The Coolest Thing About Toronto

I just spent 4 days in Toronto at the OCA North American Conference. It was wellll... a conference. Thank God there are people who like reports, budgets, elections and social hours if that's what it takes to run an archdiocese. I was there to get a feel for the ethos of the Archdiocese since we recently moved to the OCA to help start a Mission Church. I liked what I encountered there in spite of the machinery of administration.

Toronto is big, and maybe I just didn't see enough of it, but this was the coolest thing in the city as far as I was concerned. I want it on my front yard.

Light

Gladsome Light of the holy glory... at the setting of the sun we praise Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Home by Six

We've been working half days this past couple weeks... 12 hours, sometimes more. Getting home at ten after climbing 28 foot extention ladders painting the exterior of a house in 113 during the day... wellllll, I'm too old for that now. Anything for a buck, though, if you're self employed. I like eating too much to give it up at this late stage of my life.

Yes, we have new goldfish. Six young 'uns. Nice coloration. The sign on the tank at the pet store said they get 12 inches long. The black one with the feathery fins cost 4 bucks. The others were about 8 cents each. They hide under the rock all day so we don't see them.
Not very entertaining like our former fish who would swim up when a human shadow came across the water. What do you want for 8 cents I guess? Maybe they'll catch on.

My father in law continues to decline. He's taken to taking off his Depends in the middle of the night and peeing all over himself. He took them off in his chair yesteday and tried to get up to throw them in the trash. Tipped himself and his chair over and my wife had to get the next door neighbor to help her pick him up off the floor. She said she yelled at him. I think she felt bad because she didn't feel bad about yelling at him. She's being a saint taking care of him and being sure the burden doesn't fall on me except when absolutely necessary. I appreciate it. I know I'm sleep deprived most of the time already. I thank God for straight stretches of road and a good front end alignment on my truck. I don't know how many times I've fallen asleep at the wheel on my way home from work. I think all the saints whose icons I have on my dash don't want to be involved in a multiple car pile up on the freeway so they protect me... or at least the other commuters around me.

As much trouble as it is, we still take my father in law to Church with us and out to eat with our friends afterwards. We've gotten used to his gagging and yelling "AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!" to clear his throat and cough up liquids he gets down his windpipe... well, not really "used to it" but at least we know what's going on. People and waiters haven't heard it before so when it happens they stop and think someone is dying (and he is, but not right then and there). We all just keep chatting, and they wonder why we aren't jumping up doing the Heimlich Maneuver on him. They kinda stare and lean over and whisper to each other. Its not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear while you are trying to eat, either. But I don't know of any restaurants that have a "gagging and no gagging" section.

I go to court next week to get my final fine for helping my friend from Church. All told its going to run me about eight thousand dollars. We're refinancing our house to pay him and the courts off and get it over with. Nuff said.

I feel kinda wierd writing about goldfish in the aftermath of a bombing of London, but I guess goldfish are as much a part of the world and people's lives as terrorists and clashing ideologies. How do we compartmentalize the "horrific" from the "ordinary"? It is ordinary, meaning, a commonplace occurrence nowadays for people to be shredded to death in the name of someone's goofy theology or political ideology. If the horrifical world was not balanced by goldfish and tomato plants and blogs and paint job deadlines, we might just hang ourselves in despair. Some people may be no damned good, but not all creation is. Its just that the simple joys and the glimpses of wonder don't make front page headlines. Probably rightfully so because they are so idiosyncratic. Who else shares my glee at seeing my goldfish dart from under a rock for a split second? Anyway... so much for philosophizing in the face of someone else's death. I'm sure a tomato turning red on my back porch won't go a long way to explaining what happened much less easing the loss.

Well. I guess I better go fix dinner. A glass of red wine and a cupboard full of spices to create something delightful to share around a common table...what else do I need to fill my house with a sense of belonging and love for a few hours while the rest of the world rages out of control? Its a small gift for a short time, but its a thin thread that keeps the fabric of our being from coming completely unravelled.

