Orthodox Action

O Pure Virgin

2012-03-10T09:35:00.001-05:00

O Virgin Pure

by St. Nectarios
Plagal First Tone (Tone 5)
Refrain: Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

O Virgin pure, immaculate/ O Lady Theotokos
O Virgin Mother, Queen of all/ and fleece which is all dewy
More radiant than the rays of sun/ and higher than the heavens
Delight of virgin choruses/ superior to Angels.
Much brighter than the firmament/ and purer than the sun's light
More holy than the multitude/ of all the heav'nly armies.
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

O Ever Virgin Mary/ of all the world, the Lady
O bride all pure, immaculate/ O Lady Panagia
O Mary bride and Queen of all/ our cause of jubilation
Majestic maiden, Queen of all/ O our most holy Mother
More hon'rable than Cherubim/ beyond compare more glorious
than immaterial Seraphim/ and greater than angelic thrones.
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

Rejoice, O song of Cherubim/ Rejoice, O hymn of angels
Rejoice, O ode of Seraphim/ the joy of the archangels
Rejoice, O peace and happiness/ the harbor of salvation
O sacred chamber of the Word/ flow'r of incorruption
Rejoice, delightful paradise/ of blessed life eternal
Rejoice, O wood and tree of life/ the fount of immortality.
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

I supplicate you, Lady/ now do I call upon you
And I beseech you, Queen of all/ I beg of you your favor
Majestic maiden, spotless one/ O Lady Panagia
I call upon you fervently/ O sacred, hallowed temple
Assist me and deliver me/ protect me from the enemy
And make me an inheritor/ of blessed life eternal.
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

(Source and translation: Holy Nativity Convent, Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)

CLICK BELOW to hear hymn

Finding Peace Despite the Suffering

2012-03-10T08:02:00.001-05:00

Finding Peace Despite the Suffering

by Father Lev Gillet

As we endure these difficult times and suffering, we experience a range of emotions, including despair, anger, and restlessness. The Lord has blessed us with His peace and promised us victory over all evil.

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.” (Jn 14:27) Jesus gives His peace. He does not loan it; He does not take it back. The peace that is in Jesus – “My peace” – becomes the disciples’ final possession. At the beginning of each day, it is possible for me to be confirmed in the Saviour’s peace, no matter what anxieties the day brings.

The Saviour gives His disciples His peace at the moment when His Passion is about to begin. When He is confronted with the vision of immediate suffering and death, He proclaims and communicates His peace. If at such moments, Jesus is the Master of Peace, then the strength of this peace will not abandon the disciple in moments of lesser strife.

“But I say to you, do not resist evil.” (Matt 5:39). How scandalous and foolish is this statement in the eyes of men, and especially of unbelievers? How do we interpret this commandment – about turning the left cheek to the one who struck the right, giving our cloak to the one who took our tunic, walking two miles with the one who forced to go one mile already, giving a blessing to him who curses us? Have we explored the ways and means of loving our enemy – whether he be a personal or public enemy? “You do not know of what spirit you are…” (Lk 9:55)

No, it is a question of resisting the Gospel. The choice is not between fighting and not fighting, but between fighting and suffering. Fighting brings about only vain and illusory victories, because Jesus is the absolute reality. Suffering without resistance proclaims the absolute reality of Jesus. If we understand this point, we see that suffering is a real victory. Jesus said: “It is enough” (Lk 22:38) when His disciples presented Him with two swords. The disciples had not understood the meaning of Christ’s statement, “He who does not have a purse, let him sell his coat and buy a sword.” (Lk 22:36) What Christ meant was that there are times when we must sacrifice what seems the most ordinary thing, in order to concentrate our attention on the assaults of the evil one. But defense and attack are both spiritual.

Jesus goes out to the front of the soldiers, who with their torches and weapons, want to lay hands on Him. (Jn 18:4) He goes freely, spontaneously, to His passion and His suffering.

Jesus cures the servant whose right ear had been cut off by the sword of a disciple. (Matt 26:51) Not only is Jesus unwilling that His disciple defend Him by force, but He repairs the damage that the sword has caused. It is the only miracle that Jesus performed during His passion.

The example of non-resistance that Jesus gave does not mean that He consents to evil, or that He remains merely passive. It is a positive reaction. It is the reply of the love that Jesus incarnates - opposed to the enterprises of the wicked. The immediate result seems to be the victory of evil. In the long run, however, the power of this love is the strongest.

The Resurrection followed the Passion. The non-resistance of the martyrs wore out and inspired the persecutors themselves. It is the shedding of blood that has guaranteed the spread of the Gospel. Is this a weak and vague pacifism? NO – it is a burning and victorious flame. If Jesus, at Gethsemane, had asked His Father for the help of twelve legions of angels, there would have been no Easter or Pentecost – and no salvation for us.

Credits and Attribution
This article is an excerpt from a larger work entitled "A Dialogue with the Saviour". http://www.coptichymns.net/module-library-viewpub-tid-1-pid-412.html

Open Your Gates

2012-03-10T07:49:00.001-05:00

"Open your gates to homeless thieves, let the outside world sweep in to demolish your magnificent liturgical system, abase yourself, empty yourself, make yourself of no account. However much you do so, can your abasement and degradation ever compare to Christ's? Accept the vow of poverty in all it's devastating severity: destroy all comfort, even monastic comfort."

- Mother Maria of Ravensbruk

Concrete, Steel + Paint - a review

2011-06-08T21:28:00.004-04:00

"What would it mean to live in a city whose people were changing each other's despair into hope?—You yourself must change it." - Adrienne Rich

This movie takes up the work Rich sets out to disturb our lives with - to look at our own selves and our interactions and reactions with those around us and see that our presence impacts the outcomes of everything that is going on. When we choose to do something or not to do something it is wrapped around every other thing in our world. Our responses to life do impact our own meaning.

