorway of my lips. I beg you to permit me to obey the commands of those above me, and without delay to concur whole-heartedly with all that makes for obedience, compassion and peace. Give me discretion in all things that I may distinguish between good and evil. May I value what is good, and encourage others so that things may be better yet, recalling to the standards of your righteousness any who are moving away from you.

Stir up my torpor and prod my laziness; make me persevere strenuously in your commandments and praises. Give me prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Bestow upon me a true faith, unquenchable hope, and perfect love. Fill my heart with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and devotion, and of your holy fear. Grant me, O Lord, the blessing of the dew of heaven, and the richness of earth; grant me the abundant water that flows from above and from below.

Give to my wretched soul the melting fire of your love, and make me extinguish utterly all desire for this world instead of you. Enable my heart to be always humble and contrite before you. May I become a living sacrifice in your presence through the fire of compunction.

2011-12-25T22:46:00.002-06:00

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Gloria

2011-12-17T13:17:00.004-06:00

Glory to God in the highest,

and peace to his people on earth.

Lord God, heavenly King,

almighty God and Father,

we worship you, we give you thanks,

we praise you for your glory.

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,

Lord God, Lamb of God,

you take away the sin of the world;

have mercy on us;

you are seated at the right hand of the Father;

receive our prayer.

For you alone are the Holy One,

you alone are the Lord,

you alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ,

with the Holy Spirit,

in the glory of God the Father. Amen
from the Book of Common Prayer

Third Week of Advent

2011-12-11T22:03:00.001-06:00

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

-The Book of Common Prayer

Chesterton on the Epiphany

2011-12-10T15:13:00.001-06:00

‎"It is still a strange story, though an old one, how they came out of orient lands, crowned with the majesty of kings and clothed with something of the mystery of magicians. That truth that is tradition has wisely remembered them almost as unknown quantities, as mysterious as their mysterious and melodious names; Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar. But there came with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the stars in Chaldea and the sun in Persia; and we shall not be wrong if we see in them the same curiosity that moves all the sages. They would stand for the same human ideal if their names had really been Confucius or Pythagoras or Plato. They were those who sought not tales but the truth of things, and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst for God, they also have had their reward. But even in order to understand that reward, we must understand that for philosophy as much as mythology, that reward was the completion of the incomplete." ~G.K. Chesterton: 'The Everlasting Man,' Part II: The God in the Cave.

A Collect for Fridays

2011-12-09T22:26:00.001-06:00

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first to suffer pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

From the Book of Common Prayer

The Second Song of Isaiah

2011-12-08T23:04:00.001-06:00

Seek out Yahweh while he is still to be found,

call to him while he is still near.

Let the wicked abandon his way

and the evil one his thoughts.

Let him turn back to Yahweh who will take pity on him,

to our God, for he is rich in forgiveness;

for my thoughts are not your thoughts

and your ways are not my ways, declares Yahweh.

For the heavens are as high above earth

as my ways are above your ways,

my thoughts above your thoughts.

For, as the rain and the snow come down from the sky

and do not return before having watered the earth,

fertilising it and making it germinate

to provide seed for the sower and food to eat,

so it is with the word that goes from my mouth:

it will not return to me unfulfilled

or before having carried out my good pleasure

and having achieved what it was sent to do. - Isaiah 55:6-11

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

A Collect for Guidance

2011-12-07T14:17:00.001-06:00

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. - Book of Common Prayer

C.S. Lewis on Christianity

2011-12-06T11:20:00.001-06:00

“I have sometimes told my audience that the only two things really worth considering are Christianity and Hinduism. (Islam is only the greatest of the Christian heresies, Buddhism only the greatest of the Hindu heresies. Real Paganism is dead. All that was best in Judaism and Platonism survives in Christianity.) There isn’t really, for an adult mind, this infinite variety of religions to consider. We may [reverently] divide religions, as we do soups, into ‘thick’ and ‘clear’. By Thick I mean those which have orgies and ecstasies and mysteries and local attachments: Africa is full of Thick religions. By Clear I mean those which are philosophical, ethical and universalizing: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Ethical Church are Clear religions. Now if there is a true religion it must be both Thick and Clear: for the true God must have made both the child and the man, both the savage and the citizen, both the head and the belly. And the only two religions that fulfil this condition are Hinduism and Christianity. But Hinduism fulfils it imperfectly. The Clear religion of the Brahmin hermit in the jungle and the Thick religion of the neighbouring temple go on side by side. The Brahmin hermit doesn’t bother about the temple prostitution nor the worshipper in the temple about the hermit’s metaphysics. But Christianity really breaks down the middle wall of the partition. It takes a convert from central Africa and tells him to obey an enlightened universalist ethic: it takes a twentieth-century academic prig like me and tells me to go fasting to a Mystery, to drink the blood of the Lord. The savage convert has to be Clear: I have to be Thick. That is how one knows one has come to the real religion.”

—from “Christian Apologetics,” by C. S. Lewis

Church Collect of the Day

2011-12-04T21:45:00.001-06:00

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. - Book of Common Prayer

Advent Meditation

2011-12-03T20:38:00.001-06:00

'In the incarnation of the Son of God we see forged the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind of itself could not even have imagined: the Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human face….Through this revelation, men and women are offered the ultimate truth about their own life and about the goal of history…. Seen in any other terms, the mystery of personal existence remains an insoluble riddle.' - Pope John Paul II

An Advent Prayer

2011-12-02T11:08:00.001-06:00

'Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.' - The Book of Common Prayer

Water

2011-10-25T10:51:00.005-05:00

"This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." - 1 John 5:6-8

"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." - Matthew 3:16

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." - John 3:5

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." - John 4:14

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow streams of living water." - John 7:38

"Just as a man cannot live in the flesh unless he is born in the flesh, even so a man cannot have the spiritual life of grace unless he is born again spiritually. This regeneration is effected by Baptism: 'Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." - St Thomas Aquinas

“There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician can analyse. The water itself, that dances, and sings, and slakes the wonderful thirst--symbol and picture of that draught for which the woman of Samaria made her prayer to Jesus--this lovely thing itself, whose very wetness is a delight to every inch of the human body in its embrace--this live thing which, if I might, I would have running through my room, yea, babbling along my table--this water is its own self its own truth, and is therein a truth of God.” - George MacDonald

"I know by frequent experience that there is nothing which puts the devil to flight like holy water." - St. Teresa of Avila

GK Chesterton on Education

2011-10-07T09:58:00.004-05:00

'We come back to the parent as the person in charge of education. If you exalt the education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you exaggerate the education, you must exaggerate the parental power with it. If you depreciate the parental power, you must depreciate education with it. … Private education really is universal. … Public education can be comparatively narrow.

'It would really be an exaggeration to say that the school-master who takes his pupils in freehand drawing is training them in all the uses of freedom. It really would be fantastic to say that the harmless foreigner who instructs a class in French or German is talking with all the tongues of men and angels.

'But the mother dealing with her own daughters in her own home does literally have to deal with all forms of freedom, because she has to deal with all sides of a single human soul. She is obliged, if not to talk with the tongues of men and angels, at least to decide how much she shall talk about angels and how much about men.'

The Unseen Presence

2011-09-26T12:20:00.003-05:00

The world we used to live in was very different. Words bore great weight. Blessings and curses, invocations and incantations all possessed powerful and terrifying consequences. Actions carried great unseen meaning. The things we did with our bodies held startling and forceful spiritual purport. The trees and stars, animals and ætherial beings, the natural powers that God breathed into the earth in the wind, the fire, the water, the air, all carried dæmonic significance. The Sacraments of the Church were the awful and terrific and utterly beautiful Means to Christ, and were treated with the reverence and awe they were worthy of. The Church was full of Liturgy. The clothes, the scents, the architecture, the words said, the songs sung, the Sacraments partaken of, all were mysterious and magical means through which we experienced the Most Holy One. The culture of the Christian world was rich and full of significance, full of feasts, fasts, festivals, celebration and mourning, remembrances, customs. One's life was measured out in the holy-days that echoed the powerful symbolism and culture that Yahweh Himself commanded His Chosen people to live by in the earliest days.

Yet we now live in the wake of the ideas that the Enlightenment, the Victorian Era, and the Post-Modern Age has preached. The gnostic world-view has won. Individualism is our god. Our culture is the culture of the secular world. Our holy-days are not holy-days but holidays that are swallowed up by secular traditions and corruptions of the early rituals. The government dictates how we live, how we structure our homes and families, not the Bible or the earliest truths of the Creation. Our actions and our words have very little significance except for the immediate ramifications we see in the here and now, and therefore the majority of our churches no longer believe in the holiness of the Sacraments, the power of the ancient liturgy, or the power of the Means to God inherent in Holy Communion.

The world has taught us its own view of the ancient days, defamiliarizing the old to such an extent that what was once powerful in words and deeds and spirit and body are treated with flippancy and complete misunderstanding. And yet the Bible foregrounds the Truth of these ancient customs in a most startling and blatant way. Yahweh, in the chronicles of the Pentateuch, held great significance in the material. He appeared to the patriarchs, the judges, and the prophets in bodily form multiple times. He ordained the holy and magical works of childbirth and marriage and burial. His Temple was full of holy relics, of wonders. Holy bread and holy fire, the prayers of the people present in the burning of incense, blood sacrifice that render the people clean, the God-given authority symbolized in the vestments of the priests, and His real and awful presence in the Mercy-Seat of the Holy of Holies.º Yahweh breathed into the vessels of His Temple the power of His Name. Thus all who touch the Ark of the Covenant die. Thus Zechariah beholds a vision of seven lamps on a golden lampstand that are the Eyes of Yahweh, which 'range over the whole world' and two olive trees which are the 'two anointed ones in attendance on the Lord of the whole world.'

His prophets, too, were given the Means to Himself. Yahweh placed great power in the staffs of Moses and Elijah† He commanded His prophets to speak events into existence. Their words were powerful in the strongholds they built in the Unseen Realm, echoing the fact that He Himself built the worlds through His Words. He commanded the prophets to not only speak, but to act out what was being worked out in the Unseen Realm. The most powerful representation of this is, perhaps, the life of Hosea, whom Yahweh commanded to marry a hoar and bear children by her, as a physical declaration of the spiritual state of His relationship with Israel. He commanded Hosea to name His sons 'Not-My-People' and his daughter 'Unloved' in order to show forth the strongholds of Israel's betrayal in the Unseen Realm.*

This amalgamation of the Unseen Realm and the Seen is not only a manifestation of the Old Covenant. It is also present in the New Covenant that Jesus gave to us. We see this truth in His own life, and in the miracles that He performed. His Power was manifested in His words and commands and deeds, but also in His own Person. Thus He healed the blind man's eyes with a poultice made of His spittle. Thus the woman suffering of hemorrhage was healed by merely touching His robe. He commanded His disciples to be baptized that they may physically be buried with Him and rise a new creation in Him. He gave His disciples His own Body and Blood to eat, in order that His Presence would truly and literally live inside of them. He bodily died, He bodily descended into Hell and took the keys from Satan, He bodily raised from the dead, He bodily flew into the Heavens, He bodily sits at the right hand of the Father. He commanded us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, to obey Him so that, through His grace, we might live a life truly saved from sin and the fruits of sin.

We see only as through a looking glass darkly, and yet we are given the promise in the Revelation to St John that we will live in a world in which the Unseen and the Seen become one, where the opening of scrolls ushers in new eras of the Earth and riders on horses bring forth judgment, where Yahweh builds a city in which we will experience His glorious Light. Let us remember that the world around us is not weightless and empty of meaning, but the very Creation of the Imagination of the God who bears and breathes into His creation the weight of His glory.

ºSee 'The Tabernacle of the Godhead'

†See 'The Staff of Adonai'
*To see other examples of this mystery read Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 13, Jeremiah 16, Jeremiah 24, Ezekiel 3, Ezekiel 4, Ezekiel 12, Zechariah 3, Zechariah 4

A Hymn for the Church Militant

2011-08-22T10:11:00.004-05:00

Great God, that bowest sky and star,

Bow down our towering thoughts to thee,

And grant us in a faltering war

The firm feet of humility.

Lord, we that snatch the swords of flame,

Lord, we that cry about Thy car.

We too are weak with pride and shame,

We too are as our foemen are.

Yea, we are mad as they are mad,

Yea, we are blind as they are blind,

Yea, we are very sick and sad

Who bring good news to all mankind.

The dreadful joy Thy Son has sent

Is heavier than any care;

We find, as Cain his punishment,

Our pardon more than we can bear.

Lord, when we cry Thee far and near

And thunder through all lands unknown

The gospel into every ear,

Lord, let us not forget our own.

Cleanse us from ire of creed or class,

The anger of the idle tings;

Sow in our souls, like living grass,

The laughter of all lowly things.

by GK Chesterton

Lights

2011-08-13T18:29:00.003-05:00

The eyes of the Lord rove to and fro over the earth, searching for the people whose heart is turned towards Him.

He sees the souls of His creation. He sees the fire of His Word kindled inside His chosen. He sees the Light of the Holy Spirit and He sees the Darkness of the lack thereof.

The shadows populate the earth, the shadows of the blind and the deaf, the shadows who do not know the Way, or the Truth, or the Light.

The blanket of darkness cloaks the Earth, but here and there sparks of Light are struck. The Light beams forth in the Darkness, and the Darkness cannot overcome it.

The Light bears forth strength in its very heart, for it is the Temple of the Spirit of the Tetragrammaton. It sends out the Truth of the Light that dwells within. Its Temple holds the Body and Blood of that God which gives the Temple Life.

The Dark sees the Brilliance of the Love of Yahweh, indwelling the Light and the Life and the Spirit. The Dark understands it not, but some hearts ask for understanding, and where Darkness was, Light spreads forth, vanquishing the Shadow. New Lights spark and kindle over the shadows of the Earth, and the Eye of the Lord rejoices as the Lights appear and grow stronger in the Consuming Fire of His Love. His Love burns away all Darkness.

O Lord, may we be Lights in the Dark.

The Staff of Adonai

2011-08-07T22:44:00.004-05:00

The lore that speaks of the magician's staff or wand is well-known in our society. We are familiar with the fairy godmother, the White Witch, Professor Dumbledore, Gandalf the Grey, Merlin, and countless others. But where did the legendary Type of the magic staff come from? In the tradition of freemasonry staves were used during rituals of the Craft. Medieval tales of Faërie used them as instrumental tools in their magery. Circe of the Odyssey used a wand to transform Odysseus's men into animals. In Pharaonic Egypt magic wands were placed in tombs along with amulets and other toilette articles for the souls of the dead to use.

Thus we see the magic staff spoken of through history. And yet there is no where that it is spoken of so powerfully as in the Bible.

It was first to be spoken of in regard to one of the Three Patriarchs. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. He prophesied to Judah, 'The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from his loins, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the expectation of the nations.' This was fulfilled in David, who defeated Goliath with his sling and his staff, and whose staff of rulership will never be broken.

Moses, however, was the master of the staff. He was, perhaps, the first archetype of the 'wizard', with his robe and beard and staff. The staff was made the primary tool with each of the miracles that Adonai empowered Aaron and Moses to perform in rescuing the Hebrews. Adonai empowered the rod of Aaron to turn into a serpent, to eat the magic staves of the Egyptian magicians, to turn the water of the Nile into blood, to invoke thunder and hail and fire out of the heavens, to bring up gnats from the dust, to call Darkness over Egypt, and finally, to divide the Red Sea. God commanded Moses to take the staff with him on his journey, as an important tool of His power. It was with this that he struck the Rock of Horeb and brought forth water. He was commanded to throw a branch into the waters of Marah in order to cleanse the waters of bitterness.

In Exodus 17, when Moses sent Joshua to fight the Amalekites, Moses said to Joshua, 'Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.' And it was so that when Moses held up the staff Israel prevailed, but when he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed. When Moses' hands grew heavy, Aaron and Hur supported his hands, so that his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And so Israel prevailed over Amalek.

In Numbers 17, Adonai commands Moses to make a staff for each of the tribes of Israel, write their names upon them, and then put them before the Ark of the Testimony in the Tabernacle of Testimony. Adonai said, 'So it shall be the man I choose, his staff will blossom; thus will I remove the murmurings of the children of Israel which they murmur against you.' It was the staff of Aaron and the House of Levi that blossomed out and produced ripe almonds, thus choosing that Tribe as the priesthood of Adonai. Adonai then commanded that Aaron's staff be kept as a permanent sign before the Ark of the Covenant.

Shortly thereafter, when the Israelites were perishing for thirst, Adonai commanded Moses to 'Take the staff; and you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before them, and it will give its waters.' When Moses strikes the rock with the staff instead of speaking to it, Adonai punishes him for not following His commandment to hold the staff and speak to the rock as an animate spirit.

The Prophets also carried staves of power. In the Book of Kings, when a child lies dead, Elisha tells his servant Gehazi, 'Prepare yourself, take my staff in your hand and be on your way. If you meet anyone, you will not greet him. And if anyone greets you, you will not answer him. You shall lay my staff on the face of the child.' Elisha expects that the power of his staff will be sufficient to bring the child back to life. When Gehazi proves incapable of performing the miracle, Elisha prays, lays on the child seven times, and thus breathes life into the child.

Even the Angel of Yahweh carried a staff of power. In the story of Gideon (Judges 6-7), Yahweh commands Gideon to 'Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.' Gideon does so. "Then the Angel of Yahweh stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of Yahweh departed out of his sight."

