A Serious Journal

The Dark Knight

2008-07-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

So, okay, we watched The Dark Knight last night. Wow. If you don't like it, you're undoubtedly some kind of commie-nazi and I will not brook your disparagements. It not only exceeded Batman Begins (which I also enjoyed after the previous 'films', much as I might enjoy breathing air after swimming in raw sewage), it exceeded my own expectations (which were high, considering its box office success and the hype surrounding Heath Ledger's performance) and is, at this point, probably my favorite film I have seen this year.

Ledger's performance isn't just 'Oscar-worthy' as people say. That, frankly, isn't too demanding considering they gave one to Jolie for that train-wreck of a film, Girl, Interrupted. Or considering that Titanice is still tied with Return of the King and Ben Hur for most Oscars won (ten each). Ludicrous. Appalling. The Oscars are bunk. We all know this but, since we don't usually check Critics' Circle awards or some other obscure colloquium of Roger Ebert look-alikes, we continue to use the Oscars as a standard of some sort, even if that standard is patently absurd and inconsistent.

...anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the Joker. Nicholson is still noted for his take in the 1989 Tim Burton flick. And it was good, and, overall, appropriately insane. One is hardly surprised considering this was, after all, Jack freaking Nicholson and not, for example, anyone else. When it came to this new iteration I was, at first, concerned. I mean, Heath Ledger is/was fun, but he is/was a punk-ish Aussie teenbeat kind of actor--in other words, a bad one. So when I heard that his performance was 'amazing' or 'Oscar-worthy', I figured this was the usual hyperbole that critics (especially the kind who get hired for morning network shows) spew whenever some gibbering idiot turns out to have enough talent to make a character at least palatable. Think, for example, of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show or Ben Affleck in...well, no, not Ben Affleck. I sort of assumed this was the same kind of thing: lousy actor does mediocre job and everyone loves him for it.

But no. Not by far. The subleties of his movement, the slight mannerisms which seemed almost truly unconscious, the complex layers of self-loathing and masochism projected onto the outside world without recourse to some simple or, as is usually the case, hackneyed, explanation. Heath Ledger gave what is, in my opinion, one of the best performances I have seen in years. I have rarely seen someone so naturally inhabit an identity. Marlon Brando always had that talent, but his self-absorption got in the way (think of his Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now). Ledger gave himself away entirely to the Joker and the force of his hatred, his anger, eclipsed everyone and everything in the film. There were no 'safe' moments, because this character was always there, lurking, unpredictable and yet utterly believable--high praise for a character who wears a freakin' purple suit and makeup. I'm actually struggling to recall the last time a single performance (in someone other than the main character) has so completely made a film not merely decent but great. I can't think of anything in recent memory.

I can, nay, I will sum up the film's intensity, its 'thrill-factor', if you will (and you must), thus: my wife experienced Braxton-Hicks Contractions throughout the last hour of the film.

That's right, it was so thrilling, so stupendous, that her body began demanding that our baby be born there and then. Bam. In the venerable presence of the late Heath Ledger and, to a lesser but certainly important extent, that of Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart.

So, yeah, I think it's safe to say that all three of us rather enjoyed the film. I think we also took it as a warning that perhaps we need to reconsider the sort of films we go see in theatres between now and October. Or, as is more likely, between now and sometime in 2009. But that's alright. This was a good note to end on, if indeed last night was to mark some ominous caesura in our cinematic adventures, since I haven't enjoyed a thriller this much since the first time I saw The Fugitive in theaters.

2008-07-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

It's been months. I had almost given this up for dead, as I have with every previous attempt and consigned it to the rubbish-heap of history, along with my baseball mitt, my guitar, and my novel in five volumes entitled Gillian Thistlebutton's Big Day: Or, The Eclectic Affairs of a Country Village.

But no. I have chosen instead to resurrect it. Inspired, if that is the appropriate word, by the realization that the reason I stopped posting was, in fact, my own sense of guilt at not posting enough remarks of a serious nature. You know the kind--the kind no one in their right minds actually wants to read but which, out of a not-dissimilar sense of guilt (or, perhaps, shame), people keep writing. There are various practical reasons for writing that sort of blog, I suppose: networking, advertising and getting feedback on one's scholarly work, pretending for five minutes a day that a readership of one hundred people (and fifty thousand bots) constitutes fame.

I will probably start a blog of that sort in the near future for precisely those reasons, where I can post all kinds of pompous and asinine remarks about things of such parochial interest that Yeshiva students shy away. It will, therefore, be basically identical to this blog.

I will probably also have to start washing away my shame until I bleed.

By way of digression, I do want to say that this is not to denigrate all serious blogs. Some are quite interesting. In fact, many of my friends and colleages maintain very interesting ones. There are several, in fact, here at Durham and one at Cambridge (although he somehow maintains, like, seventeen and they are in Swedish, so I have to take his word on their interest). Granted, they tend to talk about things with vigor and wit and, of course, cuss a lot less. I just suspect that my blog will fall in a somewhat different category. One perhaps a bit lower down the hierarchy of blogs--as defined by the Supreme Potentate of Blogging and Generalissimo-for-Life, Al Gore.

Of course, my initial self-realization was, in itself, meaningless--nothing more than another in a long series of such reflections which invariably end up in the downstairs closet with Gillian Thistlebutton. And rightly so. They're unproductive. Post facto realizations do not solve anything. They simply explain why something went wrong long after the opportunity to repair or restart has passed. The fact that so many of my self-realizations are of this sort undoubtedly speaks volumes about me (5, to be precise) but I'll worry about that later.

But, in this case, the realization was not entirely post facto. For one thing, we don't have a downstairs closet, so there's no longer any place to hide. Also, it was, in fact, inter facta, which is Latin for 'between faxes.' (No, not really. Or is it? YOU be the judge!) Basically, thanks to the almost limitless redemptive and purificatory possibilities of the internet, I can always begin again or, as in this case, sort of pick up a sentence in mid-clause. I don't even need to apologize for being such a punk. Because I have total anonymity. (Can you hear the maniacal laughter? I can, like burbling mountain brooks, but, you know, in my head)

I can, rather than going silently back to my former ways, as a pig returns to her filth, instead return to my blog, as a pig returns to her...blog, I guess. Admittedly, the simile kind of breaks down but you assuredly get the idea. If not, just pretend. Please? Just nod your head. Like so.

Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.

So I'm back. With all the flav-o(u)r/-a that you have come to expect from a man whose posting topics revolve perennially around monkeys, kung fu, and motorcycle gangs composed entirely of whizened theologians. Or, at least, those are the topics he claims to post about. I don't think I've ever posted about monkeys or kung fu except in a hypothetical sense. Although, there is some comfort even in hypothetical monkeys, isn't there? They are much cleaner, for one thing, and their antics never result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable diseases or vicious knife-fights.

Although hypothetical monkeys have been known to result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable blog posts. Maybe I should rename this journal 'The Hot Zone.' You know, since my blog is viral, like ebola or some other hemorrhagic fever--because, in the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, 'my styles is like a chemical spill.'

Precisely why he thought that simile would sound complimentary continues to elude me.

Anyway, I'm back. That was, indeed, only the introduction.

Nah, just kidding. That was actually the whole thing.

N.B.: I have never started a novel. If I had, though, it would most definitely be about Gillian Thistlebutton and her country affairs. Or robot dogs in prehistoric New York. One of the two.

Welcome Back, Kotter

2008-04-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was watching an episode of Scrubs last night (via totally legal means) and was intrigued by a main character's choice of title for his blog post: 'Why Being Totally Lonely Can Sometimes Be Super-Awesome.' First I laughed heartily at his pain. Then I realized that I haven't posted anything in well over a month and that the last post was, ahem, regrettable.

Not so regrettable that I am deleting it, but still...regrettable.

Particularly that part about 'Spring' being upon us. That was a lie. A filthy, cruel, self-destructive lie. It has since put me into a 'shame spiral' of weekend snow storms, hail, freezing rain and dipping temperatures.

Spring is not only not upon us, but Winter has, it would seem, pretty emphatically mounted and mastered us. The image is graphic and vile, but, I think, also just barely adequate to describe my feelings on the weather this year.

On the other hand, this has made some sense for me of just why the English constantly discuss the weather. It's because it is far more interesting here than in other places. Take Seattle--it rains until July, then is sunny until September, and then the rain returns. Yes, yes, I know, you say that this year has seen snow and other whatnot but, since I'm not there to witness this bizarre phenomenon, I don't believe a word of it until I can put my feet in the snowdrifts and touch the falling flakes with my hands. To put it more concisely: all Seattlites are liars and should be ashamed of themselves. Or again, take Santa Fe--it's sunny. In the summer we expect some thunder showers and in the winter some snow. But generally it's sunny. Boring. Where's the pizazz? Where's the gusto?

That's where England comes in. Last Saturday it varied between warm and sunny, cold and rainy, snowing without sticking, snowing and sticking, hail, ice shards (which are, I can now assure you with confidence far more painful than hail--especially when being driven into your face by fierce winds while you decide in which direction you should leave the exposed hill atop which you've been eating pears), and sun. Again. Flowers are blooming and they look just lovely under the snow/ice/hail/rain/sun. That was one day. I won't even get into Easter weekend, which was like an extended version of the same.

Tatiana says that's what happens when people celebrate Easter in the middle of Lent. And, dagnabit, she's right. You people have got to start reckoning Ortho style or you're just going to bring more of God's weather-wrath on all of us and, frankly, I'm not suffering for your miscalculations. I'm staying in by the fire and fasting--the way God intended it.

But, long story slightly shorter: the weather here is interesting. It's actually worth a brief conversation and is swiftly replacing baseball, politics, and television as my 'go to' awkward-conversation-starter-topic.

It is, of course, a fitting irony that England truly shines in making the weather of all things an interesting topic. Boring food, boring sports (cricket? give me a break), boring personality, but...exciting weather.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Readers, Ye Be Warned: Morbidly Philosophical...

2008-02-27T03:48:00.000-08:00

Spring is upon us. At least it is here in merry old England. I do not know if the same can be said for the frozen and desolate wastes of Scandinavia or Texas. But as for me and my house, we are enjoying looking at daffodils and crocuses, at the snowdrops and the occasional flower that kind of looks like a crocus, but also a bit like a tulip, but it's not a tulip because those won't come up for at least another month.

You know the ones.

Spring is a most excellent season, particularly in England. Winter's grey is given way to hues of blue and green. Yes, you can quote me on that. Of course, it's still windy, still rainy, and still soggy, but the days are rapidly elongating with a reckless abandon not normally seen in a place like England. I don't honestly know how the locals cope, but I'm loving it.

And, of course, in springtime, a young man's fancy turns to love. In my case, since I already love my wife, my fancies go wandering among the various authors I've been reading of late. And, I should add, lest you think I am less than faithful, this sort of fancy is not one my wife would want or particularly thank me for. She is, I think, much happier that I expend it on (often dead) theologians and philosophers.

Right now I'm expending it on Karl Barth. For what follows it is not only unimportant that you have read Barth, it is probably unhelpful because then you'll just tell me how I'm wrong (which I probably am) and that that's not what Barth said.

You've got some nerve, fella. Let's put it this way: Barth inspired me.

First Principles (?): Karl Barth and Epistemology

Barth's theology is 'dialectic' working within the constant tension of statements about God of 'yes' and simultaneously 'no.' What we affirm of God we immediately deny, and somewhere between these we find God. How? We do so by God's revelation to us, which is primarily given in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation. This is the point at which God who is totally other to the world (no') reaches out to the world in his self-giving ('yes'). The Incarnation is the intersection point of 'yes' and 'no.'

Of course, this revelation is not an immediate one for most of us. Barth outlines the mediators between us and God as the Bible and, especially the way in which divine revelation (inspiration, the Word) is mediated by the human freedom and personality of the individual authors ('the words'). Likewise, when we approach the Bible we do not do so to gain a system of ethics or of philosophy, but to encounter the risen Christ. This we do also through the second mediator which is the Church. Although Barth's ecclesiology could not be called Orthodox, he does, at least, seem to have one. (Indeed, Georges Florovsky could have had much in common with Barth in the ways he chose to present his Rule of Faith!)

But, and here is where I will begin to part ways with the Karl Barth of history, taking his shade along with me as a guide into the mirky abyss of epistemology.

(Like the Divine Comedy reference? Like oil on the beard of Aaron...)

Definition: Tangent: a line which touches a circle at only one point

So. We have this picture of theology, or at least of its epistemological capacity, which could be described visually as a line beginning from a center-point and extended infinitely in both directions. At the center-point, this line is tangent to a circle. Remembering that it is possible to find a tangent for any point on the circumference of a circle, I'll explain what the picture means.

In one direction, the line approaches a negation, a 'no'. In the other direction, it approaches an affirmation, a 'yes.' Both 'yes' and 'no' are assertions we can make about God and are, therefore, positive. Yet it is equally clear that we cannot assert their synthesis or their resolution, and so the line itself represents the 'dialectic' of 'yes' and 'no', which is not itself assertable. We cannot simultaneously assert 'yes' and 'no' except in a hypothetical fashion.

Consequently, this line marks out kataphatic theology (in the two ends, each of which is assertable) and apophatic theology (in the line itself, unassertable). Apophatic and kataphatic are, under this representation, irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. One may wonder if this is not the nature of all dialectic.

Anything we can say about God we find immediately leads us into tension. To affirm of God that he is love is, immediately to affirm that he is not love. Both positive and negative statements are, as it were, affirmative. God is not-love. Something else may be substituted for love--mercy, justice, holiness, etc. None of these are equivalent to 'hate' although some biblical passages imply the presence of 'hatred' in God. The point, however, is that there is a long list of possible alternatives to 'God is love' which can be substituted, each carrying an equally positive affirmation of God which simultaneously denies that 'God is love.'

In Christ we find, as the hymns say, that 'justice and mercy have kissed.' This line is from the hymns of the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, and it perfectly illustrates the reality of Christ as holding together (in a kiss, in communion, in one flesh) the various 'yes' and 'no's of God's nature.

Thus, Barth calls the center-point (the point of tangent) Christ and I am inclined to agree. Christ (the incarnate, theandric Christ) holds together in one person (hypostasis) two natures (dua phuseis). These natures, like the 'yes' and 'no' of dialectic are irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. In a sense, I think, this is what the Chalcedonian definition with its subsequent affirmations and qualifications in the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils (upholding to two wills and the two 'energies' against monothelitism and monenergism), was saying. Christ's person subsists not 'from' but 'in' two natures--the two natures do not coalesce into a synthetic 'third.' Rather they maintain their own integrity while being totally united. There is a simultaneous affirmation and denial which may be made of each nature in reference to the other--to say 'yes' to the human is, logically, to say 'no' to the divine. Yet in the person of Christ each of these receives its own 'yes' and the result is not antinomy but person--the unknowable that can be touched, the kiss of 'yes' and 'no'.

First Tangent: Apophaticism

But any statement we may make about God leads us into dialectically apophatic contradictions. And every one of these can find its center-point in Christ. Why? Because Christ is God and Christ is human--everything Divine is present, just as everything human. Consequently, anything we say about the Divine we say about Christ. Yet, in some sense, each of these statements is mediated through Christ's humanity. Consequently, the Divine is made tangible in a way commensurate with human thinking--dialectically tense statements about the Divine can be held together apophatically and related to the world we experience.

