Saint Aidan Orthodox Church

A 10-Minute Video on How to Make Basic Prosphora

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:58:00 +0000

Latest Podcast: The Wounded Healer

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:03:00 +0000

Latest Podcast: Struggle Daily to Rest Eternally

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 01 May 2012 01:43:00 +0000

Look Up And Seek Your Maker

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:51:00 +0000

There's an old American folk song that goes, “Look down, look down that lonesome road, before you travel on. Look up, look up and seek your maker, 'fore Gabriel blows his horn.” The lyrics are a warning and an exhortation to the traveler on the spiritual journey: consider the consequences of your current path, and find God before it's all over. In essence, the singer's message is simply a rephrasing of the preaching both of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2 and 4:17)

“Repent!” The word alone conjures up for many of us the image of a red-faced, finger-pointing, pulpit-thumping preacher, judging and condemning us to eternal punishment. In our culture, the call to repentance inspires guilt, fear, and even resentment. We imagine a repentant life to be a miserable existence devoid of the enjoyment, pleasure, laughter, lightness and freedom that should be the hallmark of every Christian.

I would like to explore a radically different vision of repentance, one that I believe is truer to authentic Christianity. What does Jesus really mean when He calls us to 'repent,' and what should repentance look like in our daily lives?

The original Greek word for 'repent' is 'metanoia,' which literally means 'I change my mind.' The word, however, implies more than just switching points of view. Contained within 'metanoia' is the sense of an active change to one's way of life. If before you devoted all of your mental and physical energy and efforts walking in one direction, now you do an 'about face' and started to walking in the opposite direction, with the same determination.

Far from being a passive emotional state of guilt and shame, genuine repentance is a primarily about action. While feeling sorry for one's sins has a part to play in 'metanoia,' this feeling acts primarily as a catalyst for changed behaviour. We are not supposed to merely feel repentant as much we are to do repentance. In our contemporary culture, the phrase “I turned my life around” comes closest to capturing the true meaning of 'metanoia.'

Why should we turn our lives around? Because, Jesus says, “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The song I quoted at the beginning seems to suggest that He means, “Before it's too late,” but we shouldn't read a threat when no such threat exists. In saying, “the Kingdom of God is at hand,” Jesus is simply declaring that in Himself “God is at hand,” meaning that we can touch God, hold him, encounter Him, and know Him. When Jesus says, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” He is in effect meaning, “Turn around because I am here.”

How does this understanding of repentance affect our lives? Imagine, if you will, an old-fashioned jailhouse made of bricks, and a single window with bars. Now imagine a miserable-looking prisoner standing at the window, gripping the bars. Now, do some mental magic on your picture: make the walls behind the prisoner disappear, so that all that remains of the jail cell are the single wall that he can see, and the window with bars.

You and I know that the prisoner is free, but he is so fixated on his imprisonment that he can't see that his prison has vanished! Why doesn't he turn around and discover his freedom? Perhaps his misery is all that he knows and he cannot imagine any other life. Perhaps he is afraid of life beyond his prison; the bars have become a source of comfort for him. Perhaps those bars give him a sense of control, which he enjoys. Whatever the case may be, the prisoner continues to wallow in the grey and lonely condition to which he has become accustomed.

My point is, each one of us is that prisoner, locked in a prison of self-destructive attitudes and actions that we ourselves allow to continue. So locked are we in this self-made prison, that we cannot see that in the coming of His Son Jesus Christ, God has torn down the walls and smashed the bars that held us captive to sin and death.

Our responsibility—our only responsibility—is to repent, which comes down to this: let go of the prison bars and turn our lives around to embrace the freedom that God offers us. We can continue clutching miserably at those old bars, locked away in our private darkness, or we can simply walk away into the light of the eternal Sun that never sets. We can keep on staring down that lonesome road, or we can turn, look up and seek our Maker, who is even now at hand, waiting with arms outspread to embrace us with His boundless love.