Our God is a God of wonders.

Even though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

∞

As a footnote, the 'Rod of Aaron' is a subject of much interest in Rabbinical and Christian legends. The Jewish Encyclopedia states:

'[The] legend of the rod as given by the Syrian Solomon in his "Book of the Bee" has Christian characteristics. According to it the staff is a fragment of the Tree of Knowledge, and was successively in the possession of Shem, of the three Patriarchs, and of Judah, just as in the Jewish legend. From Judah it descended to Pharez, ancestor of David and of the Messiah. After Pharez's death an angel carried it to the mountains of Moab and buried it there, where the pious Jethro found it. When Moses, at Jethro's request, went in search of it, the rod was brought to him by an angel. With this staff Aaron and Moses performed all the miracles related in Scripture, noteworthy among which was the swallowing up of the wonder-working rods of the Egyptian Posdi. Joshua received it from Moses and made use of it in his wars (Josh. viii. 18); and Joshua, in turn, delivered it to Phinehas, who buried it in Jerusalem. There it remained hidden until the birth of Jesus, when the place of its concealment was revealed to Joseph, who took it with him on the journey to Egypt. Judas Iscariot stole it from James, brother of Jesus, who had received it from Joseph. At Jesus' crucifixion the Jews had no wood for the transverse beam of the cross, so Judas produced the staff for that purpose. This typological explanation of Moses' rod as the cross is not a novel one. Origen on Exodus (chap. vii.) says: "This rod of Moses, with which he subdued the Egyptians, is the symbol of the cross of Jesus, who conquered the world." Christian legend has preserved the Jewish accounts of the rod of the Messiah and made concrete fact of the idea.'

You can visit this link for more information on the legends of the Staff of God.

2011-07-27T22:53:00.002-05:00

‎Heartily He loves you,

heartily He hates the evil in you--

so heartily that He will even cast you

into the fire

to burn you clean.

By making you clean

He will give you rest.

-George MacDonald

Children and the Church

2011-06-25T13:04:00.005-05:00

Birth control has been popular from of old. It is documented as far back as 1900 BC and even up to the Roman empire of the apostolic age. There were many different methods, such as wool that absorbed sperm and animal skins used as condoms, as well as poisons and potions that made the uterus hostile. Abortion was common. Witches and witch-doctors performed abortion, and this action was one of the main proponents of the witch-hunts of the 1600s. Women often-times bound their bodies in order to expel fetuses. Infanticide was also rampant. Documentations of practices such as leaving unwanted babies on street corners and sacrificing babies to pagan gods were wide-spread.

In the secular world of this age, birth control is more widely used than ever before. The 2002 Census by the CDC says that the percentage of women who used a form of contraception at their first sexual intercourse has risen from 43% before 1980 to 79% in 2002, and that 98% of sexually active women have used contraceptives. The same study states that more than 50% of women receiving family planning services were younger than 25 years of age.

Contraception has taken on an ever more serious progression. The versions of contraceptive use have multiplied. We see women losing their true femininity and becoming instead asexual sex symbols with birth control options that cause a woman to only have an ovulation from four times a year to never in five years. These hormonal methods of contraception work by injecting hormones into the uterus that also morph the lining of the uterus into a hostile environment that kills a joined sperm and egg when the fetus enters through the fallopian tube. This, in effect, is an abortifacient. Oral contraceptives have also been found by the National Cancer Institute to increase the risks of breast cancer, cervical cancer and liver cancer, especially for women who began to use oral contraceptives in their teens. With the constant use of contraceptives that alter the woman's hormones and uteran function, the rise of barrenness and conceptional dysfunction also increases.

This is the world's way, and yet the Church of God has accepted these things as 'socially acceptable', and do not even question what God would have us do. We find, meanwhile, that in the Bible children are called by David a 'treasure in the womb', a 'heritage from the Lord'. He says, 'Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!' - Psalm 127.

Jesus most strongly praises children and childlikeness. 'In truth I tell you, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter into the kingdom of Heaven. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this little child is greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.…Anyone who welcomes one little child like this in my name welcomes me. But anyone who is the downfall of one of these little ones who have faith in me would be better drowned in the depths of the sea with a great millstone round his neck.' - Matthew 18

In the book of Genesis, the sin of Onan, who spilled his semen on the ground rather than bring forth children by Tamar for his brother's lineage, was killed by Yahweh-God. The early Christian church continued this view against contraception in the tradition of the Pentateuch. Here are some quotes from the early church fathers.

'We Christians marry only to produce children.' - Justin Martyr, 100 AD

'Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted.' - Clement of Alexandria, 101 AD

'Some complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife.' Again he says, 'God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital (generating) part of our body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring.' - Lactantius, 307 AD

'Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility, where there is murder before birth? …Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his laws?…The matter still seems indifferent to many men––even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks…' - John Chrysostom, 391 AD

'You may see a number of women who are widows before they are wives. Others, indeed, will drink sterility and murder a man not yet born.' - Jerome, 396 AD

'When [procreation] is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels.' Again, in 419 AD, 'I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility.' - St Augustine, 400 AD

'If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman.' - Caesarius of Arles, 522 AD,

'[Contraception] does injury to God.' - St Thomas Aquinas

'[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him.' - Martin Luther

'[Birth control is] the murder of a future person.' - John Calvin

'[Contraception is] unnatural and destroys the soul of those who practice it.' - John Wesley

Even after the Reformation, the Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and Dissenters were against birth control. It was not until 1930 that the Anglican Lambeth Conference of bishops accepted the use of birth control, and even then it was only accepted in certain medical circumstances. As the secularized culture grew with the hardship experienced in the Great Depression, the beliefs of Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), the rise of Darwinism, the propagation of a two-child family promoted by Rockefeller and the government, the restructured family ideal that arose during the '50s, and the Green movement influenced most Protestants to embrace birth control. Instead of viewing contraception as a deliberate violation of God's natural design, the church of God accepted a sexuality of death.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches, however, continued to hold the early church view. In 1997 the Catholic leadership said that, 'The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.'

So how ought the Church of God live?

The Emancipation of Domesticity

2011-05-18T12:35:00.002-05:00

by G.K. Chesterton

There is only one way to preserve in the world that high levity and that more leisurely outlook which fulfils the old vision of universalism. That is, to permit the existence of a partly protected half of humanity; a half which the harassing industrial demand troubles indeed, but only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who does not "give her best," but gives her all.

Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales--better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women.

Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman's professions, unlike the child's, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating; but I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a general servant.…

The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world.

But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.…

I would observe here in parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman was set to guard. One's own children, one's own altar, ought to be a matter of principle-- or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the other hand, who wrote Junius's Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.

Spring Meditations

2011-02-27T17:18:00.002-06:00

Sunday afternoon. Mild, cloudy, with a temperate breeze and a silver grey wetness in the atmosphere. The beauty of the ushering in of the Spring beckons me to walk outside.

The trees are in bud. Tiny green clusters grace the ends of the elegant, drooping boughs of our plum tree. I meditate on the miracle that God makes the roots of this age-old tree soak up the nutrients and water in the soil, causes that life-juice to flow through the gnarled, brown trunk, up through the branches, and overflow in green buds that will soon become leaves, and then pure white blossoms, and then good, life-giving fruit.

I walk round the tree and down the hill, the grass and dirt cool and wet to my bare feet, the wind ruffling my hair, the sky sending forth silver rays of dusk. I lay down in the grass, and stare up at the sky. The clouds race and frolic across the heavens, grey, pearl, lavender, blue. The sun is still so bright through the fog that my eyes can hardly withstand the glorious light. The beautiful canopy stretches in every direction, magnanimous, great, brilliant, cascading forth as far as the eye can see. My mind hearkens back to Jesus, the Imaginer, Creator and Maker of the mighty beauty of the sky, the graceful strength of the trees, the tender loveliness of the green buds.

He cares about the great things as well as the small things. He who encompasses the greatness of the world came to earth in the form of the smallest of the small. He is Yahweh the Wonderworker.

I feel as if I could see into the Heavens. As if I could fly into the sky, following the path of Jesus's ascension, through the clouds, into the atmosphere, beyond the blue air, into the glorious realm of the sun, moon, and stars, past the fiery explosions of the celestial beings of the Aether, and finally to the very mercy seat of Him who made us.

I rise, my mind overwhelmed with the magnitude of His mercy, His beauty, His goodness, His truth, His imagination, His love. The Resurrection and the Life. The Light of the World. The Lover of our souls.

Join with all nature in manifold witness

to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love!

Shepherd of Souls

2011-02-20T14:38:00.002-06:00

Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless 
Thy chosen pilgrim flock 
With manna in the wilderness, 
With water from the rock.

Hungry and thirsty, faint and weak, 
As Thou when here below, 
Our souls the joys celestial seek
 Which from Thy sorrows flow.

We would not live by bread alone,
 But by Thy Word of grace,
 In strength of which we travel on
 To our abiding place.

Be known to us in breaking bread, 
But do not then depart; 
Savior, abide with us, and spread 
Thy table in our heart.

Lord, sup with us in love divine;
 Thy body and Thy blood, 
That living bread, that heav’nly wine, 
Be our immortal food.

James Montgomery, to the tune of 'Dives and Lazarus'

The Mountain of Yhwh

2011-01-22T22:33:00.001-06:00

Mountains. Bulwarks of strength. Towers of majesty. Heights where the wind frolics freely, where the air is thin, fresh, cold. Where the lightning zig-zags down to electrify, where the sky may be touched by the reaching of a hand, where the clouds descend to fog the senses.

Mountains. The towers of myths. The ever-present home of the Olympians. The home of the altars of pagans throughout the ages. The treasure-store of Atlantis. The earth reaching to Heaven. The eye of the horizon. The observer of the worlds, the galaxies.

Mountains. Mentions of mountains are replete throughout the Biblical documents. From the very first chapters of Genesis, we are told of the mountain of God in the midst of the Garden of Eden, from whence Yahweh descends to speak to Adam and Eve. It is the mountain 'where God lived'.

When Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, he came to 'Horeb, the mountain of God.' (Exodus 3:1) There God encountered him in the form of the burning bush. Years later, Moses and the Israelites returned to God again on Mount Sinai, or Horeb. The pillar of Cloud covered the mountain. It shook. God's voice pealed from the heights, commanding that no one could approach the foot of its base except Moses, lest they die. For the mountain was holy. Moses said, 'You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain which is your heritage, the place which you, Yahweh, have made your dwelling, the sanctuary, Yahweh, prepared by your own hands.' (Exodus 15:17)

The chosen city of God, Jerusalem, was set in the midst of seven mountains. God chose out of those seven mountains the Mount Moriah to establish His Temple, His Holy of Holies on. This was the same mountain on which Abraham was called to sacrifice a ram in lieu of his son Isaac as a burnt offering to Yahweh.

David took refuge from the persecution of his son Absalom by fleeing to the Mount of Olives. Ezekiel says that 'the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city [the mount of Olives].' David sang of Yahweh's mountain repeatedly in his Psalms. I myself have anointed my king on Zion my holy mountain.…I cry out to Yahweh; he answers from his holy mountain.…Send out your light and your truth; they shall be my guide, to lead me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.…Why be envious, haughty mountains, of the mountain God has chosen for his dwelling? There God will dwell forever.…Exalt Yahweh our God, bow down at his holy mountain; holy is Yahweh our God!

Elijah walked for forty days and forty nights to take shelter from persecution on Mount Horeb, God's mountain. (1 Kings 19). When he reached there 'he was told, "Go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh." For at that moment Yahweh was going by. A mighty hurricane split the mountains and shattered the rocks before Yahweh. But Yahweh was not in the hurricane. And after the hurricane, an earthquake. But Yahweh was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire. But Yahweh was not in the fire. And after the fire, a light murmuring sound. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face.…'

Isaiah prophesied about God's mountain, Horeb or Sinai. He spoke that Yahweh would prepare a banquet for His chosen on this mountain, that on this mountain He would tear the veil 'which used to veil all peoples'. (Isaiah 25:6) That when the Day comes, the Chosen will pilgrimage to the mountain, where they will worship Him and be joyful in His 'house of prayer'. (Isaiah 27, 56)

Jesus, when He came to the earth, loved the mountains. He was born underneath a mountain. He would rise early in the morning and go 'on the mountain to pray'. He wept for Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. He preached from the Mount of Olives. The Transfiguration took place on the Mount of Olives. Jesus was betrayed on the Mount of Olives. He was crucified on a mountain. He was buried in a mountain. He flew away from the Mount of Olives, which is the highest mountain out of the seven hills of Zion.

And, when Jesus returns to Earth, 'his feet will rest on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in half from east to west.'

Maranatha.

From the Heart of Samuel Johnson

2011-01-03T15:53:00.002-06:00

A Prayer

Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast created and preserved me, have pity on my weakness and corruption. Let me not be created to misery, nor preserved only to multiply sin. Deliver me from habitual wickedness, and idleness, enable me to purify my thoughts, to use the faculties which thou has given me with honest diligence, and to regulate my life by thy holy word.

Grant me, O Lord, good purposes and steady resolution, that I may repent my sins, and amend my life. Deliver me from the distresses of vain terror and enable me by thy Grace to will and to do what may please thee, that when I shall be called away from this present state I may obtain everlasting happiness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Bread of Heaven

2010-12-23T23:11:00.005-06:00

It is said of Jesus, 'You are a priest for ever, of the order of Melchizedek.' The only time we see Melchizedek in the Bible is in Genesis 14, where it is stated that 'Melchizedek king of Salem brought [Abram] bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High. He pronounced this blessing: "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High for putting your enemies into your clutches." And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.'

In this we see the first institution of the concept of an eucharisteo - a beatification in the form of a feast. Melchizedek presents Abram with bread and wine and gives him a blessing. In return, Abram presents the first documented tithe to Melchizedek.

This concept of the blessed feast we see again after the Mosaic covenant is formed. The children of Israel were to be saved from death by the blood of the sacrificial lamb, of the flesh of which they were to feast upon. The children of Israel were to be sustained by heavenly bread, as is told in the account of the Exodus of the Israelites, when Yahweh says to Moses, 'Look, I shall rain down bread for you from the heavens.' This holy, heavenly bread was to feed the Israelites throughout the forty years in the desert.

When Jesus came, He not only fulfilled the Mosaic covenant, but He proclaimed a new covenant after the ancient priesthood of Melchizedek. The Bible says that Jesus 'became for all who obey Him the source of eternal salvation and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order of Melchizedek.' (Hebrews 5) This proclamation fulfilled the prophesy of David in the Psalms: 'Yahweh has sworn an oath He will never retract, you are a priest for ever of the order of Melchizedek.' (Psalms 110)

We see the direct reflection of this in Jesus's institution of the eucharisteo. When the Pharisees asked for a sign from Jesus equal to the miracle of the manna, Jesus declared that He was that miracle in and of Himself. Jesus said in reply, 'I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that a person may eat it and not die. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.'

When all around Him, even His own disciples, were shocked and revolted by this statement, Jesus replied to them: 'In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.' (John 6)

It is later on that we see the full reality of this incredible pronouncement in action. At the feast of Passover, where the children of Israel eat of the sacrificial lamb, Jesus institutes the sacrament. He presented Himself as the new sacrificial lamb which was to be feasted upon: the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of humanity. The Gospels say that Jesus 'took bread, and when He had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. "Take it and eat," He said, "this is my body." Then He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He handed it to them saying, "Drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Thus the Word, who spoke the worlds into existence, declared that the bread and wine were miraculously, mysteriously, and utterly sacredly His Body and Blood, the sacrificial vessel through which we partake of the forgiveness of our sins and become one with Him. The High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek reinstated the sacrament that Melchizedek had so enigmatically given to Abraham, and He commanded us to partake whenever we meet together, so that He might truly live inside of us through our eating of Himself.

Let us remember Jesus's words this Christmas Eve, as we partake of the Holy Sacrament. Let us welcome Jesus into ourselves by our faith in the words of Yahweh, 'Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.' Let us ask for renewed life, on the promise of Elohim's declaration that 'whoever eats me will also draw life from me.'

On the Virgin Mary

2010-12-06T14:03:00.010-06:00

I once heard a pastor say that 'The Virgin Mary would have been like any regular thirteen-year-old. In our time she probably would have talked incessantly on her cell phone about boys, giggled all the time, not wanted to do her homework, and been rebellious against her parents.' The pastor continued to say that Jesus, in His teenager years, probably paraded his new camel up and down Main Street in Nazareth to show off His new ride. I could hardly keep my seat.

It was the very worst case I had ever seen of a belief prominent in the Protestant psyche. In a worldview based upon the premise of being anti-Catholic, the Protestants have so degraded the saints from the Catholic reverence that they have become idols of a different sort. These idols are insistently proclaimed to be 'just like us.' They supposedly have the same struggles and failures that we have, and therefore we should fight against any guilt, because God's grace covers all of our sins, no matter how persistently we do them––for we are all, apparently, equal in God's sight. It is a self-centered standpoint held in antagonism against the Catholic and Orthodox view of the saintliness of the saints, the holiness of Mary, and the respect, remembrance, and imitation that they thus deserve.

Though we are all equal in that we are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ from our sins, the legacy of these heros of the faith are such that we ought to strive to emulate their good works and thus glorify God. No doubt, the reverence given to Mary and the saints is vastly abused by many people who turn to superstition and idolisation instead of to Jesus, our only intercessor. But have the Protestants not protested too far?