I must emphasize that this is not a Palamite 'essence v. energies' distinction. That distinction has little, if anything, to do with the Incarnation, whereas this theogical-epistemological model absolutely relies on it.

Critically, it is also true that the model of apophatic theology I have given is not simply a via negativa--a way of negations. The way of negations is, at its hear, still a way to something. Such a way proceeds by denials, but each denial can be made a positive statement (as above)--'God is not x' becomes 'God is not-x' and we still try to pin down God as the 'wholly other' the 'hyperousion.' In doing so, we have actually delimited God's nature as not being 'wholly same' or 'in the world.' Yet the Incarnation makes clear that these must be held together if we are to ever appreciate both the infinite incomprensibility of God and the infinite tangibility of Jesus.

Apophaticism, it seems, lies deeper. Apophatic theology maintains both via positiva and via negativa as affirmations. However, by holding to a strictly incarnational model, these affirmations are simultaneously held together at a center-point which does not attempt to resolve them. Therein lies something of what apophaticism truly means: a comfort with paradox, but not with paradox for its own sake--paradox for us. More of this later.

Definition: Epistemic Lens

To return to the circle. Actually, as yet, there is no circle. There is only a line and its center-point. But, each statement about God finds its center in Christ. Each point thus defined takes its place on a circle whose size begins to emerge, the more we say about God. Thus, the picture we end up with is one of a circle with an infinite array of lines, each one tangential, stretching out infinitely into the space in which the circle exists (this space I shall define below).

The easiest way, of course, to define a circle, is to take one point as the center (a), and one point some distance from that (b) and say that a circle is the set of all points equidistant with (b) from (a). The shape which emerges is a regular plane curve.

What I have outlined is, in a sense, the reverse. We've begun with some point and, rather than calling it the center, we call it a point on the circumference. We then find other other points and, as these emerge, we look for the circle which can fit them. (I assume it is a circle and not, say, an ellipse--an ellipse feels almost tritheistic to me, although one may say that a circle implies radical monotheism. Perhaps in 3-D space one can combine the two. How glorious would that be?) But the upshot of this reversal is that the circle (or whatever) is fuzzy. It is not the product of definition, but of experience, and its boundaries are not well-marked.

Such a process recalls the development of Orthodox theology--things are fuzzy until someone oversteps the bounds and then definitions clamp down and points on the circle emerge.

Because we do not define the circle from its center, we have allowed a sort of empty space within, a realm of possibilities. All we have given are certain boundary markers. One may say that whatever lies within the circle is 'in Christ' and whatever lies outside is, like those outside the sanctuary, 'without.'

What then? To return briefly to Barth. He suggests that we should relate to everyone by seeing Christ in them and by seeing them in Christ. At the same time, we offer advice, counsel--and receive it. We become like Christ and we allow others to become like Christ. But we do so in terms of how we see. We walk around with 'Christ-glasses', if you'll pardon the image. The way in which we do so, I think, lies within the geometric analogy I have laid out.

The circle whose boundaries are fixed by Christ leaves an empty space within. This space we may call the Constrained Constructible--that is, the realm of possible ways of seeing and speaking the world which are themselves defined by Christ. It is an epistemic lens, the filter through which we take in the raw, meaningless data of the world and construct meaning out of it. If we do so only in terms of what we can say of God through Christ, then we constrain the possible constructions to fit those primary and, indeed, primal bounds. Christ comes to function epistemologically as a way of excluding possible meanings and implying others. Thus, we see Christ in all things and in all people. Likewise we become increasingly capable of seeing ourselves within Christ.

Second Tangent: Meaning and Construction

What of the space outside the circle? This we may term The Constructible. That is, this space (infinite, it would seem) represents the totality of possible meanings which we can create out of the totality of data available from the world.

I do not call any of this the Knowable. Why? We are not dealing with knowledge as such. Rather, we are dealing with the ways in which we approach knowledge. At the most basic level, every approach resolves into a 'yes' or a 'no', but likewise every approach also takes on board other ideas, other constructions, maxims, first principles, etc. Like Euclid, each approach to knowledge begins somewhere and builds upward. Like Euclid, each such approach verges on 'system' and every system is limited. Consequently every approach is limited. This means that other approaches (Lobachevsky, Minkowski, Pascal) are equally possible, equally valid in the realm of construction. We limit ourselves each time we choose between them. Yet the other possibilites continue to exist, not merely in the abstract but because someone chooses them.

The circle defines a group of possible constructions (themselves infinite as the points within a circle), but delimits others. Even as it does so, it cannot help but imply others: a circle in space defines not only its interior but its exterior. In all parts of the surrounding space we find an array of lines radiating from the circle. In each direction, these lines point to certain possible affirmations--certain meanings which can be ascribed to the world and its content. Each of these statements are limited precisely because they hold 'no' or 'yes' and not, as Christ does, both.

The interplay of metaphysics and epistemology becomes clear at this point. The world is created by God. Therefore, the whole world and all its infinite possibilities relate back to God. Therefore we may say that any possible construction of meaning on the world is the same as a possible statement about God. However, most statements are limited in one direction or another and cannot affirm the dialectically tensed unity of Christ. Only statements about Christ which properly maintain both sides actually do describe God.

Preliminary Conclusion: Apophaticism Revisited

Consequently, the circle is an apophatic one. It is such not by being negative but by holding both positive and negative together. It is apophatic likewise because it is fuzzy--it boundaries are not clear until pushed and, even then, admit both interior and exterior. For every positive statement we make about God we must immediately qualify it negatively and then allow both to rest without resolution or synthesis.

Renee Magritte's painting Le Condition Humain

criticizes something very similar to what I've described. Here it shows us as limiting the world and, in fact, missing out on so much of it, precisely because of the boundaries and filters we use to interpret it. The WSOGMM, as Douglas Adams called it, is vaster than any approach, any system, any statements. The circle as I have described it, however, does not suffer from the problem of limitation. It freely admits not only the possibility but the actuality of surplus, infinitely more than what we deal with.

But it says to the space beyond: I cannot stray. That is, to step into 'yes' and leave behind 'no' is to misrepresent God and, in so doing, to misrepresent the world, and thus to appropriate it and relate to it in a skewed way. We end up in Aquinas' 'love distorted' as Dante lays out Purgatory: every good thing distorted into sin. The circle delimits sin epistemologically and relates that to praxis. We cannot do what we will not see. Yet exterior and interior are not so separate: 'yes' and 'no' collide at every point on the surface. The circle is, as it were, a vast zero-point, a center which can hold.

Maybe. We'll see. This is, after all, getting far too long for a blog post.

2008-02-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

It's been, like, a month since I last posted. Can you believe that? I can't. And neither can you, I can tell. It has been a hellishly busy month but I think that I can now revert to my former ways. In some circles this sort of reversion would be called 'falling off the wagon' or 'recidivism.' I like to think of it as 'I ain't no quittah.'

Please note that my ghetto-tastic spelling of 'quittah' necessitate the otherwise intolerable double-negative. I think it also entitles me to three split infinitives and a drink of my choice from the bar between 5 and 7 pm.

I'm gettin' a cosmo.

I've been spending the last two or three weeks (I am, quite honestly, uncertain which it is) writing up the entirety of my research thus far. I keep thinking of a few minor points which I have neglected, but at this point, thank God, I have emailed the 'papers' to my supervisor. 23,000 words. 23,000 beautiful words. Words like 'the' and 'martyriological.' It's like drowning in champagne.

Well, extremely cheap sparkling wine, at least. I'm thinking Cook's. Delicious.

I think I've made some good points but more generally I'm glad to be done with that phase of my research. I cannot tell you how sick I am of funeral services. Well, I can try: so sick, in fact, that drowning in Cook's sparkling white wine actually sounds like an improvement. But, I'm done with it and can move from that overly morbid subject to something lighter, more appropriate for spring.

Martyrs.

Oooh yeah.

Now, are you as excited as I am? I thought so. I mean, who can resist such a bouyant, piquant topic. The theological equivalent to huevos rancheros with extra green chiles. Poblanos. You know of what I speak. You know this to be true.

Actually, I think that martyrdom should be a fascinating topos to look at. The martyr's death is often conceived as an imitation of Christ's death as far as we are able. Interestingly, however, in Byzantine hymnography, martyrs' deaths are never referred to in the same terms as Christ's death. There is an exciting tension between imitation and participation that arises from this situation.

It is likewise the martyr who provides the example which urges the ascetic onward. The ascetic tradition consciously sees itself as the inheritor or the martyriological tradition. If I cannot die for Christ, I will die to myself and live for Christ. Life is turned into a sort of dying, and dying is understood as the only true way of living.

The hope of the martyr is precisely the same as that of the ascetic: a greater reward hereafter than could possibly be attained in this life. One chooses death over life, because this life is indelibly stained by sin and corruption. Death to that provides the only means of orienting oneself toward the life beyond death, untainted by the Fall.

There is something not merely interesting about the ascetic and the martyr. He is a provocative figure, deliberately and often self-consciously defying everything intuitive about this life. He chooses to die, but never to seek death. He is hardly suicidal. To be suicidal requires, paradoxically, a profound attachment to the things and relationships of this life. It is because those have failed that one becomes despondent, wishing to die not to leave the things of this world but in despair of attaining them. The ascetic is precisely the opposite. Antony the Great who lived 107 years detaching himself from the things of this life only to gain them back transfigured.

There is something of the Knight of Faith in the ascetic, something deliberately absurd. The ascetic is Socrates transfigured by faith, Cato if he could have seen the good of this world and still died. The ascetic is a martyr, and the martyr is the Christian ideal.

So, I think this will be somewhat more exciting than the Byzantine funerary services.

2008-01-09T01:29:00.001-08:00

I am behind in my posting duties. I am, coincidentally, also behind in almost every other duty I know of. Are these linked? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that by concentrating on my blogging duties I can effecitvely ignore my other, admittedly less pleasant, duties. I had originally intended a serious, heartfelt post in which I bared my soul and told the most appalling secrets. I've since abandoned that idea in an effort to cut down on my Louisa May Alcott references and also because I don't actually care for baring my soul to the swirling cybernetic void of Kaos and eldritch Night.

Please note, by the way, that I spelt Kaos with a K, like the director of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Fun fact: I just checked and the writer of that particular cinematic gem has a number of other fine films under his belt, ranging from Wrong Turn to Left Behind: the Movie. He is apparently working on the movie-version of Tekken. Why has one man, Alan B. McElroy been graced with so much talent? I don't know, but I am envious.

I'm currently getting ready to renew my student visa, go to Seattle, finish dealing with funerary rites, and, perhaps, find the real meaning of Christmas. All of these tasks have created numerous subtasks through which I must slog, like commandos through a Florida swamp at night. Under heavy enemy fire. And the enemies are all FSU fratboys. I'm not exaggerating.

Well, okay, maybe a little. But it still sucks.

However, the thought of Seattle with its concomitant waterfront, coffee shops, Gorditos, Taco Bell, Todai, Red Robin, Alderwood Mall, glorious fast-food capitalism at its most caffeinated--has me salivating like a rabid dog. I'm also afraid of water, which I am told is a bad sign. Either way, I am definitely excited to see some old friends, and, especially, to help a very dear friend get married. And to, you know, get his drink on.

I apologize now for the fragmentary nature of this post. It has been three days since I started it, and my mood has changed dramatically. Also, my vocabulary, which brings me to the point of this post. I've made up at least six more vaguely theological-sounding words since I began. Words like liturgiomartyrdom and metasushi. I admit up front that 'metasushi' doesn't sound particularly theological.

But it is. I shall define metasushi as:

Metasushi (me-tuh-SOO-shee) n. 1. a. That which comes before sushi; b. That which lies around sushi; c. That which comes after sushi. 2. Theological: refers to lengthy insertions at the end of some services, especially if those services fall on inconveniently placed fasting days, such that the feast becomes a fasting (fish, wine, oil) feast.

Thus, metasushi can refer respectively to a ravenous hunger for raw fish, to modern yet classic atmosphere and subdued conversation, or to green tea ice cream. When used theologically, metasushi can refer to the blessing of water on Theophany or August 1, or the Lamentations on Dormition, or pretty much anything that comes between the Prayer Behind the Ambo(n) and my lunch.

Now, I know you're excited. I mean, hey, who wouldn't be? I've just given you a new word. A new sign by which to communicate meaning, a new way of relating to the world, and especially to its recently demised aquatic population. However, I advise some caution in using this new word. Many people are not as well-informed as you are, since many people do not yet read this blog. They may be resistant to your newfound erudition, obstructing your grammatical liturgiomartyrdom by saying things like 'That's not a word' or 'That's not appropriate' or 'Who are you and what are you doing here?'

If they say these sort of things to you, you may wish to belittle them or to mock their verbal illiteracy. Resist that urge. We all know that a little honey catches more flies than insults do. Or something to that effect (I found it in a copy of G.W. Bush's old edition of Bartlett's). So, be nice, and bear with your weaker brothers and sisters who do not share your Spartan-like conversational prowess.

So, I know this has been a far cry from a deeply personal admission of thoughts and feelings. But it's been a good ride, with a few laughs, a few tears, and a little verbal abuse. What more could you ask for?

A Non-Theological Christmas Oration, in the Style of the Reverend James

2007-12-25T04:34:00.000-08:00

Well, hello everyone! Christ is born, glorify him, yes yes, what what. I'm wishing you a merry Christmas, joyful Nativity, Craciun fericit, Nadolig Llawen, Kala Christogenna (sp?) from rural Wales. Here it has been a gray Christmas which, although similar to a white one, differs in one very important respect. It is much wetter and less festive.

Okay, two respects. The Monty Python fans will no doubt amuse themselves comparing my comments to the infamous 'Spanish Inquisition' sketch, while the better-adjusted, more sociable among you will undoubtedly revile them (and me with them) for the fact that we even know about such things.

Are you finished casting your contemptuous glances, muttering your disgust over the rims of your martini glasses? No? That's fine, I can wait.

Good.

Because Christmas is a time for love, joy, festivity. Where we were it also a time for meat, cheese, wine, mimosas, rum, whiskey, ale, mead, cocktails, beer, lager, stout, bitter, the Reverend James, personal abuse, and, of course, ham.

The Reverend James, by the way, is an ale. A tasty Welsh ale, brewed in the little town of Caergwyddorgwentforwywythdd. That's not a real town name, but it does bear an eerie resemblance to actual place-names in this vicinity. I like Wales, though. The people are friendly with an amusing accent, the towns are colorful--houses and shops painted in pastel and jewel tones--none of that Scottish puritanical 'let's paint it gray' attitude here. The town we're in has an excellent pub where we can procure the services of the good Reverend James; the local Orthodox community has a makeshift iconastis in the vestry of a Methodist curch; and the house we're in has a fresh supply of children--free-range, organic, children. They are pretty nifty, although their energy levels consistently outlast my own.

But when I drop to dangerous lows, I go join our host on his XBox 360 for Gears of War and other such mayhem. My attitude is: Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out--at least so far as it touches on mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types. And Communists. In the virtual world. In real life I am very kind to mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types.

I cannot, however, extend such generosity to Communists.

