2011 in Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

I wanted to share this as a way of giving thanks. I’ll be back to writing soon. My deepest thanks to the family of readers of Glory to God for All Things. I cannot express how close you are to my heart and how much you mean to me! Richest blessings in the New Year and the Feast of St. Basil the Great!

Beneath His mercy,

Fr. Stephen +

 

Here’s an excerpt:

London Olympic Stadium holds 80,000 people. This blog was viewed about 530,000 times in 2011. If it were competing at London Olympic Stadium, it would take about 7 sold-out events for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Absent but Not Departed

I will be away from my computer through sometime in early January, God willing. Comments will be turned off during that time. Prayers for a good feast for us all!

Fr. Stephen

The Fire of Christmas

As a child of the South, accustomed to the tones and the tales of my region, I was well aware of the”fires of hell”. Roadside signs proclaimed the eternal destiny of those who were not saved. I have discovered in later years, that many adult Christians remain committed to the most literal possible version of the fires of hell and will argue as though heaven itself depended on the burning flesh of the wretched souls in torment.

This does not sound like the beginning of a Christmas-themed posting. It is the time of year that we sing of “Peace on Earth, good-will towards men,” and if at all possible we forget those men who, according to some, will never celebrate Christmas as they themselves become an eternal yule log to the comfort of so many.

Strangely, the Orthodox Church, on the Sunday prior to Christmas, celebrates the Forefathers of Christ, remembering the righteous figures of the Old Testament whose work prefigured Christ’s coming into the world. The chiefest of all those figures, whose icon adorns the central place of Orthodox veneration on that Sunday, is the icon of the Three Young Men, those who were tortured in the furnace of Babylon and refused to worship the false image of the wicked king.

The story of the Three Young Men is recounted in the book of Daniel, and in an expanded form in the Greek (LXX) edition of Daniel. There, we are told that though the young men refused the King’s order and were tossed into a furnace heated seven times hotter than is wont:

The Angel of the Lord went down into the furnace to join [them], and shook off the fiery flame of the furnace. He made the inside of the furnace to be as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it, so that the fire did not touch them at all, or cause them pain, or trouble them.

Here stands the wonder of Christmas, given to us in the typological imagery of the Old Testament! A Nativity hymn in the Church declares: “The children of the Old Covenant who walked in the fire, yet were not burnt, prefigured the womb of the Maiden, which remained sealed when she gave birth in fashion past nature.” Like the fire that Moses saw present in the burning bush, the fire burns but does not consume. It is the Divine Energy of God, according to a number of fathers. “Our God is a consuming fire,” (Deuteronomy 4:24). He is also a fire that burns and yet does not consume.

Christ Himself says, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luk 12:49 NKJ) Christmas is also the kindling of that fire. At His coming, all things approach their judgment. Wise men find their redemption, a wicked king finds his downfall. Angels find their voices and raise them in a manner that exceeds any praise ever offered. Israel becomes the God-trodden land and the Land of Promise becomes the Land of Fulfillment.

This same fire is the fire which alights upon the heads of the Apostles at Pentecost and fills them with the Spirit. It is the transforming fire of God’s grace which burns up our dross and refines the works of righteousness.

O Holy Night, the light is brightly shining!

How Big is Your Christmas?

We have entered the days when news pundits are asking, “Will Christmas be big this year?” When individuals ask one another, “Are you having a big Christmas this year?” It is understoood that economics are involved (as with the media). Our modern economies are greatly dependent on the massive buying that occurs between late November and late December. Christmas shopping is so good for the economy (as presently constituted) that if Christ were not so conveniently born, we would have to come up with another excuse for giving gifts.

However, though the world’s economic system seems to hang in the balance over the generosity of two months spending, this is a very little thing about Christmas. My favorite summation of Christmas (and the Incarnation as a whole) if from St. Maximus the Confessor: “the Incarnation of the Word is the cause of all things.”

This wonderfully paradoxical statement, notes that “all things were made by and for him, etc.” St. Maximus reads these words as referring to the Incarnate Christ and not to the pre-incarnate Word. It turns history inside out and establishes the incarnation of Christ as more than a temporary skirmish to free us from our temporary bonds. It is the act of God who truly completes His creation in His Pascha. The words, “It is finished,” are the words of the Creator over the whole of His creation. He foretold this, “If I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto myself.” This is echoed in a more cosmic sense in the words of Ephesians’ first chapter:

 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth– in Him. (Eph 1:9-10 NKJ)

Christmas, as the feast which celebrates the incarnation of Christ (as does the Annunciation), is the feast of the beginning of all things, and the feast of the end of all things. It is both cause and the end of all effects. And thus we will have a “big” Christmas this year, for the gift that is given us is nothing less than creation itself. It’s price was nothing less than the life of God. It’s not the economy, in the way politicians think of economy. It is the oikonomia – the unrelenting love of God completing what He alone could begin and what He alone could finish.