Looking back to the very first chapters of Genesis, we see the embryonic beginning of the work that God completed through Jesus. Eve, the first Woman, and Adam, the first Man, fell. God established a new Covenant with them, through which their Fallen nature might be rectified: the Family. The Family would be the cell that would sanctify the fallen human through its emulation of Love. Just as God is a triune Being, built upon the love and unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Family was to be a unit in which Man and Woman unite in Love and bear the fruit of Love: the Child. Sacrifice becomes the working of salvation in their lives. The Man sacrifices for the Woman and Child by working the soil to provide for them; the Woman sacrifices for the Child by the hard work of childbirth and the devotion of her life to the service of her Child and her Husband. The Child then grows up in this sacrificial love and goes out to begin a new family in which Love may multiply.

God, in this establishing of the way of salvation, prophesies the coming of the Second Adam and the Second Eve. He speaks to the snake, 'I shall put enmity between you and the Woman, and between your offspring and Her offspring; He will break your head and you will bruise His heel.'

This prophesy is fulfilled thousands of years later. God, His eyes roving to and fro over the earth to find hearts that are turned toward Him, picks Mary out of all the women of all the ages of the world to be the 'Mother of our Lord'. Rather than Sarah, Rachel, Leah, Rebekah, Miriam, Deborah, Jael, Susanna, Judith, Esther, Mary and Martha, Joanna, Joan of Arc, St. Lucy, St. Monica, St. Teresa of Avila, Mother Theresa, or countless other choices, God sends His archangel Gabriel to a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl in one of the most politically tortuous times in history. Paul Johnson, in his very enlightening biography of Jesus, states that Mary's whole life, as an average woman in that time, would have been built upon being a useful helpmate to her husband. She would have known how to read and write, how to manage the household finances, how to provide with food and clothing a large family out of very raw resources. We see, too, from the words that Mary speaks, that she was a quiet and sensible soul, with an intelligent mind and a poetic turn of phrase.

The angel proclaims to her that she is 'highly favored of God'. That the Lord is 'with her'. He informs her that she is to be the 'virgin with child' spoken of in Isaiah's prophesies. That she is to be the one in all humanity which Yahweh would come upon and 'cover with His shadow' and thus impregnate. That she is to be the pinnacle figure in the Holy Family, fulfilling the establishment of the family in Genesis 3. That her womb is to be graced with El Shaddai. That her body is the body which will nurture and feed the Creator of the world. That the divine cells of the Son of the Most High will live in her body, fighting disease and enhancing her health even after she has given birth, and indeed until her death. That her breasts will provide the milk which will feed Elohim, and that the strong bond of love thus created will be a bond held between herself and Yahweh. She will be the Second Eve, through which the Second Adam will be born.

Yet this outstanding proclamation is one that Mary knows will bring extreme unhappiness for her in the short term. She knows the consequences of a pregnancy out of wedlock. She could lose the support of her family. She could lose the love of Joseph. She could suffer an ignominious divorce from her betrothed. She could be shunned by mankind. She could even be stoned, and, if the stoning did not kill her, pushed off a cliff. She could be the refuse of society. But Mary, the young girl with wonderful faith, says, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.'

From this moment she was to see many miracles. She was to observe the handiwork of God in the reunion of Joseph and herself. She was to birth the Savior of the world, and to hush the cry of the Creator who spoke the worlds into being with her breast. She was to be waited upon by wise men and kings from foreign countries along with lowly shepherds. She was to flee across deserts from the wrath of evil leaders searching for her infant King. She was to be the shepherdess of her child's growth. She was to behold the miraculous works of Jesus. She was to hear His eloquent and Earth-shaking words. She was to feel a 'sword pierce her soul', as Simeon had prophesied. She was to witness His final words, securing the Apostle John as her son and protector in the stead of Himself, and she was to be present at the death of her son, the Son of God, who would wash clean her sins and the sins of all mankind. She was to see His Resurrection, which gave her the power along with all the world to conquer death.

This woman, the Second Eve, the Mother of Elohim, is a powerful figure. She is the one woman in all history whom 'all generations shall call blessed'. And so we bless Mary.

Quotes on Thanksgiving…

2010-11-26T12:09:00.009-06:00

Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as… served the company almost a week… Many of the Indians came amongst us and… their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought… And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are…far from want. ~ Edward Winslow of Plymouth Colony

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

~ G.K. Chesterton

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues

~ Cicero

O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.

~ William Shakespeare

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is “good,” because it is good, if “bad” because it works in us patience, humility, the contempt of this world, and the hope of our eternal country.

~ C. S. Lewis

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and the pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

~ G.K. Chesterton

A Winter's Repast

2010-11-16T07:44:00.001-06:00

Sunday afternoon. Quiet. Sleepy. The house is clean from Saturday's work, the Christmas decorations are newly birthed, and Christmas music plays softly through the atmosphere.

It is the perfect winter afternoon, and a surprise visit from an old friend creates the perfect occasion for some seasonal cooking. Pumpkin raisin cookies and hot wassail. Yum.

Pumpkin Raisin Cookies

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup raw sugar

1 cup 100% pure maple syrup

1 tsp. vanilla

1 egg, beaten

2 cups flour, sifted

2 cups uncooked oatmeal

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup raisins (or more, if desired)

Preheat oven to 350˚F. In large mixing bowl cream together butter, sugar, and maple syrup until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and egg. In separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Mix into wet ingredients alternately with pumpkin, beating well after each addition. Add raisins. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Decorate cookies with extra raisins. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool on cookie rack, or eat hot with wassail.

Secretariat

2010-11-12T21:40:00.002-06:00

Do you give the horse his strength, or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.… Job 39:19-25

So begins the movie 'Secretariat'. It is a beautiful, bold movie, covering the story of the race-horse Secretariat, who was born with a heart two-and-a-half times larger than the average horse––literally primed by God for a career utterly phenomenal. In 1973, he became the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years, and his record speed has not been approached by any other race-horse.

Also weaving throughout the horse's narrative is the account of Penny Tweedy, Secretariat's owner, and how, through her conviction and perseverance, she transforms her family and the lives of the attendants and friends who help her through the journey.

This triumphant movie is a must-see. Coming from some of the same makers as 'Blind Side', the film is a beautiful testimony of the wonders of God's creation and the healing power of Jesus.

Psalm 91

2010-10-29T14:15:00.004-05:00

If you live in the shelter of Elyon
and make your home in the shadow of Shaddai,
you can say to Yahweh, 'My refuge, my fortress,
my God in whom I trust!'

…He covers you with his feathers,
and you find shelter underneath his wings.
…You need not fear the terrors of the night,
the arrow that flies in the daytime.

…Though a thousand fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
you yourself will remain unscathed,
with his faithfulness for shield and buckler…

'I rescue all who cling to Me,
I protect whoever knows My name,
I answer everyone who invokes Me,
I am with them when they are in trouble;
I bring them safety and honour.
I give them life, long and full,
and show them how I can save.'

Milly & Becky

2010-10-18T08:29:00.000-05:00

Becky was Milly's best friend. They were always together, because Milly's older sister Annie was best friends with Becky's older sister, and Milly's older brother was best friends with Becky's older brother.

Milly admired Becky a great deal. She was daring, feisty, pragmatic, and shrewd where Milly was shy, timid, dreamy, and naïve. Becky disbelieved completely in all the faerie world, and yet was certain that Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy were real, whereas Milly knew Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy to be wholly false because Mama had told her so, and yet sometimes pretended there were fairies who lived in the brook and had tea time on the rocks (using her very own plastic tea set). Becky was slender and petite, with flaxen curls and big brown eyes, whereas Milly was tall and stocky, with cropped brown hair and thick bangs and big round tortoise-shell glasses, that she passively and sweetly refused to wear.

Becky lived way back in the woods of Lebanon, Tennessee, at the end of a winding gravel road that had a great mud hole right in the middle of it. Milly loved driving to Becky's house. It was scarcely three miles from Raccoon Trail, where Milly lived, to Old Lebanon Dirt Road, where Becky lived, and she liked the rugged dirt road that passed a crumbling graveyard, a long wall of tall green trees, and then turned right with a delicious crunch of tires on gravel into the Huskin family's residence.

The Huskin's house was a big, beautiful brick house with a big, beautiful back yard that was surrounded by a big, beautiful brown wood. Inside the house was a very clean kitchen, a polished wooden floor, a parlor that Milly and Becky and Milly's little sister were not allowed in, an upstairs with a thick dove-grey carpet, and Becky's own bedroom, with pink and white striped wallpaper.

Becky's mother was a very dynamic, cheery person, who was an amazing baker of cookies and brownies, and yet was rigid in the rule that Milly had to eat her salad before she could leave the supper table––even if Milly firmly refused to do it for a good half hour after everyone else left. She was practical and feisty. Milly, on noticing that Laura Ingalls Wilder in her books always called adults Mr. and Mrs., decided that she ought to call Becky's mother 'Mrs. Huskins'. But, on addressing her thus one afternoon, 'Mrs. Huskins' very jollily declared that that made her feel like an old woman, and that she much preferred to be called 'Shirley'. But Milly still felt conscientiously grey about this, and so she would refrain from calling Becky's mother anything by prefacing every request with a timid, 'Um?' Shirley called Milly 'Milly-Rose' and Gretchen (Milly's little sister) 'Gretchie-Pooh', which Milly thought very endearing.

When Milly-Rose and Gretchie-Pooh came over to Becky-Lynn's house, they played all day long. There were limitless treasures of activity pent up in the Huskin's abode, complete with goats and pastures and the closets necessary to make the game 'Hiding from Gretchen' very fun indeed.

But, above all, Milly thought that the very funnest thing to do in the Huskin's house was to transport all necessary domestic instruments outside and construct a new house. Becky, the primary leader in finding entertainment, possessed an assortment of gowns that her mother, a very good needle-woman, had sewn her. She also owned a great many toys, fake kitchen sets, quilts, and other such things that made such a game complete.

So, on a fine, sunny afternoon, Becky, Milly, and Gretchen would dress up in pioneer and Victorian-esque dresses, gather up all the bitty babies, quilts, and various domestic needs, and troop outside. The two picnic tables and a sheet draped over the clothes line provided the very perfect play house.

Domesticity thrilled Milly. The act of setting up the house, cooking a supper of grass blades and tree leaves and honeysuckle blossoms, putting the bitty babies to sleep, and then going to sleep themselves, was blissful to all the girls, even though Gretchen and Becky never did want to go through all the motions and duties that Milly felt was proper for really playing Pretend. Soon they grew bored of the acts of cleaning house, cooking meals, and caring for the bitty baby.

"Let's quit playing House and go play Tag or something!" Becky said.

Gretchen chimed in agreement.

Milly hated playing Tag. She couldn't run as fast as Becky and Gretchen no matter how hard she tried, and it was much more fun calmly playing Pretend than getting hot and sweaty and tired. But she didn't quite say so, for she felt a little ashamed of her dislike of playing athletic games.

"Well," she finally said, "ya'll go on and play, and I'll come later."

"Hey, what if we played in the sprinkler!" Becky said.

Gretchen almost jumped with delight. The sprinkler was an immensely fun game. Once it rained when they were playing in the sprinkler, and they had all experienced the terrific terror of almost getting lightning struck. Indeed, the whole world had flashed bright red, and the grey sky had split right down the middle in a white, jagged line of electricity.

"Well, okay," Milly said, determined not to be a party spoiler, even though she was loath to quit House before she had even gotten to wake herself and her bitty babies up with her rooster's 'Cockle-doodle-do!' "But we'll have to clean up before we do, because we can't get all this stuff wet."

Becky and Gretchen groaned. It was true, but somehow the thought of putting back what they had so joyously and haphazardly taken out was not very tempting.

Becky had another idea. "What about swinging on the tire swing! Let's do the Victoria Twist!"

Now this was exciting. Milly loved the tire swing, tied up to one of the strongest tree-boughs, and Becky and Milly had thought up and named the 'Victoria Twist' themselves. They both thought the name 'Victoria' utterly exquisite.

They all ran over to the tire swing, and, gathering in a circle with one foot each in the Bowl, Becky performed the traditional counting rhyme that Milly could never quite get right.

Eeny meeny miny moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers let him pay,

Fifty dollars every day.

My mama told me to pick the very best one,

And you are not It!

At long last, Milly was dubbed It. She excitedly mounted the flat tire, stood firmly upon it with her feet wedged inside, her hands holding tightly to the chains, and Becky and Gretchen began the Victoria. Round and round they turned her, till the chain was twisted all the way up to the bough. Then, with all the tense excitement of suspense, they let go. The tire spun fast, fast, faster, spinning close and also weaving as a whole in a continually bigger circle until Milly was frightened lest she should hit the fence. She held on for dear life to the chains, her head flung back in the dizzying wind, her brain reeling, the world blurring around her. Finally, when she could not resist the force of gravity in the spin any longer, she yelled, 'Stop! Stop!' and the two other girls grabbed the chain in flight and dragged it into stillness, while Milly climbed out and lay on the grass in delightfully dizzy delirium.

A noise was heard in the bright stillness of the summer day. Crack! crack! resounded through the woods. Milly sat up.

"What's that?" Gretchen said.

Becky listened, her bright brown eyes widening. "It's the Old Man in the Woods."

"What? Who?" Milly asked.

"He's an old man who lives up the hill, deep in the woods. He lives through that gate and up that road." She pointed past a little grove of mossy trees––that Milly liked to imagine as a fairy dell––and up a shadowy, winding lane. "He has a very long white beard."

For Milly, only two beings possessed long white beards. Firstly, God, whose white beard trailed from his blue-white face and floated in the wind as he looked down on the earth (or so said her imagination). And secondly, kidnappers. Mama and Daddy had warned her many times about watching out for kidnappers, and in Milly's six-year-old imagination, kidnappers all had blood-shot eyes and long white beards.

"Have you met him before?" Milly asked.

"No. Renee told me about him. He's very mean. Some people say he's not right in his head."

There was silence as the little girls listened to the crack! crack! of the axe in the woods.

"Um, ya'll," Gretchen said, shakily, "let's go inside now."

"Yeah. Let's."

"But we have to get all the House stuff first."

"Ya'll…I think the noise is getting closer."

"Me too."

Silence.

"RUN!"

The little girls bolted. They grabbed the quilts and the plastic kitchen-ware, they flung the Bitty Babies over their shoulders, they tore the sheet from the clothesline and wadded up the Victorian dresses, and then they dashed as fast as they could toward the house, the Old Man in the Woods getting closer, and closer, and closer all the time, his axe brandished high.

The door shut. The assortment of their play-house furnishings lay in a mountain on the floor. They panted. They smiled. Their hearts thumped.

They were safe and sound and deliciously scared.

A Diary of Autumnal New England

2010-10-09T21:38:00.008-05:00

Saturday, October 2, 2010

After two full days of traveling, I find myself in the quaintest, prettiest little town in the heart of Massachusetts. We have been set up in a bed and breakfast, with the creaking wooden floors, latched doors, and peculiar building structure of historical houses. Vastly aesthetically pleasing. It has been decorated in a very eclectic, colorful style. The room where we girls sleep has wild strawberry wallpaper, a bright red quilt, and varied furniture. Interesting, to say the least.

This morning I happened to look outside the bathroom window and see a lovely, rambling meadow right next door. As we arrived in darkness last night, I had no idea we were in such a rustic area. My heart thrilled at the prospect of a ramble through autumnal New England.

I hurried through my exercise, ate breakfast (very scrumptious, with Trader Joe's white tea!) with my wonderful family, and then Berklee, Gretchen, Jeremiah, and I embarked on our country walk.

Across the street from the white, colonial-styled house lay fields, sloping down to a wood and a marsh. The sky was a perfect robins-egg blue, and the vibrantly green grass next to the zesty color of the fall foliage was beautifully striking. It is so lovely how the trees turn color when the grass is still green.

The brisk chill of the autumn air, the wind, the wild enveloping us as we walked down the hill and into the woods was so pleasant. The forest was graced with all the ancient trees, moss, writhing roots, brooks, old rocks, and leaf-carpets of a New England wood unspoiled by logging. We took pictures, feasted with our eyes, breathed deeply of the good air, and I let my soul revel in the beauty of it all. The path ended in a sparkling pond, reflecting crystal clear the trees surrounding it. On our return back, Jeremiah insisted on gathering huge pieces of aspen bark, and I treasure-hunted some for an acorn, a scarlet leaf, a golden leaf, and a wild apple from a wild apple tree (that I took a couple bites of––very sweet and so aesthetically pleasing!). Berklee laid it all out in a beautiful collage atop the aspen bark, and then took very creative, artistic pictures of it.

Lovely! And now I must depart for lunch and concert preparations…

Sunday, October 3, 2010

I had great dreams of waking up early this morning and exercising well and then going on another ramble, but unfortunately exhaustion got the better of me. I finally forced myself out of bed at 7:15, and just had time to get dressed and packed up before breakfast at 8. After breakfast, though, while the men started to load our luggage, I stepped outside and snatched a bit of a walk.

This time, instead of going across the street, I explored the lawn of the house and the neighboring plots. It was beautiful outside. Very cold, the grass still wet and vibrant with dew, the wind fresh and invigorating, and the scenery just wild and unkempt enough to be picturesque. The back yard was very shady, with a hammock slung up between two maple trees, and an old well, built of rough grey rocks covered in ivy. I explored past the rock wall, and found myself in a field, with tall, wet grass, and, at the end of it, a lovely little red barn and house. I walked through an overgrown flower garden at the back of the barn, which had pine trees and pebbles all through it, and then, my socks and shoes very wet with dew, went back down the road to join Jeremiah and Gretchen, who were embarking on a walk down the other direction.