I expect that I will, in the end, find myself greatly indebted to Gears of War for my own doctoral research. I am increasingly of the opinion that my opening should consist of a sort of catena of quotes from the game: 'We should honor the fallen.' and, of course, 'Nothin' but bits.' This speaks profoundly to me of the significance of 'memory eternal' and the apocalyptic visions of universal judgment which we have inherited from the Byzantines.

A New-born Child, God Before the Ages

2007-12-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

What follows is a presentation on Christmas. You may enjoy. If not, I recommend going elsewhere.

Slow down (more than you ever thought you would need to)

‘Today the Virgin gives birth to him who is above all being,
and the earth offers a cave to him whom no one can approach.
Angels with shepherds give glory,
and magi journey with a star,
for to us there has been born
a little Child, God before the ages’

So begins the great poetic sermon on Christmas by St. Romanos the Melodist, a 6th Century poet in Constantinople. These lines are still sung each year both in the weeks leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day. The mystery to which Romanos has called our attention remains the central concern of Christmas—‘a little child, God before the ages.’ Today, I want to look at the early history of Christmas celebrations and at the current celebration in Eastern Orthodox Churches (such as the Greek, Russian, or Romanian Orthodox Churches). I’ll then try and draw out a little of the theology of Christmas present in these celebrations. I shall attempt to show that the mystery of the incarnation, of God taking on humanity in order to raise up humanity, is the thread which runs through the whole celebration of Christmas in the Orthodox tradition and gives to Christmas its unique significance.

History

In the early Church (that is, the Church of the 1st Century and the years following) there is no evidence of any celebration of the birth of Jesus, the feast now called Christmas. To find the beginning of the Christian celebration of Christmas, then, we must look to a quasi-Christian fringe-group of the 2nd Century called the Basilidians. Some of this group, following their interpretation of relevant passages in the gospels, believed that the moment Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan was the moment he became divine. Consequently, the Basilidians held a celebration to commemorate Jesus’ baptism, a celebration called Epiphany, which means a manifestation—because it was this moment that God revealed himself.

Mainstream Christians, however, would not countenance the Basilidians’ belief. They affirmed rather that Jesus’ humanity and divinity were inseparably connected from his birth, indeed from his conception, onward. By 300, if not earlier, mainstream Christians were celebrating the baptism of Jesus, but they made a point of celebrating his birth at the same time—the Epiphany, the revelation of God, began at the birth of Jesus. This feast was celebrated on January 6th.

As time progressed, the celebration of Epiphany spread throughout the various Christian lands of the Roman empire. As it spread, it did not maintain uniformity. Various areas variously commemorated Jesus’ birth, baptism, the wedding at Cana (where, according to the Gospel of John, he performed his first miracle), and the time he fed five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. That is, Christians used the opportunity to commemorate various ways in which Jesus manifested his divinity. Thus, from the beginning, the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus was, in fact, a celebration of the revelation of God.

Only in the mid-4th Century do we find the first record of a separate feast uniquely dedicated to the birth of Jesus. This is at Rome in 336. By 354 in Rome the date had been fixed as December 25th, rather than January 6th, on which Jesus’ baptism was still celebrated. This date was likely chosen because on that day a pagan Roman celebration was held, dedicated to Sol invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The Romans celebrated the Sun on that day because it fell just after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. From the winter solstice the days begin to lengthen again, and so the Romans honored the Sun who was never fully conquered by night. The Christians took over this day not simply to direct people’s attention away from pagan customs but because it made sense to celebrate Jesus on such a day. John’s Gospel says of him ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’ Add to this that Jesus is often called the ‘Sun of Righteousness’ and his birth the ‘Sunrise from on high’, and it is logical to remember his birth on a day already dedicated to the Sun. The image remains the same but it is oriented now toward Jesus, and, in fact, sun and light imagery becomes highly prominent in contemporary Orthodox Christmas celebrations.

The standardization of Christmas took some time. By 379, Christmas was fixed on December 25th in Constantinople and by 385 in Antioch. It was not until sometime after 430 that Christmas was fixed in Egypt, and not until the mid-6th Century in Jerusalem and Palestine. In the West, notably on Roman Catholic and Anglican calendars, the feast of Epiphany came to be celebrated on January 14th rather than the 6th, and commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men, the Magi, who followed the star which they interpreted to portend a new king, found where Jesus lay, worshipped and offered gifts to the infant. In Eastern Orthodox Churches, however, the Magi are still commemorated as part of the Christmas celebration. For these Churches January 6th still marks the feast of Jesus’ baptism, which they call Theophany, the manifestation of God.

Current Celebration

In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Christmas is not isolated among the celebrations of the Church Year. The liturgical year begins, significantly, not with Christmas but with a feast commemorating the birth of Mary the mother of Jesus, which may almost be understood as the first in the chain of events of Jesus’ life. Christmas itself is scheduled to fall nine months exactly after the Feast of Annunciation on March 25th, which recalls the angel telling Mary that she would give birth as a virgin to one who would be called ‘the Son of God.’ In Orthodox theology the moment Mary said ‘yes’ to the angel is celebrated as the moment of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit. Christmas also falls forty days before the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on February 2nd, which, according to Luke’s gospel, occurred forty days after his birth. In a sense, the liturgical year attempts not merely to recall the events of Jesus’ life, but to order the lives of the faithful around them—drawing the faithful into Jesus’ life. Yet the liturgical year is a repetition of events and a linear progression of events is curved back on itself into a cycle of feasts, so that the Orthodox are constantly living and reliving these events. Christmas stands, not at the beginning, but at the very center of this cycle.

Christmas itself is one of the most joyful, light-filled, most anticipated feasts of the year. The Orthodox prepare for Christmas with a forty-day fast, during which people abstain from meat, dairy, hard liquor, and oil, in preparation for Jesus’ coming. People do not give these things up for particularly penitential reasons, but because by simplifying their lives and coming more to the church services which anticipate Christmas, they focus their expectation—when Christmas comes and the fast gives way to feast, the excitement is that much greater.

Because the period of fasting is primarily anticipatory, during the forty days one can already hear hymns of Christmas in the church services. The hymns call for all things to make ready for the great event coming:

‘Make ready, O Bethlehem, for Eden is opened.
Prepare, O Ephratha, for Adam and Eve are renewed.
Salvation enters the world and the curse is destroyed.
Make ready, O hearts of righteous people…
receive salvation and immortality for your bodies and souls.'

All creation joins in this preparation. Earth and stars, humans, animals, and angels all stand in hushed silence awaiting the child’s birth. Another hymn says,

‘What shall we offer you, O Christ,
Who for our sakes appeared on the earth as a man?
Every creature you have made offers thanks to you:
The angels offer you a song;
The heavens, their star;
The wise men, their gifts;
The shepherds, their wonder;
The earth, its cave;
The wilderness, the manger;
And we offer you a virgin mother.’

Christmas heralds Jesus’ coming not only for humans, but for all the world, because the salvation of humans is, like their sin, implicative of the state of entire world. Paul says in Romans, ‘For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.’ The revelation which Paul says creation expects is, for Orthodox theology, the necessary consequence of the revelation it has received in the incarnation of Jesus.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas the Orthodox remember the ‘Forefathers’, in this case referring to all the righteous people mentioned in the Old Testament, including and especially Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Patriarchs of Israel. On the Sunday immediately preceding Christmas Day is recalled the genealogy of Jesus as it is given in Matthew’s Gospel, running from Abraham to Jesus. As the Church awaits Jesus’ coming, it calls to mind all those who died awaiting him. The hymns remind believers that Jesus’ birth is the central expectation and hope of all generations who have longed for release from sin and death. With them and with all creation the Orthodox now await the joyful proclamation of Christmas Day: ‘Christ is born! Glorify him! Christ has come from Heaven, receive him! Christ is on earth, be lifted up!’

December 25th begins the feast of Christmas, which is actually celebrated for seven days after which the Orthodox celebrate the Circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day, and then prepare to celebrate Theophany.

Why is Christmas so important? Why is it preceded by a fast? Why the anticipation, the excitement, the exuberant hymnody? The answer, I suppose, is that the whole of Christian theology is implicitly present in the birth of Jesus. His birth inaugurates the incarnation of God, arguably the central point of all Orthodox Christian belief, by which it interprets all history to that point and defines everything which comes after. The exultant refrain at the vigil of Christmas runs simply: ‘God is with us!’ This line, repeated over and again, strives to constantly remind us of the vast mystery of God becoming human for the sake of his creation.
It is perhaps for this reason that the central hymn of Christmas, repeated many times during the services, runs thus:

‘Your nativity, O Christ our God, has enlightened the world with the light of wisdom. For by it those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore you, the sun of righteousness, and to know you, the sunrise from on high. O Christ our God, glory to you!’

The Christmas feast dwells on illumination—illumination of the God of worship, of the world in relationship to him. It is brightly lit with candles, and colors of red and gold. It is bright because Jesus’ birth revealed God to the world and so:

‘The mist of the prophets' promise is dispersed.
Joy clears the skies;
Truth is resplendent;
The dark shadows are dispelled…
Our Creator and God wills to fashion us anew.’

The Epistle to the Hebrews says that ‘In the past, God spoke to our forefathers at many times and in various ways through the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things.’ While God’s previous revelations to the world are important and continuous with the incarnation, they all look to the fullness of his self-revelation in Jesus, who is God incarnate. Christmas is the sunrise of wisdom—not an intellectual apprehension of a propositional statement, but an entirely new way of seeing the world. Yet his birth is more than the revelation of right worship—although it is that. Rather, as the hymns says, it inaugurates the ‘re-fashioning of the world,’ orienting all things toward renewal. Another hymn of Christmas, recalling its anticipation by all things, says, ‘The cave is Heaven, and the virgin is the throne of the Cherubim, in the confines of the manger is laid the infinite—Christ our God.’ The mystery of Jesus’ birth, of God’s incarnation, flows out through all creation, renewing it and revealing it as partaker of his incarnation.

Christmas’s primary revelation is, for Orthodox, that of God and man, divine and human natures, together in one person. The implications of this statement, its various interpretational possibilities, defined the great debates of the Church for seven hundred years. The person of Christ is absolutely central to Christian theology. Why? Because whatever one says about who and what he is defines what we mean by salvation. The hymns I quoted earlier demonstrate this when they connect the coming of God in the flesh to the renewal of the world, the lifting of the curse, and the salvation of humankind.

To explain this a bit, each feast of the Church refers back to Christmas, because Christmas inaugurates the work of Jesus. But each feast also looks forward to Easter because it is only in the celebration of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, that his work of renewing the world, of effecting salvation, is understood. It is the crown of the Church year, celebrated with almost indescribable festivity and joy.

Easter in the Orthodox tradition is about the defeat of death. Death is, in some ways, the central preoccupation of Orthodox theology because the universal condition of mortality defines the world to which Jesus comes, while his triumph over death extends, in Orthodox theology, to all Christians. If death describes the fallen state of the world, then life describes its saved state. Thus, salvation, the renewal not merely of human nature but of all nature, is entirely concerned with Jesus’ death and resurrection. St. John Chrysostom describes death’s defeat by Jesus as follows: ‘[Hell] took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.’ It is precisely because Jesus is human that he is able to take on the entirety of human life in all its vicissitudes, even to the point of death. It is, however, only as God that he is able to sanctify that life and to overcome death. As Easter is predicated on the proclamations of Christmas, so Christmas is only significant in light of Easter—in a paradoxical way, the celebration of Jesus’ birth is also of his death and, if of his death, then also of his victory over death and resurrection.

Orthodox hymnography loves to describe the story of humanity’s fall and redemption in terms of Adam and Eve, the original humans of the Genesis story, who were made immortal, in the image of God, sinless, holy, like God. Adam and Eve are used as symbols of all humans. Adam and Eve, the hymns lament, fell into sin and, thereby, into death, being driven from the garden of Eden where they were meant to dwell. Christmas hymns also say: ‘The gates of Eden are opened; Adam dances in exultation: Our Creator and God wills to fashion us anew.’ Christmas’ revelation speaks directly to the situation of Adam and Eve, by which it speaks to the situation of all humanity. At Easter, Christ fulfills Adam and Eve’s Christmas hopes, coming to them by his death and raising them up by his resurrection. Jesus’ triumph over death extends directly to humanity, freeing all from the tyranny of mortality. The prevalent image of Eden’s re-opening in Christmas and Easter hymns draws together the beginning and the end of the Christian narrative, and symbolizes the fulfillment of salvation. Christmas, then, reveals not only the proper object of worship, but provides the promise of attaining to a truly human life, the original perfection for which humans were created, which promise is fulfilled on Easter.

The feasts of Christmas and Easter each celebrate in their unique ways the two termini of Orthodox Christian theology—Christmas in its promise and Easter in its fulfillment. These points are bound together in the person of Jesus—what he does is inseparable from what and who he is. Christmas is a feast of joy and gladness because on Christmas all the Orthodox remember that God is with us, that God has become a child for humans’ sake, and that God has chosen to renew his world. Christmas is a feast of light because it illuminates all with this mystery. It is a feast of all creation together in praise of God: ‘Rejoice, O earth with the angels and shepherds. Give glory to his name. Alleluia!’
On the Icon

I want to show you an important and unique aspect of Orthodox worship: the icon, or image. In Orthodox services, icons play a prominent role, focusing attention on the feast being celebrated. Icons may depict Jesus or Mary or various saints and holy people. The icon of Nativity depicts Jesus’ birth in the center, surrounded by scenes of the angels singing, the shepherds worshiping, the magi journeying, Joseph being tempted by the devil, the baptism of John the Baptist, and sometimes several other events. By depicting all these events together, the icon meditates on the synchronic element of Christmas which draws various events into a single moment. Everything happens at once, and everything is, as it were, happening now. There is no ‘then’ in icons. Everything is totally present. This is the effect also of the repetition of ‘today’ in the hymns: in celebrating Christmas we are to some degree present in it. Time with the rest of creation is caught up into the mystery of Jesus’ birth.
Another interesting aspect of the icon is its depiction of Jesus. He is shown ‘wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’, as the gospels put it. But his clothes in the icon look exactly like funeral wrapping, grave clothes, in other icons. Likewise, the cave is not depicted as a stable, but as a tomb; the manger not as a feeding trough but as a sarcophagus. The icon explicitly draws the connection between Jesus’ birth and his death. However, by recalling Jesus’ death, it cannot help but recall Jesus’ triumph over death, the destruction of death as shown in the icon of the Resurrection, which depicts Jesus raising Adam and Eve, symbolic of all humanity, while standing on the destroyed gates of Hell, with Death often shown as an old man, bound and shamed beneath Jesus’ feet. The moment of Christmas embraces both spatially separated events surrounding his birth and the entirety of Jesus’ life, his work, and the Christian salvation narrative. This, I suggest, is the moment for which Orthodox Christians are now preparing, and which, come Christmas, they will celebrate joyfully, proclaiming the good news of this little child who is God before the ages.

Is this how I relax?

2007-12-03T06:33:00.000-08:00

I just finished a draft of a paper on funeral prayers. It is right now bouncing around a USB flash drive, emitting a hum I can only describe as 'satisfied.' Now I just have to write about Christmas for Saturday and, if they both turn out well, I can relax a little bit before jumping into the next phase of research.

Of course, given the all-too-familiar rattle of certain of my Christmas presents, research may be more concerned with building gray plastic castles than with translating Greek verses on death. I can't say as I would be too sad about the change, though. I mean, castles!