The Ancestors of God

The two Sundays prior to the Feast of the Nativity are dedicated to the Ancestors and the Forefathers of Christ. One feast honors those who have been ancestors to Christ (according to the flesh) the other feast remembers those who were the “righteous” of those generations before Christ, though not necessarily ancestors according to the flesh.

Such feasts are absent in most of Christianity – as though Christ had come at a point in time without preparation – without ancestors. Just as many Christians refuse to recognize the blessedness of Mary, from whom Christ took flesh, so do they also refuse to recognize that “flesh” involves ancestry. It is a bothersome aspect of the incarnation of Christ. It would be so much easier for many to speak of Christ’s humanity if His humanity did not involve any other humans. Thus there are Christians who worship a God made man, who is no man at all.

The traditional title for the grandparents of Christ (the parents of the Virgin Mary) is “the holy and righteous ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna.” They are honored at every liturgy, being invoked as part of the dismissal. If the title, “Mother of God,” can be tolerated by some, the title, “holy and righteous ancestors of God,” is yet more problematic.

In many ways this is not surprising. The modern world is largely devoid of ancestors. Ancestors are inherently part of tradition, and modernity despises tradition – it rebels against tradition. Living in America, I am deeply aware that many of the current generation cannot cite their ancestors further back than grandparents. It is as though we were a culture that came from nowhere. Perhaps this has an element of truth.

To come “from somewhere,” is to come with restrictions on freedom. It is to come with a history – perhaps a history of friends and enemies. This can, indeed, be destructive and counter-productive. But it also means that we come into the world without identity, and thus find the need to “invent” ourselves. And so it is that modern Christians think nothing of inventing their own version of Christianity – for they themselves have no inheritance – no received tradition.

I am in California this week (a very self-invented place) for the Baptism of my second grandchild. It is a wonderful event in my life. It is also a wonderful event in the life of the child Sebastian, for he does not invent himself. As the community of faith, we plunge him into the waters of Christ’s death and resurrection. He is received into the household of faith, into the generations of faithful Orthodox Christians who have offered to God innumerable martyrs and a faithfulness that now becomes my grandson’s inheritance. He will know his name, and the courage of St. Sebastian. He will know his father and mother, a priest and his wife. He will know his grandfather, a priest and his grandmother, a priest-wife. He will also know his grandparents who are Baptists (a minister and his wife). He will know the household of  faith that extends deeply beyond parents and grandparents and extends through the generations of the faithful. All this is part of the content of his baptism.

Modernity has a penchant for invention. But it is not so good for man to invent himself – it is not in the nature of our creation. If our ancestors have made mistakes (and surely they have) we do well to know it, and embrace the humility that it should bring. If our ancestors have given us an inheritance of righteousness, we do well to know it, and not imagine that righteousness began on yesterday.

We do well to know that we did not invent ourselves, our faith, or the God whom we follow. Life is a gift, received and passed along. I rejoice that tomorrow my hands will plunge into the waters with my grandson. For all that have, just as all that he has, is a gift. I did not invent it – I received it. The test of my life is to faithfully live what has been given to me, and to give it to others, faithfully and without change.

Glory to God!

Making the Journey

The photo posted with this article is from Zion National Park in the American Southwest. I took the shot five or six years back when my wife and I were vacationing in the area. This blog started in late 2006 – this photo became a visual symbol for me of the journey toward Christ’s Kingdom. It is not so steep as many journeys are, but it is “upwards.” I am also aware that “journey” is something of a cliche in speaking about the spiritual life, but there are few other words that quite capture its character: “exodus,” “pilgrimage,” are two that come to mind.

In the past five years of this blog, I have, from time to time, shared portions of my journey with others, and many have shared portions of their own within the comments. I have also had conversations through email with many who wanted a more private conversation. In the course of these five years I am deeply grateful that many have said that these writings were of help in their conversion to Orthodoxy. Nothing could make me happier. I am also aware that many have sent notes of thanks that were not about conversions. I am equally grateful.

Somewhere in the next few months (I don’t watch numbers all that close anymore), Glory to God for All Things, will log over 3,000,000 views in its short existence. It is staggering – such a large conversation – so one-sided – forgive me. But the journey continues.