We skipped along the sidewalk till we came to the colonial-styled historical circle, with the Common in the middle, and, surrounding that, a beautiful, white Catholic church with a steeple and bell, a lovely small rock house-turned-library, a one-room courthouse from the 1800s, an old-fashioned general store, and other quaint things.

Once back, all of us decided to go next door to the historical Church of Christ for church that morning, as it would be the one place we'd be sure to receive communion. The building was just lovely. Bright white, with two red doors in the old Puritan fashion of segregation between men and women, and large, Gothic windows. On the left was a whole wall of tall, strong, beautiful trees. Inside, the church was just as beautiful, with all the historical architecture in tact: honey-colored pews, floors, and a great pump-organ and pulpit. Therein we spent an hour in praise and prayer, and partook of the Holy Eucharist.

The service ended, and we loaded up in the cars and headed out to find somewhere for lunch. Rather difficult, as New England boasts mostly diners, but, after much search, we found the most intriguing little place, called Salem Cross Inn. All the decorations were colonial, with penmanship hearkening back to the Declaration of Independence, the room having a roaring fire and old wooden floors and rafters. They had scrumptious pumpkin maple soup and salmon and butternut squash. We celebrated Berklee's birthday, which was a great deal of fun, and then we went by a used bookstore called the Book Bear.

Inside, amidst the aisles and aisles of dusty shelves, I found all sorts of literary delights. Easton Press books, old hardbacks with faded pages, a 24-volume collection of John Ruskin's works, and, most importantly, a pocket-sized, hardback version of George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, which, being only $4.50, I purchased. I cannot wait to start reading it. George Eliot must be my very favorite author. She combines the loveliness of Austen's personality, romance, and domestic liveliness with Dickens' intelligent, intricate plots and strong socio-political and religious principles. Benjamin was bountifully blessed with a rare Sir Walter Scott novel, a rare H. Rider Haggard novel, a beautiful pocket edition of Buchan's Greenmantle, Richardson's Clarissa, and some fantasy classic that's almost impossible to find. I feel some delicious reading in my future!

Now we're winding through the meandering little roads of rural New England for Plymouth, where we will be staying for the week. Till next time…

Monday, October 4, 2010

What a lovely day! The flat where we are staying is so pretty…clean and contained, a little too small, but with honey-wood floors and nice furniture and the most wonderful kitchen. It is so amazing to have plenty of counter space! It is right in the center of historical downtown Plymouth, with cobblestone and quaint shops and bakeries and touristy delights.

This morning we all put on our hoodies and stretch pants and went running. It was beautiful outside. A little overcast, but very windy and actually rather warm. We ran down the street until we came to an actual walking path, which we accessed by running (or falling and slipping, as I did) down a cushiony green hill. There was a beautiful, chattering brook that we followed out to the ocean, which was so wild. Where we are does not have anything of the beachy quality, but is regular land all the way up to the drop off, where you see the delightful old-fashioned tempest, with tossing boats and docks and foaming waves and crying seagulls. We also passed Plymouth Rock, which was quite small, and a historical mill, which had stocks in front that we put ourselves into. Quite horrid! I can't imagine that people used to be punished that way. The discomfort to one's back and legs is bad enough, without the horrid discomfort of having to hold your head up in that position. Ugh. We also passed a log cabin that was built in the 1600s, and several memorials of Plymouth Colony and the soldiers who died in the 'War of 1861', as the memorial called it, and a Jewish synagogue. At the very end of the run, we ran up some old rustic stairs embedded in the green, grassy hill, and into an ancient graveyard that was just wild and ancient enough to be picturesque and thought-provoking.

We returned to a yummy brunch prepared by Mama, and then, after family prayers, I spent the rest of the day reading and resting. Anna Karenina is so very depressing. No wonder the Russians are in such horrid straits. Even back in the Victorian era, when England and America were enjoying a resurrection in good ethics, Russia was wholly degraded. Their attitude towards marriage, children, and home morals is repulsive. And now we see that their culture is one where orphanages are flooded and the average woman has seven abortions. How corrupt. I cannot wait till I finish this book and read Mill on the Floss, with its good, Victorian England morality.

This afternoon we braved the rain for a brisk walk through the downtown, where we found the most amazing health-food store called Common Sense, where we tasted fresh-roasted organic coffee with coconut nectar and carob cakes. Yummy.

We also found a very delightful book store, where the boys found a rare G.K. Chesterton compilation called On Running After One's Hat, and a 5-volume set of Ruskin's On Modern Painters for very cheap. I do wish I could have met Chesterton and Ruskin and Lewis and MacDonald and Belloc and Williams and Morris. The 1800s era did produce such a stellar array of Christian thinkers.

We just had supper, and now are about to watch The Third Man, which is a promising spy-novel movie from the 1950s. Good old iTunes.

Good night!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

What an utterly sleepy day! Woke up this morning to horrid, drizzling, cold rain, which completely destroyed all motivation. Finally did some exercising and dressed by lunch. Had devotions as a family and by myself. There is so much to pray about, I have to make a point to just pray throughout the day, in order to get everything in. All afternoon I persistently read Anna Karenina, as I am determined to finish it before our Boston sight-seeing day on Thursday. The others asked me to make tea and toast mid-afternoon, and I burnt the toast, which filled this entire tiny apartment with smoke. Very frustrating, to say the least, especially since Benjamin complained that I always burnt everything and that everything I cooked tasted funny. Which is completely not true. I have been doing much better about not cooking funny, and Gretchen is the one who always ends up burning things. So there. It was especially distressing, though, since it was the Belgian sweet toast, which we only had a little of. I redeemed myself by cooking a very good supper of sweet potatoes and scrambled eggs with gouda cheese and asparagus and buttered toast. Afterwards we sat around and talked. The cabin fever has been very persistent, as it has rained all day long. But I made some strong coffee and we all played Scattergories, which at least got our brains exercised. Now to more Anna Karenina…

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Well, desperate to get out of the house this morning, Javier, Gretchen, Jeremiah, and I braved the rain to embark on a brisk walk down to the health-food store, where we purchased tea, and then down to a bakery owned by the same people as the holistic store, where we bought two loaves of fresh honey oatmeal bread and spelt bread. By the time we got back, we were soaked and the paper bags carrying the purchases were falling apart, but our lungs had experienced some lovely expansion, our legs had been stretched, and our spirits were wonderfully lifted.

The rest of the day I worked on completing Anna Karenina. Finally did, and then took a nap to rest my poor mind. What horror. Kitty and Levin's story saves it, but even they are spiritual nincompoops.

We had burritos for supper, and I chopped up jalapeños for it, got a bunch of hot juice on my hands, accidentally touched my face, got it on my tongue, and have been suffering from burning patches on my hands and face ever since. Never again, jalapeños!

After supper, we all ventured down to the Blue Blinds Bakery again, where they were having an open music night, and a couple of us jammed with them. The bakery and health-food store are owned by a group of Christians who call themselves the Twelve Tribes, and who live after the same pattern of the early apostles in Acts 2 and 4. I talked with one of them for almost the entire evening, and she was very sweet and kindred-spirited.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Sun shone this morning! Had a very yummy breakfast of the gifts of pastries and cinnamon rolls that the Blue Blinds Bakery gave us, and then prayer time, and then reading. Got a bit of restless leg syndrome after lunch, and felt desperately in need of some exercise, but at that moment we all decided to go to Boston and do a bit of sight-seeing, so we loaded up in the car and headed out.

We had a great deal of fun. Daddy performed the most skillful parallel parking job in history with the fifteen-passenger van after much searching. Then we walked through historical Boston, with its cobblestone streets and old-fashioned brick sky-scrapers. We toured Paul Revere's house, which was very interesting. Built in the 1660's, extremely small and impoverished. I could not believe the kitchen. How on earth did anyone cook back then? Especially since he had 16 children between two wives over the course of his life. Of course, since back then male children were apprenticed by 13, and female children married by 15 or 16, there were only five to nine children living in the house at one time. Very interesting.

Afterwards we walked down to the Old North Church, from which the lanterns of warning were shown from the belfry. What a beautiful church. Apparently, back before Boston became urbanized, the belfry tower rose high and away above the rest of the town. Now-a-days, of course, you can't even see the belfry because it's drowned in skyscrapers. Tragical. But the church-house was beautiful. All white inside, with one middle aisle. It was interesting to see the old-fashioned box pews, with the high walls on each side of each pew. Apparently, they were built that way because the church-house was not heated in winter-time, and so the high walls framing the pews kept out drafts. People used to bring hot bricks and hot potatoes to keep themselves warm. Each family bought their own box-pew, and the warmer ones were sold for higher prices. The balcony, which didn't have box-pews, was, apparently, for the poor. Not quite friendly to the stranger…

After the Old North Church, we walked through the graveyard in which Cotton Mather was buried. It was beautiful, and used to be one of the highest points of Boston, from which you could see clearly on all sides. No more, though. The gravestones were faded and crumbling and extremely ancient, all from the 1700s, and engraved with Old English verbiage and spelling, like 'Herein lye Erasmus Worthylake y Elizabeth Worthylake, with issue Ebenezer y Myrtle y Maude y Hezekiah…'.

After the graveyard we were all tired and hungry, so we ate in an old-styled Italian restaurant called Riccardo's Ristorante on Hanover Street, and then came home…

Friday, October 8, 2010

Sunshine again today! How wonderful. This morning we had to do laundry, so, after dressing, Gretchen, Benjamin, and I gathered up all the dirty laundry in trash bags and lugged them down the block to the 'Pilgrim's Washing Well'. It was definitely not as intriguing and beautiful and clean as the name promised it would be. And expensive! Oh my goodness. $2.75 just for one small washer. And then they didn't sell laundry detergent, so Gretchen and I had to track down a convenience store up several blocks, where the detergent was $8 for just a half-gallon. Ridiculous. Finally we got the loads washing, and then we went down to the Blue Blinds Bakery, where we enjoyed some delicious granola and hot coffee and cinnamon rolls while we waited. The people there were so sweet and friendly. It is heartwarming just being in their store.

Once the laundry was done, we returned to the apartment, packed up our stuff, and left. And so ended our time in historic Plymouth. The rest of the day we have spent driving. We enjoyed getting to eat lunch in Dartmouth, where the very best fish-and-chips in the country resides (or so Scott says). Then for supper we stopped in Lyme, Connecticut, at a little place called Pizza Cucina, which has the very most delicious, ethnic Italian pizza. And now we are driving towards the ocean horizon, and I am going to take the advantage of moonlight and an empty van seat to go to sleep.

Good night.

Milly's Hay Adventure

2010-09-29T09:15:00.008-05:00

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Milly Rose who liked playing inside more than she liked playing outside. Her imagination seemed to run better when playing with her plastic kitchen set inside, than when she tried to create an alternate reality for herself between the evergreen trees and the fencepost outside.

So the days would go by, with the little girl very rarely venturing out into the sunshine, except to play with her doll on a picnic blanket under the maple tree, or jump on the trampoline in the windy sunlight. Then, just as the summer had reached its very hottest, the little girl, with her many brothers and sisters and Mama and Daddy, loaded up in a long white van to drive down through Memphis, and Little Rock, and Mena, to get to Grandma Jane's and Grandpa Riley's house.

They lived in the country. They didn't even have wireless internet, or fast computers, or nintendo, or cable TV, or any movies except old Westerns and black-and-white romances. They did have the church-house where Grandpa Riley preached right down the dirt road. They had horses and saddles, guns and bows-and-arrows, a swimming hole down in Cow Creek and pasture-lands with the promise of mad bulls and ticks. They had woods that were haunted by Bigfoot and wild boar and armadillo, and a log cabin where Aunt Sherry would make them chocolate milk. All the cousins lived down there, too. They loved the outdoors. The little girl who liked to the relaxation of the indoors was amazed by their tanned skin, wiry muscles, and great athletic abilities. They could outrun her in a flash. They could saddle up a horse by themselves, and even gallop bare-back. They could ride the bucking mule named John. And they could all drive the standard transmission pickup truck, even though they were all not even in their teens yet.

They were also very good at outsmarting Milly and her little sister, Gretchen. The cousins, Sara, who had feisty brown eyes and a flashing white grin, David-Riley, whose wiry physique boasted the fastest runner of the lot, and Milly's older brother, Benjamin, who was a pale, slight boy with a giant, brainy imagination, could read and spell, whereas Milly was still learning. They would give secret messages to each other in front of Milly by strange codes, like 'Let's go play at the C-H-U-R-C-H', and then they would run off so quickly that they soon lost Milly. She would huff and puff after them, her plump little face growing beet-red, her little lungs becoming hyper-active. Soon she would be forced to sit down beside the dirt road and try to parse out what C-H-U-R-C-H could possibly mean, since she couldn't keep up with them. Once she had found from her older siblings Annie and Alex that C-H makes a certain sound, and that 'church' was the only word that had that sound on either end, Benjamin had the bright idea to start spelling foreign translations of the word, like K-I-R-K. And that completely lost her.

Milly was a smart little girl, however, and she told Mama about it. Mama, her hazel eyes sparkling and her pretty pink mouth twitching with suppressed laughter, scolded Benjamin and Sara and David-Riley. Milly felt a little guilty for being a tattle-tell when she saw how sorry they all looked, even though Mama had always said that tattle-telling was a good thing.

So the cousins and Benjamin began to take Milly and Gretchen along with them to play. The little baby, Jeremiah, who was just starting to leave Mama's arms to toddle around, was still too young to join in.

The children's favorite haunt was the old barn on the Chattam place. It was cluttered with old boxes full of antiques and fiddleback spiders, rusted tin barrels of oats for the horses, leathery-smelling bridles and saddles, and, most importantly, an utterly mountainous construction of hay bales reaching all the way up to the peaked roof. The cousins would easily hop onto an old trailer hitch and tumble up onto the hay bales, stacked seven feet deep, and then they would laugh as Milly and Gretchen tried many times to jump up only to slide right back down. Finally, though, they helped them up.

Then the festivities began. The hay bales, squishy and sweet-smelling under their feet, had all sorts of pathways, hiding places, and precarious holes from where the tractor had pulled hay down to feed the cows and horses and the bales had fallen. The children loved to play tag up there. Milly, who could not run fast, and had a tendency to get the giggles so hard she was incapacitated, found that hiding was much more effective than running away, and so she would creep around corners and duck under bales while the rest had dashing races around the hay palace, catapulting over the holes in the hay as they ran.

But such tactics could not last long, especially once David-Riley found out about them, and, next time David-Riley got tagged It, Milly found herself huffing and puffing, running for her life, and falling down in terror as David-Riley leaped gracefully up to tag her. The bell of doom had tolled. She was It, and she knew in her heart-of-hearts that she would never be able to tag David-Riley, Sara, Benjamin, or even Gretchen. Especially since she was mortally afraid of stepping on one of the cracks in the hay bales and slipping down into the mouldy grey tempests beneath.

Milly's mama was a very good and attentive mama, and had read her all the old fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Bears, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but Milly was unfortunately not so good and attentive. She, though she had heard about the boy who cried wolf, and knew what happened to him, did not heed the moral of the story. Knowing that in order to not be It until the end of the game, she would have to outsmart everyone else. She therefore decided that, once everyone had run off and hid, she would scream and wail that she had fallen down into the hay. The first time she started fake crying and yelling 'Help! Help!' Sara, David-Riley, Ben, and Gretchen all came flying out of their hiding places. Milly made mad dashes toward them, but even after the trickery she could not tag them.

They scoffed at Milly's fakery as they ran away, leaving her out of breath and at a loss behind them. She waited a little while, and then she again started wailing and crying, 'Help! Help! I've fallen down in the hay!' The other children ran to help her, and, as they came into sight, Milly again dashed off after the closest, trying to tag somebody. They easily outran her, but she kept on puffing and huffing after them, running around and around on the prickly hay bales.

Then she fell. Down, down into the hay bales she slipped. She saw the golden-grey hay close over her head. She felt one foot touch the hay bale beneath and the other foot slip down even deeper.

She screamed.

She wailed.

She cried.

But neither Sara nor David-Riley nor Benjamin nor Gretchen would believe her. Then she wept, and the other children, realizing that she was not joking this time, ran to her assistance.

Milly was terrified. Mama and Grandpa Riley had told her how snakes liked to live in the hay bales, and how one must be very careful in the barn because of the fiddleback spiders and black widows that made their home there. The sunlight seemed very far above her, and silhouetted against that light were the worried faces of the other children, staring down into Milly's misfortune.

Milly cried and cried, and reached up her hands to be pulled out, but none of the other children were strong enough to pull her out. She felt as if she could not breathe, and suddenly, added to her terror of creepy-crawly things was the fear that she might suffocate down there packed in the hay bales. Her legs gave way under her, and she sank down upon her knees, tears blinding her eyes, her long brown hair tangled up in the hay.

The children couldn't manage to get her out, and so Milly started yelling, 'Go get Alex! Go get Alex! Please, go get Alex!' Alex was Milly's older brother, who, at the very old age of thirteen, had started lifting weights and, in Milly's seven-year-old mind, could accomplish anything.