For the moment, though, I am just glad I've gotten as much done as I have. Or, rather, I have decided to be glad at what I've done. I have consciously decided to take the path of satisfaction as opposed to cruel self-flagellation. Which is not to say that I am in any away against self-flagellation but I don't think it would help right now. Right now, Christmas, a bit of relaxing, and the Volsung Saga, are what I need. Fortunately Christmas is on its way (happy almost-halfway-point of the Nativity Fast!), I just rented a copy of the Volsung Saga and, well...two out of three isn't too bad.

Well, actually it really is, when you think about it. That just about 67%, which is what? A D+? Maybe? So, actually, I need to get on to relaxing. Or, maybe I just need to change my requirements. That would work. Or I can add numerous extraneous categories--specifically ones easy to achieve, like, 'don't cut hair' or 'take a shower' or 'love your wife as Christ loved the Church.' Well, okay, maybe the last one isn't so easy. But then I can at least get my average up to eighty, eighty-five percent. That's a solid B. I will gladly accept that.

Oh, hey, funny thing. I don't think I have ever described the grading system here. It is, like the American one, a scale of 100. However, here, a 70 is considered 'distinction-worthy.' And 'eighty is the new hundred.' Of course, 50 is the pass-mark. So, instead of a 30-35 point range for passing, with distinction being in the 90's, we have a 20-point system with distinction in the 70's. It is, in some ways, very difficult for the American mentality to handle. If I get less than 100, I assume I have, in some way, failed. Grading, for me, is essentially a measure of error. Here, that is simply not the case. Marks may take in to account how interesting the teacher found the topic, or whether the essay was demonstrative of professional-level expertise in its topic--obviously that is rarely the case. In fact, one might ask markers what 'grades' their published papers would get, and you may hear anything from seventy-five to ninety.

The system is strange, baffling, at times offensive. But then I think of that student at St. John's, informed in his Don Rag that he had an excellent year and had, in fact, done the best he could do. His transcript later showed an A- for the class, rather than an A, which he, like most of us, would consider 'the best.' When he confronted his tutor about this, his tutor confirmed that, in his case, A- was actually the best he could get. That's how I feel here, except it's not an A-. It's a C-.

It does make me wonder how on earth they grade math papers? Of course, I'm not sure even what they do over here--something called maths, rather than math. It may involve fish 'n' chips. I don't know.

And, quite frankly, I don't want to know.

Is This Ham Fasting-Friendly?

2007-11-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

Last night we celebrated Thanksgiving. I grant that last night was Sunday and thus, depending on your system of reckoning, fell between two and four days after Thanksgiving. This delay wouldn't particularly matter except for two considerations which lie at the very heart of my own personal relationship with this most American of holidays.

First: Thanksgiving must have the following day be a day off. A day of rest. A Sabbath rest, if you will, in which we follow the glorious example of Moses and keep our hands from work for the entire day. Perhaps we do a bit of shopping. Today is Monday. Monday is, by definition, not a day off. It is, in fact, day of work and toil and the sweat of the brow. There is a noticeable lack of shopping.

Second: Because the Nativity Fast, which began last week, precludes the consumption of almost everything that makes Thanksgiving delicious, Thanksgiving meals present a very serious problem. In order to celebrate the holiday, one must be able to eat. And if one can't eat, one cannot be grateful. One slips into forgetfulness, sin, and corruption, and eventually becomes like the Devil himself. In order to circumvent this terrible scenario the Church in her wisdom has given us a day off for Thanksgiving.

Well, at least, some of the Church. Moscow Patriarchate gets no days off. OCA, Antioch, we get the day off. I have no idea about the Greeks. I'm not sure it would mean much to them anyway. I imagine the conversation would go like this:

Bishop: 'You are granted a dispensation for one day to celebrate Thanksgiving.'

Nick and/or Athena: 'We get a day off? That's great!'

Awkward pause as Nick/Athena suddenly realizes he/she has no idea what this is about.

Nick and/or Athena: 'What from?'

Obviously, this conversation would go very differently in a ROCOR and/or Moscow Patriarchate Church.

Bishop: You may not have a dispensation for Thanksgiving. Is this so-called 'feast' an Orthodox celebration? It is not! There was no thanksgiving in 19th Century Russia! Orthodoxy is about podvig!

Sergei and Tatiana, each remembering that on the Old Calendar, the Nativity Fast doesn't even begin until after Thanksgiving, exchange worried glances. They then do a thousand prostrations each and fast from oil for seven years, just in case.

In Britain this conversation doesn't happen. There is no Thanksgiving here, for obvious reasons. Thanksgiving, much like its corollaries, football and canned cranberry sauce (the one with the ridges on it!), is an American invention that just doesn't really fit with the British ethos. The Scots might have had something like it, but Queen Victoria would have made sure that was stamped out.

Suffice to say, though, celebrating Thanksgiving on Sunday is, perhaps, stretching anyone's notion of economy. On the other hand, it was super tasty. There were also forty people crammed into a small house, which mimicked the maddening family gatherings which constitute such an apparently vital part of the Thanksgiving rubric. And football was on hand which gloriously hallowed our festivities. So there's that.

It may also be noted that, this being the UK, there are no 'black Friday' sales. Which is in some ways a relief because I've always found the term 'black Friday' to be anything but comforting. It reminds me of 'black Monday' or the 'black death.' I know it relates to double-entry bookkeeping but, good heavens, couldn't they have just called it 'deal day'? Or 'cheap stuff and gimmicks'? I mean, hey, who wouldn't want to be in on that?

There was no shopping, though. No sales. And yet, joking aside, Thanksgiving was true to its intended meaning. It was a day of joy and thanks, in spite of being on a Sunday evening in a foreign land. It was forty Americans missing family, friends, and the things of home, finding comfort in fellowship. It was a moment not necessarily itself of gratitude but for which we can be grateful. It was a subtle reminder of our limitations and our needs, of joy and friendship, and it was hallowed not, as I jokingly remarked, by football, but by the unswervingly Christian fellowship suffused through the house like incense. It was this Thanksgiving, celebrated on the wrong day, five thousand miles from family and parish and friends, cobbled together from nothing, that reminded me most of what it is to be grateful.

I Definitely Smell a Pork Product of Some Sort

2007-11-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

Why, oh why, did I agree to give a talk on the meaning of Christmas? I actually agreed to do this thing. The true meaning of Christmas. What the heck? I mean, I know I'm supposed to talk about Jesus' birth and its theological/spiritual/dietary significance in the Orthodox traditions, and maybe something about when Christmas was first celebrated (336) and where
(Rome) and how we all now do as the Romans, but man alive.

And all I can think of is that blasted South Park 'Spirit of Christmas' video. The real meaning of Christmas?

'Ham?' Cartman asks inquisitively of Kyle, who responds:

'No, it's not *%&ing ham, you stupid *%&^...It's presents, Cartman, presents.'

This bodes no good. I'm going to be quoting Christmas hymns with a giant blowup of the Nativity icon behind me, looking down disapprovingly because I can only oscillate between ham and presents.

Oh, how I do love ham, though. Presents, too, I s'pose. Of course, now that I am all growed up, my wife and I find it simpler to simply pick out what we want. Efficient? Yes. Accurate to my taste? Absolutely. Surprising? Not so much. On the other hand, it has helped me finally stop rattling presents, a habit which always seemed to deeply offend my father.

Ah well, enough of that. Back to this presentation. I'm nervous because it is my first such presentation. I am, as it were, giving a paper. It's a very short paper. And it's not terribly scholarly. And it will have pictures. But it is still a paper, consarnit. Of course, speaking about the theology of Christmas in the Orthodox tradition is easy in one sense: I am not in want of good material to draw from.

The icon alone is so rich I could probably do a whole talk about it without even trying. The cave and the swaddling clothes connect Christmas to Pascha (and, of course, Holy Week) and so suggest that we interpret Christ's birth in light of his death and resurrection. The simultaneous presence of all characters imaginable in the Gospel Nativity Narratives (Mt. 1-2, Lk. 1-2) parallels the hymnography: today the virgin...today the cave...today the earth, the shepherds, the magi, the stars...a newborn child, God before the ages. All things come together in this moment to welcome the Son of God who has become man and taken upon himself the full reality of our nature. This is because all humans, animals, all of creation, have waited anxiously for this moment, and now all of creation will share in God's 'goodwill toward man.'

It is a strange thing, I think, to interpret Christ's birth in terms of his death. It casts a certain pall over Christmas celebration and all that 'Jesus' birthday' stuff people seem to like to do. But, of course, Augustine says of every man's birth: 'It is terminal--he will not get over it.' Birth implies death, as simply as that. Of course, in Christian terms, this implication is the result not of God's creation but of sin's intrusion on creation. Death is not, in that sense, natural. It presents, therefore, something of a theological problem that Jesus died. It means that in the incarnation, God bound himself to death, to that which is entirely inimical to him. Jesus submitted to its power--or rather, as man he did so, while as God he destroyed its power. This distinction of natures acting from the same person, Christ, brings us back to Nativity. It is because of what we hear at Theophany and see at Easter that we can look back to Jesus' birth and say, 'aha! I understand it now.' So we must interpret his birth in light of his death, because his death implies his resurrection, and his resurrection his divinity.

It is also true that by interpreting Jesus' birth in light of his death we commemorate the salvation which we receive by God's Incarnation. The acts of Jesus do not simply demonstrate the object of our worship or simply show us his divinity as something to be remarked upon from a distance. Jesus' ministry explicitly involves us in his life. 'The Father has life in himself and He gives the Son to have life in himself, and the Son gives this life to whomever he wills.' The events which mark Jesus' life come to mark our own. How?

It is not a matter of us being revealed as members of the Trinity or finding a god-consciousness. Far from it. It is rather our participation in the continuing presence of God on earth--the Church--by our participation in its fasts, feasts, commemorations, and, most importantly, its sacraments. We enter into the life of God by receiving the Holy Spirit (Pentecost, Acts), which we receive only within the Church. Thus, our life is bound to God's, and so we become by adoption what Jesus is by nature: sons of God.

Our lives can now have the possibility of reflecting Jesus'. This possibility is open as long as we remain 'in him', That is, as long as we remain in contact with him--in relationship. Again, this is a possibility mediated by the commemoration of the last Supper, by which we enter into Jesus' 'Voluntary and life-giving Passion.' It is initated by baptism, by which we enter into his death and resurrection, modeled first in his baptism which we remember on Theophany. We enter into his birth by the same means, being annointed with the Oil of Chrism, the Oil of Gladness, the oil which makes us christoi annointed ones. We enter into the same mission of evangelisation, the same life of self-giving and worship of God.

This, in a nutshell, is what Christmas holds out to us. It commemorates the day, the moment, this possibility first appeared. Apart from the Incarnation in all its Chalcedonian reality, we have no hope. Within the Incarnation, we have perfect hope. We have perfect life because Christ took our life upon himself and used it to conquer death. We have perfect love because God gave himself entirely for us in taking the form of a man.

If I just draw out these ideas--that the Nativity matters so much because it is now that God joins himself to man and that it is understandable and accessible in light of the death and resurrection of Christ--I should have plenty for twenty minutes.

I may also mention the Nativity Fast, Theophany, and the connection of revelation to redemption. But I'll try not to, you know, go nuts.

I may, however, go nutz.

Scooters, Wine, and Soccer

2007-11-17T02:20:00.000-08:00

There are three examples given to me as I write this by the automatic systems of Die Blogspotte. They are, of course, individually suited, custom-created, tailor-made for my discriminating taste in post labels. They are: scooters, vacation, fall.

What the Hell do these people/machines/interns think I'm going to be writing about? I don't own a scooter, I have neither the time nor the money for a vacation, and fall is fast becoming winter. The suppliers of these so-called labels are clearly not readers of this blog. So much the worse for them, the pilsner-chugging skanks.

There, I've said it, it's out, I feel much better.

We have, here in Durham's hallowed halls, a standard two-supervisor team for our doctoral efforts. It is their job to guide, to mold, to waterboard and then revive us--sometimes we have tea. It is a strange mix of grandfatherly advice and stepfatherly abuse. Well, no. Not my supervisors.

Prof. Louth is marvellous, though very quiet and retiring. This means that criticism must be dragged still screaming from his shaggy breast. Well, actually, I have no idea if his breast is shaggy and I have no intention of finding out. But he does still need a Homeric epithet, a sobriquet worthy of his stature as scholar and priest and, in the words of one student, a truly 'intimidating oenophile.' For those of you who, like me, have no idea whatsoever what oenophile means, you can check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenophilia.

Dr. Song is quite different but also impressive. I had my first meeting with him yesterday, at 3pm, on a Friday, after having spent five hours slamming through something called Biblical Perspectives on Death. I was not in top form. But we had a nice conversation anyway--the cultured ethicist with a specialty in bioethics and the ill-read patristic theologian-wannabe. In case you're wondering, I was the latter.

Oh, and he knows Tristram Engelhardt! Hurray!

The real question is, how will this two-man team come together? They don't work together that much, as they are in vastly different fields. One of them at least works on the top floor. That's like five flights of stairs! I can barely manage it, so how can I ask another to do so? Perhaps if I rigged up some kind of primitive elevator out of coconuts, bamboo, and Ginger's hair, a la Gilligan's Island.

But then, of course, it would not merely be primitive, but 'as primitive as can be.' I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

So I suppose I will simply keep a foot in both worlds and beg for help and guidance as I need it. We'll be a ragtag team of ne'erdowells that no one wanted to give a chance, but with persistence we'll rise through the ranks to lead of one England's foremost soccer hooligan gangs--the Theologians.

We're gonna send your sorry arse right back to the God that made you, you git!

Maybe not, but it can always be the dream...

2007-11-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

I looked at this thing today and thought, good Lord, has it really been two weeks since last I posted? I should post something! I have no idea what, but something to relieve the tedium. I don't know why there is tedium to be relieved, but I suspect that you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I've spent the last week reading Chrysostom's homilies on the Psalms. At one point he concludes a lengthy analogy between the abundance of the earth and breastfeeding by describing the heavens as full of breasts and we don't even have to seek out the nipple. It just showers milk on us.

I had to read that turgid image and now you must share my pain. It has haunted my dreams for too long. Now it can haunt yours.

I return to this blog a broken and possibly, although I'm not certain of this, contrite man. The first month of research is officially over and my brain feels permanently softened. The image of butter being lovingly melted into a large frying pan which awaits the addition of peppers, onions, and whipped eggs, comes to mind. This, I think, is for two reasons: first, my brain is that butter; second, I'm hungry, and an omelette would be delicious.

Not as delicious as candy, but, nevertheless, delicious.

Of course, the practical consequence of this pre-omelettal brain-softening is that I'm very low on good blogging ideas. But, see if this is interesting to you:

Having looked over pretty much every piece of Orthodox liturgy related to death and the departed, I have come to the following conclusions. First, although we all speak of the paschal joy expressed in funerals, I do not find it to be the overriding motif or expression. Instead, what I find is a balance of grief expressed in conjunction with the event and its ramifications for the living, expectation of resurrection, and a mix of fear and hope based on the two possible outcomes of the resurrection.

Resurrection is an expectation because it is a certainty within Christian theology. Resurrection is, as it were, a given. However, resurrection does not determine our eternal fate. Rather, it only provides the possibility of eternal meaning to our present lives. In a sense, then, death is necessarily conquered for all people by dint of Christ's death and resurrection. In another sense, however, each individual does not conquer until the Judgment.