This Week's Podcast: Offer Your World as Praise

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:45:00 +0000

This Week's Podcast: Be Fruitful in Silence, and Multiply in Generosity

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:53:00 +0000

Easter, East and West by Fr. Isaac Skidmore

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:16:00 +0000

Why does the date of Easter often differ between the Catholic and Protestant churches of the West, on the one hand, and the Eastern Orthodox Church on the other? Believe it or not, the formula for calculating the date is the same for both, provided by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD: that Easter is to be celebrated on "the first Sunday, after the first full-moon, after the Vernal Equinox, and not according the reckoning of the Jews" (that is, not according to the calculation for the date of the Jewish feast of Passover).

In the early church, there were some who celebrated Easter on the day of Passover, the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. They did so regardless of whether it fell on Sunday or another day of the week, believing that this was the best way to express their belief that Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb that the Jewish feast prefigured. Other Christians celebrated on the following Sunday instead, because it was the day of the Lord's resurrection. Still others chose not to rely on the Jewish calendar at all, because its 12 lunar months (each of which began with the first sighting of the new moon over Jerusalem) didn't correspond exactly with the 365-plus days it takes the earth to go around the sun, and so resulted in dates that weren't considered precise enough for determining Easter. These Christians, especially those in Alexandria, who had access to astronomical tools, calculated the date themselves, celebrating on the Sunday after the first full-moon after the Spring Equinox.

These different dates for celebrating Easter were annoying, but not an absolute problem. St. Irenaeus, at the end of the 2nd century, writes that Christians should not consider differing dates for Easter a reason to sever communion with each other. Still, it was hoped that there could be a uniform date for all. So, at the Council of Nicea, in 325, the common formula was put forth. It was followed in a straightforward way--identifying the Equinox as March 21st, where it appeared on the Julian calendar in use at that time. Thenceforth, for over a-thousand years, there was general uniformity regarding the date for the celebration of Easter.

To understand what happened next, a word must be said about calendars. Calendars have always relied (and still do) upon periodic adjustments, such as our modern "leap-years" to keep them in sync with the astronomical realities and seasons they're intended to measure. Lunar calendars are inherently imperfect because the lunar year is a mere 354 (and slightly more) days long. Without adjustment, a lunar calendar loses 11 days every year. A date that is in Spring now might be in Winter in a year or two, and in Autumn, in a decade. Solar calendars are likewise imperfect because it actually takes the Earth a little longer than 365 days to go around the Sun. They, too, require adjustment to keep them on track.

The Julian calendar had such adjustments--but not quite enough. In the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII noticed that it was losing time. Using a solar observatory he had built, he found that the Vernal Equinox was occurring on March 11th instead of the expected 21st. He devised an adjustment to get it back on track, and built in additional adjustments to keep it accurate over the long term. In 1582, he added 10 days to the date, and established an improved system for the observance of leap years. The changes were accepted first by Catholic, then, more reluctantly, by Protestant countries. Orthodox countries also eventually accepted the new dating with regard to international trade and civic life but not church holidays.

In 1923, some of the Orthodox churches narrowed the divide between their civic and ecclesiastical calendars by accepting the Gregorian (or modified Julian) calendar with regard to church dates except when it came to the date of the Vernal Equinox. Why exempt the Vernal Equinox? Because the East and the West had come to differ on their interpretations of the final clause of the Easter formula, "and not according to the reckoning of the Jews." The West took it to mean that the date of the Jewish Passover should be disregarded--considered irrelevant to the date of Easter. The East, on the other hand, interpreted it to mean that Easter should never be celebrated on the same day as the first day of Passover. In addition, the Eastern churches held that Easter should only be celebrated after Passover had occurred, and never before--as a way of testifying to Christ as the feast's fulfillment. Eastern Christians foresaw that, if they accepted the March 21st Gregorian date for the Equinox, there would be years in which Easter would fall on the same day as Passover, and sometimes occur before it (as it does in our present year, 2005).

The divergence between Easter in the East and West boils down to the interpretation of this one clause. The Orthodox churches that utilize the new calendar have refrained from using it as it concerns the Equinox date, not because they consider the older calendar to be inherently more sacred, but because it violates their principle of always celebrating Easter after the Jewish Passover (and, also, to maintain uniformity of the Easter date amongst the Orthodox churches, not all of whom have embraced the "new calendar"). It should be noted, though, that there is debate amongst Orthodox as to whether this principle is inherent in the Nicene declaration, or whether it is a rationale that took hold and grew, mostly unexamined, during the Middle Ages. (Those who opt for the latter point out that, using the Julian formula, Easter fell on the day of Passover several times during the first ten centuries.)