The movie's website describes the movie: "When men in prison join with victims of crime to create a mural about healing, their views on punishment, remorse, and forgiveness collide. Attempts to find consensus repeatedly stall. But as the participants move deeper into the creative process, the mistrust begins to give way to moments of common purpose and human contact. The film raises important questions about crime, justice and reconciliation and illustrates the role that art can play in facilitating dialogue about difficult issues. In a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, there are no easy answers, but Concrete, Steel and Paint points to the need for fresh ideas and new approaches to criminal justice and corrections." from - http://www.newdaydigital.com/Concrete-Steel-Paint.html

This movie reveals a bold courage that lives inside a group of prisoners and victims in the city of Philadelphia. In what is nothing less than a miracle, a group of prisoners decides they want to make create art with and for the people of the surrounding neighborhoods. Their art is about letting people know that they are aware of their crimes and the horrible anguish those crimes have inflicted on the victims. They are trying to make contact with the world outside. The movie documents the struggle the victims have in coming to terms with the idea of even having to listen to the voice of the prisoners, let alone create some common work. It is like watching two creatures move slowly, blindly toward each other; two creatures that are relying on echolocation to find their bearings and gain access to each other.

It shows people leaning into something that seems beyond comprehension; beyond mere belief. These prisoners are wrestling with their desires for reaching out, through their bars with an offering of peace. They are extending an olive branch. These victims and advocates for victims are wrestling with whether they are able to reach out and receive. In the laying aside of their impulse (that we all share) to do absolutely nothing to bring about dialog, they have found engagement, expression, and emancipation. It was not easy.

Everything in us squirms at the idea of even bringing these two groups together. Our daily lack of hope prods us into believing that these things will never happen. Prisoners should not be in contact with victims. It keeps us frozen in a land where they never will. But here, against all odds, against all belief these people - no different from you and I - take an immeasurable risk and find restitution, restoration, and redemption.

Pain is not removed, but suffering is somehow turned to a tolerable grief at what it means to live among divergent feelings, complex structures of belief, and untold human weakness and agony. It feels like the same sullen ambiguity that brings an odd homeostasis while reading Anne Frank or Victor Frankl. Suffering is somehow different when it is opened to another. It is not necessarily removed, but showing your wound somehow does diminish the sting.

True art is able to move you from living in your head to living in your heart; helping you return there again and again. Perhaps to a different locale, but always to the heart.This movie is not only about art that moves you, it is itself art that takes you beyond the simple constructs of artistic expressionism and demands you feel for the complex strands in life that are not only contradictory, but needed. The strands that are opposed, but strands that will be woven into one fabric. That fabric is our precious human community. It is art within art; reminiscent of a "trompe l'oil" border.

The artful foray into engagement, expression, and emancipation that Cindy Burstein and Tony Heriza have taken has all the feel of an archetypal shift. Their trust that there is something deep, primal, and unsettling hidden in this story has caused a shudder in the rift between the "us and them" axis. They have proven again that we can trust the process; that art, dreams/desires, and the unconscious are equally apart of therapeutic catharsis and mending. What they have done here to capture something astounding is itself impressive.

You have got to see this movie. You can stream it live, buy it or check out one of the showings at:

http://www.concretefilm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=4

This movie should change the way we look at prison, reform, and reconciliation. It is a remarkable tale that religious and civic institutions should pay attention to. Societal groups that have held themselves to be "change agents" in the past could learn volumes about the nature of simplicity and risk in the process of bringing healing to the human spirit.

CLICK HERE for trailer and MORE INFO

Ancient Hebrew translation in Genesis has apparently been wrong .... ALL ALONG!!!

2011-05-25T08:19:00.008-04:00

NEWS FLASH:

New light has been cast on an ancient text. Apparently the Hebrew word for "be responsible" found in Genesis Chapter One (sometimes translated to subdue or tend) really means to:

"trash the place / stand on the backs of the oppressed and disenfranchised / and support unethical corporate greed and wanton pleasure"

WOW.

That makes so much more sense. It also explains a lot.

It explains why the three major Monotheistic Faiths have not screamed and hollered loudly about corporate greed, wealth-driven lobbyists, and have even denied that there is any truth to climate change, rather than establishing fasting and sackcloth and ashes as a way to go.

Most of the hyper-conservative organizations in those Faiths that allegedly love God so deeply, truly believe that it is ok to live the way we live in America - with no regard for the global picture, but only regard for ourselves. They teach that they know so much about God and Heaven (which no one can see) but these same people cannot add up the facts right in front of their noses and on the very ground upon which they stand. Really? All these tornadoes are meaningless? There is no climate change?

I challenge all of the American believers of ANY FAITH to collect their trash for one week and leave it on their front lawn. Then save it for a month and leave that on your front lawn. Does that seem like a reasonable amount of trash to you? Now multiply a week's worth by 52. What does that look like? How about for your whole neighborhood for 52 weeks? What does that look like to you? Does that look like a gift you would give to the Father of Creation?

Nice Gift!!!

That is just trash. We still have to look at emissions, toxic waste, overcrowding, disease...on and on.

It is sad that the military is responding before the church...it says a lot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/20/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism

God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth." Genesis i, 28.

What Actions Do You Take

2011-02-22T15:21:00.000-05:00

When I think of the connection that I have had over the years to the stories of people like Mother Maria, stories of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Mother Theresa, Catherine DeHueck, Dorothy Day, and the like, I ask myself what drives my actions. Will my actions ever read like tales from the deep that are meant to inspire other people - throughout time. Right now, I would have to say "I doubt it."

So often we see our lives as here, now, for this moment and for this act, but in the greater scheme of things our lives are a part of the cosmic drama of life. We are but small and integral pieces in the larger whole of life. Do we remember our acts are here to forge the words for the tales that will be told ages and ages hence. Our lives will meld with history and be the stories told by future folk.