What Do You Say

when you have nothing in particular to say and you have a blog that accuses you every time you log in and you see it has been weeks since you've posted something? Everyone can probably tell I finally figured out how to use the thingy that lets you post pictures to a blog. That was entertaining for a while, at least for me. I could do a daily diary of the wierdness and pathos that I encounter every day. I could tell about the rumor started by and among our city's clergy that I've been excommunicated. I could tell about my fines and restitution I have to pay for doing a favor for a filthy rich lawyer member of the Church who sued me. (sigh...no matter how I word it, it sounds bitter, doesn't it?) I could update everyone on caring for my father in law. I could tell about our new fish. But, nah....

We had a graduation party last Sunday. We had friends over who have been scattered to 4 different parishes by church politics and strained loyalties. We are all still friends but each family has chosen a path to try to maintain spiritual sanity. We sang at the meal and sang the Pentecost Troparia, which was our Mission's hymn, for the first time together in years. It was a reunion of spirits, a sweet remembrance of what was, and I still hope some day can be once more.

Early this morning I went to St. Anthony's Monastery and finished some walls for a monk. He said I did a week's work in 4 hours. There is little in the world more soul satisfying than a grateful monastic. Later, we went out for dinner with old friends to a real "hole in the wall" barbeque place run by Reggie and Mary from Mississippi who learned to barbeque from his grandfather. A humble family, truly grateful for our satisfied smiles and compliments on Reggie's cooking.

All in all, life is good, folks. I just can't work up enough energy to crank out a raving rant or get mad enough at anyone or anything to shred someone. I can't work up enough bitterness or resentment to write something really depressing or angst-ridden. What is, is. At the end of the day when I close my eyes, it is gone. When I wake up, it is there, but so is everything else that was there the day before, and at the end of the day, it was all in God's hands. What more can we really ask.

The Aloha Motel

Last Tuesday I logged about 8 and a half miles to and from the bathroom. I passed so much liquid from both ends of my body I thought my wife would find a ring of dust on the toilet seat in the morning. I was scheduled to fly to Chicago on Wednesday at 4:00pm for a conference with a group of Orthodox people in Media. I got up Wednesday morning and my wife fixed me a slice of dry toast and a glass of Pedialyte. I said, if this stays down and in, I'm flying. It did. I went. Everything stayed put. Thank God.

The meeting was great. Grassroots stuff. No "sponsors", just ten people who took time to gather, priests and layfolk all in some form of media, seeking to spread the Faith. We formed an "Orthodox Media Guild" to assist each other in our ministries. More to come on that as it develops.

It was my first time to Chicago. Cool town. I walked down town for a few hours, couldn't see paying 32.95 for a pork chop where Al Capone ate once, so I had a killer Polish sausage and a beer.

I had a night to spend so I figured I'd get a motel near Midway. I found the Aloha Motel. "New Rooms" the sign said. 60.00 a night on a holiday weekend, three miles further down Cicero Street than the Hyatt, Marriot, etc.. For three times the price I'll spend the gas money to drive. I checked into my "new room". The pictures are below. I have no idea what all the stuff on the walls was, although I suspect it had something to do with the cable channel. Its the only place I've ever stayed where I felt like I had to handle the soap with rubber gloves on. I thought about getting in the car and sleeping in the parking garage at the airport. Sleeping and having my face on the seat of a car where someone's butt was seemed like a healthier option than taking my shoes off and walking on the bathroom tile. Come to think of it, the sign didn't say WHICH rooms were "new" actually. Maybe there were two "new rooms". That would be plural, thus true. But I was still recovering from whatever it was that was trying to kill me, so I decided to try to get some sleep.

Wellllll... at 10:30pm a large group of African American young men checked into the room next to mine. I think it was prom night, or graduation, or just Friday night at the Aloha. By 12:30am they were just about drunk enough to ALL be speaking (yelling) at once and understand each other. I guess some of the group were too drunk to climb the stairs to the room and were still in the parking lot. The three women downstairs were screaming at someone and each other and the guys in the room would slam in and out of the door, scream down the balcony and across the parking lot to someone else's party. About 1:30 the police showed up and argued with the revelers for about a half hour. The parking lot sounded like a "My Sister Stole My Husband Who is Sleeping with my Mother" Jerry Springer Show. Of course the guys next door had to defend their women, at least verbally, from the balcony. So the police came upstairs and they hauled someone out of the room next door. After they left, of course the remaining tenants had to discuss it. It was not William F. Buckley and Edwin Newman in rational dialogue. At 3:30 am the police brought him back. Then they had to talk about that. At 6:00 am I got dressed, drove to the airport and dozed in the gate waiting area for 6 hours waiting for my flight.