Some, in the East and West, who advocate a modern, uniform Easter date, propose calculating the Equinox by astronomical means and, so, not according to the approximate dates of either the old or new calendar, and that the clause regarding the Passover be interpreted as it currently is in the West. This would mean a change for East and West, but more so for the East. In the meantime, one can hope that St. Irenaeus' words will not be overlooked, and that the divergence of dates will not obscure discussion of deeper unities of faith.

Latest Podcast from Mysterion: Live in the Intervals

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:16:00 +0000

This Week's Podcast: Live According to Specifications

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Mystery, Beauty and the Jesus Prayer

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:39:00 +0000

A friend and fellow pastor recently shared his opinion that the Orthodox Church in Cranbrook exists to offer a testimony to the dimensions of beauty and mystery that are too easily forgotten in post-modern Christianity. I would agree. Dostoevsky once said, “Beauty will save the world.” He may well have been speaking of his own Orthodox Christian faith, which places both beauty and mystery at the heart of its spiritual culture and worship.

What is beauty? It is not primarily a set of standards by which society deems certain things or people more pleasing to eye than others. Beauty, rather, is the glory of God shining in the lives of His children. One of the Church Fathers said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” When we live the full, authentic human lives as God created them to be, His glory radiates through us in a way that is unique to each one of us. This radiance is what makes us truly beautiful, regardless of our physical appearance or worldly attributes.

How then do we acquire this beauty in our lives? That's where mystery comes into play. In the Orthodox tradition, mystery has a very specific meaning, which is suggested in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The mystery of God is nothing less than the divine-human person of Jesus Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth to God in Himself.

By encountering the mystery who is Jesus Christ—by putting on Christ, as Saint Paul puts it—we can become “partakers of divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4) And by participating in His divine life, we enter into His beauty and are reunited with the God who made us for Himself. Dostoevsky's prophecy is fulfilled: beauty does indeed save the world.

In the 6^th century A.D., a monk and writer by the name of John Moschos took his disciple Sophronius on a pilgrimage the ancient holy sites of Christianity. Along the way, they visited a monastery in Egypt, located on the site where Anthony the Great, the founder of monasticism, spent most of his life in a desert cave. They also went to Mount Sinai, where another monastery was built on the site where Moses saw the burning bush.

In making their pilgrimage, the pilgrims' purpose was simple: to discover a practical way to encounter the mystery of Jesus Christ and become partakers of divine nature. In short, they wanted to know how to be saved. The many Christian spiritual elders that they met on their travels testified to a single practice, which began in the early 3^rd century and was later called Hesychia—the Way of Inner Stillness. The practice of Hescychia, according to the elders, involves sitting or standing in a quiet corner, focusing all of your attention on your heartbeat and repeating with attention a single short prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

John and Sophronius discovered that this simple prayer—called “the Jesus Prayer”—is in fact the heart of ancient Christian spirituality. To this day, Hescyhia remains the most important spiritual practice of the Orthodox Church. The essence of the Jesus Prayer consists in the word “mercy,” which in Orthodox tradition connotes healing and wholeness, rather than pardon or clemency. Daily, moment by moment and heartbeat by heartbeat, we call on Jesus Christ to heal us, binding up the self-inflicted, deadly wounds of sin, and reuniting us with God in love and joy. To invoke Dostoevsky's idea again, Hesychia allows us to call upon beauty—the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ—to save us by restoring us to the true humanity for which we were created.

A recent documentary by Dr. Norris Chumley and Rev. Dr. John McGuckin entitled Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer (www.mysteriesofthejesusprayer.com) retraces the steps of those 6^th century Christian pilgrims, taking us to the sites they visited, which still function as places of inner stillness today. If you have not had the opportunity to view this remarkable film, I invite you to do so. You will rediscover a two thousand year old secret, a hidden wisdom which speaks to us today with a fresh urgency, showing us how to find true beauty in a time of desolation and destruction; how to find inner peace in a time of conflict and hatred; and how to be reunited with God and each other in a time of alienation and division.