I know I often forget that. Reading stories and sharing tales around the fire bolsters my spirits and my connection to the greater tale that life is really all about. Being a member of this human family throughout time is ennobling and deepening. Especially when we consider our place in the Kingdom of God that runs through, in, and around everything that is a part of human life.

Ciao!

TJM+

Sabbath Rest and Neural Ganglia

2010-12-21T08:23:00.000-05:00

Worship and Church need to be about Sabbath rest and wholeness. Church and worship are all about the seventh day of creation. They are rest from the work of life. We need to find ways to enter into the stillness God has called us into—out of the chaos of our worldly lives. The sacredness of Church and worship sets them apart as “Sabbath experiences.” Where is the rest in Church today? We cannot envelop wholeness without it.

Sabbath rest is also about telling tales. We reach into the ken of stories that emerge from our history as a people of God and we share them in a space rich in silence and stillness. The space provided by the silence and stillness enables us to hear how the tales interact with our own lives. We connect in a richer fashion when our tales our told out of rest, rather than constant movement. By removing these standard and routine practices from “Church”, “Sabbath”, and “religious” experiences, we have begun to dismantle structures in the neural ganglia of mankind. We are pruning out developmental culture and its place in our lives. This is dangerous.

Replicating our workplace environments in our Churches has proved empty. We really do not want to have executive meetings on Sunday, we just have forgotten that we are being called into something different. Making Churches into businesses has failed in the long run and we all feel that. Relegating growth to an “org chart” has left us hollow.

Eventually we are left with asking, “What happened to Jesus in all of this? Where has God gone in all of this?” Perhaps we have substituted our prayer practices with the distractions that keep us from stillness. As easy as it is to do this in our private lives, it is just as easy to do this in our corporate lives. We can eradicate healthy habits quite nicely in democratic cultures. I am afraid Church has become democratic—in ways that it has clearly not ruminated over long enough.

From Chapter 2 of Cairn-Space

click HERE to order

Talkable is Readable

2010-12-06T22:29:00.003-05:00

In the past I have not reviewed business books at this blog, but, because the author is a brother in Christ, and because his passion for branding has so much to offer churches and ministries as well as businesses, I find it a valuable read for anyone searching to align the core of their heart and passion with a fervor about getting the word out (is this not truly what evangelism is all about)!

Talkable is Readable

"Talkable" is a book on branding written by the progressive young founder and CEO of Abiah - an innovative brand development firm - Guy Richards. The book not only reveals Richard's broad sensibilities and deep reaching intuitions on matters of driving businesses and ministries into the future on the momentum of clearly aligned business structures and products, it does it in a down to earth and readable way.

Guy gives over information that only a strategist and guru would offer, but he does it in a humble and non-threatening landscape of pragmatic and actionable wording. He is the "pundit of the pragmatic". His self effacing humor does not set up any barriers to your building confidence in the task at hand. These laconic words bolster hope that people can brand and brand well on little or no money down.

Most people will never learn these simple truths about positioning yourself in the market based on the things you do that are talkable because most of the people that disseminate this info hide behind cryptic towers of profuse diversions - using language that would render branding as a science or a dead language. That is not Guy's approach. He makes it clear that anyone can get down and do the work if they will get down and do the work.

What he offers are 60 potent life lessons from the master. 60 times you get to sit at his feet and hear the words he has to offer. He'll reframe things that you already know with just enough newness and freshness so as to draw you in and stimulate your innovator within.

It becomes pretty clear that Guy is all about helping people find out what it is they are passionate about. Without this part of the oracle's message, there can be no push into success. He challenges us to begin to learn about what it is we do best and then make sure that we let people know that that is what sets us apart from all the other widget makers. If you don't know what it is that you do best then you need to take the time to review that.

So begins your dance with your brand promise. If you don't have that then you don't have a brand. You are just widget maker number six thousand. So get started.

There is info that you will want to add to your strategic planning analyses and to your over site narratives. There is material you will want to carry to deeper levels so you can orient and educate your staff. There are whole lists of actionable stuff in each chapter that you will want to jot down to help deepen and strengthen your constituents - adding value. So be sure to bring a legal pad to the reading.

Guy sort of reminds me of Tim Sanders (Love is a Killer App). He makes it clear that he is a Jesus lover and it informs all his work. This means that he is not only upholding a commitment to an ethical stance because he is hooked up to God, it means that he is learning to let love be the measure of how he does what he does. He has not burst out into saying "love-cats", like Sanders, but you get the sense that Guy is clearly revealing a glimpse into his own brand which is all about sharing the love. He is inviting us in to create a community. Community is a brand of brands.

I buzzed through the book pretty quickly - it is a quick read - and I would encourage you to do the same, making notes where you would like to make some particular adjustments in the way you are positioned in the market and how you do business. Then, I would go back through it with a more reflective and far reaching rumination. Take your time and make more detailed notes that involve specific interactions your heart and mind have with the material. It would be a great series of opening readings at staff and board meetings that could enable alignment throughout an agency.

Guy goes a step further and helps hook you up with Abiah's proprietary brand testing methodology BrandReturn. It is another way that he is sharing the love.

Anyone who wants to learn about the components of what Jim Collins (Good to Great) calls the hedgehog principle will find a readable roadmap in Richards book. Your business needs this book. Don't drop off the charts becaus you settled for the chaos of the ordinary - excel, innovate, and develop a core that people just can't stop talking about - for all of the best reasons!