Resurrection, the Fathers are quite clear, is to judgment. Body and soul are reunited (death as separation is, therefore, conquered), but they are reunited so that the soul may be judged for those acts it committed in the body. Thus, eternal significance awaits, but it is a question of justification or condemnation.

This inspires the surprising and, to many commentators, confusing, mixture of dread and hope we find in the hymns and prayers of the funeral service. We petiton that God will be merciful in judgment and justify the dead on that day, but we do not hold it out as a certainty. Judgment still awaits to give eternal significance to those acts performed in this passing life.

Now, of course, as Paul says, if we were all judged on our deeds alone, we would all be condemned. So it falls to the mercy of God as expressed in Christ to redeem us from death and from lives which lead to death. But this must be expressed in a life which moves in the opposite direction and which seeks out God. A tension is maintained, then, between eschatalogical hope and a humbling expectation of judgment.

Now, of course, the prayers of the funereal services are for the departed. The Church may still intercede, even though the time of acting and repentance is past for the departed. At the same time, though, the hymns and Psalms are not for the dead. These are for the living. These are intended as an aid to living the life of repentance and godliness and God-seeking in light of the reality and eschatological expectations with which death confronts us all.

A Pub-Conversation About Place

2007-10-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

People, or, at least, a person, have claimed to have discovered my blog. They undoubtedly unearthed it using the latest tools and methods known only to the most elite archaeologists. At least, I assume so. Otherwise, this collection of strange, often inexplicable rants and incoherent, unorganized thought-spew, is open to the public and is attracting visitors like bees to honey. Sweet, delicious honey.

Drink it in, friends, drink it in! That smell of nectar is the ambrosial delight of my internal monologue.

Or something like that. Anyway, another week has passed and it's time yet again to post. Now that I can no longer track my statistics (which wounds my ego, engages my spleen, and angers my libido--though I don't know why) I have to just assume that all my vast efforts at cogent, didactic eloquence are not going unrewarded.

We went book-buying in York for my birthday. Or, to put it differently and as my wife probably intended it, we went to York for my birthday--and found a street filled, filled, with used-bookstores. Or is it 'used-book stores'? Or neither? We bought a bookstore, but, since it was used, we got a good deal...well, no. But I got books! And we sat among the stacks, looking over old volumes of forgotten lore, and also entire shelves of John Updike novels. It was magnificent. I wept just a little bit.

We ended up at a pub--a real, 'Founded in 1504 on the occasion of her Majesty's...' pub. We sat and drank beer and cider and mead. I actually drank all of those things and went home very happy.

There really is no equivalent in the States of sitting in an old pub, with dark wood panelling and pictures of the local football teams on the walls, a few doddering tables at which sit a few doddering old yorkshiremen who chat and clink glasses and sing drinking songs while sitting on stools or wooden-backed old chairs. Through the window during lulls in the conversation, you watch the street and the passersby, usually backed by the stoney cityscape of church and shop, or scurrying through the rain, and enjoy the glow of the lamps and (if you're really lucky) the fire, and you drink something delicious and warming and you talk about life and the world and whatever is on your mind. The beer aids this of course, but the atmosphere is not drunken. That is crucial. The pub is convivial. It is not drunken. It is not a bar.

It is conversation and, more importantly, story intertwined and shaped into a building. The pub feels as though it wants to tell you stories the whole time, and being in one you can feel like you are part of a story, a character in a narrative larger than yourself yet which wraps up cozily around you and reminds you of the virtue of place. In it we tell stories and they become larger, woven into song and poem and, if we are truly lucky, legend and tale. Legends and tales understand the virtue of place--something I cannot say for modern fiction, for which place serves merely as setting.

The virtue of place is the understanding that a place has a story, or is inolved in a story, or, more generally, both. A place is not merely the setting or backdrop of a story, but a character in it, a personal (in the sense of 'being a person') force which inhabits and propels the tale. Myths, legends, folklore, all include places in this way. Njal's Iceland is as much a character as he is. It is the Iceland in the midst of its own conversion from pagan myths to Christian belief, changing its character, even the settlements, the weather, the lawcourts. The place matters. The forest of any children's cautionary tale functions in the same way--it is the forest the children fear and the forest which drives them to the witch. In the Welsh tales, it was Annyn, the Otherworld, which captured the imagination, and yet the Otherworld was in Wales. It was a place as real as any castle or town, and it drove Pwyll and Rhiannon. The tale in which the world disappears leaving ony them exemplifies this--the world disappears and yet they immediately find a town in which to dwell. They cannot exist without place.

This place is more than a landscape. It includes its own narrative which defines its personality. Njal's Iceland would never be mistaken for Pwyll's Wales or Cuchulainn's Ireland. The highlands of Scotland gave us the clans as the moors of Yorkshire gave us the miners. People and their place are inextricably intertwined, and if a story arises, the place will define the action as much as the people.

I haven't argued this in a thorough-going fashion, I know. It is more a literary, almost anecdotal plea for place. Perhaps that is fitting. The pub inspired my imagination and not my logical faculties. Of course, the beer aided, but the pub has been able to take the place, almost iconically, of story and conversation. I hope that it may ascend to the level of tale, and, if it does, as Chesterton has attempted for us in The Flying Inn, then if there is an heir to Plato's Symposium in the modern world, it is the English village pub.

Anthem For a Lost Mind

2007-10-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

What this blog needs is some fun. And God knows I can't be the one to provide that--I've been reading funeral services and prayers for the departed all week. Fun is no longer my specialty. It has been supplanted by death.

Perhaps I should try to combine the two.

The joys of searching for commentaries and assorted secondary literature on the Orthodox funeral service are unending. They are aided in this in no small part by the fact that the search is also unending. Because there is very little. And by very little, I mean nothing. nada. zilch.

This is not, and I will be frank with you on this (and you can still be you--don't worry), I repeat, not a comforting or invigorating beginning. Sometime soon I'll likely post my thoughts on the Orthodox Funeral Service. It is magnificent in a way that few events can be. It is moving in a way that even the Liturgy cannot always be. It is royal and supreme, much like Christ's Pascha, or a pizza with everything on it. Delicious.

So I will talk about something else, something more zesty, more piquant. And yes, I'm aware that those are basically synomymous. Get off my back. I'm also aware of the disturbing frequency with which I have employed food-related imagery. And I don't know what caused it. I've eaten already. Sausage rolls. Beat that for a delicious-nutritious lunch. Sausage rolls. Roll that around in your mouth a little bit. Savory, yes?

Anyway, what is that something? Is it, as usual, the first thing that occurs to my sausage roll-addled mind?

Yes. And how.

I have decided that Pomeranians are my least favorite sort of dog. I have no reasons, no basis, no deeply held, rationally-argued philosophical beliefs upon which to found this opinion. It cannot be demonstrated using the Propositional Calculus or authenticated in the most ancient papyri. It simply is. In the same way that God is. In fact, one might say that Pomeranians' sucking is eternally subsistent, like Christ's virtues, and my opinion is akin to our participation in said virtues through action and faith.

I wouldn't, but one might if one were so inclined. The fact remains that Pomeranians suck and I have decided to reflect on this fact in an existentially authentic way by despising them with all my heart.

Oh, and to those who have Pomeranians, I am heartily sorry...

...that your dog sucks.

This post had a point, but the writer has forgotten it.

There is madness in his method...

2007-09-28T04:04:00.001-07:00

I had my first meeting with my supervisor yesterday. My first meeting, that is, as a new doctoral student. I'm proud of this, I admit. But, I suppose, I get to be a little proud--it's been hard going to get to this point and I am glad of what I've accomplished with God's help, and particularly grateful for my wife who has been patient, generous, and even edited my papers.

The meeting went well. He approved of my more 'philosophical' turn of thought, and my desire to move past death. But hey, who doesn't want to move past death? I have been assigned readings and papers concerning patristic and liturgical attitudes toward death. This will be my research for the next term. It should be, well, not fun exactly, but interesting.

I've been thinking, though, about methodology. By methodology I mean an analysis and evaluation of what sort of method, what sort of approach to use. That is, what sort of questions are appropriate to ask? What sort of filters should I have in place when reading) It's not possible to take it all in, so I have to conceptually narrow the field, just to make research possible. I thought and thought and came up with one idea: a historical-critical reading of the Fathers leading into a phenomenological synthesis.

Discourse on Method

If that doesn't sound pretentious and philosophical, then I don't know what will. And I do so long to sound pretentious and philosophical. It sends a little chill down my spine and gives me tingling sensations in my legs.

But what I mean is that I first have to put aside, bracket out, my own desires, my own goals of a constructive anthropology--something additional to what the Fathers are talking about. I have to leave all that at the door and just get a sense of what it is that the Fathers mean. The historical-critical method seems most appropriate here, because it helps me get inside their heads while still keeping my own. I ponder the who, why, where, when of a text, the situations which gave rise to it, what we know from elsewhere about the author, about his audience, about his concerns, preoccupations, assumptions. These are the sort of questions I throw at the text at first in order to finally be able to ask: so what is he saying about how we relate to death?

The trick is, I suppose, knowing when to make the leap from the historical questions (what Walter Moberly says Karl Barth called 'throat-clearing') to the question of what does it mean (what Karl Barth might have called engagement with the subject-matter of the text). I don't really know when that is. I tend, thanks to my own predispositions and a St. John's education, to make the leap somewhat prematurely. To read an introduction and then say 'great, now let's get to it.' So I need to postpone such judgment a little bit.

Having done all this, though, comes the next phase of the method. The phenomenological synthesis. Say it three times fast.

Then dunk your head in a bowl of jello and dance around for fifteen minutes.

Did you do it? If you don't do it, you won't get the surprise!

There now. Isn't that better?

Sorry. I really can't maintain for very long the level of seriousness developing in this post. I must have silliness. Much as a moose must drink a lot of juice.

Back to the phenomenological synthesis. By this I mean, I take what I have heard the Fathers say about our experience of death, our way of living toward death, our hope of resurrection, and I say: so what is necessary for something (a human being, specifically an Orthodox Christian one) to have this sort of experience? By asking this question, I allow the Fathers' thought to form the basis for a constructive attempt at anthropology. I can turn the question into: what must the human being be in order to have this experience?

Then it will get fun. Because then I can ask question of what it means simply to be human. To die and rise again, yet remain the same person. That is an existential can of worms. If resurrection is the answer we have been given to death, then it raises at least as many questions as it answers about what the human being is. The possibilities stretch out endlessly, though oriented nevertheless by the fundamentally patristic concept of the human being as according to the image and likeness of God. There, I think, I can mine more of the Fathers' thought to begin the phenomenological synthesis.

But, of course, this raises a much harder question of method. To what extent is it valid to put patristic theology and contemporary philosophy in dialogue, conflict, or just collision? They are two different worlds, two different sets of assumptions, ideas, conclusions, lives. To what extent can I take over philosophical ideas or allow philosophy to question theology?

Methodological Manifesto

I think these sort of questions are crucial for contemporary Orthodox theology. I think this for the simply reason that the 'big guns' or Orthodox theology (John Zizioulas, Christos Yannaras, Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, Fr. John Behr, to name a few) love philosophy. They love to use philosophy. They love to do with it just what I'm hesitant to do: appropriate it, be questioned by it, adopt and interact with it. But it gets them into trouble. John Zizioulas has been (rightly) accused of subordinating a good reading of the Fathers to his philosophical concerns. The same could easily be said of Yannaras. John Behr appropriates philosophy more selectively, but has not offered a satisfying account of why he would do so at all--it hasn't added to his work.

So I am cautious. Selectivity is crucial. You can't just combine Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Or Hegel and Frege. Or any of the above and Gregory of Nyssa, or Maximos the Confessor, or Symeon the New Theologian. There are chasms between their thought. Incompatibilities, flaws, historical differences on the order of speaking different languages. From different language groups. So if we are Orthodox, we are first and foremost true to the Fathers, to the Church and the truth revealed to us only therein.

Yet there is and must be more to contemporary Orthodox theology than the Fathers. There is an assumption too often that 'if it's not in the Fathers, it's not Orthodox.' This is false. Absolutely false. It is true that if something goes against the Fathers, it is heretical. The Fathers, as the embodiment of Tradition interpreting Scripture within the Church, are absolutely the line drawn by the Rule of Faith. But they are not the totality of faith, just as a Rule of Faith is not its totality. The Creeds define a space, as it were, within which we are free to think and move and yet remain Christian. Beyond them we are free, but we are in error. This space, it seems to me, allows for the interaction of theology and philosophy (in the best tradition of the Fathers!), for just the sort of work that those like Behr, Zizioulas, and Yannaras are attempting. But this space must also define how it is that one moves. The sort of interaction that will produce valid and, more importantly, vibrant, living, Orthodox theology, is not unlimited. There must be critical methodological reflection on how the Fathers may meet Heidegger or Rorty.

Of course, what I've said so far is really an open-ended question, a manifesto which begs response and whose author (me, in this case) hopes for response.

I don't know exactly what I'm looking for in interaction. I don't even know how to look for it, really. Methods are difficult to pin down and, unless one is ready-at-hand and I just haven't noticed it yet, I have a lot of work ahead of me. I think that in some ways I will define the method as I go forward, which means that for now I grope blindly forward hoping.

What do you think? How should a patristically-grounded theology interact with outside thought, whether philosophy or science or poetry or anything? Or does it need to deal with different types of thought in different ways? How can I be true to the mind of the Fathers and yet speak to the present world?

Tales From the Eastern Side

2007-09-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is a sort of follow-up to the previous post. Two stories, briefly recounted, about our trip this time. Generally the structure was: fly to Bucharest, get to Putna Monastery, back down to Sihastria Monastery, to Varatec Monastery, back to Bucharest, and fly home. In general terms, this is no problem, considering that the single largest distance we had to travel in a day was 300 miles. The least distance was perhaps 15 miles. This seems alright, except that in Romania the former can be done in 7 hours by train and the latter may take 4 hours through a combination of walking, hitchhiking, buses, and walking again. Travel is complicated.

Although it can also be fun. I will venture to say that you begin to look at life differently while packed in the back of a beat-up old Dacia, your wife sitting on your lap, while another hitchhiker in the front holds your bag, and the driver, seated amongst icons, prayer-ropes, and a plethora of pious tat, plays a tape of gypsy brass music and then you suddenly realize--everyone in the car, including the octegenarian woman in the front and the preteen child in the back--everyone, save the driver (and you're no longer sure about him), is a hitchhiker. It's pretty sweet.

The walks can also be quite invigorating. 'When is the bus to Sihastria?' (Sihastria is only 12 miles away, 4 miles off the main road).

'No bus.'

You have seen, perhaps, behind you, a schedule claiming that there is a bus. You decide to press the issue. This is, you will later realize, both a mistake and blessing. 'Why do you want to go to Sihastria? Secu Monastery is only 2 miles from the road. You can take a bus to the intersection and walk to Secu.'

'We have reservations to stay at Sihastria...' This really wasn't necessary and in no way alters the information-desk administrator's attitude. 'Secu is much more beautiful, you stay there for the first night. Then walk to Sihastria.' Interesting idea, not really helpful, but interesting.