Seven Habits of Real Human Beings, Part Two: Make a Sacred Space

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:48:00 +0000

The God of Our Demons

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:38:00 +0000

Do you have demons? For many, the question evokes images from Poltergeist: heads spinning, screaming, weird voices, levitation...

We tend to think of demon possession in such dramatic terms, and yet, for people in antiquity, saying that someone “has a demon” was the common explanation for anything that compelled people to do things beyond their control.

For instance, the boy who suffers from epilepsy in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 17:15) is described in the Gospel of Saint Mark as having a “dumb spirit” (Mark 9:17) that “ has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him.” (Mark 9:22) Since God’s Spirit is the spirit of life and immortality, the force that compels the epileptic boy to destroy himself is a sure sign that an enemy spirit is at work.

In the world of the Scriptures, demon possession was simply a more extreme version of what all human beings must endure in a fallen world consigned to Beelzebul the “prince of demons.” The basic Greek word for suffering—Pascho—implies far more than mere pain, as we sometimes think. For the men and women of the ancient world, suffering was the basic condition of being subject to things beyond our control. If permitted, this subjection would inevitably drive us to destruction and death. The dramatic seizures of a demoniac was simply the end result of any human life that was not redeemed through repentance—which means more than ‘being sorry,’ but rather refers to the act of crying out to God for mercy, much as a child raises his hands to his mother for help and comfort.

The purpose of suffering, therefore, is simply so that we might recognize our powerlessness over forces that subject us, and seek help in God. As Saint Paul puts it, “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.” (Romans 11:32)

This verse reminds me of times when my children have demanded to do things that I know they cannot do (such as tie their own laces), and I, finally worn down by their insistence, give in and let them try by themselves, knowing full well that they will soon give up and ask me to do what I was ready to do in the first place… This is more than a reality of parenting; it’s a fundamental spiritual principle: our wills are finally perfected when they are finally surrendered. The human will exists to give itself up.

In the language of the Scriptures, all human beings battle with demons. They make take obvious forms, such as chronic illness, poverty, addiction, or mental disorders. Or they may be subtler yet: fears, worries and resentments that plague us daily. And of course there’s the ultimate ‘demon’ of time and history, to whom we are all consigned, and who slowly wears us down and drives us towards decrepitude and death.

How do we conquer these adverse powers that seek to destroy us? How do we overcome the disobedience to which we have been consigned? The Scriptures are clear: we cannot. Like the child who cannot tie her own laces, we are simply not adequate to the task. Only a God who conquers it from the inside, can truly save us.

This indeed is the heart of the Gospel message: in Christ, the God who is above and beyond suffering willingly subjects Himself to our enslaved condition, that we might partake in His freedom from suffering. The 4^th century Father, Gregory the Theologian, put it this way: “He assumed the worse that He might give us the better. He became poor that by His poverty, we might become rich. He accepted the form of a servant that we might win back our freedom. He came down that we might be lifted up...”

Our role in the process of salvation is to actively accept what God has done by surrendering our self-will to Him. This surrender is not just abstract or intellectual. God, after all, is Incarnate—a human being—and He makes Himself known in and through human instruments. Turning over our will and lives to the care of God, if it is to be effective and complete, also means surrender to another human being.

Those who battle the demon of alcohol understand well how this works. Any recovering alcoholic who works the 12-Step program will tell you how crucial meetings and sponsors are—people to whom they can surrender their powerlessness over alcohol, to whom they are accountable. In Step 5, for example, alcoholics admit “to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

If the Scriptures are to be believed, what is true of those battling the alcoholic demon is equally true for the rest of us, who battle demons of our own. When our various compulsions and struggles come upon us, the task is simply to invite God into the battle in and through the presence of another human being.

So here’s my advice: find someone you respect, in whom the image and likeness of God shines with particularly brightness, but who is dispassionate and objective enough to tell you the unvarnished truth. When you struggle with your given demons, pray for God’s help (I find the prayer, “God, help me” works just fine), then seek your spiritual “sponsor” and surrender the struggle to them (I find that saying, “I would like to surrender my struggle with...” is all that is necessary).