Check out his link http://www.abiah.com/

From Chapter Three of My New Book - Cairn-Space

2010-11-09T05:51:00.000-05:00

A Quote from Chapter Three of my new book:

There is an peninsula in Greece known as Mount Athos. The “Holy Mountain” or “Garden of the Virgin”—as it is also known—is peppered with monastic houses, kelli (small groupings of individual monastic“cells”), and caves for hermits. Each gathering of monastics has its own “rule of life”; its own way of living together.

Some monks gather often for meals and prayer. Others only weekly. Still others only for major feasts or sporadically. Some monks live their rule alone; completely by themselves.However they are organized as communities the goal is the same.The monks seek to perform some sort of spiritual practice and also to enter “hesychia”—the stillness/silence of God. There are as many forms for this as there are monks. They truly live in cairn-space.

In the Western Church, Saint Benedict and other “Rule” writers, focused more directly on the pattern of living that monks shared with one another in their monastic enclosures. The “Rules” looked at the apostolic notions hidden in a common life together: how much should people eat, how many items of clothing should they have, how often should they pray, how should they treat guests. Although these “rules” inhabit the communities on the Holy Mountain, they are not the focus of Eastern monasticism. The focus of the Eastern Orthodox monk is tending the heart and making it a place for the Divine meeting. Spiritual practiceand stillness: prayer and hesychia. The writing of “Rules” and the living of rules does not predominate.

The work that the monastics perform in their spiritual struggle is seen as therapy. It is what restores them to full health in their lives in the Spirit of God. In Classical times, spirituality and religion were seen as daughters of medicine. The spiritual life was a journey in the healing of the soul. It was a medical science. Today we have all but lost that diagnostic approach to faith.

As you begin to unpack the writings found in the Philokalia—the monastic guidebook second only to the Holy Scriptures—you do get a sense that the writers were addressing illnesses within man. Their spiritual athletics in the arena of asceticism were directed at helping believers to find the antidote and cure for their spiritual illnesses. All of the writings approach spirituality with an eye toward removing the things that block us from becoming whole and healthy in the Spirit.

The writings speak a lot about getting back to a simple practice when we have lost sight of the silent stillness of God. Return to a simple method when you are distracted and start again. Fall and get up. Fall and get up. Fall and get up, again.

This was what they taught as a model for growth. This perpetual return to purification in the life of the ascetic moved them into a place where enlightenment and union could unfold without interruption.

Where much of the Church today has been at a lack for an organized schema or anthropology of man—one that permeates the denominational traditions—the Orthodox Monastic Tradition has maintained a consistent and growing body of knowledge of what it means to be human and how to bring human beings back into rightful homeostasis; centered in God. The path toward wholeness clearly requires spiritual practices and the stillness/silence of God—“hesychia.”

The Holy Mountain continues to be a place in space and time in which men still hear the cry of God, “Flee, hide from men, be silent.” The monastics believe it is this medicine that will heal the world.

This peninsula is cairn-space. These monks are cairn-space.

Ciao!

TJM+

Cairn-Space

2010-11-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

It is not uncommon to find stone cairns that have been set up as trail markers. These geologic GPS coordinates, piled on the ground, help us to find our way. We remember our way in life because of the piles all around us.

The photo albums that lay about our home are GPS co-ordinates to other places in time and space. Each picture, a cairn that marks whole chapters of life that have seemingly disappeared. The birth of our sons, the hiking of a trail, a trip to the Isle of Skye; they are not gone. The photos remind me of the place in my consciousness within which I have planted those days and ways of life. As I water the seeds of my past, I am informed with a whole new vigor that my life has led me to this moment.
This moment is built on so much more than I can see; but it is available within me.

We are called to pull the past into the present in order to shape our future—in our remembering. This is always the power of signs. They lead us to our future, by way of our past. We stand at a cairn and remember; we dream, we hope, we become.

This is not unlike the call of Jesus to “do this in memory of me”; to celebrate the Eucharist. The cairns in this Jesus-meeting are the species of bread and wine. They bring clarity to this moment and present us
with images and facts that may not be visible, but live deeply in us as realities we assent to. We learn that we are to be broken and poured out for the life of the world as these Jesus-meeting cairns suggest. The words
“in memory” or “in remembrance” of Jesus in this short passage come from the Greek word “anamnesis.” This word is all about the concept of bringing the past into the present and the present into the past. It is a
merging or confluence of time.

The cairns we speak of from this time forward will be cairns that may embody all of this. They may mark off God-space, heart-space, memories, or ideas. They may reveal hidden causes in the fabric of our
phenomenology, or hint for us to listen for the whispering wind; sacramental cairns on the landscape of our lives. They may point to interior dimensions we had no idea existed within our heart, and mind, and
soul. We will amble around the ideas of sacred-space, prayer-space, and sacramental living. We will encounter and wrestle with God all along the way. We will look for and stop at the cairns along the geography of our spiritual heritage.

...from the Introduction to Cairn-Space

click for details

Wipf and Stock Publishers

2010-09-28T17:38:00.001-04:00

Wipf and Stock Publishers: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

"There is something haunting about water. There is a power in her to lure and lull us. It is not just her power to drown or destroy. She holds silent things within. There is a lot of silence in her, and a lot of aged knowledge from seeing and passing all that has been. That is her wisdom. That silence is her power.

Rivers have seen passages of time that we can only guess at or imagine. Rivers wrap themselves over the planet in space, but have existed like this over time...."

The Empire Strikes Back

2010-09-14T14:41:00.000-04:00

The book JFK and the Unspeakable is a must read for any critically thinking Christian. I wanted to say intelligent Christian, but I realized it may be more accurate to say critically thinking Christian. What this book has to share is not something that most Christians would either be willing to believe or ever allow themselves to believe...especially those living in the suburban Utopian dream of comfortable anesthetization. If you take your government at its word, then don't read this.