Sara thought that was the best idea, and, jumping nimbly off the hay bales, took a dashing Tom Sawyer run for the log cabin, where Alex and Annie and the grown-up cousins were playing board games. Meanwhile David-Riley, always finding the humor in the situation, started trying to persuade Gretchen that it was really fun down in the midst of the hay bales. It was like a different universe, he said. Milly, her blue eyes spouting fire and tears as she glared up at them, very vehemently told Gretchen to not listen to him.

And then Benjamin announced that Alex was coming, running behind Sara, and in five minutes he had leapt up onto the hay bales, taken Milly's soft, pale little hands, and had pulled her out of her golden-grey grave. Alex, trying not to laugh, told her that she was perfectly all right and that it really was not worth all those tears. Milly did not believe him, for he had not experienced it. But she dried her tears by and by, and then, with slow dignity, walked to the log cabin, her hair covered in hay and her little eyebrows red. She had experienced her first trauma, and had come through determined never to play trickery again.

Bread

2010-09-17T19:20:00.003-05:00

Psalm 133

How good, how delightful it is to live as brothers in unity!

It is like a fine oil on the head, running down the beard,

running down Aaron's beard, onto the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the heights of Zion;

for there Yahweh bestows his blessing, everlasting life.

The psalm is beautiful, profound. And yet there is a more distinctive meaning to this poetic exclamation than what is represented in our current English translations. 'To live as brothers in unity', in the original language, is achim yashab yachad, namely, to 'sit down at meal as brothers in unity.' When one puts this meaning to the first line, the following four lines take on whole new purport.

Is eating together so blissful and important as what this psalm communicates? Certainly in our culture the age-old tradition of sitting down together at a homemade meal as a family has been mostly forgotten.

Yet in the Bible, we find that the concept of the Meal is attended to in something of a sacred light. In the Old Testament records eating together was often symbolic of the spiritual. The very earliest chapters of the history of the world deals with food, and expostulates that before the Fall the fruit of the earth was a spiritual substance as well as a material substance. With the eating of forbidden fruit, Adam and Hevah knew good and evil, and were expelled to be prevented from eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life, and thus living forever.

This treatment of food as both spiritual and material continues. Abraham, when visited by Yahweh, feeds him a meal, and is given in return a blessing and a prophesy. When visited later by Melchizedek, the first High Priest, whose name means, literally, 'King of Righteousness', Abraham gives him the first documented tithe––ten percent of all he has; then Melchizedek, in return, feeds him bread and wine, thus showing forth the Eucharist which Jesus, the 'High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek' (Hebrews 5), will institute.

Afterwards, in the establishing of the Mosaic Law, Yahweh uses food as an integral part of His people's worship. He ordained His Temple to be a place that had fresh bread forever in His presence. The people's sins were to be paid for, their diseases to be healed, through the sacrificing of animals, through the burning of meat, and through grain offerings. The priests were to eat the acceptable parts of each offering. The congregation was to offer all the first fruits of their land as a sacred offering to Yahweh. Their years were to be filled with feasts and fasts which celebrated and recalled the sacred history of God. Their diet was to be one of purity and health, forbearing from unclean animals and vulgar substances rigidly, at risk of being expelled from God's favor if they disobeyed. God promised to reward their faithfulness with abounding harvests and to punish their spiritual adultery with devastating famines.

When the Christ came into the world, He also spoke of the spirit integrated in food. He proclaimed Himself the Bread of Life, and the One who gives Living Water. He established the Eucharist as the central sacrament in the Way, in which we partake of bread and wine that He pronounced His body and His blood. This eating of His flesh and blood is the action that He said would give us life in this world, and would make us 'live forever'. (John 6)

After Jesus' resurrection and flight into the sky, the apostles, as part of their constant worship of Him, practiced communion together at every gathering. They fasted twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, in order to draw closer to Jesus. They kept the feasts, in remembrance of the miracles that Elohim had done for them. They instituted new feasts and fasts, to celebrate and recall the new wonders that Jesus had worked in and for them. They looked forward to the Heavenly Feast, the Supper of the Lamb, where we are to commune with the Creator of all, as is bespoken in John's revelation.

Such regard for the spiritual heart of the Meal has been lost to our society. Eating is a substance used for pleasure and sustenance, but not for spiritual benefit or the building of relationship. We call ourselves followers of the Way, and yet we have lost belief in the sacredness of the Eucharist, we have deserted the celebrating of the Holy-Days and the feasts and fasts of the Church in favor of secular holidays and traditions, and we have even deserted the delight that is found daily when 'brothers eat together in unity'.

Let us once again vow to recognize the weight of glory in even the most ordinary things of life. For there is life in communion.

The Feast of Shelters

2010-09-11T15:46:00.005-05:00

Yahweh ordered His Chosen People to observe certain fasts and feasts. One of the latter was called the Feast of Shelters, and in it, the Jews would pack up and go live in tents for a week at the river-side, feasting and praising God for the harvest of olives and grapes. This Labor Day weekend, my siblings and friends and I were blessed to experience a camping trip that in many ways resembled the holy-day of antiquity.

After spending a day of packing, we all loaded up to drive three hours down winding mountain roads to the Ocoee River. The weather promised warmth as the mountainous beauty on our left and the sparkling blue of the river on our right delighted us. We stopped at the Thunder Rock camping site, where we built our temporary home in the midst of the beautiful hilly terrain. After we were settled in, we all embarked on a hike through the Smoky Mountains. The splendor of our surroundings amazed us, proclaiming the beauty of God inherent in His creative Fiat. The trees clapped their hands in praise of Him. The rocks cried out with joy at His goodness.

We wound our way through the sylvan scenery, climbing a steep trail of rustic dirt, wild stone steps, naturally-occurring bridges, and fallen tree trunks. Throughout we skirted the cliff to our left, while to our right the mountain wall guided us. As we trudged through the beautiful greens and browns, we morphed into Arwen and Eowyn and Legolas and Aragorn, traveling through the woods outside the Shire, finding large mushrooms and oak leaves and healing barks.

Once back at camp, I had the opportunity to reminisce on Laura Ingalls Wilder as I experienced the joys and sorrows of frying potatoes, grilling chicken, and steaming squash over an open fire. Then eating the food out-of-doors. Then walking a ways to the hand pump to wash the dishes and lay them out to dry on a rock. I must admit I enjoyed every minute of it.

The next morning we went rafting down the Ocoee River, in gear and a raft that was much safer and more convenient than the raft Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer got to use. It was lovely. Our guide was very pleasant, and the weather perfect. The blue sky, the silver water, the green foliage and mountains on either side, the grey rocks, the white foam, the warm golden sun. The energy and vitality inherent in the fast flow, the rowing, the spraying, the splashing, the swimming, the near-capsizing experiences. As we wound to the end our guide allowed us to jump in the water and float, with careful instructions to get out before we got to the rapids. I didn't understand quite rightly, and was floating quite carefree along when suddenly I realized I would lack the strength to swim against the current and into the dock. So I struggled to the bank, grabbed a tree branch, and dragged myself onto the rocks before the current washed me away. Needless to say, it was a great deal of fun.

We came back, and sat by the smoldering ashes all afternoon, talking, resting, sleeping. When the sun had crept below the trees, we stirred from our nests for another scrumptious feast, and then a beautiful time gathered around a roaring campfire. Two mandolins and a guitar accompanied our voices as we sang hymns, and then listened to the instruments make their own music. The twilight sank deeper around us. The fire burnt orange in the lavender dusk. When the sun had quite sunk and our supper was settled comfortably, a couple of us took the lantern across the way to our pantry (or the trunk of the car), where we retrieved our s'more ingredients. The boys carved sticks for everyone, and soon we were all seated in our chairs, concentrating on the precarious pastime of roasting marshmallows to a place of perfection without catching them on fire or letting them fall off the stick. And then, oh, the sweetness of that golden marshmallow combined with chocolate-almond spread, melted dark chocolate, and graham crackers! Delicious.

The next morning we all awoke chilled to the bone. We groggily moved around the camp-fire, bundled up in our hoodies and fuzzy socks, rekindling the fires and getting breakfast started. The sun came out from the horizon, melting the chilled dew from the grass, imbuing our pale, cold selves with golden warmth. The fire began to blaze, the potatoes and french toast sizzled in the cast-iron skillets. We became warm and vivacious as we gathered around the picnic table for the last feast of our delightful weekend. It was good.

Afterwards we took our seats around the campfire for a time of prayer, scriptural study, praise, and observance of the Eucharist. As we partook of the Body and Blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit felt so closely present in the rustic beauty of that mountain forest. Afterwards we remembered afresh the power of the love and fellowship that only Christ can give as we all worked to pack up our sleeping bags, tents, kitchen, and other various and sundry items. The lovely homeliness of our temporary home slowly crept back into the boxes and bins in the back of the van and the pickup truck.

But before we could drive away, we all felt that we must have one more ramble in the loveliness of the wilderness. So, little brother led us down the dirt road to his favorite rock-climbing spot. He climbed up the mossy, rocky steep, and then we all climbed up beside him. The ascent was fairly easy and very fun, but the descent was quite a different picture. After hanging on for dear life to a tree trunk, a root, and then having exhausted every foothold, I had to consent to sit on older brother's shoulder and be carried in order to reach the ground quite safely.

After this adventure, we ran, skipped, and then attempted to click our heels on our way back down the dirt road. To end our celebration, we spent a lovely half-hour on the river-shore, sitting on the very edge of the rocks, folding our pant-legs up, and plunging our feet into the rushing waves. What bliss and splendor we found in the warmth of the rocks, the cold fury of the water, the fresh breeze, and the invigorating sun. We felt how truly wonder-full is Elohim's creation. And yet this beauty we see only as through a looking-glass darkly. Let us look forward to the time when we shall see clearly, face-to-face, the Beautiful Imagination of the God who is Love.

And thus our Feast of Shelters came to a lovely conclusion.

The Earth-Riddle

2010-09-02T21:07:00.004-05:00

We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. Every stone or flower is a hieroglyphic of which we have lost the key; with every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.

- G.K. Chesterton

A Prayer

2010-08-22T12:58:00.003-05:00

O fountain of Light, you are the Light and the origin of Light,
Listen with favour in your mercy to our prayers.
O Light, as we flee from the darkness of our sins,
Rescue us, whose bountiful and holy power first created us,
Whose justice condemned us and whose devotion has redeemed us:
Be in all things merciful, just and almighty.

May the power of faith so arouse us,
That the glory of hope may be kindled for the future:
May love infuse our longing for ages without end.
Be the kindly ruler of our life
That we may have time for work and rest;
And as each succeeds the other may we be refreshed.

Kindle us and make us vessels worthy of spiritual light.

~Alcuin of York, Counsellor of Charlemagne

The Little Brick House

2010-06-29T21:15:00.007-05:00

Once upon a time there was a little brick house with green shutters and a red door. A family lived in the little brick house. It was a large family, with many children who were almost grown up. They were very busy, and often left in a long white van for many days at a time. The little brick house with the green shutters and the red door grew lonely. Its rooms stood empty for hours and hours, and they missed the sound of laughter, the buzz of talking, the sweet soaring of musical instruments, and the sense of comfortable satisfaction the walls and ceilings felt when they were sheltering the family.

One day the family of mostly grown-ups left, and didn't return for a very, very long time. The sun rose, the sun set, and rose again, and set again. Rain blew upon the house, but no young girl cooked chili and cornbread in the kitchen with the flowered wallpaper. The leaves of the trees surrounding the house grew gold, and then brown, and then they drifted to the grass, but the glass windows saw no little boy playing in the leaves. The first snow fell sweetly upon the little brick house, but the den with the black-and-white pictures heard no mama ask the papa to build the first fire of the season on the little brick hearth. The first spring buds crept from the plum tree outside, but no young girl went outside to smell the blossoms.

The sunroom especially grew lonely, for the sunroom had wooden siding instead of brick, and often felt left out from the other rooms in the little brick house. Too, though the sun continued to shine in through its many windows every day, there was no papa to come into work early every morning and drink hot coffee from the pewter mug. The wooden siding on the outside drooped and became soggy from sadness. The eaves hung lower to the ground, and wasps died in the windowsills.

Then, one day, the sunroom was shaken out of its sadness by a pecking. The pecking rang sharp and clear in the early spring stillness. It hammered evenly and crisply on the planks. It tickled the sunroom, and, as the windows looked down, the house saw that it was a bird. The bird worked hard night and day, pecking away at the sunroom's siding, trying to make a home for his mama bird to nest and lay her eggs in. Soon a hole appeared in the siding, and the papa bird and mama bird flew to the hole almost every day, bringing twigs and paper and pebbles and things to build their home with. The sunroom became happy again. The walls grew interested in the little nest between the siding and the drywall. Once the birds built their nest, they pecked at the wires inside the walls to decorate with the colorful plastic. The wires became hot and their warmth heated the little space. Soon little blue eggs lay in the nest, and then the blue eggs cracked and little baby birds peeped their heads out. Now the mama and papa birds worked even harder every day, flying out of their little home before dawn to search the ground for worms to feed their nestlings with.

The birds, as they flew, tweeted their sweet songs. When they perched for a rest in the communal birdhouse in the backyard they sung with the other birds. They sang about their lovely nest with their fair fledglings inside and about how warm and cosy were the colorful wires around the nest. The other birds were jealous of the house-birds, and began to fly around the little brick house more and more, looking for a place to build a nest.

One bird family found a hole in the side of the brick that was covered with a tin flap. They squeezed underneath the flap and found a long tunnel which gleamed silver in the sunlight, and was lined with fuzzy lint of different colors. The birds loved the warm prettiness of it, and built a nest there. The laundry room, which felt cold and unhappy because for a long time its walls had not seen a young girl come in to fold the clean, fresh-smelling clothes or sort colors, grew warm and happy with the birds fluttering inside its walls.

The squirrels, who loved to climb to the top of the trees and eat walnuts and plums in the heat of the sun, saw how joyful the little brick house with the green shutters and the red door was to have so many little friends inside of it. They chirped about it with their friends the mice, and the mice, who had long been battling with a mole and a rabbit over who was to live in the backyard, burrowed their way under the house to keep from fighting any more. The walls of the cold, lonely house were now quite warm from mice scurrying up and down, building their roosts and having many new baby mice. The pantry, which hadn't been opened by a young boy looking for crackers in so long, now saw mice scurrying on its shelves to gather food, and the drawers in the kitchen with the flowered wallpaper were soon poked open again by little mouse paws and little mouse snouts.

The mice and birds were so happy in their newfound home that they peeped and tweeted very loudly about it, and the termites outside in the very old apple tree heard them. They learned about how the house was full of friendly neighbors who didn't eat them, how there was a great deal of wood to eat, and how there were no two-legged giants inside to harm them with deathly poisons. So the termite colony chewed its way into the garage, which was full of wooden furniture and wooden planks. They grew fat and jolly from feasting, and they boasted to their friends the ants about their happy fate.

The ants, hearing about how heavenly the little brick house with the green shutters and the red door was, left their ant hills and pilgrimaged to the no-longer lonely house to live with the mice, the birds, and the termites. They found feasts of raisins and rice in the pantry, crumbs in the dining room, and spices in the cabinets. They climbed up and down the flowered wallpaper and lived in harmony and comfort, safe from all spring rainstorms.

The little brick house with the red door and the green shutters was happy and full now. The walls loved the mice, with their loud scurrying and their many little ones; the kitchen basked in the loveliness of seeing creatures eat inside it again; the garage liked to see the tiny termites chewing so ravenously on the old furniture; and the laundry room and the sun-room walls were the happiest of all with the sweet birds singing songs to them early every morning.

One day the long white van pulled into the driveway, and the large family with the mostly grown-up children stepped onto the long grass. They opened the red door and exclaimed with happiness at how they had missed their little brick house so much. They were sorry for how cold and stale the air felt in the rooms, and clucked their tongues over the dust on the bookshelves. The walls of the house were very happy to see them, though they had found so many other friends.

The family went to bed early that night, as they were all very tired, but promised to clean the house very well tomorrow morning and get back into their regular home routine as quickly as possible. The next morning, just as the birds in the sunroom walls were feeding their hungry babies, they all awoke and began to get the little brick house homey again. The papa was the first to get to work. He came into the sunroom and sat down at his desk to sip hot coffee from the pewter mug and play songs on his piano. But then the walls saw him wrinkle his brow and cock his ear toward the wall as the sounds of fluttering wings hit against the drywall. The papa stepped outside and groaned and rubbed his head when he saw the hole in the siding and the papa and mama bird feeding worms to their nestlings.

The basement stairs were rudely jarred as the oldest grown-up child came running up them, shock in her large green eyes. The walls heard her exclaim to the mama about how she had nightmares all night about mice scurrying around in her bedroom walls, and then, lo and behold, in the morning there were noises of animals running in the walls. The mama looked very puzzled. Another young girl, looking in the kitchen cabinets for the oats to make the morning's porridge, shouted out and spilled the cereals because she saw ants scurrying inside the oat box. The mama came in, looked grievously at the ants, and moaned over the little mice pills which she saw in the rice and the drawers.

The laundry room that morning looked in, too, upon another young girl in great distress, for, after sorting a mountain's worth of colored clothes, she turned on the dryer, and heard birds screaming and fluttering their wings inside the dryer tunnel. She gasped and shut off the dryer as quick as she could, and hoped she had not scorched the poor little birds. She did not know what to do, and so she came to tell the papa about it, and then she and the papa together went and talked with the mama and the other two young girls about the mice, the birds, and the ants. As the large family with the three daughters discussed together, one of the older young boys came upstairs with a worried look on his face, for he had seen termite marks in the garage.