In this way, God becomes more than just the God of our praise, the God of our virtue and strength. In and through His angels and ministers—our fellow human beings—He is the God of our demons also, who meets us in our weakest and darkest places. To quote Saint Gregory again, “He was tempted that through Him we might conquer. He was dishonoured that He might glorify us. He died that He might save us.”

Some Sobering Facts about the Orthodox Church in North America

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:17:00 +0000

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in North and Central America Research Coordinator Alexei Krindatch has released a new 40-page report titled “Five Interesting Facts About Orthodox Church Geography and Demography in the United States.”

The report, though lengthy, contains many helpful graphics that offer a sobering portrait of the Orthodox Church in America. Canada is not included, but one can presume a similar, though much smaller, reality here.

On the whole, this is an excellent resource that should offer us a dose of humility. The report may be found here.

This Week's Podcast: Seven Habits of Real Human Beings (Part One)

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:30:00 +0000

This Week's Podcast: Surprise Judgments Ahead--Expect Anything!

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:15:00 +0000

Gratitude Heals

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Some time ago, I was listening to CBC Radio One and heard one of those segments where they ask people on the street about current issues. In this particular instance, they asked whether or not the current world financial crisis would have any effect on Christmas spending. One fellow replied that Christmas would not be as festive because he could not afford to buy his children the usual quantity of presents.

Now, as a parent, I understand wanting to give our children everything they deserve, and the sense of failure when we are not able to do so. However, this feeling, though natural, is ultimately misdirected. We have come to associate festivity with the abundance of food, drink, or stuff that we can buy. We hitch our sense of our “quality of life” to the star of the economy, and the level of our material prosperity.

I need hardly say that this attitude goes completely contrary to the teaching of Christianity. No matter what the preachers of the so-called “prosperity Gospel” might say, abundance of material possessions and other earthly blessings (good health, for instance) are in no way linked to the quality of one’s spiritual life.

The Old Testament promises of blessings for the obedient and faithful simply prefigure the riches of divine life we received when the old covenant was fulfilled in Christ. Jesus clearly upholds the poor, the homeless, the widows and the orphans—all the needy ones of the earth—as the first inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven. The rich, by contrast, will find it impossible to enter at all, except by God’s grace. (Matt. 19:24-26)

We find this principle illustrated in chapter seventeen of Saint Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus enters a village and is greeted by ten lepers “who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’” (Luke 17:12-13) Jesus directs them to go to the priests, and as they go, they find themselves healed of their leprosy. But only one of them goes back to Jesus with the simple intention of thanking Him. Jesus, disappointed at the other lepers’ lack of gratitude, tells the man (who is a Samaritan) that his faith has made him well. Not just healed physically, the man is now made well spiritually by his gratitude.

Why is he healed, and not the others? Simply because he is a Samaritan. Being healed and cleansed, the nine lepers are free to re-enter normal Jewish society. The Samaritan leper, however, can expect no such acceptance. As a Samaritan (which was a heretical Jewish sect hated by orthodox Jews), he will always be an outsider, regardless of his physical condition. His healing is a bittersweet event, in fact, because where he was part of some sort of community, he is now truly alone. His fellow lepers have returned to their lives, and he is now just a “stranger in a strange land,” far away from home.

So by returning to Jesus to give thanks, he demonstrates something that transcends what we generally think of as gratitude. Like the parent who feels that Christmas will be less festive because he must buy less, we tend to define thanksgiving as an emotional response to a material payoff. For the Samaritan leper, however, gratitude goes beyond emotion. His thanksgiving is the simple, concrete act of bringing the fact of his physical healing back to Jesus, the One from whom the healing came. Uncertain as he may be about what might lay ahead of him now, alone and afraid as he may be, he returns to offer everything to God. And it is in doing this, and this alone, that he gains his spiritual wellness.

The point of the encounter is that we can only achieve the elusive “quality of life” represented in Christmas and other holidays, when we shift our definition of thanksgiving from an emotional response to the things we possess (or don’t possess), to the physical act of offering everything back to God, both the sweet and the bitter.