But, if you - like me - looked at the Zapruder Film and saw it as a series of shots and not just one, it made you think. It made you wonder why JFK reaches for his throat and then we see another more lethal/fatal shot to his head. It makes you wonder if the theories of conspiracy were theories or realities.

James Douglass culls through all of the massive amounts of materials released since 1999 (and all of the usual stuff prior to that) and builds a rather extensive timeline of the changes in JFK's heart...changes that he identifies as that of "A Cold Warrior Turns". Kennedy moved the world away from the abyss of destruction because he himself had gone through that change within. He had a series of realizations of how the machine was handling the Cold War.

There is clear evidence of the contact between JFK and Khrushchev in his documentation. This evidence supports the fact that if it were not for these two men, the machines of our respective governments clearly would have chosen war over the course that prevailed.

I really think you should read the book and make your own decision, but I have got to tell you, reading this book has me weirded out. It is not that I am weirded out by the idea that elements of the US machine could have been involved in the JFK assassination. I have always believed that in my heart of hearts - this just gives me the grist for the mill. What really weirds me out is realizing how horribly close we came to destroying the entire world in the Cold War. And, how we live as if none of this ever really happened. We ourselves - at the hands of an out of control political machine hiding behind the US government - were just an instant away from perpetuating an evil that would have made Hitler look like Fred Rogers.

The term "The Unspeakable" comes from monk Thomas Merton. It is his description of the nuclear predicament we all lived in amid the 1960s. Merton figures prominently in Douglass's book as he uses him as a moral hitching post to tie all of the truly sane thinking people to in this day and age. Interesting that Merton, too, ends up dead by the end of the 1960s. Another death - along with Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King - that I have my feelings about in my heart of hearts. "Hard to see the Dark Side is", said Master Yoda. He was right.

Do yourself a favor and get this book - TODAY. It will deepen your outrage at what we allow to occur in our lily white world of order and suburbia. It may even deepen your commitment to Jesus and His RADICAL call of discipleship: A calling that would have us turn the world upside down for justice and truth. A calling that requires us to attend to our own deep conversions of heart like JFK. You will not be the same.

Check out Twenty Conclusions after Nine Visits - and autopsy report: Click Here.

TJM+

What has the Church Become

2010-06-24T00:16:00.000-04:00

Tonight I listened to two kids who are becoming adults. Both of them have been failed by the Church. The one has a father who is a clergyman that has not been allowed to spend time with his son because of the ridiculous demands of what we have allowed to eat the Church alive. Demands that are not a part of the kingdom. The other is a kid who has been involved in the Church for years and know one has had the balls to enter into his pain and help him sort out his life.

The Church is meant to be a place of healing and has turned into a place that feeds peoples' psychosis and delusions. When do we stand up and demand that we forget about the properties and the mortgage payments, and the thousand and one paper pushing meetings and we sit with hurting people and cry.

When will the people of God wake up and withhold their tithes and gifts until the machine of the Church starts cranking out people who understand human pain and suffering and enter into it. I fast from the machine of Church. I grieve the monstrous beast we have become, so concerned with moral and ethical issues and so afraid of going into places of suffering and pain.

Sure cast out the gays, the people who have had abortions and affairs,the lepers and everyone who has something in them we don't like - yeah thats the Church. I am sorry - THAT IS NOT THE CHURCH!!! The Church is people recognizing they are broken and hurting and that others are as well. We all long for wholeness. When will we demand true action, true belief, and true intention and stop hiding behind divisive platitudes that tear people apart.

The Church is masquerading and it is a shame. People are all broken and just want someone to hold their hand. That doesn't seem so hard.

tjm+

The Moral Outrage of Oil Consumption

2010-05-31T13:33:00.000-04:00

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of the responsibility of all men in a free society (Heschel insisted that in a free society where some are guilty, all are responsible) in "The Moral Outrage of Vietnam".

"It is weird to wake up one morning and find that we have been placed in an insane asylum while asleep at night. It is even more weird to wake up and find that we have been involved in slaughter and destruction without knowing it."

The words may be about Vietnam, but there is a taste of crude oil in it when I hear it. There is a truth to the weight I feel when I wake up and remember that my need for fuel and energies of fuel has been responsible for the fuel leaking into the Gulf right now. I am the one responsible. We are all responsible.

People of faith - particularly the religious leaders - should be making more noise about this tragedy. Can't we see that the "waters are turning to blood" again. We have seen this before, this type of destruction and greed. We have allowed too much "fast technology" to tread in areas they obviously have no business treading.

There should have been a few - if not more - viable options on standby for such a hideous occurrence. Have we learned nothing from the Exxon Valdez incident. This oil leak is not a spill, this is a horror. The religious leaders should be down on the Gulf calling people to fast and pray, begging for an answer and challenging people to put on sackcloth and ashes and call on God. There should be no silence.

Fast from one meal a day and call on God for an answer and a repairer of the rig. Pray the arterial surgeons would share how they stop arterial leaks with these oil hounds. Pray that people would be able to clean up the horrible affects of oil and for the countless people whose lives will be altered beyond recognition.

Fast and Pray because of this moral outrage - and don't sit still. Get others involved.

Ciao!

TJM +

Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity

2010-05-18T07:37:00.002-04:00

I want to share a quote with you that has deepened my understanding of the passion living inside theologians and prophets. It is by Abraham Joshua Heschel - the most passionate and God-loving theologian of this century. Heschel understood the connection between mysticism and social action. I first read this book a dozen or so years ago, when his daughter published these essays - with a superb introduction of the man - her father.

Heschel is a prophetic figure. He embodies the desire and activism of a prophet. He reminds me of Mother Maria of Paris. this quote was taken from a telegram Heschel sent to President John F. Kennedy just before attending a religious leaders' summit. Listen for the personal sacrifices he is willing to make and asking the President to request of the religious leaders. Who among our religious will stand this tall, this honest in front of the president - and still maintain a humble demeanor, with no rancor?