The walls of the very full, happy house saw the despair on the faces of the large family with the mostly grown-up children, and the home felt sad that the family they loved so much couldn't live in peace with the ants, the termites, the mice, and the birds. They hoped, though, that perhaps one day the family would realize how peaceable the animals were, and grow to love them as the little brick house with the green shutters and the red door loved them.

Finé

Kol Elohim

2010-06-17T12:09:00.004-05:00

Words mean things. When we speak, the sound-waves continue longer than we can hear them, resonating in a circular motion until the wave becomes stretched so thin that the human ear cannot detect the noise any longer. These wavelengths reverberate and build upon one another, creating invisible matter. What we say becomes a tangible force in the air. It creates an aura that all present feel. It feeds other edifices of power, adding to the forces for either evil or good.

The world was created through the Word. Elohim, the Godhead, spoke into the formless void, and the sound waves vibrated through the darkness into the formation of Light and Life. Words and sounds were established as instruments of creativity. On the sixth day He spoke into creation a man after His own likeness. He then spoke beneficence and instruction over Adam, thus instigating the use of words for blessing and discipleship, which is to be reciprocated by thanksgiving and praise.

When Yahweh entered the world, He once more spoke life and light into the darkness. His words created forces of goodness in an aura formerly inhabited by the Lucifer, the prince of the power of the air. His words created commandments to return to His ways. His words blessed those whose hearts were receptive to the Spirit. His words cursed those whose progenitor was the father of lies––those who bore fruit in keeping with their forebear.

His words created new substances. The voice that spoke the world into being said, 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'. He spoke that His Body and Blood would be the new Testament of the Faith He was establishing. Yeshua-Yahweh declared, "I am the bread of life. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.' When the Jews disputed His word, Jesus retorted, 'In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me.'*

Many of His disciples left Him, but the Twelve remained. They did not understand how these things could take place, but they trusted in their Lord. They faithed that Jesus was the Word of eternal life, whose primary Sacrament was the essence of the New Covenant spoken into being by the Kol Elohim, the Voice of the Godhead.

Lord, sup with us in love divine;

Thy body and Thy blood,

That living bread, that heav'nly wine,

Be our immortal food.

Scripture from Luke 22 and John 6

Lyrics from Shepherd of Souls by James Montgomery

The Demi-God and Dido

2010-05-29T18:08:00.004-05:00

It came to me as I sat in that theater that the culture of the West was most definitively returning to the model of the Greco-Roman. The movie had several themes running through it, echoing the same themes seen in seventy-five percent of the films pervading cinemas across the US.

There are two that encapsulate all others. The first is that of the demi-god. Whether it is Tony Stark or Peter Parker, these heros seemingly reflect the old legends of Hercules, Aeneas, Achilles, Hector, and other like demigods. In short, the heros of these films are people who come to find their inner god. They burgeon this inner god through technology (or magic) and intellect, and reach completion by acquiring such power as only God is supposed to have. This is then amalgamated with the same sinful nature that led to the ultimate death of the Greco-Roman hero, and likewise to the destruction of the Hollywood hero, though the film rarely ever confesses such a fate. They have not yet discovered that power without holiness kills.

The second theme is that of the family. These same Hollywood demigods are loners. They, like the old Greek gods, have given up the holy model of sacrifice: the father sacrificing himself for the mother and child, the mother sacrificing herself for the father and child, and the child rising up to call them both blessed. The Hollywood heros, however, still luxuriate in something that seems to be a sterile sexuality. They each have their Dido, and if they are lucky, their Helen, but their union never portrays the commitment of selfless love, and thus never brings forth the contentment that is birthed from giving, not receiving. Their supposed love does not bring forth the fruit of love, the child, and therefore it is not lovely.

These are the evidence of secular individualism. They are what characterized the culture of the Greeks and Romans once they deserted the hearth and the home for domination. Education became idolized above relationship. In this educational system men like Socrates taught a breaking up of the family in favor of the government. Thus the fertility of the home was replaced for the impersonal institution, the fruit of true loveliness superseded for the sterility of selfish passion, the holiness bound up in divinity exchanged for the Greek role models of vain conceit and corrupt power.

This culture self-destructed. So shall ours.

The Logic of Love

2010-05-02T22:06:00.006-05:00

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. (John 1:1)

It is the same Word, or Logic, that spoke the world into being in Genesis 1.

The same Logic, or Testimony, is one that he ordained in Jacob as a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children (Psalm 78:5), and again, (Psalm 119:88), Quicken me after thy lovingkindness; so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.

It is the same Testimony, or Witness, spoken of in John 3:33, He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.

The Witness, or Truth, of which Jesus said: Ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:27)

That Truth, or Faith, that is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). And in John 17, when that Logos, that Word, speaks: Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. And again: For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

That Faith, or Knowledge, for which the Apostle Paul said: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13)

That Knowledge, or Love, which is God: for he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love (1 John 4:8).

And that Love, for which the Apostle Paul said: We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak. (2 Corinthians 4:13)

And that love, that knowledge, that faith, that truth, that witness, that testimony, that logic, that word…they are actions. Our obedience declares these truths. We love Jesus because He first loved us. We seek to know Him so that we might understand the power of His grace. We faithe in Jesus because He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We bear testimony of that which we have witnessed: the Truth of what He has done in our lives, the lives of those around us, and the lives of those past, revealed to us by that Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete. We do not believe blindly. We do not take 'leaps of faith'. We believe because of the Logic of His ways and of His words, for His ways and His words are the life and light of men (John 1:4).

The Child in Dickens

2010-04-16T19:29:00.005-05:00

'No, I hold myself in quiet and silence, like a baby in its mother's arms, like a baby, so I keep myself.' - Psalms 131:2

St. Aurelius Augustine once said that when he himself, as a baby, beat his mother's breast while nursing, it was really the showing of the secret desire rankling in his heart to murder his mother. He believed that a child's sin was determined before he ever acted sinfully, and would go to everlasting damnation if he died before his infant baptism.

The idea, termed original or ancestral sin, was not taken seriously until the Enlightenment, when Martin Luther and John Calvin took the words of St. Augustine to be theological truths. "Original sin," Calvin said, "therefore appears to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul, rendering us obnoxious to the divine wrath and producing in us those works which the scripture calls works of sin.' God, therefore, was deemed a terrible deity who would damn innocent children for sins which they had not committed.

This belief developed. Sinfulness was said to be present even after baptism. We were deemed to be sinning all the time, even when we were not conscious of it, and therefore had an excuse to never combat our sin. As Martin Luther said, "Be a sinner and sin on bravely, but have stronger faith and rejoice in Christ, who is the victor of sin, death, and the world. Do not for a moment imagine that this life is the abiding place of justice: sin must be committed. To you it ought to be sufficient that you acknowledge the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world, the sin cannot tear you away from him, even though you commit adultery a hundred times a day and commit as many murders.'

Never mind the words of Jesus: 'Go and sin no more.' 'Be ye perfect, even as thy heavenly father is perfect.' 'Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home in him.' Of Paul: 'Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.' Of John: 'We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commandments.' Or the fact that, if sin-guilt was inherent in all Life and not just in action, that Jesus Himself could not have been sinless, as He chose to enter the world through a woman's womb.

To the detriment of all this, the beliefs of Calvin and Luther and Augustine were widely accepted in the Protestant and Catholic church, and continue to be today. This belief in the evil propensities of a child was accentuated by the Enlightenment's divorcing of the spiritual and material aspects of life, of Darwin's treatise on the animalism of man, and the amalgamation of both of these in the Industrial Era, which treated the child as sinful animals without character, emotion, or goodness.

In fact, in the world of the early 1800s, children were not even viewed as human beings until the age of seven. Sanitation was so primitive that it was extremely rare for a child to live to seven-years-old, and therefore they would not be intellectually counted as mind-full until they were proved to live through their infancy. They were deemed as being the essence of sinfulness, thus disregarding Jesus' declaration to 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.' In the original Greek, the last part of the sentence literally reads 'the kingdom of God is this [the little child].'

However, there were some people who struck out against the Enlightenment's painting of children. They were a part of the Christian Romantics, who adhered to the belief that the spiritual was inherent in matter, and that whoever welcomed a Child welcomed Jesus and therefore welcomed Elohim. Thus William Wordsworth declared, "Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height." And William Blake expostulated, "When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still.'

The aggression against the Calvin-Luther-Augustine theology was continued with great force by the Victorian author, Charles Dickens. It was he that paved the way for the Victorian's return to the love of the child, the sacredness of the mother, the unit of the father-mother-child, when 'the Child is Father of the Man', as Wordsworth termed it. In his books he wrote about little children who possessed thoughts, feelings, goodness, and the longing for love and acceptance. Pip, Biddy, David Copperfield, Amy Dorrit, Little Nell, Sissy Jupe, Esther Woodhouse…the list goes on. He shows how the innocence of these children may be tainted by the sinfulness of their parents (Hard Times), through the cruelty of schoolmasters (David Copperfield), by the brutality of women (Great Expectations, Bleak House), or the negligence of fathers (Little Dorrit, Old Curiosity Shop). But he did not just make an example through negatives. He showed the true joy that might come when the family is as it should be. When the family models the Holy Family: the father as protector and provider, the mother as comforter and caretaker, the child as the holy fruit of their love.

This is seen in no greater book than in A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge––the epitome of the anti-emotion movement started in the Enlightenment and followed through in Industrialization––comes to realize the sacredness of Love and therefore the fruit of Love, the Child, through the example of the beautiful, lovely family of Tiny Tim. As Dickens said, 'It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.'

And thus Dickens ushered in the true enlightenment of the Victorian era.

Fairest Lord Jesus

2010-04-06T16:01:00.005-05:00

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature,

O thou of God and man the Son,

Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor

Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown.

Dusk spread its silky fingers over the horizon as we drove through Clover Meade. It had been a long day: sitting in a car, reading Jane Austen, and listening to Bach fugues over the speakers as we drove up the continent to our homeland. The day was glorious. A blue sky and a golden sun graced our eyes with their beauty as a cheerful, fresh wind breathed Spring into our lungs.

It seems fitting that the Savior, who is Life, should have been resurrected in a time that such Resurrection takes place. The new birth of all around us thrilled through our veins, though we were only passive observers of the growth. Perhaps the best way to come into fellowship with that same renewal is through the spiritual camaraderie of our own Soul's newness in Jeshua.

The beauty of the season and the soul pervading the season filled my heart, and, when the car finally came to a stop in front of my home, I lost little time in running up to my bedroom, replacing my travel-weary clothes for a fresh eyelet skirt and sky-blue shirt, and, my feet bare-shod, I tripped down the back staircase and out into the loveliness of the evening.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,

Robed in the blooming garb of spring:

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer

Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

The Chinook had been busy while I was absent. It had sprinkled away the plum blossoms on the Tree of Life and the pear blossoms on Lady Cordelia––as I had christened them in a blissfully Emily of New Moon phase––and onto the lush green clover, intertwining pure white petals with the lavender violets and yellow sunflowers that carpeted the damp, warm earth. Old William and Lady Dawn, the apple trees, seemed a bit belated in the growth of their canopy of green leaves, but close inspection boasted little buds just breaking forth from their wooden cocoon. Squirrels scurried through the tree branches, watching with eager eyes for the fruit that was soon to appear to make their supper. Red-breasted robins chirped their cheerful chorus from their newly built nests, while brilliant bluejays hopped along the grass, looking for the earthworms that were just burrowing up to the warm sunlight from their winter haven in the depths of the ground.

I walked down the hill, inhaling the sweetly-scented breeze as it blew all worldly cares from my eyes and mind, and sang Fairest Lord Jesus as I surveyed the beauty of His creation. I marveled at the knowledge that Jesus is, truly, fairer and purer than the wonder-full fairness of purity I saw all around me.

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight,

And all the twinkling starry host:

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer

Than all the angels heaven can boast.

I directed my steps to the peach tree sapling, which, just planted last year, and rather neglected by its stewards, is struggling to obey God's commandment to bear fruit. It looked beautiful in the setting sun, just sprouting its first emerald leaves and pink flowers, from her slender ivory branches. I prayed that God might make her bear good fruit, and, after a little thought over what name would encapsulate her beauty, called the tree Cherith, in the old tradition of Adam.

The sun dipped below the hills as the moon grew clearer in the periwinkle heavens. I lay on the grass for a few minutes, letting the warmth of Spring seep into my bones. After praying to the Lord of the dance of creation, I made my way back up the sloping lawn and into the house, praising the Rose of Sharon for the Beauty birthed of His Holiness (Psalm 29:2 KJV)

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!

Son of God and Son of Man!

Glory and honor, praise, adoration,

Now and forevermore be thine.

Hymn by Munster Gesangbuch

O Sacred Head Now Wounded

2010-03-21T12:49:00.005-05:00

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.*

In the days of the Middle Ages, the word 'pity' did not mean the milky, soft emotion that it does now. It came from the word 'piety', and meant a divine compassion shot through with strength and truth, inspired by the Father of all Piety. May we pray that on this day, a day of such gravity for the future of our nation, the Almighty may look on our prayers with his 'pity without end', and renew our nation.

*From 'O Sacred Head Now Wounded' by Bernard of Clairvaux

The Pursuit of Happiness

2010-02-24T21:00:00.004-06:00

Last night, hundreds of thousands of people, in surfing their television, found themselves watching one of the most beautiful events that has aired in the last four years: the figure skating championship for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Of all the young ladies competing, though all displayed extraordinary beauty, elegance, and talent in the soaring twirls and spinning twists, two women stood out from among the rest. They were small, slender, beautiful girls, wearing sparkling leotards, with glitter framing their dark eyes and concentration molded upon their olive brows. They came from two different Asian countries, where the skill of their dancing has earned them the name of national celebrities. One, a small, Japanese girl named Mao Asada, dances to a simple, classical piece, and, though her dancing is flawless, the choreography has only a fraction of the fire and energy that sizzles over a foundation of breath-taking elegance when Kim Yu-Na from South Korea takes the ice, dancing to the theme song from James Bond. She wins the competition after the stunning, passionate piece, placing five points above her Japanese rival, and exceeding her own record by two points.

The disinterested onlooker enjoys watching these prodigies as they perform; they rejoice with Yu-Na in her success, and, though they pity Asada for her own great talent being superseded, the performance of Yu-Na has left them so breathless that they know the score is fairly won. No one realizes the enormity of the expectation and the extreme responsibility that has been placed on these young, small shoulders by the people of their country. The competition between them does not begin and end with the Olympics: it buries deep, plunging down the course of a hundred years, through the histories of their people. The two countries, and the two girls who stand as the sacred representations of their cultures, are enemies of old.

In the early twentieth century Japan experienced great economic upheaval when the new emperor, Meiji, rose to power. The Koreans insulted and rejected Emperor Meiji in their trading with Japan, and the emperor, seeing that the samurai army was jobless and posing a threat to his regime, sent them off to conquer and colonize Korea. The Koreans experienced great hardship through their slavery to the Japanese over the course of thirty-five years, until America, after the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II, came into Korea to free the Koreans. The people, government, and economy of Korea were utterly devastated after Japan's autocracy in their country, and, though the Americans helped them back to their feet, Franklin D. Roosevelt didn't finish the course of regeneration. He, on the advice of the general in charge of the mission, deserted the northern precinct of Korea to a socialist Russia, a communist Mao Zedong, and the new Marxist upstart Kim Il Sung to take over the government in that section of the country. Thus ensued the divide of North and South Korea. This history, branded in the minds of the Koreans and the Japanese, lies in the worldview with which Yu-Na and Asada compete. The angst of their countries' expectations is overwhelming in the very force of this age-old feud.

I once observed a young Korean conversing with one of my brothers about how he saw common ground between America and Korea, in that they both had a mutual enemy in Japan because of Pearl Harbor. I was shocked by this idea. In my thoughts, the tragedy of Pearl Harbor was such an incident of the past that the guilt correlating to it has been forgotten, and that this feeling predominates in America. Japan has been wholly forgiven, just as the memory of the enmity of the Revolutionary War between the English and the Americans is rendered obsolete in our present function as allies. In the same way, the Pearl Harbor incident has been wiped away from our consciences, so that now Japan is one of America's greatest allies. But to the young Korean gentleman, Japan––disregarding the fact that the grave offense paid them is one dating to almost a century ago, and that the Japanese have seen great retribution for their tyranny and are a wholly different people––is still a very grim enemy.

Thus I see how the worldviews of the Western and Eastern worlds utterly clash. Christianity, though started in the East, has spread like wildfire, until, coming to the West, it has conquered and revolutionized the European world. Because of Christianity, we are endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that happiness is made by the practice of Christian virtues. The Ten Commandments are instilled in our minds, and this moral creed has given us the ability to rise above all other countries in the corporate wisdom that has led to freedom of religion, liberty of speech, and the high-minded principle of love that has led us to be renowned for our 'short memory': for our forgiveness and for our willingness to give succor to those countries who have not had the influence of the Zoë to give them Life and Light.