I believe that the most critical parts of our pilgrimage to the Kingdom are found in details and not in the general thrust and direction. A word of kindness, an act of kindness, is worth more than every book or article on kindness that may be read. The Kingdom of God does not consist of books and blogs – but of “righteousness, peace and joy.” Such acts of kindness are the steps that take us toward the Kingdom of God.

My life has changed dramatically in the five years of this blog. I have become a grandfather (twice); three of my children have married during the time of its writing; both of my parents and my in-law parents have been laid to rest. Thus now, together with my wife, I journey as an earthly orphan, though gifted with heavenly parents. I have published a book, doubtless the fruit of this blog’s work.

Most especially, I have found (to my surprise), a host of friends. The internet sometimes gets a bad name (because some bad things can be found there). But I have found an international community of friends – people for whom I can pray and who will pray for me. This is not facebook, nor a “social” network – but the common love of Christ is a network called the Body of Christ, and I am deeply grateful for this one.

I ask your prayers for my continuing journey as I offer mine for yours. I give thanks for you all and give glory to God for all things. All things!

Looking Like Christmas

One of the most striking features of the Gospels is the frequent response of the Disciples after the resurrection of Christ: doubt. I have always been sympathetic to the doubts and hesitations that accompanied their ministry during the ministry of Christ. They are almost endearing in their inability to grasp what Christ is all about. However, the same inability to grasp things after the resurrection seems to carry with it all kinds of difficulties. What was it about the resurrection that they could not or did not believe? A man dies and is buried. Then he is not buried and is not simply a resusitated man, but manifests and entirely new form of existence. Call it resurrection or what have you – but apparently Christ had mentioned this coming reality more than once before it happened. What was the problem for the disciples?

The problem seems to go to the very heart of things both then and now. Had the resurrection belonged to the classification of events that everyone can see, measure, study, reach “scientific” agreement about, there would surely have been no trouble. But the resurrection does not belong to some general classification. It is sui generis, its own classification.  There are many who want to speak about the resurrection as if it were a car wreck down at the corner drugstore. Whatever it was (is) it is very much more, even, indeed, something completely different – not like anything else.

And it is here, that the continuing problem of vision is made manifest. Orthodox Christian writers are wont to utter things like, “God will save the world through beauty” (Dostoevsky), or “Icons will save the world” (recently in First Things) all of which makes some people want to run away. But at their heart, such statements are trying to say something about the nature of the resurrection and its action in our world.

The resurrection of Christ is something completely new. It is a manifestation of God unlike anything we have ever known. It is Truth made manifest in the flesh – not the truth to be found in an average living man. I am 58 and I look very unlike what I did at 10. I look decidedly unlike what I will in another 100 years (you probably wouldn’t like to see that). Thus we never normally see anything in an eternal state. But the resurrection is just that. It does not belong exactly to the classification of “things created,” for it is the “uncreated” before our eyes.

And thus the Church paints the things that pertain to the resurrection in an iconic fashion – not like portraiture or the “truth” that lies before our eyes. Icons paint the Truth in a manner that intends to point to the resurrection. By the same token, the Church does not write about the resurrection in the way we write about other things, for the resurrection is not one of the other things but a thing that is unlike anything else. Thus the Fathers of the Church said that “icons do with color what Scripture does with words.”

And both have something to do with vision. The Gospel tells us: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I am not pure in heart but I think I may have encountered such a person. At the least I have read stories about such a person and I know that such persons see what I cannot and they see in a manner that as yet I do not.

But this goes to the point of salvation. Salvation is not how to get people like me (or like you) into some place safe from the fires of hell. That is a transportation problem at best, or a legal problem, at worst. The point of salvation is how to change people like me (and you). It is about changing us such that seeing the resurrection becomes possible.

In this sense, God will indeed save the world through Beauty. The problem is that so few if any of us have ever seen Beauty. If you had seen Beauty, then you would not disagree with the statement. It’s obvious character would be, well, obvious. That people want to argue with it (or with icons) only means that they do not or cannot see. And neither do I, most of the time.

If I could see as I am meant to see then my eyes would not see enemies nor the like. Not that others might not intend to be my enemies or want evil for me – but there are eyes that see beyond all of that and see the Truth of a person. Had I the eyes to see, love would not be an insurmountable problem but as tangible as the Resurrection itself.

And so we draw ever nearer to the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity. Every heart should prepare Him room. More than that, every heart should beg to see the Beauty, to read the Icon of the Gospel of the Nativity, to see what daily escapes our vision and leaves us blind – leading the blind.