"I look forward to privilege of being present at meeting tomorrow. Likelihood exists that Negro problem will be like the weather. Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Please demand of religious leaders personal involvement not just solemn declaration. We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate Negroes. Church synagogue have failed. They must repent. Ask of religious leaders to call for national repentance and personal sacrifice. Let religious leaders donate one month's salary toward fund for Negro housing and education. I propose that you Mr. President declare state of moral emergency. A Marshall plan for aid to Negroes is becoming a necessity. The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

We need men and women of this caliber today. We need folks who will fast, pray, march and protest and merge their words with the passion of a Heschel. We need to eradicate many more social injustices. Take courage from Rabbi Heschel, and STAND UP.

Ciao!

TJM+

If you have never read Heschel...today you are invited. The link to purchasing the book of essays this quote comes from is above, on the left. He also wrote God In Search of Man, Man is Not Alone, I Asked for Wonder.

Enter Job

2010-05-07T09:58:00.000-04:00

If the wonders of technology and cinematography have taught us anything about ourselves, it is that we love happy endings. We religious folk are no different.

We love tales from scriptures that wrap up rather nicely. God tips off Noah so he can be saved. Wanderers are miraculously heralded to the other side of the huge body of water, while their enemies are drowned as the walls of water crash on their heads. A few faithful humans escape the hurling of fire and brimstone as the city is destroyed. Ah, the good are safe and sound. The bad are crushed. Yeah! Great ending.

Lest we forget the full body of scriptural encounters and wrestlings with God - ENTER JOB. Here's a guy that was allegedly a super servant of the Most High. But - he lost everything. Reduced to dung and ashes his life was a mess. And yet, from the hell he entered he sought to strive with the LORD. He chose to continue to encounter and wrestle with God.

Just because we are crying out and praising the Most High, we are not immune from suffering. Churches will close as the paradigms shift in this new age. People will go jobless who love Jesus. Right living does not produce prosperity. Right living produces compassion, joy, peace, patience, kindness and the like. Beware of folks who teach that if we do the right thing we will be blessed. If we do the right thing, we will be doing the right thing. Period.

As shifts occur in the organizational landscape of society and the church, let us remember that we are called to faithfulness whether we have "stuff" and "blessings" or whether we have "nothing" and "curses". Stories with happy endings are only one piece of the Canon. The "happy-enders" out there would remind me that at the end, Job gets a whole new family, new riches, a new life. Yes, but, the ones he loved were annihilated.

The story of faithfulness is that we to learn to emerge from ashes and new growth with the same heart of love and devotion. The journey is not about happiness, but union with an awesome and perhaps terrible God. Making our way back to Him is not about comfort but connection.

TJM+

Appalling Nature of Church

2010-05-05T18:48:00.000-04:00

It has become common knowledge that many of the mainline denominations are flailing and in disrepair. Many seem on the verge of collapse. When you dig into the chaos that exists, it appears that the greatest contributor to possible ruin is finances.

It makes me wonder how we have gotten ourselves into this place. It does not matter whether it is Orthodox or Free Church denominations. They are all closing doors because of finances. How have we allowed CHURCH to become synonymous with corporate structure and ownership?

The nature of CHURCH is the "called out ones" of God. Called out of the world, CHURCH is allegedly the community of people who have opened themselves to the indwelling of God's Spirit - we are TABERNACLES of God.

It is up to the creative ones to figure out how to disentangle the two concepts so that true CHURCH is challenged to go on and meet the conditions of a new way of gathering and so that whatever the shape of that gathering becomes, it does not commit the same crime of seeing buildings as CHURCH and programs as CHURCH.

The shrinking and withdraw of support from institutions in this country has been going on for a long time. Big business and consumerism is the new culture we live in. As this shift occurs, many grass roots movements are being challenged to go back to their origins and reclaim the vital link they have with living the vision and mission they espouse without the "luxury" of bricks and mortar.

I hope people are starting to think about what the core values of faith are all about. What constitutes spiritual life and growth. And, how to become community without the abundance of property and wealth.

The option will be for these collapsing denominations to scrap what they have and all run out and find another "thing" that is similar in shape and size to what they knew; or, to re-envision what we may have been missing in the call of God. Listening to the call requires the abandon of a Prophets heart and a ruthless audacity to shout out when we have fallen away from our connection to the Father of lights.

Times ahead will be prophetic to say the least. It may be too simple a response to look at the churches that survive and say what are they doing right? The Churches that survive just have more money. Now is the time to find out how CHURCH and "luxury" are distinct. Let's not rebuild something that falls apart on our grandchildren because we mistook abundance as a sign from God that we had found the WAY.

It is time people start asking themselves how house churches, small groups, and communities find their ways into the changing shape of CHURCH.

TJM+

Second Sight - A New Book to Watch For

2010-05-03T12:13:00.000-04:00

A review of a sensational read:

“Every explorer thinks he’s crazy just before the big find. Keep questioning what you think you already know. It’s the fastest way to the truth.”

“Be careful what you go looking for. Some things aren’t meant to be found.”

Somewhere between these two quotes from the book lies the mystery of its quest. Second Sight is a story - designed and authored by an architect - that uncovers the awesome mystery behind the development of God’s grand schema written by His consciousness through the hands of His characters –“written in primordial time, in the PRESENCE, with black fire on white fire” (Rashi).

Were there cataclysms in our past that initiates were able to safe-house wisdom against? Are there Ages to the human species that we have not uncovered or deciphered? Is outer space somehow connected to inner space? Second Sight leads us on a profound questioning path toward these concepts.

We bounce back and forth, in the book, between time present, time past, and future time. We are hurled between inner space and outer space. The far reaches of the galaxy are hidden in our present tunnels and pathways to antiquity.