The final decision? Follow her advice but walk all the way to Sihastria. Choose wisely at this point--don't attempt to explain your decision to her. It is not worth the argument that will ensue because, in fact, she is quite sure of her position. Secu is more beautiful. Go to Secu. Q.E.D.

N.B.: Secu is, in fact, not more beautiful than Sihastria. And, it turns out, with a little prayer and a bit of providence, you get picked up by a friendly car driving to Sihastria anyway.

This entire conversation will have taken place in Romanian. Do not expect anything like this in English. Ever.

Sihastria is magnificent. It means 'hermitage', and is, ironically, the largest male monastery in Romania, boastin 130 monks. These monks range from 16 to 80, all of them have impressive beards, some drive a tractor or an old Jeep Wrangler. Some speak a little English. This last group does not include Fr. Sophronie, the marvelously jolly, generous, chef's-hat-bedecked monk who runs the guest house. He speaks no English. That's okay, because he smiles a lot and is generally wonderful on a variety of topics.

But I digress. The actual story I want to tell you takes place near Sihastria. We decided to walk to Sihla Skete, a small dependency of Sihastria, renowned for St. Theodora of Sihla and its pristine peacefulness. Sihastria is, I will repeat 4 miles up a small mountain road with no bus or tour service to take you there. It is a hermitage in the true sense--a flight to the wilderness, the finding of God in the few spaces left to us between cities and civilization in this world. Sihla is 4 miles further up the same road.

Well, not technically the same road. In fact it's 3 miles up a small branch of the small road and, at a certain point, you come to a bridge leading across a small ravine and creek. At this bridge you suddenly realize that the sign is telling you that Sihla is another mile up a small woodland path, marked by white crosses painted on the trees and the occasional quote from the Fathers coupled with a scene from the Stations of the Cross. Now, I will say that I have no idea whatsoever why there were Stations of the Cross, considering those are the invention of a sweet but strange 13th c. Catholic. But the Fathers quoted were all solidly Orthodox--almost entirely Greeks, some Russians. We felt safe again, having worried a bit about this Franciscan nonsense.

The trek was muddy and the path was at times only discernible by the continued presence of white crosses on trees. At one point we came to a small waterfall tumbling down the mountainside, which had been channelled into a hollowed log, which protruded enough to allow the water to fall in a drinkable stream. There was also a small red plastic cup next to the fountain for the use of passersby. A little further in, we come to stairs, carved into the rocks in the side of the mountain, leading upward to an onion-domed church and two small buildings next to it. This was the Skete of Daniel the Hermit. The church could hold perhaps 15 people if they didn't mind close quarters. Its chandelier was made of carved wood and antlers. The icons were beautiful and one even showed Joseph teaching Christ to saw wood.

This place had no car. No television, no electricity, no running water, no central heating. It was a place for toil and, as Abba Poemen once said, the monk is toil. This was a place surrounded wholly by the beauty of the Carpathian mountains, from which you can see no road, no city, not even another monastery. It was isolation and community built from isolation. It was peace and prayer and a place of spiritual warfare as it truly can be only in the monastic life.

There was also a monk talking on his mobile, and another monk had hooked up a vacuum cleaner to a generator to clean the church.

The second story, much shorter, I assure you, is about our plane flight to Bucharest. We took Wizzair! (the exclamation point is part of their name). It is an airline that does not so much ask as demand an exclamation point. It is, I think, Polish. Or possibly Hungarian. It is cheap, it is quick, and it charges £2 for a flippin' can of coke onboard. It also, we discovered as we walked out to the tarmac to get on board, amidst the broiling crowd of jostling Romanians and sheepish jostled British, does not have assigned seating. However, unlike Southwest Airlines, there is also no particular order or organization to boarding. The crowd is simply loosed upon the plane. In Bucharest, we were bussed out to the plane and all 125 passengers attacked at once. Departure, however, found us at the back of the crowd, foolishly thinking that our boarding passes had seat numbers on them. They did, but those were not relevant.

While we were waiting to board, a family of gypsies [ţigani] were boarding ahead of us. One had gone down the jetway between the two flight attendants handling boarding. The next gypsy began to demand that she be allowed to carry an extra bag on board--because the previous one had. I should make clear that, in fact, the previous one had not. This gypsy was using her lungs and her moral flexibility to get what she wanted. She actually began to yell down the jetway as we all laughed a bit. The British flight attendant wanted to argue. But the Romanian one knew better--just let her on. You really don't want to follow this argument where ţigani will take it. At this point Tatiana and I realized--we are going to Romania. This is fantastic. This sort of thing does not happen in the West.

Onboard was like being on a Romanian train. Specifically in second class. Crowded, loud, jovial, hot and vaguely punguent. The flight attendants had to repeatedly (once during takeoff) get on the intercom and demand, repeatedly, that people not only fasten their seatbelts and put their trays back up, but that they sit down and close the overhead compartments. I have never seen anything like it. Neither had the few British on the plane. They were confused and, if I read their expressions correctly, terrified. Tatiana and I were thrilled.

The flight attendants later joined the fun, helping toddlers to run up and down the aisles, picking them up and posing for photos. The gypsy family finagled free drinks through tears and yelling. People asked to purchase beer by the liter rather than the can. We chatted and laughed and when we landed, we all applauded the pilot.

I'm not sure if we did this because we had previously doubted his abilities or because we were glad to be in Bucharest. Either way, the journey was nearly over. All Tatiana and I had to do now was haggle with a Bucharest taxi driver at 1 am so as not to get robbed more than we felt respectable given our level of experience.

There are many other stories, but these two have stuck with me this time. I will perhaps later tell about the busride from Piatra Neamţ to Bucharest. It was less jovial, but, perhaps, more profound. Anyway. Comments are not so much welcome as they are demanded at gunpoint!

Homeward Bound

2007-09-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

We have returned from Romania complete with all the luggage we took (not much), the souvenirs we purchased/were given/outright stole from gypsies (quite a bit), paté vegetal (two tins), and revelations (a couple of minor ones). The paté vegetal is, I don't mind telling you, quite tasty. The souvenirs are lovely and, in case you're wondering, no, we did not actually steal anything from the ţigani [gypsies/Roma]. They would have attacked us or cursed us or something terrible.

I am thinking that, due to lack of fresh ideas or witty repartee, my Romanian revelations ought to be the subject-matter for this post. In fact I'm certain of it. However, I hesitate to call them 'revelations' as that implies some direct receipt from God or the Saints, or, if you're Catholic, stigmata. If you're Protestant I don't know what you get. Left Behind, I suppose.

First, this blog, if it's going to be anything at all, can't just be serious stuff and deep thoughts. If it were, I would never post. Once in a while something hits me, and it can be interesting or beautiful or, and this rarely, true. When that happens, I will write it down, as I do now. Poetry or essays or something to try and hold on at least to some piece of the glory. But that sort of thing comes very seldom, and I fear that 'very seldom' is not often enough for my ego.

The upshot is that this journal will have to be as wacky, as bizarre, as deliciously moist as my MySpace blog. This means that you get more posts, but the quality will not be as high. Basically, this can be described as 'Grade F' blogging: mostly circus animals, some filler. On the other hand, it also means that the likelihood that I will discuss kung fu, monkeys, or my own crippling emotional problems is drastically increased. And we can all be glad about that.

I won't be changing anything about the layout, because I like the layout. I like the picture (it's of the dome of the church at St. Michael's Skete, in Cañones, NM--well, that and some clouds). I like the serious-looking fonts and format, they make me feel like I have some idea what I'm doing. I even like the title. It will now simply have to be more post-modern-ironic. So actually this is not a Serious Journal. It's an Ironic Journal. Which makes me artistic, right? Please say yes. Oh, I beg you, please, please, please say yes!

So.

What other revelations? I know, I know, I went all the way to Romania and came back with an idea about my blog. And now I've written it. That's just too 'meta.' There was one other thing, though it too concerns me and not the human race as a whole. I’m beginning to think the whole point of this exercise is to feed my growing megalomania—which is cool with me. Megalomania has to eat too, consarnit, and it has made its demands for tasty treats known to me in no uncertain terms.

The bruises are unrelated, of course.

Anyway.

The first time we visited Romania (last year), I was overwhelmed by it. I had never been somewhere like it: leave the city and you step back a hundred years. Cars give way to horse carts, combines and threshers to scythes and hayforks. People live in many respects as they have for a thousand years. Except for the mobile phones, of course. Those are as new as possible. And even monks carry them (sometimes multiple phones per monk). The phone-to-monk ratio is reaching critical levels. But, generally, I think that when we saw this way of life—gardening, growing your own food, working hard outside, living according to the natural rhythm of light and dark—we, my wife and I, fell in love with it. We liked also the enterprising spirit, the bold self-motivation that seems naturally to accompany such a life. If something is to get done, you must be the one to do it. Such an attitude extends to all aspects of life: Romanians, by and large, have no personal space, no inhibitions about what questions should or should not be asked in polite conversation, no qualms about helping and asking for help. If I may put it in such terms, the fundamental integrity of such a way of life is made clear by its very transparency.

This time, while the same siren-song of country living was played on loop, it no longer held such an overwhelming appeal. There was, I suppose, a realization that the life one lives when visiting—cared for, guided, at times even spoon-fed (metaphorically)—is not really the life one would live. The spirit which accompanies the life we loved, which I might call monastic in a broad sense, is conditioned by the necessities of life. Generally (and, I know, obviously) insofar as you must take charge you become the sort of person who can take charge.

I am not that sort of person. Our time in Romania served only to heighten and clarify my dissatisfaction with my own indecision as measured against the seeming reckless abandon with which everyone around us went about their lives. To some extent the disparity I saw was due to the fact that they were in their element while I was not, and that leads naturally to some hesitation and vacillation on my part. At the same time, however, I began to think of how I am here, at home, in what I may laughingly call ‘my element.’ I’m not much better.

I suspect that if we actually moved to Romania, I would be run down at an intersection, having started to cross and then begun to hurry back while a Dacia speeding through at 70 had no such hesitation. Or I would be constantly jostled in church by either some village strong-man (there are such men—potential sociological work on the personal dynamics of Romanian Orthodox church-goers is as rich as a Siberian oil deposit) or a crotchety old nun who didn’t like how I crossed myself. The fact is, it’s a hard life, even if it is also an appealing one. The people are likewise hard, though respectably so. To be the sort of person that could live in the Romanian countryside requires a lot of work and a lot of confrontational strength that, at the moment at least, I do not possess.

I suppose this revelation was no more than the inevitable realization that the ideal I had set up in my mind did not perfectly correspond to reality. There are flaws wrapped up in it, and flaws that cannot be ignored. The flaws are not necessarily with Romania but with me in Romania. Which is a shame, because I do love it so. Perhaps someday, but not until I can light fires, split wood, plant and harvest a variety of garden vegetables, vint wine, hitch-hike, hold entire conversations with adorable children without even the hint of a smile, make split-second decisions on how best to repair a hacksaw, and, of course, kneel prostrate for the entirety of the four-hour nightly vigil that the monks at Sihastria seem to find quite routine.

This may take some time.

The First of What I Hope Will Be Many

2007-09-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I find myself in the process of evacuating from MySpace. It's nothing against MySpace. MySpace taught me to love again or--at least--to blog a bit. But Facebook has proven so much more capable at the networking aspects--and the photo uploading aspects, curse MySpace to oblivion for their size limits--that I began to wonder if clinging to a rapidly calving MySpace Glacier simply because it has blogging capability is really worth it.

To judge from the fact that I am writing this post on Blogspot instead, I would say that I have decided it is not worth it. I will always remember MySpace with fondness. It represented an important phase in my life--much as the Betty Ford clinic might represent a 'phase' in Robert Downey, Jr.'s life.

Take that, Robert Downey, Jr.! Read my blog and tremble, celebrity-types!

This post is, I suppose, an inauspicious beginning, but a beginning nevertheless.

I turn in my MA dissertation today and tomorrow my wife and I depart for Romania. I am glad to be finishing the MA, and even more glad to returning (at least briefly) to Romania. In a couple of weeks when we return I may post again, may even tell people that this is here. We'll see.

History, Tradition, and Error

2007-09-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

The historical reality of the Church. Say, for a moment, that Origen was wrongly condemned by the 6th c. councils under Justinian. These councils acted with the full authority of the Christian Church and their word is, quite literally, law. The acts of the councils are 'canons' or 'regulae', which both mean 'rule', 'law', 'prescription.' Thus, these councils have inserted into the belief and law of the Church a claim which is false. Thus, the Church holds what amounts to a false belief.

If this is the case, then the Church cannot be considered infallible. It must be able to make errors, and must stand at times in need of correction. If so, who is to correct it? Who will play schoolmaster to the Church?

I'll backtrack a moment, before going on. One might object to this line of argument, saying that, even if we concede an erroneous attribution of certain ideas to Origen, the ideas listed in the 13 Anathemas against Origen (or Origenism if one wishes) are rightly condemned. The only error is in attributing them to Origen and not his followers.

This objection is, I think, sound, but it does not evade the fundamental question at hand. If the Church makes an error it is still fallible. It does not matter if the error is one of doctrine or historical fact, it is still an error, and the Church is still liable for it.

(I will not getting into the Scholastic hair-splitting on these matters that allows for error in anything save de fide statements by the Pope--I cannot imagine a condition which would justify that sort of claim, both because the absolute authority of one individual is against the very make-up of the Church, and because it would be very hard to explain away certain errors of doctrine seemingly made by the Popes of the past.)

Response as Distinction

So, what then? There is one other out, which the late great Fr. George Florovsky suggests in his book, Bible, Tradition, Faith: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective. It is that no statement, no act, no council--not even an ecumenical council--has authority by virtue of its source or constitution. That is, just because the Pope says it, doesn't make it so. Just because the council has all the bishops doesn't make it valid. A council may err, but the Church does not. That to which the Church in its wholeness (its 'catholicity' or 'sobornost' for you Russophiles out there) gives assent is valid--outside of that assent, no claim can be called 'ecclesial.'

That sounds well and good, but the problem is finding a clear-cut definition in Florovsky of just what it means for the Church to give its assent. How does it do so except by a council? Who will speak for the Church if not the bishops? Florovsky is frustratingly silent on this point.

However, Florovsky offers a distinction which may be very helpful. He makes a strong distinction between truths and even facts which are 'historical' and those which are 'supr-historical'--those which grasp eternity in their reality across and through history. All things are historically revealed, historically conditioned, and historically received. But some of these things are revelations of eternal realities. The crucifixion is a historical revelation of God's self-emptying love for humankind; the resurrection a historical moment which encompasses all history and, indeed, transfigures all history. Into this scheme, we could place the acts of councils. Some acts are absolutely historical, in the sense that they are transient and will pass with time. Some acts are only historically conditioned, and reveal aspects of the Church's eternal reality for us mortals in the here and now.

Such a scheme would allow us to separate out error and truth, and preserve the Church's validity. However, how are we to separate one type from another? Florovsky is silent. Again.

I will, therefore, make a suggestion. The Church is at once eternal and historical. I will take this as an axiom. It exists historically only insofar as it exists eternally--there is no historical manifestation of the Church without participation in the eternal reality of the Church. That means that anything which falls outside the eternal reality of the Church cannot be called the Church. It can only be called heresy--a wandering, an error. Thus, the eternally unchanging reality of the Church conditions in each passing generation the present, historical practice which we refer to as 'the Church.'