Yeah, it was worth it to network with some great people who are really committed to sharing the Faith. Ah, yes....Sufferin' at the Aloha Motel for Jesus and the sake of preaching the gospel...I'm just imagining the stars in my crown now......

I Found a Motel Near Midway, Chicago!

Yes, that is clean toilet paper plugging the holes in the curtain.

Newly Remodeled Bathroom

Two Down and Two to Go

I attended my step daughter's Master's Degree Graduation in Lubbock, Texas last week.
I saw what I missed by not attending my own Master's hooding, walking and wellll... a LOT of sitting. I was struck by the vestments worn by the presiding faculty. Gold and silver medallions hanging around their necks, ribbons, hoods and robes of many colors with velvet stripes, funny hats, all worn slightly differently. I was reading the program that described all the regalia and their meanings. If you wear this color you are that, if your hood is this long you are this, if your robe has this many stripes you're another thing. I'm watching the leader of the procession solemnly stepping, holding in his hands an ornately carved staff with a silver sculpture of some kind on the top. Following him are the faculty, all in order of rank and seniority, all which could be interpreted by "reading" their vesture. I'm thinking: Didn't I see something like this when our Bishop visited a few weeks ago??? Yeah... the irony is that most of the folks in the picture below...now this IS Lubbock, Texas, the Buckle of the Bible belt... if not the buckle, it is at least the "Billy Bob" engraved name on the back...I lived there, I know.... and most of them are more than likely Baptists, Church of Christ, Bible Church, etc. They would be the first to holler "FOUL!" at the concept of a robed, vested, mitred pastor carrying a jeweled staff with a gold cross hanging around his neck in procession down the center aisle of the church, followed by his entourage of priests, deacons, subdeacons, and altar boys all distinguishable by their vestments and regalia, and having the gall to take a seat on the high place.

And yet... and yet....is this not the "church" of our western culture: Academia? And are these not our "clergy": the robed, vested and mitred, medallioned doctors of philosophies who preside at the passing on of the holy tradition of scholasticism? I'm not a historian of garmentology, but I'd wager that the academic vestments were originally designed after, or maybe were, priestly garments. Modern protestantism may have dumped the priesthood and all of its glory in the Church but it still holds fast to it in the arena that "really counts": Reason and logic, learning and scholasticism.

So, yes, mankind WILL have its priesthood. Mankind WILL have its vestments and processions. Mankind WILL elevate others to offices above themselves and honor them. Mankind WILL surround itself with regalia and dress funny and walk funny and endure assemblies that go on and on and on for the sake of giving itself status and proper dignity of its offices. However, the church of Texas Tech, in the middle of the Bible Belt has nothing on the Orthodox Church. Our vestments are a lot nicer and our processions go around the buildings three times not just once, and our services may be as long as theirs, but we at least get to stand and not be considered rude.

The Bishops and Priests of Our Culture

Graduation Day

We travelled to University of Arizona to see my step son graduate from the College of Liberal Arts with his degree in French Literature. It was the "College Graduation Luncheon" instead of the mass graduation the following day. We got to eat lunch with strangers at a big table instead of sitting on a football bleacher for 3 hours. Definitely a more intimate affair but there were still about 900 people present at the catered luncheon. We had a hard time getting the attention of the wait staff for water refills and exchanging our meals for the correct ones. "Where's a Spanish Major when you need one?", I wondered.

Anyway... the Dean of the College is calling out the students in groups of about 15 so the parents can take pictures. No one is paying any attention until their kid's group is called. John is an "S" so we had a long way to go. Bout half way through the salad, I hear the announcement: "Letters H through L please come forward....That would be H, I, J, K, and L, please come forward....."
Hmmmmmm... Maybe he should have announced the "H through L" in French, Russian and Spanish, the students might have known THOSE alphabets.