The book starts with a personal tragedy that draws you in to the life of the main character with a deep sense of longing for his survival. It does not take long for the hook to be set by the author. Once hooked, you cannot stop following the line – hoping to catch a glimpse of the one who has snagged you and begun reeling you in. You are always left wondering whether what you are reading is real – the greatest sign that you have been caught. You’ll find yourself wanting to “Google” most of what you uncover.

One minute we are buying Cool-Whip in a convenience store and the next we are standing at a five storey sand plume by the pyramids in

Egypt

. The search for the prize – like the longing for the philosopher’s stone - never escapes your racing heart. Staring into the Abyss has never been so riveting.

The Kybalion quotes the ancient Hermetic principle, “As above, so below. As inside, so outside”. Jack Althouse, in his book, walks us through these principles with a verbal artistry that reveals a landscape not a concept. We are climbing down holes, through tunnels, and space itself to find more than tablets of gold and arcane artifacts, we are searching for a treasure of great price. We search and wonder where we will end up next, only to find out that it is the place where all heaven and earth collide. To find it, you’ll have to read this thrilling journey – this amazing book.

There can be no escaping the fact that this story has to be told. It is a matter of life and death. You will not be able to put the adventure down until you have gobbled up his every word. One thing is for sure, your compass will never look the same to you again. You can bet there will be more to come!

Jack’s Author page http://www.wolf-pirate.com/#/j-f-althouse/4530387642

Publisher’s Book Page http://www.wolf-pirate.com/#/second-sight/4539011423

Pick up the first chapter from either page.

Jack's Website http://jfalthouse.com/ - you can get four chapters of the upcoming book here!

Ciao!

TJM+

2010-05-01T08:46:00.001-04:00

Wilson-Hartgrove Challenges Our Sense of Mobility

2010-04-09T16:59:00.000-04:00

The Wisdom of Stability is the latest book by Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove. Kathleen Norris paints a wonderful landscape in the book's forward, showing us the contrast between our ever-chaotic need to improve, be relevant, and be appreciated and the less frenetic gift of being rooted in place, in relationships, and in God. It is a gift that is given, long before we know we need what it holds inside. This sets the stage for the power of Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove's wrestlings and wanderings in the interior notions and exterior realities of staying in one place and processing "what is" happening right now.

You have got to love when an author exhibits such playful candor at the outset of a book. Wilson-Hartgrove let's us know right away that he is on a mission to reset our internal default. He wants to help us to consider the value and nourishment that comes from staying put. Sending roots down in the loam of God's love and faithfulness challenges us to move beyond moving beyond. His challenge is bold and fresh, giving the heart something to keen about and the spirit a chance to soar in place.

Wilson-Hartgrove swerves in and out of stories about our homes in a comforting rhythm and a settled prose that is familiar and sacred at the same time. He reminds us that nesting in our houses, our relationships, our earth, our finances and all of life is something gracious that is pitted against the progressive call to change and upgrade lest we shrivel up and die. Constant change feels anything but gracious. We are a culture that is tired of always moving.

Wilson-Hartgrove reminds us that there is an interior life that drives the desires and yearnings we have. This interior landscape can only be truly known when we stop long enough to make love to the life it affords us; when we settle into a romance with mundanaity. This stillness proves not only a strong foundation for life, but a worthy place to live. Once there, we have found a center.

And yet, our stability can morph into stagnation. We strive against stability because we fear the treasures of sameness. Would we ever know awe if we did not see how changing comes full circle to changelessness. We learn something by noting the rebirth of the snowdrops in the field by our house - year after year. Jonathon teaches us to look and listen for the gifts of a stationary life - inside and out. This freshness will bathe us in a renewal that becomes a momentum of the heart - a growing sense of expansion. Digging deep can teach us the true freedom beyond the illusions of change: the detachment of apatheia.

We can never be set free from attachment to place until we root down deep enough within to the source of life that nourishes us to rise above one place and be in God in all places at once. Staying put can enable us to

understand and relinquish the hold that space can have on our psyches and on our hearts. Longing for motionlessness reveals that our only stillness is in God, not simply in our soma. We cease all movement when we enter into the only thing that is truly immovable: God and God's immeasurable love.

We are revisited with the tales of Jacob and the Psalmist as they wrestle with the notion of dwelling with a God that tabernacles with His people right where they are, amid the tatters of their lives and cracks in their walls. God gifts His people with relationship in space and time. God dwells with His children in order to transform their lives, not their space and time that He has peacefully thundered into.

We are lead by the author into a pathway landscaped with questions about where we find our home and how we gauge our meaning. Can we get passed the urge for newness and settle into a life of community that has no glitzy diversions and adorable notions to purchase? When we find God in our angst, despair, and boredom we have grown beyond the shifting trendy fashion of pop-theology and smile-ology. Can we find strength in wrestling with God amid struggles and trouble, and not simply in the glory of denial and change. It is tough making a home in God, it demands we face things again and again.

The ambling Jonathon does in the ideas of what it means to be home, to find rest, and abide are as familiar as our own ancient lurking passion to belong. You cannot help but feel like you are living the old Hasidic tale of the humble seeker who has a dream that a treasure is out there for him, under a bridge in a far away village. When he awakes and takes to the road to find his treasure, he happens on a guard who mumbles to him that he has just had a dream that a poor beggar is wandering the earth looking for a treasure that is buried behind the wood stove in his own home. He scurries home to find his wealth where he had been all along.

While making HOME is something we long for desperately, it does not come easy. It takes work to be set free into the wisdom of stability and rootedness. But, we can gather around us practices and people that point us in - that help us uncover the hidden riches. We can find this in the repetition of our own hugger mugger, but we must be intentional about looking.