In the Eastern world, however, the cultures are steeped in the religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Atheism, all creeds wholly selfish, either in the self-centered pursuit of forgetting self, the megalomaniacal pursuit of a god that sanctions genocide and hate, or the egocentric mind that believes there is no god and therefore that man is the master of his own destiny. Their worlds are old: newness is not welcomed, freedom of thought and independence of belief is denied, and the sins of the fathers are punished in the children. They nurse their hate, for they have never learned the joy that comes from obeying the words:

"Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."

Photo of Kim Yu-Na

The Man Moses, Part 2

2010-02-18T21:37:00.005-06:00

Moses, the conqueror of Ethiopia, the prince of Egypt, the shepherd of Midian, led his father-in-law Jethro's flock into the wilderness, until he came to the mountain of Elohim. There, in the midst of a bush, he saw the God who is a consuming fire. But this consuming fire did not devour the bush. Elohim spoke from the miracle. He declared that the ground on which Moses stood was holy, thus foreshadowing the almighty wonders that were to happen there in the future. He declared Himself an everlasting God, living through the generations. He declared Himself the great I AM: YHWH. He declared that Moses would be the savior of the Israelites, and, when Moses protests that he is not worthy of the task, Yahweh declares that it is through the miraculous power of the presence of Yahweh in the staff in his hand that he will be believed by the Israelites and will escape Pharaoh.

Thus begins the Exodus. Moses journeys to Egypt, where Pharaoh meets him with breath-taking arrogance and we first see the fickle foolishness of the Israelite people. But the staff of God, in the hand of Aaron, Moses' mouthpiece, proclaims the wonder of the Wonder-Worker. Every time but one that a miracle is performed, Yahweh commands that the staff be used to execute it, culminating in the parting of the Sea of Reeds, where Yahweh is present in a pillar of cloud and fire. Thus is born the model from which the traditional portrayal of every wizard from Merlin to Gandalf has been taken.

The Israelites walked dry through the Reed Sea, while the entire army of Pharaoh was drowned in pursuit. They walked through the wilderness, making their way by the guidance of their God back to the holy mountain that began the Exodus, Mount Sinai. It was here, as Yahweh prophesied at the burning bush, that Elohim showed Himself to His people. Yahweh told Moses that He would descend on the third day of the Israelites' stay at the Mountain of God, and, in preparation, the whole people were consecrated and purified. On the morning of the third day, thunder and lightning rent the heavens, a thick cloud enveloped the mountain, and a stentorian trumpet blast shook the air. The Israelites trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp to stand at the foot of the mountain where they would meet Yahweh. Smoke, like the smoke that billows from a furnace, swarmed over the mountain, which shook violently as the trumpet call grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and the Voice answered him, calling him to the top of the mountain. He stayed there, fasting and worshipping before Yahweh for forty days, the same number of days that the Savior of the world would fast and worship before Elohim in the desert. He prostrated himself before the throne of Yahweh, and Yahweh imparted to Moses the Holy Covenant.

This was the first face-to-face encounter between Moses and Jehovah, and was to be the beginning of a relationship that would be the closest and most present of any human's interaction with the Creator until Elohim's Son entered the world. As the Israelites journeyed to the promised land, Yahweh would lead them in the pillar of cloud-fire, only appearing in his earthly form to Moses, whose face was so resplendent with the glory of God when he left his presence that he was forced to wear a veil when he was not in the Tabernacle of Meeting, so that the Israelites would not see the glory fade away from his face. Moses would even be allowed to see Yahweh in undisguised form, though the actual Face of Elohim was barred to him for his own safety's sake.

After forty years of wandering in the desert, barred from the promised land for a life-span by the stupidity of the Israelite people, having been offered the patriarch-ship of the future races of the world and having refused the offer, having tasted the living bread of Yahweh, having brought water from the rock, having seen Jehovah in the full glory of His image, this man, Moses, came to his last days. The most humble man on the face of the earth, right before he was destined to die, was brought to Mount Nebo where Yahweh showed him all the land that the chosen people were to acquire, the promised land, flowing with milk and honey. The Bible says that Moses was one-hundred-and-twenty-years-old, and yet his eyes were not dimmed and his vigor was un-impaired. Yahweh's strength had been given him. He died there in Moab, as Yahweh had chosen, and Jehovah, the God of the Heavens, buried him in a secret place.

'And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the HaShem knew face to face.' Deuteronomy 34:10

The Man Moses: Part 1

2010-02-09T21:51:00.008-06:00

Israel dwelt in Egypt. God blessed His people, making them fruitful in number. Their God was El Shaddai, the God whose Kingdom is the little child.

They were a prized nation, for Joseph, one of the greatest commanders in Egypt, was at their head. But a Pharaoh rose up who knew not Joseph, who knew not the covenant, who knew not that El Shaddai who blesses, and he grew afraid of the strong, numerous nation. He ordered genocide. All male Hebrew children up to two years of age, must be drowned in the Nile. This genocide would be repeated hundreds of years later, when Herod ordered merciless child-slaughter in order to kill the Christ.

But Israel's savior would survive genocide, just as the Savior of all humanity would. In the depths of Goshen, the Israelites' primary region of habitation, lived a man named Amram. His wife, Jochebed, had three children, Miriam, Aaron, and Jekuthiel, a new-born baby. She was a courageous woman. She was a mother. She hid her precious baby boy for three months, and, when she knew she could no longer succeed in hiding him, put him in a basket and trusted to that El Shaddai who gave her this precious child to save him from destruction.

Her little girl Miriam watched the chosen child as it wound its way through the busy, infested Nile, closer and closer to the royal palace. She heard Pharaoh's daughter and her handmaidens washing in the Nile, heard their gasps of surprise as the basket floats into view, saw the princess of Egypt take pity on the child. The Princess Thermuthis knew it was a Hebrew child, a child of not only slaves, but shepherds, an occupation scorned by her people––a nation so degraded in Egypt that the mass slaughter of the Hebrews' children could be executed without a qualm. Yet she loves the child as her own. According to the Midrash, when Moses returns to Egypt as the wielder of the miracles of YHWH, she will be exiled and scorned for being his surrogate mother, and will leave Egypt with him in the great Exodus. Her name will be changed to Bithiah, meaning 'Daughter of Yah', and she will take the Judahite Mered as her husband. Click here to read the Biblical mention of Bithiah.

Miriam seized the opportunity, when this princess was observing the baby with tender interest, to suggest a Hebrew nurse for the child. The princess probably guessed what has taken place, and acquiesced willingly. She took pity on the Hebrew mother. Thus Moses is nursed by his own mother, and, through the strong bonding that takes place, becomes sealed in the Hebrew culture.

Once he was weaned, however, the princess adopted him as her own son, calling him Moshe, which is similar to the Hebrew word 'mashah', meaning 'to draw out' and the Egyptian word for 'child'. Moses, attached through his most formative years of childhood to his Hebraism, will now be raised as a royal Egyptian, with all the privileges and education of a prince of Egypt.

According to Josephus, Moses grew to become the foremost commander of the armies of Egypt. He had great military acumen, though he was slow of speech. One of the most famous stories about his life as a general is in the histories of Josephus, when he led the Egyptians against the Ethiopians who were invading the country. According to the histories, while he was besieging Tharbis, one of the cities of Ethiopia, an Ethiopian princess fell in love with him and wanted to marry him. He agreed to do so if she would deliver the city into his power. She did so, and Moses married her. Click here to read the Bible's account of Moses' Ethiopian wife.

His warrior career came to an end when, one day on visiting his mother-people, he saw a Hebrew slave being maltreated and was so incensed that he murdered the Egyptian overseer and buried the corpse in the sand. The affair was talked about among the Hebrew slaves, and Moses, on hearing from a higher source that it was known in the royal household, and that Pharaoh would most likely execute him for it, escaped across the Sinai Peninsula, a gigantic stretch of barren, desert country that only the strongest could survive in.

Coming to Midian, he stopped to drink at the Midianite well, and, while he was there, saw a group of seven shepherdess sisters being driven away from the water by some rowdy shepherds. Moses, seeing the violence taking place, had enough fighting strategy inherent in his bones to save the shepherdesses from the whole group of shepherds and their flocks, and then enough strength remaining to draw the water needed for the sheep of the seven sisters. The girls' father, a priest of Midian, was so grateful for the service and so awed at what Moses had done that he adopted him as his son, made him superintendent of his flocks, and gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage.

It was forty years later, while shepherding his father's flocks, that Moses saw the first glimpse of the fire of the God whom he would see face to face in the coming years.

The Tabernacle of the Godhead

2010-01-12T16:30:00.007-06:00

O worship Yahweh in the beauty of holiness: tremble before him, all the earth.
- Psalms 96:9

Incense lies heavy in the atmosphere. It swirls through your senses, tickling the nose, tasting the mouth, touching the eyes. It smells sweet, dark, rich.

You open your eyes. The gold glints in the shadows, making your irises sparkle with the glory of its wealth. The mercy seat stands in the womb of the temple, before your eyes, borne by majestic creatures whose colossal wings span out and above in dazzling grandeur, arching over the throne of God. The faces of the creatures are turned to one another. Fire burns in their eyes. They perch upon the Ark. Majesty reigns. Intense spiritual presence wrestles around the gleaming gold overlay. The sweet smell of acacia wood hangs faintly in the atmosphere. To touch is death, for the Cloud Fire prevails sovereign on the throne, above the stone tablets of His Law, the Law that brings life and light. The Law that frees.

You tear yourself away from the throne where visits the God who is Love. You fold back the thick curtain of finely woven linen, richly colored violet-purple, red-purple, embroidered with the great winged creatures who guard the Ark of the Testimony. You leave the Holy of Holies, the Qodesh-Qodesh, and enter the Holy Place.

A gleam in the dusk catches your eye. The glimmer of gold, the scent of acacia wood. You come round the curtain and see, sparkling against the rich tone of the maroon drapery, the table of offering. Beautifully moulded, crowned with bowls and goblets and jars and platters of pure, fair ore. The loaves, baked of fine wheaten flour, crushed-olive oil, and ground incense grace the gold plate.

Opposite the table a shimmering lamp-stand sheds forth light upon the magical surroundings. You marvel in the beauty of the golden form, beaten forth in the loveliness of calyxes and petals, branches crowned in almond blossoms, red-flamed lamps standing in the cups. Light shining in the Temple of the Light of the world.

You become aware of the sun filtering through the opening of the Holy Place, filtering through the screen of fine, twisted linen, tinted blue and purple and scarlet, wrought with skilled needlework. The heavy, soft cloth hangs upon five strong pillars of acacia wood, overlain with gold, socketed with brass. You walk through the doorway, and out into the court.

Splendid color surrounds you. Violet, crimson, and azure draping create the boundaries of the court. The finely twined linen garlands columns of gold, poles of silver, hooks of bronze. A golden lamp, burning continually with pure pounded olive oil, flickers purple shadows on the richly stained curtains. The red light is attended from dusk to dawn by the sons of Abarone, before Yahweh, as an endless edict for all ages of Israel.

Your attention is brought to the middle of the court where stands the altar, by the bleat of animals being lead toward the mizbeach. Built of hollow acacia wood, crowned with four bronze horns at each corner, complemented by bronze pans for carrying away the fatty ashes, bronze shovels, bronze sprinkling basins, bronze hooks, bronze fire pans. The flame from the lamp mirrors in the metal.

You see Abarone and his four sons surrounding the altar. Awe strikes you at the splendor of their raiment in the light of the sun, the fire of the lamp. Robes and embroidered tunics adorn them, giving dignity and magnificence to their strong, tall frames, the color glistening in their brown eyes. A turban crowns each regal head, covering their brown locks. A flower of pure gold, engraved with the words Qodesh Yahweh is attached to a violet-purple cord, which hangs from the winding cloths of the turban. The clothes are made of dyed linen to match the curtains surrounding them, hemmed with pomegranates and golden bells which tinkle at all times, so the sweet sound foreruns their entrance into the Holy of Holies. Below their thick, long beards rest the ephod and the breastplate, spun of violet linen, swung with gold chains of rosettes and purple cords. Two cornelians, engraved with the twelve names of the Princes of Israel, hang in gold settings upon the straps of the ephod. The crimson-violet linen is set with twelve rare stones to represent the names of the Tribes, glinting with all the colors of the rainbow that surrounds the heavenly throne of God.

The Urim and the Thummim adorn the breastplate over his heart, thus giving Abarone the judgment of Israel to bear, in the presence of Yahweh, forever. In the holy flower upon his brow he carries the shortcomings of the things consecrated by the people of Israel, to make them satisfactory to Elohim. Avarone bears the remembrance of the names of Israel's sons upon his shoulders before Adonai. Avarone supports the chosen people of El Shaddai upon his heart, always. Avarone is the Priest of Jehovah.

You hear the bleats of lambs and goats, the coo of doves and pigeons, echo through the court. You see the white wool and grey skin, the white feathers and the grey, burn upon the altar, sending up a pleasing aroma to the Godhead. Their blood is poured around the altar, their life spilled out for the souls of humanity, so that they might possess Life Eternal. The garments of Abarone and his sons are sprinkled with the blood, anointing oil, incense. They are purified. Israel is purified.

You step outside the court, through the lovely linen drapery, and see God's creation all around you. Green grass. Blue sky. Golden sun. A sweet wind blowing through the trees. You worship Elohim, the God Who Is.

Thine, O Adonai, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine, thine is the kingdom, O Jehovah, and thou art exalted as King above all.
- 1 Chronicles 29:11

The Medieval and The Post-Modern

2010-01-01T16:21:00.010-06:00

'Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.'

~C.S. Lewis

'Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.'

~C.S. Lewis

Medieval World-View

The medieval man believed that the world was set up in a way that inverted our natural experience. He believed that the universe was a chain or set of graded planes, the top of which was the highest Heaven, in which God dwelt in timeless, undeviating unity.

The second link of the chain was the high angels, gradually grading down in an intricate theology of numbers to the lower angels, who dwelt in the realm of Aether. The Aether was described as the means through which God communicated with the Earth. It consisted of all living intelligence beyond the moon. Rather than being Space, as we term it today, the Aether was a dazzling world of light, filled to overflowing with miraculous planets, stars, and spiritual beings. The medieval man believed the darkness with which we see it was only a shadow cast by the earth in the light of the moon, and that, in reality, outside the shadow, it was a sphere of glorious light. Aether and the high Heaven were at the top of the chain, and the medieval man praised them for their very unchangeable quality, their fixedness.

Below the moon there came Air, through which the Aether communicated with the Earth. The Air, in the medieval mind, was directly influenced by the warfare that went on in the Aether and the highest Heaven. Thus, birth, death, sickness, health, were all contributed to events taking place in the spiritual realm. Therefore doctors would blame sicknesses on what they named 'Influence', which, in the Italian, is 'Influenza.' Thus the beginning of the term.

Below the Air there came the Earth, on which Man, with his supposedly disgusting inconstancy and fickle purpose, dwelt. Man and Earth were distorted mirrors of the Heavenly realm. Thus the medieval man's fetish with creating as much beauty on Earth as possible, in order that he might come closest to the vast glory above the moon; thus the medieval man's staunch belief in the spiritual properties of the stuff of Earth, and his loyalty to magic-lore. For where the Astrology of the planets and the Aether forced upon man a changeless Fate, Magic was developed as a means to cast off the icy clutches of serendipity.

Beneath Man came the Animal world, which the medieval man viewed as a grotesque shadow of himself, through which he could learn spiritual lessons. For example, the ant was a lesson for the sluggard, the rule of the queen bee a lesson for the monarch.

Lower than the Animal was the Plant, filled with life and yet inanimate.

And below the Plant, at the very outskirts of the medieval world-view, lay Hell and the daemonic world, as far away from God as was possible in the intricate planing of the spheres.

Post-Modern Worldview

Interestingly, the post-modern man has a fully different view of the world. In fact, it is inverted. Where the medieval man believed in a world of utter order, absolute truth, the post-modern man believes there is no truth, and that each person's absolute is made up only of his mysterious experiences. Rather than God being at the center of the universe, with the sinful Earth being at the very outskirts of the Heavenly Realm, the post-modern man believes that the sinful world is the center of the universe.

As time goes by, the post-modern worldview becomes more and more obsessed with what to the medieval man was the low rung on the ladder: the Plant. Thus, the Green movement. The post-modern man has intellectually negated the possibility of either a Hell or a Heaven, and, instead, has endowed the realms of Plant, Animal, and Air with a strange, god-like authority which must control the actions of Man.

On the next link of the post-modern chain is Man, which, with the Animal as his god, is seeking to become more and more like an Animal himself. Just as the medieval man sought to become like his Creator, so the post-modern man seeks to become like his supposed predecessor, the Animal. Thus, the post-modern man has negated meaning in the universe. There is no spiritual realm, there is no truth, there is no creativity, there is no intelligence except to prove intelligence non-existent, for the Animal is not in the image of the Divine, the Animal has no reason or emotion, the Animal has no creativity, the Animal has no intelligence. With all divine impartation, with all sub-creational responsibility, with all wisdom gutted, the only thing left for the post-modern man is his gut appetite. His chosen life is one of wandering purposefulness, constant changeableness, the very thing the medieval man detested as a part of the Fallen realm.

Below Man is what the post-modern man terms Space. It is a domain of nothingness. Even the stars, the planets, and the miraculous lights that inhabit the world take a background view to the blackness that was only a shadow hiding glory in the medieval man's mind. The post-modern man believes in no beauty, no glory, no virtue. He believes only in a sadist mentality… the savage instinct for survival.