A twofold sense of Church emerges: one which is ever-present (in my wife's favorite phrase of Lewis [from The Screwtape Letters], 'beautiful and terrible as an army with banners') and eternally real--the fulness of the Church, the totality of the Church in its heavenly and perfect being. This is the Church which was from before creation, the Church for which the world was created (to quote Fr. Pavel Florensky). There is another sense in which the Church is destroyed and remade in every generation. Its reality is only as present to us as our own lives, which do not embrace the whole of time and space, but only our small places within it. Thus, the Church, being thus constantly rebuilt, is open on this level to revision, to reconfiguration--within certain limits.

Tangent on Limitations

The limits are as follows: the tradition handed down from the Apostles through the generations onwards. This limit allows no 'new' revelation, no 'historical development', only an ever-deepening understanding of the same thing: the 'Writings of the the theologoi [theologians-meaning here Scripture] interpreted in the light of the mystery of Christ' (to badly quote Fr. Andrew Louth). This is still Florovsky's idea, that we do not find some new thing about God and add it to the stock. Nor do we find some pristine source uncontaminated by history. Faith comes to us only through the filter of the past ('Everything is illuminated in the light of the past' as the movie Everything is Illuminated says). The mystery of Christ is handed us by our fathers and mothers in the faith. We only receive it at their hands. There is, therefore, a dialectical tension between historical conditioning and a constant attachment to the source, the mystery of Christ.

We have two checks by which to hold this dialectical tension in place: the first is Scripture itself. Scripture is a for us a revelation of the mind of the Church, of the Apostles, and of God. Written by Christians, to Christians, and for Christians, the New Testament (and its consequent interpretative attachment of the Old Testament) is the canon of the Church par excellence. It is not a separate document by which to judge the Church, which somehow stands outside the Church. It judges the Church because it is the Church in written form.

The second check is worship. That is to say, liturgy, the work of the people, the way in which the Church defines its daily lived experience. Only within this experience is it possible to properly interpret Scripture, because Scripture only speaks to this experience--such is the sum and substance of a 'rule of faith', promulgated by the Fathers in view of heretical usurpation of the Scriptures. Those outside the Church have no claim on Scripture. It is not theirs. It is ours. Thus its interpretation is bound up with our life in the Church.

The Gift of Each Generation

Of course, these two checks bring me back to the original questions of the Church's validity. If the Church is, in some sense, made and remade in every generation, then it is up to those in every generation to judge it. We judge by means of 1) liturgy and 2) Scripture, without separating these in any way. The judgment made is on the past acclamations of the Church, acclamations which, in some instances, were feasible only in a limited, historically conditioned way (such as anti-semitism in hymnography, or the 6th c. anathemas on Origen). In other instances, these acclamations are trans-historical, and, therefore, supra-historical--they both underly and transcend the historical progression of human life. Instances of this second sort would include the acceptance of icons, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian formulations, the liturgy itself.

How, then, do we judge? We do so by means of every tool at our command. That this be done from within the Church does not preclude that it be done with academic rigor. It should be as rigorous, as well considered, as satisfying as possible. But, of course, we are still limited, and so too is our rigor, our data, our methods. As these increase and become better, as new philosophies in the world rise and fall and in turn test our faith, we will be able to do more. Thus, the next generation will be in a position to judge us, as we have judged those before us.

Tradition, the hallmark of the Church which binds it to its Divine origin, is not a static or monolithic reality. It is the inheritance of each generation from the last and the gift of each generation to the next. It is the living, breath, reality of the Church as a theandric (human-divine) organism which lives always and everywhere where 'two or more are gathered' in God's name, where even one will still hold to the truth revealed to the Apostles. I have come to realize that what I have been given is not something which I merely protect, but which I am given the freedom to create. God creates and I create a church within me, as I live within the sacramental life of the Church, and this church I will hand on to my children, with the caveat that they look at it critically, correct me where I am wrong, and make it their own. This, I think, is the historical reality of the Church, and the responsibility, not merely of every Orthodox Christian academic, but of every Orthodox Christian.

I Apologize for the Earwax Reference

2007-09-01T05:08:00.001-07:00

My mind is slowly disintegrating. Literally, it is coming apart at the seams. I found this stuff in my ear this morning...my wife says it's earwax, but I'm pretty sure its the temporal lobe liquifying and draining. Soon it will spread to the frontal lobe and, heaven forfend, the hippocampus (I'm not making it up), and I will forget everything and lose all rational function.

Of course, if that happens, while I may be permanently and severely lobotomized, I will be blissfully unaware of it. Like sodium pentathol, a stitch in time.

And that, kids, is what reading the entire Stromateis, Protrepticus, and Quis Dives Salvetur of Clement (of Alexandria) in a week will do to you. Yes, I am bragging but, consarnit, I get to. It was hard, really hard, and painful, and, and, I got bit by a dog while I was doing it, and my umbrella blew away, and, and...

Well, okay, none of that stuff happened. Except the reading. I don't actually own an umbrella which, today, has proven to be unfortunate as I had to walk twenty minutes through pouring rain. I am not savoring the journey home. Thank God my bag is water-proof.

My banana, on the other hand, was a bit wet. But that's okay, because bananas are waterproof, too! Hurray!

I'm a little giddy, and a little tired. Clement has really amazed me, though. He thinks of the human person as a creature made with all kinds of amazing faculties and abilities, but needing to use them to grow into his/her full self. This full self is an entirely integrated person whose will, desire, and action (bodily and mental) are wholly directed by God (as we have God through reason). But, because of the Fall, we're impaired, and require teaching and upbringing, like children, to grow into maturity which he equates with full humanity. But, likewise on account of the Fall, our bodies and souls are now somewhat at odds, so we must first control and then utterly transcend desire so at to find that integration we were to have all along. It sounds harsh, but his image is of a person who is directed by reason but harmonized and unified by a desire which transcends desire--love.

I'm finding that for the Fathers generally the goal of being human--what it means to truly be human--is unity and harmony. We are called to be singular selves, body and soul, acting out of choice which is informed by knowledge of God. Knowledge for the Fathers is not about propositions, though those may be valuable, but, following Plato and much of Antiquity, knowledge is rather about making the knower like what he/she knows. This can happen only through a pre-existing affinity, something the two have in common, which allows basic recognition and movement. Thus, if our knowledge is of God, what it means is that we are becoming more and more like God--'as like God as possible for humans.'

It is crucial to see that becoming like means knowing and not that knowing allows us to become like. Our goal, whether called knowledge or likeness or virtue or contemplation, is to unite our whole beings to God, to participate in the life of God as it is an activity. It is not ours by nature, but it is ours by activity, by the gift of God.

And, of course, the whole process turns on the Incarnation. Whether seen as accustoming God and man to 'live together in the same person' (Irenaeus) or teaching us what we cannot otherwise know in our sinful state (Clement) or about deifying the flesh to raise us up (Irenaeus), or uniting our souls to the Logos (the Apologists, etc.), the incarnation is that event by which we receive God. Or, rather, the incarnation in cooperation with Pentecost (Athanasius), because it is by Christ that we receive the Spirit and by the Spirit that we are united to God the Father through the knowledge which Christ gives. Thus, to be human, to be Christian, is to participate in the life of the Trinity in the same way and measure that the Trinity has participated in our lives.

Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Heavenly, and Life-Giving Trinity.

And thank God it be Frizz-iday. I be up out this piece. Peace.

The Upright Posture

2007-09-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

It's time for a new installment. Brand spankin' new content, no recycled material here. Bad for the environment? I say, good for the reader. That's right, I would fill the earth with filth, deplete the ozone, and burn the rainforests, if only I could make you smile.

Are you smiling yet, or do I have to shoot this panda bear?

Maybe this will be of interest. I'm currently slugging my way through a lot of readings on the idea of the image of God in the Greek Fathers. I'm currently clear-cutting my way through the all-stars of the 2nd Cent. Fathers: Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, and the immortal Irenaeus of Lyons. What's interesting is that all of these discuss soul and body as each requiring the other to form a human being. This is not Plato, most certainly. But in terms of 'what is the image of God', they generally say 'rationality' or 'free will' or 'rational soul', which means that the body is necessary for the human being but its unique properties are passed over. This is not an attitude we would take today, now that we have begun to see how deeply psychical and physical processes are connected. And so the Fathers seem to date themselves to a phsyiology which must be considered wholly inadequate.

Except for Irenaeus. He doesn't really say much about the specifics of the body, but his theology presents the body as the image of God and the spirit, that which was breathed into Adam's nostrils and made him alive, as the likeness of God which continually vivifies the human being. Humans were, in his opinion, made to grow, and so the act of creation is the constant nurture of human development, as humans in turn watch over creation.

How is the human body in any way the image of the invisible God? This is a problem theologians but up against--God is not 'embodied' except in the incarnation which is, of course, the paradox of Christ, that he communicates visibly the invisible God, makes comprehensible the incomprehensible Divinity, and makes man god. What then? Well, I had an idea.

Other Fathers discuss the upright posture as indicative of man's divine nature, that only man may look up to the heavens while the beasts look down to earth. Man stands above creation and makes it his own. Well, there is an article that we Johnnies once had to read called The Upright Posture, which connects said posture to human psychological and emotional development. What if, what if, that is true in spiritual terms as well. May not our bodies' posture not only indicate but allow for our spiritual development?

Is deification only possible because we walk on two feet?

Customer (Dis)Service

2007-09-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

I note with some annoyane that no one has viewed my blog this week. I note this fact with some concern, because I wonder when I became such an attention-whore. Was it when I was four? Or when I was six? You know, that time at the mall? Yes. That one.

Yesterday I purchased two train tickets for my parents for when they arrive (may that day come quickly, but not too quickly, I have five papers to finish before then). This process should not be complicated. Train is the favored mode of transportation here, and the system is generally centralized through one website. Unfortunately, it is quite possibly the worst website I have ever attempted to use.

It defeated me. Utterly, abjectly, mercilessly, maliciously, defeated me. It knew what I wanted (to find the best possible fares for these tickets and to then purchase tickets using money) and it knew how to stop me. Somewhere between the inconsistent search results, its refusal to recognize that 'London King's Cross' is a rail station (one of the largest in London and the site of some Harry Potter-related filming) and its refusal to recognize the concept of 'one-way,' it defeated me. I gave up and went to the stone-and-flesh incarnation of the English rail system: the local rail station.

The Durham rail station is neither charming nor lovely, and I generally avoid it unless travel on trains requires my presence. I have been known to throw a well-judged grappling hook at the third coach as it passes over the bridge across North Road and swing my bride and myself up, like Tarzan and Jane, or like Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh in Supercop (though they, I believe, had a motorcycle). In this case I entered.

Now, to be fair, I had already done this once on Friday to confirm ticket prices and availability. With the notes in hand from the previous teller (they never have the same one twice; I don't know what happens to them, though I have heard eldritch screams rising through the night mist, possibly a connection there), I approached the new teller. I laid out what I knew and had found from his compatriot. He responded, 'I'll be the judge of that, sir.' Judge of what? Whether the other man had lied to me?

His authority properly asserted and I, the lowly customer, put in my place (beneath the steel-toed jackboot of socialized train service), he proceeded to get the date wrong, though I asked in several different ways for a certain train. 'I need the 12:30 on Frdiay, April 13th. Yes, the 13th. Friday.' This should be enough information to guarantee that he does not instead book tickets for Thursday, April 12th. And yet this is what happened. When I asked if he were certain that April 12th is a Friday, he relented and looked. April 12th was, as it had been only twenty minutes before and, I pray, will continue to be, a Thursday, this year.

He then explained to me in no uncertain terms that I had told him Thursday the 12th. Why I would do this I cannot fathom. And yet, he told me so, I must have. Now, generally, as a customer, I don't like being told what I have and have not said. I find that sort of behavior abominable and, if we were in the US (God bless America...Land that I love...) his ass would now be looking for a new job from a position on the curb roughly 4 feet in front of his now-previous place of work. But here such behavior toward customers is expected.

Eventually he changed the tickets to the proper day, charged me more money, and I left, silently imagining what would happen if I pushed his face into his computer screen. I would probably be arrested and they would make me choose between going into debt to hire a lawyer or defending myself. The concept of equality and justice has gotten some play in the legal system here, but for the most part they want no truck with it.

Too radical, I'm sure.

The moral of the story is this. Customer service is predicated, I have come to think, on a fairly delicate and, in some ways, fictitous situation in which the customer is perceived as having some power. That is, there is an assumption that customer satisfaction is not only attainable, but needful. Here (as I watch two students make out in the flipping computer lab, packed with people, disgusting) that perception is not in effect. In the States I always think of the customer's parting shot, 'I''ll take my business elsewhere.' That threat only makes sense when there is an 'elsewhere' to take it. With the rail system, I have no elsewhere. I have no choice. I have to put up with whatever they want to hand me. Which is why Virgin trains can say with confidence that 'an hour is a fine amount of time for ticket-holding travellers to be forced to stand on overcrowded trains.' Perhaps people have seen Ghandhi and wanted to show their solidarity.

Too late, folks. India's independent and they have the Bomb. That train has left, crowded with cheap labor, for Microsoft's technical support Mecca.

But monopolism, if I may coin a word, is only part of the problem. Lack of choice is in some cases the most obvious explanation for the total denigration of consumer influence, but even in socialist situations (like this one) that explanation is only sometimes valid.

To look at the other side, here, people I know have threatened to go elsewhere after particularly heinous abuses by retail distributors, and the response is, 'You're welcome to do so, and we wish you luck.' Likewise, in pointing out an error, the clerk will begin arguing that it was yours. I have a bit of trouble holding back the urge to spit in his face, particularly when I know the error is obviously and undeniably his. There is an assumption, I fear, that you will suffer through this and return. And even if you don't come back, most everyone else will. Unfortunately, I think that it is an assumption so much as an accurate observation.

Oddly enough, the same is true much of the time in the States, but the perception that we as consumers are powerful is still a dominant one. When companies realize that they can screw us eight ways to Sunday (which requires two different ways on Saturdays) and we will come back for more, then they probably will. As, indeed, many have at varios points. It simply hasn't yet become the dominant mode of customer relations.

Customer service is, in some sense, with a large enough demographic base, a myth that is doomed to failure. If people fall into complacency then it simply hastens that failure, but the fact is that even if not, companies can still most likely keep profit margins just as high whether or not a few people do leave. Let us pray, then, that the myth be perpetuated a little while longer. What we need are some vocal crazies who will pilot the cause so the rest of us can capitalize without sticking our necks out.

I fear the only difference between present situations in the States and the UK is that the naturally retiring demeanor of the Brit has more quickly led companies to the realization that they can push, prod, and probably even beat consumers savagely with sharp little sticks (like pungi sticks, I should think), and we'll still purchase from them.

Of course, my distinction and reasoning is a gross generalization, but I fear that the thought has, nevertheless, some validity. I worry that it may yet become less a generalization than a generally accurate description. So then, the next time someone gives you a hard time at the returns counter, or screws up your order at Taco Bell (peace be upon it), or tries to bully you over the phone. Spit on them. Verbally abuse them. Yell, scream, cuss. Threaten, cajole, call a lawyer, file a lawsuit, follow Tyler Derden's example.

That way, thank God, I won't have to.