Jonathon has set up chairs on his front porch and is asking us to sit with him, have sweet tea, and look at the stories about movement and stillness, about being called out and being called to stay. Whether it is Jesus and the possessed man, Levi, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony, or the man and woman next door or around the corner, it does not matter, Wilson-Hartgrove is a master storyteller who invites us in to his tales, his community, and his life. He asks us to look at our lives through the eyes of the wise Fathers and Mothers from Church history. This lens is critical to the current need in the church for grass-root rebuilding of the early church and house-church models of celebrating God's Presence with us.

This book is a must read. And, it is a must read for small groups, house-churches, communities, new monastic devotees, and folks who are hungering to find out what the Spirit of God is calling the Church to in a Post-Denominational day and age. Don't wait too long, the hour is now!

Watch a short trailer by the author himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4KBRL8NjJk

Ciao!

Tom+

Holy Poverty

2010-03-15T15:57:00.000-04:00

Over the years, the notion of poverty has taken many turns. It has always been a value of the followers of Jesus to share things in common. The community in the second chapter of the book of Acts makes this plain. In the deserts around Jerusalem, communities like the Therapeutae, the Essenes, and the Nazoreans - to name a few - all practiced the form of poverty that comes from sharing all things in common.

Benedict encourages this in his rule and Francis in his as well. The call to simple lifestyle permeates the Basilian and Augustinian Rules as well as the Order of the Knights of the Hospital. All of this so we may live a life the LORD has called us to, of not having more than we need for the journey. Christ's proscription was even harsher in that he tells us to take no food with us or a bag to carry them in.

Why all this talk of poverty? The rules of the communities of the past saw the nature of greed in man as something that can itself consume us. In this day and age it is a wise journey we take if we challenge our sense of ownership and consumerism. In what ways do we live in excess? Where are we in the world scheme of things? How are we answering God's call in us to not be attached to this world?

All of these are valuable questions to pursue in the spiritual journey. In most cases, true missional lifestyle happens best when we move ourselves into communities of the poor and live the Gospel life among the people.

Living alongside the outcasts

2010-03-02T15:00:00.001-05:00

In Paulos Mar Gregorios' text The Meaning and Nature of Diakonia he paints a picture of what it means to serve. He traces the lineage of serving in the two Testaments - Old and New. Service in the Old is one of the Levites performing ritual tasks for God in the Temple. In the New the acts of service are no less formal but they are expanded to include serving all mankind.

What is unique to his image is that he tells us that we are to live alongside those we serve. We are to live alongside in such a way as to take on the same life as those we serve. We are to be ready to sacrifice - even unto death - for those we serve.

This challenge means that our lives get lost in the service of those we are called to tend. This challenge is so immense that I find myself railing against it at every turn. The process is long and hard and means we are continually challenged to get lost in God - the One who has ultimately come to live alongside we outcasts.

peace,

Tom+

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom on Mother Maria

2010-02-22T10:22:00.001-05:00

Here is a quote from Metropolitan Anthony on Mother Maria of Paris. It is taken from the preface to Pearl of Great Price.

Infinite pity and compassion possessed her; there was no suffering to which she was a stranger; there were no difficulties which could cause her to turn aside. She could not tolerate hypocrisy, cruelty or injustice. The Spirit of Truth which dwelt in her led her to criticize sharply all that is deficient, all that is dead in Christianity and, particularly, in what she mistakenly conceived to be classical monasticism. Mistakenly, for what she was attacking was an empty shell, a petrified form. At the same time, with the perception of a seer, she saw the hidden, glorious content of the monastic life in the fulfillment of the gospel, in the realization of divine love, a love which has room to be active and creative in and through people who have turned away from all things and – above all – from themselves in order to live God’s life and to be his presence among men, his compassion, his love. ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’: this she understood, this she lived for. This is also what she died for.

Mother Maria is a saint of our day and for our day: a woman of flesh and blood possessed by the love of God, who stood fearlessly face to face with the problems of this century.

ANTHONY
Metropolitan of Sourozh

Peace,

Tom +

What Happened in Rutba

2010-02-19T07:14:00.000-05:00

There is a monastic house in the south - Rutba House. It is named after a town in Iraq where some missionaries were cared for by Iraqi doctors. During the hostilities of war, this hospital made a vow to care for anyone who needed care. It did not matter what side they were on. This amazing story of compassion reminds us of the harrowing words Jesus shares in the story of the Good Samaritan.

This group is a part of the new monasticism and is worth your time to follow their community. Rutba House

Follow this link for the story: http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2003/10/31/rutba-house/

Life affirming stories are often so lost in today's media blitz. This story of grace has blossomed into a community of hope.

Peace,

Tom +

Saint Anthony - father of monasticism

One Beggar Sharing Where He Found Food

2010-02-17T07:54:00.000-05:00

Today as we begin the Lenten Journey (in the West) may we recognize the call to action. A call that reminds us we are all beginning in the same place. Our acts of mercy and compassion are not done because we are better than those we serve, our acts of service are nothing more than "beggars sharing where they found food with the other beggars." This call is a call that comes to us from Christ's reminder to see Him in the "least of these" - those the world has chosen to ignore. For, this is who we are - we are the ignored of the world. We are the forgotten ones. Forgotten, because the life of God's beggars is rubbish to the world. To us, it is what makes us alive. One beggar sharing where he found food - that is all.

O Lord and Master of my life,

take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency,

lust of power, and idle talk;

But grant rather

the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love

to thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King,

grant me to see my own transgressions,

and not to judge my brother;

for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages.

prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian - 4th century

See also the tale of the Beggar King - a wonderful parable from Jewish folk-lore. An apt reminder that our heart holds the key to how we see the world. it is a wonderful tale quite parallel to our journey through Lent - our journey toward humility.

Beggar King

Blind Beggar

Peace,

Tom +