Summary

So, we see that the medieval man, embracing his God-given desire for the Kingdom of the Spirit, did everything he could to minimize his Fallenness by enveloping himself in the realm of Glory. The post-modern man of today, by completing the negation of the Dark Ages begun in the Renaissance, has minimized the spiritual to the utmost degree, in order to more wholly embrace the Animal in the Flesh.

A New Year's Benediction

2009-12-31T19:01:00.003-06:00

‘When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” – G.K. Chesterton

As this lovely New Years’ Eve draws to a close and the golden flame of the sun dips below the horizon…

as the shimmering silver of the moon rises into the velvet night sky and the winds of change sweep over the frosted plains…

we wish you all a very beautiful life of gratitude in this new year.

May God bless you in this Advent season.

Jupiter: A Haiku

2009-11-09T17:13:00.004-06:00

Three moons 'round red eye

Zeus in a Grecian temple
King of the planets.

By Camille Wolaver

She Walks in Beauty Like the Night

2009-09-28T19:09:00.005-05:00

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impair'd the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress

Or softly lightens o'er her face,

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,––

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

Poetry by Lord Byron

Art by William Bouguereau

Titanic Article

2009-09-26T18:51:00.003-05:00

Being at a dinner a couple weeks ago, a framed edition of the Times edition of Tuesday, April 16th, 1912, caught my eye. As I read through it, I was so shocked by the contents of that tragic day, that I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and quickly dashed down as much as I could before we had to leave. What follows are my notes:

Direct copy from the beginning of the article:

Tuesday, 16th April 1912

WORLD'S GREATEST LINER STRIKES ICEBERG:

RMS Titanic, the world's greatest liner and the pride of the White Star fleet, hit an iceberg and sank yesterday morning in the greatest disaster at sea. Over 1600 passengers and crew perished with the ship.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable but she disappeared into the black depths of the Atlantic Ocean within hours of being struck. Lifeboats were launched but only around 800 men, women, and children are believed to have survived.

Those who were able to obtain seats in the lifeboats watched helplessly as the great ship broke in half and plunged to the bottom of the ocean with all its lights blazing and with the band still playing on deck.

Notes from rest of article:

So great was the faith in Titanic's 'unsinkable' qualities that some passengers even had a snowball fight with pieces of ice which the strike had thrown on deck.

The 'Women and Children Only' rule was soon ignored and skirmishes began as some male passengers tried to fight their way onto the boats. One lady had her ribs dislocated when three men jumped into her lifeboat as it was being lowered. One man swam in the icy water after a lifeboat only to have an officer threaten to shoot him if he boarded.

Babies and children were wrapped in towels and sheets and thrown to safety to the women already in the boats. One older boy who tried to get onto one of the boats concealed in his mother's skirts was sent back with the order to 'Be a man'. He is believed to have died.

The lifeboats were not filled efficiently in the chaos. Third class passengers were locked below in order that the first class women could board first, but they rioted and broke through and chaos broke out.

1500 people died. As she went down with a tremendous roar, the decks were thronged with praying and sobbing passengers and the band was still playing the Episcopal hymn Autumn, or Nearer my God to Thee, as Titanic sank below the waves. All ships' senior officers died.

The Blessings of Yahweh Sabaoth

2009-09-18T10:33:00.021-05:00

It is El Shaddai who blesses you…

blessings of heaven above…

blessings of the deep lying below…

blessings of the breasts and womb…

blessings of the grain…

and flowers…

blessings of the eternal mountains…

bounty of the everlasting hills…

may they descend on Joseph's head, on the crown of the one dedicated from among his brothers.

Genesis 49:25-29

Thoughts on the Euangelios

2009-08-08T23:17:00.001-05:00

The incarnation shocked humanity. Never before in the history of religion had divinity shrunk to infancy. The magic of the event terrified the world. The God of the universe who created woman, impregnated a common peasant girl and grew from embryo to infant in the womb that He had molded with His own hands. The girl who carried Yahweh in her belly, who was scoffed and mocked by the world of the time and treated as a sinner and outcast, journeyed to Jerusalem with her faithful husband, and, being refused even by the country inn, was forced to birth the Son of God underground. 'In the riddle of Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth,' Chesterton states. The Voice of Elohim became the most vulnerable creature in our world––a new-born baby, crying in the arms of a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl, whose tiny arms couldn't reach up to touch the noses of the cattle that He had spoken into existence. Yahweh came to earth, and suddenly the family that God had instituted in the beginning was turned upside down, for the mother and father became the children of their Son, and their son was their Father and Creator. And they called His name Jesus.

Jesus' life was hounded from the beginning. After being anointed by the Magi, confirmed by Anna and Simeon, praised by the angels, and worshipped by the shepherds, Joseph, following the command of God, the father of his adopted child, escaped to Egypt with the precious mother and baby to escape Herod's wrath. The age-old war of the demons against children asserted itself once more in a mad effort to kill the Child, but was thwarted by a simple carpenter's faithfulness to God.

Jesus grew up, and threw off the stagnant and sinful customs of the time. Though He was the most intelligent and promising students in the educational system, and wanted as a disciple by the leading rabbis of the day, He rejected the complacency and legalism of the priests and stayed at home to learn the trade of a simple carpenter until His time came. And then the Son of God asserted Himself.

He gathered the outcasts to Himself. He insulted the leading figures of the day. He ransacked the false religion pervading the Temple. He forgave the sins of people who faithed in His Father. He called Himself the ancestor of Abraham. He healed the sick. He outsmarted the scribes. He was faithful to His Father. He loved purely. He gave freely. He professed to be the Son of God. He spoke words of truth that were shocking to the darkness of that time, and yet conquered the barbarian sinfulness of the time, and have forever resurrected throughout history, and are still living and speaking today. For they are words of universal and timeless truth. The world will try to take some of Him and leave the rest, but He was the Man who encompassed all Truth, all Holiness, all Power, all Righteousness, all Faithfulness, all Love.

There have been many philosophers in the history of this world, but the smarter they were the more they knew that they were not a god. Yet Jesus spoke words of intelligence and verity, and He proclaimed Himself to be God. He was a Man directly distinct from the sophists and philosophers of His time, a Man who had nothing to do with the wild and distorted mythologies and hero-worship of the time. And yet He complemented both sides. He was a philosopher, He was a hero, His life was a Story, but a true one. He vanquished the lies of the World, and rose up as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

His creed spread like wildfire throughout the world, and the only people groups that would have none of Him were the Middle-Eastern Muslims and the Hindus and Buddhists of Asia. And these are the two countries that are living examples of stagnancy. The West has blossomed, grown, died, and resurrected as the Flower of Christendom, but Asia and the Middle-East are too old to die.

In fact, the modern example of the ancient war between mythology and philosophy are the creeds of Asia. Their worship is why Asia is infirm, stale, and oppressed, whereas the West is equally as historical, but has experienced the resurrection of life that is following Christ. For Christianity is the only religion that is the key which fits the questions of this world. It is Life, and it is like life. It embraces life when Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Fatalism, Optimism, Mythology, and Atheism all refuse to be intellectually honest and choose to strive to negate certain aspects of life in order to hold on to their mistaken ideals. Christianity bridges all these religions because it is a story and it is a true story. It is the freedom that comes from the free-will which is the essence of a story, the truth which is the longing of our intellects, and the divine supremacy of God which satisfies the yearning in our soul to know our Creator.

Islam, too, is a stagnant religion. Islam and Christianity are similar in the fact that they are the only monotheistic religions stemming from Abraham, but in very little else. For where Islam worships a solitary and therefore self-centered and uncharitable god, without even the ability to love because he is lonely, Christianity worships the Triune God. He is the God that is the embodiment of the Family. He is the essence of power, and yet is wholly selfless because the Son, the Father, and the Holy Ghost are forever loving each other and the world in Sacred Communion.

For just as the mythology and philosophy in Asia is too tolerant to die, and the selfishness and hate of Islam is too bitter to die, Christianity is continually experiencing rebirth. Over and over again, the Faith has been so diluted as to die, but it has always risen again in new power at the pivotal moment. We worship the God who rose from the grave, and who has given us the power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

El Shaddai

2009-06-30T17:18:00.006-05:00

'It is El Shaddai who blesses you:

blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep lying below,

blessings of the breasts and womb,

blessings of the grain and flowers,

blessings of the eternal mountains,

bounty of the everlasting hills––

may they descend on Joseph's head,

on the crown of the one dedicated from among his brothers.' - Genesis 49:25-26

The bottle changed society.

Billy Sunday raved at the increase of alcoholism in the early 20th century. He toured throughout the nation, he preached from every pulpit and stage available, he published in every newspaper, he proclaimed his beliefs, and ultimately succeeded in stopping alcoholism for a season. And yet there was no opposition when 1950 began, and another sort of bottle came to the forefront.

Bottle-feeding had been in some fashion seen since the Middle Ages. It was not very common. The limited and unsterile supplies available made bottle-feeding a very arduous task, causing many babies' deaths from the unclean effects of horn bottles and dried cow teats. For this very reason the practice was unpopular. Even when the rubber nipple was invented in the mid 19th century, the contraption was hardly used because of the pungent smell of the black India rubber.

It was not until the 1950s, when Pyrex and soft rubber were first introduced, that Dr. Spock published his famous manual on baby and child care, and, in an instant, 80% of all women across the US had embraced the progressive model––bottle-feeding. The fad was quite in keeping with the times. Between processed cheeses, new inflammatory polyester combinations for fabrics, canned and powdered foods, preservatives to give food a longer shelf-life, immunizations, birth-control, and Caeserean Sections, the '50s were a time of great modernization. How is it that, though every one of these fads have been proved as extremely unhealthy and risky life-style choices, bottle-feeding has not been paired with them?

Today it is known that breastmilk holds every nutritional ingredient that a baby needs for optimal growth. It is the perfect temperature, it is clean, and it is extremely beneficial for the mother. When a mother breastfeeds her baby she is protected from osteoporosis, breast cancer, and ovarian cancers. It releases hormones that reduce stress, allows her to bond with her baby, produces estrogen, and gives her femininity and gentleness. It is even better for her baby. Breastmilk jump-starts a baby's immune system, builds strong bones, reduces the risk of developing diabetes, prevents food allergies, protects against heart-disease, cancer, obesity, asthma, unhealthy teeth, Multiple Sclerosis, ear infections, and even weak kissing ability. Breastfed infants have higher IQs than bottle-fed infants and they grow up to be more independent and capable. Most importantly, breast-feeding creates a child that not only holds an intense bond with his mother, but easily bonds with other people and is more capable of loving.

Yet the majority of new mothers are told to nurse their babies for a couple weeks and then give them a contraption made of Pyrex, plastic, and rubber. To put in their babies' new and fresh bodies a formula that is not only extremely expensive, but is made up of additives, preservatives, chemicals that are harmful to the baby's health, and vitamins and minerals that the baby is not even capable of digesting. The great health and spiritual benefits of the natural, divine way of baby growth is completely overlooked.

Thus we see, in the '50s, the start of a new family model that had never been known before. Safe sex was the safe thing. The human race was discouraged from bearing too much new life. The fruit of the womb, the procreation of souls, was suppressed through the newly legalized birth-control, forgetting the fact that the pill aborts the sperm and egg after they have joined together to create the human embryo, is catastrophic for the health of the woman, and is the cause of many defects in children today. The government became more influential, and, in their widened power, decided to take on more and more of a child's development, cheating the mother and father out of their God-given responsibilities. Mothers were encouraged, if they were so selfish as to bear a child, to let the doctors get the baby out of her through a surgical procedure that would not only be extremely unhealthy for her and the baby, but would cheat her out of the toil and labor that is the birth of true womanhood and spiritual maturity. The mother was supposed to have only one month in which to bond with her baby, and then she must put her baby on the bottle, re-enter the work-force, and give her job to an impartial worker in a day-care. At four-years-old the child would be sent off to pre-school, and for twenty thousand, one hundred sixty hours of the rest of their childhood, the mother's responsibility would be taken off her hands and the government would indoctrinate her child in the way that they pleased.

This was the new model of family. Even the terms for children were changed, and the words 'kid' and 'teenager' became widely used. Children, not experiencing any of the divine bonding instruments in infancy, were raised in schools with a sterile atmosphere, and soon found themselves to be more influenced by their peers and teachers than by their parents and siblings. At thirteen, the child began to act strangely. They rebelled against their parents. They flocked with their friends from school. They adopted all sorts of habits that were extremely unhealthy psychologically and physically.

Doctors and psychologists pronounced this a natural phenomena, forgetting the fact that for thousands of years the 'teenager' psyche had never even been heard of––that the term 'teenager' had been non-existent till very recent years. In every culture of ancient times, from the East to the West, the child became an adult at twelve and thirteen, the time when, scientifically, the brain changes, the child's learning fashion takes on the form of an adult's, sexual maturation begins, and they believe the world-view that, according to statistics, they will die believing. Rebellion had been scathingly rejected in these cultures. In ancient Judaism it was a sin punishable by stoning. Yet these facts were forgotten, and parents were, instead, told to let their children 'go their own path.' Yet in third-world countries, where these medical habits were mostly unheard of, children from thirteen to nineteen were the best workers, the best helpers, and were generally close to their parents, grandparents, and siblings.

The wealth of the nation was such that parents, after having been told to step out of their children's way, were expected to send their children to college. It was a very new phenomenon. Never before had both women and men received such an education. They were shipped off to universities where socialist, communist professors taught them to believe all the doctrines their fathers had spilled blood to purge from the world in the last decade, and in those government institutions sins were introduced through the close association of their peers that had formerly been only known in the very darkest, most secret of places.

And thus the '60s ensued. We have seen what the '60s brought forth, when the hippies reigned, with their free sex and free drugs that were supposed to bring peace to the world, and yet brought nothing but riots and sexually transmitted diseases. We see and taste the fruit in our leaders, our government, and our culture. We know that our families are broken, that our government is weak and oppressive, that our education is ungodly, that the Church has melded in with the World, that every new generation becomes more and more engulfed in sin, and that we have accepted these things as the norm. Yet God would have us taste and see that His ways are good––He would have us know life, and know it more abundantly. He is El Shaddai, which, in Hebrew, means the God of the Breast.

Photo by Ann Geddes

Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight

2009-03-01T08:11:00.002-06:00

by Rose Hartwick Thorpe (1850-1939)

Slowly England's sun was setting oe'r the hilltops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,--
He with steps so slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she, with lips all cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night!"

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its walls tall and gloomy, moss-grown walls dark, damp and cold,--
"I've a lover in the prison, doomed this very night to die
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset;" and her lips grew strangely white,
As she spoke in husky whispers, "Curfew must not ring to-night!"

"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton (every word pierced her young heart
Like a gleaming death-winged arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart),
"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has tolled the twilight hour.
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right:
Now I'm old, I will not miss it. Curfew bell must ring to-night!"

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,
As within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh,
"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must "die.
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
One low murmur, faintly spoken. "Curfew must not ring to-night!"

She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the old church-door,
Left the old man coming slowly, paths he'd trod so oft before.
Not one moment paused the maiden, But with eye and cheek aglow,
Staggered up the gloomy tower, Where the bell swung to and fro;
As she climbed the slimy ladder, On which fell no ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying, "Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

She has reached the topmost ladder, o'er her hangs the great dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
See! the ponderous tongue is swinging; 'tis the hour of curfew now,
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs, and grasps it firmly: "Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

Out she swung,-- far out. The city Seemed a speck of light below,--
There twixt heaven and earth suspended, As the bell swung to and fro.
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil's funeral knell.
"Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white,
Stilled her frightened heart's wild throbbing: "Curfew shall not ring tonight!"

It was o'er, the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before,
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white,
Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.

O'er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow,
Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands, all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face, still hagggard, with the anguish it had worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.
"Go! your lover lives," said Cromwell. "Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die,
All his bright young life before him. Neath the darkening English sky,
Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with lovelight sweet;
Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet.
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,
Whispered, "Darling, you have saved me, curfew will not ring to-night."

The Legacy of Saint Valentine

2009-02-14T13:33:00.007-06:00

Valentine's Day has been sadly hyped in our post-modern culture, and we have, as the Israelites before us, forgotten the heritage that once made the holiday––or holy-day––worth celebrating.

Saint Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius Gothicus, emperor of Rome. He was known for aiding the persecuted Christians of that time, and especially for marrying Christian men and women according to the standards of their faith, rather than the empty pagan practices common in Roman weddings Helping Christians at the time was considered criminal, and the saint was arrested and imprisoned on being caught in the act of initiating a Christian wedding. Claudius was amused by this prisoner and his crime, until St. Valentine refused to renounce Christ and then attempted to convert him, on which outrage the emperor condemned the priest to death. After being beaten with sticks and then stoned, he was sent off to the Flaminian Gate to be beheaded. Before the final stroke, St. Valentine healed the sight and hearing of the jailer's daughter. He was then decapitated outside of the gate.

The current legends of St. Valentine were created in the fourteenth century by Geoffrey Chaucer and his contemporaries, and traditions like signing heart-shaped letters 'from your Valentine' were started in the late Middle Ages. It was then that February 14 first became a celebration of romantic love.

Let us throw aside the antics of Rome, as Chesterton termed it, and meditate on the God who is Love, and created the Love that dwelled inside of St. Valentine and was so strong and selfless that it sought to bless and heal the very ones who persecuted him. Let us pray that such strength of heart may also be cultivated in our own souls.

A happy St. Valentine's Day to you!