I hate confrontation.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Doctoral Proposal - Pt. 3

2007-09-01T05:04:00.001-07:00

I have no idea how one describes the third in a trilogy. Is it tre-quel? Tri-quel? Number Three? Number One? Captain Picard?

I just don't know. But at least, now I'll finish this series of posts and have it off my shoulders. I am increasingly uncertain why I chose to post my proposal, or a synopsis of it anyway, but I feel like I ought to finish. It may just be sheer bloody-mindedness. I wouldn't put that past me.

Alright, so, the human being as consituted of relationships which then enter into relationships. Both external and internal impinge upon one another--one can hardly think of my internal self, my mindset, my mood, etc., as 'independent' of how I interact with the world, with friends, family, enemies. I have many enemies.

You know who you are.

But how does this thing die? Well, if life is a mode of existence characterized by right relationship (relationship grounded in the Trinity's life), then death is a state of existence in which relationship has been so negated that it is impossible to return to relationship. It is, in a sense, thermal equilibrium.

To explain all this, I look over to some theories on entropy and how it is governed not by necessity but by probability. Entropy is, essentially, a name for the way particles interact thermally. That is, heat (energy in general, too) passes from the warmer to the colder body. So, my wife, who is always cold, will sap the heat form my body, which is always warm, until we come to equal temperatures. Curse her.

Interestingly, heat never passes from the colder to the warmer. Just doesn't happen. And the thing is, there's no good gul-durned reason why that should be the case. Unless one looks at it in terms of 'the odds.' If you have a large enough arrangement of particles, some with higher and some with lower heat contents, then there are so many more possibilities where the higher-energy particles pass it to the lower than vice versa that, well, it becomes a law of things that heat only passes form higher to lower. It's just so much more likely. I forget just how much, but it's a lot.

The upshot in my own life is that my wife will never help me get warmer. This is borne out by my experience. So far, whenever I am cold, she just throws me a blanket and laughs.

It has not helped so far.

But this idea of probability, where each state, each arrangement of particles, in essence determines the next state, may be helpful for understanding humans. If our choices are free but also conditioned by every previous choice--if we are, at any given moment, not an isolated, static being, free from every constraint, but are, in some way, the sum totality of all our previous experiences and, more importantly, decisions, then we are likely to act in certain ways.

Example: Alchoholics. If you meet someone for the first time in a bar and they have a drink in front of them, to your view there is an even chance for them to drink or not to drink. Why? They can choose and, as far as you know, taking this moment in isolation, they are equally capable of choosing not to drink as they are of choosing to drink. But if that person is an alchoholic/college student/Johnny, they are much, MUCH more likely to take the drink. In fact, in some cases, they may desire against it very strongly and yet take it. Why? They are following their pattern of behavior and they have so locked themselves into a certain pattern that the pattern has become a trajectory, and they MUST take that drink.

Addiction and sin are, in Orthodox theology, essentially the same things. Sin is a sickness of choice, one governed by action and yet which governs our ability to act. Addiction functions in the same way. I'm simply underpinning why we continue to sin.

Aside from the obvious 'because it's fun' answer.

The problem with sin is that it also functions solely in terms of relationships. Orthodox theology utterly denies any sort of score-card sin or sin as legal issue. It may resort to 'legal' measures, but it is never 'legalistic.' The funny thing about legalism is that it functions both ways: people who deny being legalistic often do so because they also think in those terms. In this case, the categories of thought must change. They must be RELATIONAL (forgive the caps, I am on my wife's Mac, and it doesn't support the full editor).

So sin is relational. It is first the breaking of relationship with God and it slowly extends to those around, to the material world, and to our own internal dynamics. It is the destruction of relationship and also the tendency toward that destruction. 'You shall surely die' involved no 'temporary reprieve' or 'mistake' on God's part. Adam and Eve died that day because they began movement toward death.

But we can change direction, right? Only at the very beginning. That's the problem with probability. We're eventually stuck and it is so hard to break our habits that, well, we must die. Death, according to Karl Rahner, is not a biological necessity. It is a matter of faith. And, I add, a matter of relationship and choice.

We and the universe take the same path, and it is entirely a fallen one. This is in keeping with the Greek Fathers' view of the Fall. Humanity was the bond, the glue, remember, and now humanity no longer functions to hold things together. Breaking relationship with God took away the basis for our relationship with the world. And so we ceased to properly guide it. And now the world is entropic. We are entropic.

It is impossible to change this on one's own, I posit. Instead, the Incarnation found its necessity (though it would have happened anyway) as a break-point in our way of being. Jesus' descent, life, death, and resurrection (not to mention the Harrowing of Hell, oo-rah), fundamentally altered our being, gave us a new opportunity, and a new ability to change direction. How it did so is unclear to me. But that it did so is clear from the reality of the Church, from the Saints, specifically.

Symeon the New Theologian described the Church as a chain of Saints stretching from the Apostles to now. John Milton described the world as hung from Heaven into the midst of Chaos by a golden chain. I suspect they meant the same thing.

Why do we die, even if we're Christians? That's the tricky part. The world awaits its destruction and resurrection, the 'revelation of the sons of God.' The world 'groans' and dies awaiting it. Gregory of Nyssa said that time will end when the number of human beings has been filled up. Perhaps, perhaps another time, but 'there must be an end,' as was told to Fr. Elijah (novel). Until then, the world continues entropic and we are physically born into that world. It is the matrix in which we live. So we too must degenerate and die.

And yet death is conquered. And yet death means so much more than physical cessation. Death is passage to judgment. Death is conveyance to life. Death is an existential act not in its mere fact but in how we approach it. Heidegger is partly right. We CAN live free toward death. Heidegger is partly wrong. We may live bound by death.

That is, in a nutshell, the proposal.

Actually, no, I'm lying. I just wrote 'I am a fish' about 600 times and handed it in. My supervisor cried a little.

Doctoral Proposal - Pt. 2

2007-09-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

I promised a conclusion to what I had begun about death and Christian theology, and so you shall get.

To jump right in where (I think) I left off, a dual relationship with death suggests an antinomy in human existence. That is, the same being is capable of mortality or immortality and, in a strange way, of both at once. Death is conquered--we are immortal. Death is inevitable--we are mortal.

So the question is: how can theology explain this rather fundamental aspect of Christian spirituality, and by logical extension, human existence? My thinking is that it must do so anthropologically. That is, a theological conception of 'the human being' should be able to account for our mortal-immortal experience. In fact, this issue runs through Patristic anthropology.

The Fathers conceived of the human person in terms of body and soul. The person is a unity of these two parts. The soul is the divine, or at least, angelic element in humanity, made according to the image of God. (Remember that for many Patristic writers, Christ is the image of God, following Colossians and Hebrews, and so we are made according to Christ, according to the image--this does not mean that Christ is not God.) The body is the animal element, drawn from visible creation, raised from dust, and made alive by its alliance with the soul.

For Christian anthropology, at least in the Greek Fathers, the body is neither a prison nor a tomb. The body is good. But it is, by nature, mortal. It is raised into immortality by its alliance with an immortal, divine, non-material, soul. Thus, the human being is, in a sense, mortal in immortal.

One objection to this picture is that the human is not really mortal, just has a mortal bit that has become immortal. True. However, the alliance of body to soul can become an alliance of soul to body, according to the Fathers. The human being is fundamentally relational, and relationship can move in the direction of either of its constituent parts. The soul can make the body like itself or the soul can become like the body--animal, base, essentially mortal.

The real problem with this view becomes visible only when it is reflected onto what I've noted previously from Heidegger. Dasein, the human being is entirely temporal. It will not do to speak of mortal 'parts' allied to 'immortal' parts. Death is not simply a separation of the dross from the gold, but is an event which affects the human being in its entirety. Body and soul, and generally the categories of Greek thought, are no longer sufficient. Sorry, Platonists. And Aristotelians. Yeah, you guys are wrong too.

So then, what can theology say to this? Here is my idea. We re-conceive the human being in such a way as to satisfy Heideggerian demands and yet remain faithful to the sum and import of patristic anthropology. Human beings are relational. Human beings are in the image of God, free, reasonable, made to be like God, fallen, mortal, redeemed, looking to resurrection--yet they are also temporal structures which exist always in time (eternally temporal, one might say).

What can do this? I propose that the human being--'you, me, anybody'--is actually a self-reflective relational structure of relationships which are grounded in the life of the Trinity and vivifically contextualized in the physical universe. To explain what the hell I'm talking about, I'll draw out a couple parts of the formula.

Self-reflective means that we are capable of looking at what we are and who we are and are capable likewise of choice, of directing our lives. We can decide to remain what we are or attempt to become something different. This freedom is the essence of human choice.

Relational structure: we are actually composed not just of tissue and bone but of relationships between particles, molecules, and cells. We are composed, more fundamentally, spiritual relationships. We exist between the infinite and the infinitesimal, between eternity and a moment. Somewhere between a range of infinitely opposed poles you will find every aspect of the human being, and each of these particular relationships relates to the others. And so a sum total identity, forged in relationships, begins to take shape.

How does it take shape? By our choice. We choose ourselves and determine how we relate both internally and externally.

External relationships oare more obvious. We exist always in relationship to other people, to God, to the physical world. Everything is, in essence, in an I-Thou relationship. Even objects. We are not individuals. We are parts of a vast web of being, and we can either be caught in it, or caught up into it. We exist, or learn to exist, not for ourselves, but 'on behalf of all and for all.'

In doing so we realize our ground of existence: that is, the life which gives us life and in which we share. We are made in the image of the Trinity, according to the Son who carries the whole within himself. We are relational in the same ways as the Trinity and must live out the same type of life. It is self-emptying (kenotic, for you Orthodox fans out there) and interpenetrating (perichoretic--this word is just about impossible to translate; it means that two things exist in each other while still remaining distinct). The highest and most perfect form of this life that we can experience here and now is erotic.

Ah, but this doesn't explain death, does it? It's kind of a pretty picture, and it explains a number of things while remaining faithful to Patristic theology, but it is, as it were, hypothetical, a little bit removed from reality. So, how do we die?

We die because we are fallen. However, I don't buy 'original sin' or 'hereditary sin'. Augustine misunderstood what the Fall is, and so he misunderstood how it becomes perpetual, and so he blamed death on conception, which is ridiculous. The notion that babies are sinful is a sad misunderstanding of theology.

For the Greek Fathers, the Fall did not mean a moral change exactly (though this is included), but was significant of a wider change to the world. Human beings were created to rule the world, to direct it, and to form an 'indissoluble bond' (syndesmos) which held together the spiritual and physical worlds and the infinite varieties of beings in one grand harmony. Human beings were made to be, as it were, the glue which keeps the universe together. The Fall points to an essential failure in that role.

When Adam sinned, he broke relationship with God. It was not the fruit that mattered. It was the way in which he ate it. It was not a problem that he become like God--that was his destiny! It was a problem that he sought to be like God apart from God--to do so in isolation. The loss of relationship is the beginning of death, and the tendency toward isolation is a movement toward death. Death is the end and negation of relationship--even the negation of its possibility.

Looking back at humanity, if we are inherently relational beings, composed of relationship and subsisting in relationship, then isolation (the destruction of relationship) really is death. Our organs cease functioning because the pieces within them cease to operate together. The very particles of our body release one another from their bonds and eventually we return to dust, our atoms scattered across the world. Isolation is death in both the universal and the particular sense.

But why does the Fall perpetuate? itself? Why do we all die? How is humanity the bond of the universe? What on earth do I mean by 'vivifically contextualized in the physical universe'? Oh come on, 'vivifically' is not a word, is it?

The answer to the last question is...no. I just made it up. Sorry about that, but my reasons will become clear. The answers to the other questions will be forthcoming in my next post. Then I'll be done. No monkeys in the offing, but maybe some dirty limerics.

Yeah, I wish.

Doctoral Proposal - Pt. 1

2007-09-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

I have turned in my doctoral application. It is complete. My proposal was finished around noon today. It has a preliminary bibliography of about 82 works. I have only read about 3/5ths of them, but no one else needs to know that. It can be our little secret. You like secrets, right?

The proposal is finally in a form which I am pleased with. If it is accepted then I will spend the next three years studying patristic theology (Fathers of the Church, mainly the Greek ones) and philosophy. I will then attempt to put them together in some fairly specific ways that should be applicable to matters of spiritual, liturgical, and contemplative practice.

The proposal is, in some ways, very simple. I am beginning looking at what Martin Heidegger said about human beings and death. He actually said very little about human beings, but he said rather a lot about what he called 'Dasein', which means 'being-there.' It refers to a specific being, an entity which can reflect on itself and question itself. Thus, it must mean human being (or angel, but I'm doubtful Heidegger meant that). Heidegger goes on to claim that Dasein holds together past, present, and future in a single temporal structure. This means that no part of Dasein can be singled out as not subject to time. All being is subject to time. All being is dynamic, it unfolds and develops over time. And, in the end, all Daseinen die. For Heidegger, death is a constituent part of life.

This is, for most of us, myself included, a strange notion. Death is the end of life, the negation of life, not the culmination or fruition of life. Heidegger's claim, on the other hand, is that death is what our lives are oriented toward: we exist, as he puts it, 'free toward death.' (In German that is one word, I am told). But St. Paul called death 'the last enemy' (I Cor. 15:26) of being. So Heidegger's anthropology (built on his ontology) must, in some way, be adverse to Christian theology.

Or must it?

I suspect there is much to be gained from Heidegger, though not everything will be useful or acceptable. And whatever gains will be gotten only through intense critical reflection. But how to focus the matter?

For the moment I will drop back and discuss a tenuously related matter. I will look a little bit at how Orthodox theology sees death. Heidegger will return later to pose more problems.

Patristic theology and Orthodox theology now, particularly in spiritual practice, hymnography, prayers, liturgy, maintains what I call a 'dual relationship with death.' Death is, on the one hand, conquered, slain, destroyed. Christ, in his death and (more importantly) in his resurrection, destroyed the power of death and freed me from its sting, from its bondage. Heidegger is, therefore, wrong: I do not live toward death. On the other hand, death is inevitable, and, indeed, in daily prayers and especially during Great Lent, the Christian is called to 'the remembrance of death.' So, in that case, I am not free from death. I am, in fact, living toward death, just as Heidegger suggested.

This duality indicates a problem for theological anthropology. That is, how can we conceive of the human being (from a theological point of view) such that it may be both mortal and immortal? How can a person be made alive and doomed to die? There is no problem if that life is 'post mortem', if it is present only in metaphor and gained in reality only after death. But Christ's life is our life now. Right now. In the Liturgy, in the Eucharist, in hesychia. We are alive and enjoying (hopefully) our immortality (Jn. 17:3) right now. Eternal life is not 'post mortem.' Time is conquered in the present. This is the fundamental reality of the Liturgy, of the Church. It is the 'time-conquering unity' (Florovsky).

But I am still going to die. At some point in the future, which, though conquered, seems not to be aware of it, I will no longer be. What then? Well, that is the question. How can I, the human being, be immortal, deified, living in Christ--and yet mortal, sinful, doomed to dust and ashes?

That is the first part of my proposal. I will write later with the second part. I would, as I always will, appreciate comments and feedback. I grant that, in one sense, your comments are entirely irrelevant, as the proposal in the hands of the academic pantheon, and currently Hephaestus is undoubtedly burning it in the purifying fire of the historical-critical method. But, in another sense, I am more interested in the conversation than anything else. So I would love to discuss this further.