The majors were interesting. There was a "French and Genetic Engineering" kind of combo. Maybe that person was studying how to genetically alter the French. There would probably be grants for that from the government. There was one "Religion and Math". Well, we know there's at least one Liberal Arts grad that will be able to count change. Mostly there were a lot of Creative Writing Majors. I tell my daughter there's probably going to be some good Blogs coming out of this college. There was a "Religion and Creative Writing" grad. Hmmm...Maybe there's room on the Jesus Seminar for another person. I know I'VE made a great living with my religion degrees and creative writing classes. The best graduate announcement was "Jesus Avila Lowell the Second", Religion Major. Well, duh. What else would Jesus major in?

So, to all the Liberal Arts graduates out there, hats off to you! And yes, I will supersize that and it is for here.

Proud Mom and Sister with the French Major College Grad at $17.00 a Plate "Marie Antionette Memorial Cake and Water Luncheon"

Terrorism Emergency Response Team Deciding How to Put Out Cigarette Butt Smoldering in Trash Receptacle Outside Student Union Building

Liberal Arts Major at Work outside Starbucks

S-P in His Natural Habitat

Our Pond

God Damned Circle of Life

We really have Disneyminds. The Turtle was so… cute. It was moseying across the parking lot, obviously an orphan, and we adopted it. It turns out it was a water turtle. And we have a pond. Our pond has Disney fish in it. When I walk to the edge of the pond, 15 fish dart toward me and their mouths start kissing the surface. I throw fish food flakes into the water and they frolic, gobbling the sinking flakes, like giggling children catching huge snowflakes on their tongues. For a few minutes each morning I communed with my 15 best friends.

I should have known. The last couple mornings they didn’t come to the edge, there was no greeting, no joy. They laid still, stiff as fish sticks, at the bottom of the pond. The pet store kid said it wasn’t the pond water, they weren't sick. It was a reaction to a predator. The fear of death had paralyzed them. But the turtle was so… cute. We put "feeder fish" in the pond. The others were big fish now, too big for the turtle to eat. They'd get used to it.

This morning I go to the pond and I find 5 fish floating. Bitten in half. Disemboweled. The head of one is at the bottom of the pond. Several more are missing. My Disney Pond stewn with corpses. Disney lied. The Circle of Life isn’t The Lion King and Fantasia, the Fish and Turtle dancing like Hippopotami and Crocodiles in tutus and ballet slippers, it isn’t wildebeests and lions and snakes and elephants dancing on each other’s heads singing show tunes. The Circle of Life is death. The Circle of Life is randomly, wantonly having your life cut off. The Circle of Life is making a mangled carcass out of what was a graceful, feathery creature that only God on a good day could have imagined creating. The Turtle was just being a turtle in the fallen world. The Reptile Store Kid said, "Yeah, its a male. They are bad. They kill just to kill." The Fish were just victims of its Turtleness…and my Disneymindedness. Ever since Adam ate the fruit, nothing fasts. The lion lies down with the lamb but only after it breaks its neck and disembowels it. This is the Circle of Life: everything dies, and if our prayers are answered it might be painless. But mostly it is wracked with suffering, sometimes inflicted by someone else. Intentionally or not, our lives are often taken from us. And we live paralyzed by fear of death. We cannot move toward joy, toward the One who feeds us, toward each other, toward our Life, our Sun, our True Food. The fear of death turns us wooden, we become mere images of the reality of our true selves. We are stiff, lifeless, unconnected, motionless…dead yet living. St. Paul says the sting of death is sin, falling short of our real life, our true self, our fullness of being. The fear of death paralyzes, we live in constant dread of the Circle of Life because we know life is not a Disney cartoon, but a pond with beautiful, rotting corpses floating on its surface while certain death lies camoflaged, waiting on the bottom to ravage us as we drift by. (Hebrews 2:14-15).

And yet…Christ is risen from the dead, damning death by death and to those in the tombs bestowing life.

Yes… God damned the Circle of Life. He entered the circle and broke it. By death He rendered powerless him who had the power of death and delivered those who were held in slavery to the fear of death, St. Paul says. Satan is cast down and he and this fallen existence will gasp their last rotting breath some day when death and Satan are cast into the lake of the second death, and in the power of the Resurrection, Life will reign triumphant and eternal. (Rev. 20:14) The lion will lay with the lamb, not because the lion has become a lamb but because Life reigns.The Turtle will swim with the fish, not as a fish but in all its Turtleness because Life reigns in it. And we will live in true communion, the image of God fulfilled in us, swimming in joy because of Him who damned death by His death. God damned the Circle of Life, Mr. Disney. It is in Christ that your cartoon life is fulfilled and takes on reality. Until that day when Life embraces creation and all is transformed, I wait, like all creation waits in hope, groaning and weeping at the fallen Circle that encompasses all that is beautiful and joyful in this world. (Rom. 8:19)

By the way. We excommunicated the Turtle. Its still alive, but not in our Pond Fellowship any longer. The Reptile Store Kid took him.

Its Friday afternoon:
I took one of our remaining 5 fish to the pet store for a diagnosis this morning. Its eyes were clouded over. It was lethargic. We looked in the disease book. It said the introduction of a predatory or aggressive fish to the environment will cause fish to die. There are latent diseases that stress will cause to flare up and it will kill them. The Pet Store Kid gave me some antibiotic. 5 hours later we have one fish left. Hebrews 2 says we are held in bondage to the fear of death. So are fish. Damn it. We buried our Fish in the corner of the yard with our Dog and Hamsters and Rats.

My Stubborn Will

I wrote the words to this in the front flyleaf of my Bible 35 years ago. I still love it.
My Stubborn Will, Mrs. C.H. Morris

My stubborn will at last hath yielded
I would be Thine and Thine alone
and this the prayer my lips are bringing
"Lord, let in me Thy will be done."

REFRAIN:
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer
Til I am wholly lost in Thee
Sweet will of God, still hold me closer
Til I am wholly lost in Thee

I'm tired of sin, footsore and weary
The dark paths have dreary grown
But now a Light has risen to cheer me
I find in Thee my Star, my Sun.

(refrain)

Thy precious will O Conquering Savior
Does now embrace and encompass me
All discords hushed, my peace a river
My soul a prisoned bird set free.

(refrain)

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever
My wayward feet no more to roam
What power from Thee my soul could sever?
The center of God's will, my home.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer
Til I am wholly lost in Thee
Sweet will of God, still hold me closer
Til I am wholly lost in Thee.

Laying on of Hands

Bp. Benjamin St. John the Evangelist Mission April 9, 2005

Even though its "only" a Reader's tonsure, it was as humbling as any event in my life.
The only other time I've been in this place was when I was in second grade and travelled to somewhere far away to have the Bishop lay hands on me as an altar boy in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church. It was as holy and awesome an event this time as it was 45 years ago.

Pascha

It is 8:30 AM Sunday morning. About four hours ago the last member of our entire Mission trickled out our front door. We began the Mission on Meatfare Sunday and have travelled Lent together, built liturgical furnishings, learned new music, endured opposition and naysaying, met new people, formed a parish council, embraced a new jurisdiction and our new Bishop, set up, took down the Church every weekend, did reader's services every other weekend, manned our posts through family crises, puking kids, demanding businesses, kid's gymnastics and karate classes, and Grandpa's downward spiral into total helplessness. We arrived at our chapel at 9:30 last night, exhausted, apprehensive about choir, music, rubrics and kids. Father Damian intoned his first prayer at 11:00 and the Spirit descended. Or perhaps we ascended. Whichever it was, we entered the timelessness and otherness of the kingdom. The light shone in the darkness and the darkness of all the human frailty that laid the path for the beginning of this new Mission did not overcome it.

The hours between 9:30pm and 4:30am last night were only matched by the first Pascha we had 5 years ago in another Mission we had begun with dear friends. It was the taste of new wine that I have never forgotten but hadn't tasted since.

It has been too long since I've experienced the inexpressible joy and sense of the triumph of the resurrection, the communion of the saints, the holiness of the 8th day, the glory of the Church and the taste of the sweet fruit of the labor of Lent. For the first time in years Pascha was a bright flame of glory and a resurrection of my spirit and not a dimly burning candle of wistful hope for something more.

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!