All our material blessings, all our suffering and pain, all our financial woes, belong to God, and our sole task as human beings is to literally say, “I don’t understand what this means. I don’t know where all of this is leading. But I do know all of it is Yours. So take it and do with it as You wish, for my salvation and my healing and my eternal joy.”

And in making this offering of thanks, we fulfill the purpose for which we were created, which is to be “a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9), returning creation to its Creator, reuniting that which was separated and making whole that which was broken. Indeed, when we live lives of gratitude in this sense, we find healing, not just for our own souls, but for the whole of our little corner of the universe, which once again finds the wellspring of its life and meaning in the One who gives life and meaning to all.

This Week's Podcast: "How to Make a Full Disclosure"

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:54:00 +0000

The Return Home

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:36:00 +0000

Some of you may know that for Eastern Orthodox Christians, this week marks the beginning of Great Lent, a period in which we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Cross and Resurrection of Christ at Easter.

Although Orthodox Christians follow slightly different traditions around Great Lent, the basic meaning of these forty days is the same for us. To put it simply, Lent is a journey back to our spiritual home in the Presence of God, who created us so that He might embrace us and love us, and that we might love Him in return.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s love for us, for in Him God took human nature to Himself once and for all, making it a part of who He is. And in the Passion of Christ—His suffering on the Cross, death and resurrection—the divine-human union was completed. God had finally united Himself with human experience, from birth to death and beyond.

Our realization of this astounding and mysterious Fact is the purpose of Great Lent, which is in no way isolated from the rest of the year. Lent, rather, is a kind of temporal magnifying glass, revealing in intense, close-up detail the meaning not only of the rest of the year, but the rest of our lives. The coming forty days remind us more potently and poignantly than ever of our calling to continuously return to God’s Presence. He has united Himself to us, and we must unite ourselves to Him daily, moment by moment.

Nowhere is this journey of reunion more perfectly described than in Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. Many of you may know the story, which is told in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel. A young man, perhaps fed up with the tedium and restrictions of life at home, demands his father give him an advance on his inheritance. The son then goes into the world and blows the cash on “fast cars, faster women and recreational chemicals.” Predictably, the money runs out and when a famine strikes, the young man is left destitute and starving. He finally hits bottom, working for a pig farmer (the most distasteful kind of job for a pious Jew) and worse yet, yearning for the pigs’ food.

The image of the Prodigal Son, sitting miserably in the pig pen while he yearns for the slop, coming to himself as he remembers his father’s household (Luke 15:17), then rising and going back home (Luke 15:20), illustrate precisely the steps we take as human beings in our return to God. Let’s take them in order of the parable.

Having spent all our resources trying to master our own destinies, we hit bottom. Perhaps we get sick unexpectedly. Perhaps we lose a job. Perhaps some unexpected event impinges on our lives—a downturn in the economy, for instance… Regardless of the specifics, we find ourselves deprived of the ability to control our circumstances.

Sooner or later (and more often later than sooner, unfortunately), we come to recognize the need for aid beyond ourselves. We perceive within ourselves a hunger for something beyond the slop to which we have become accustomed.

The philosopher Charles Taylor describes this experience of longing in his book The Secular Age: “[it is] a distance, an absence, an exile, a seemingly irremediable incapacity ever to reach this place; an absence of power, a confusion.... We lose a sense of where the place of fullness is, even of what fullness could consist in, we feel we've forgotten what it would look like, or cannot believe in it anymore. But the misery of absence, of loss, is still there, indeed, it is in some ways even more acute.”

Having recognized our need for that “absent something” beyond ourselves—defined as “God”—we embark upon a process of bringing ourselves and our lives in all their brokenness back to Him. In Christian tradition, this is known as repentance, which is not merely feeling bad for our sins, but the continual act of returning our hearts and minds back to the One who is the source of our lives. This self-offering back to God begins in prayer and is sealed in the giving of ourselves to one another through concrete acts of love and service. In short, we commit to living as a servant in our father’s household.

This then is the lifelong human journey back to God, symbolized in the Parable of the Prodigal Son and highlighted in the period of Lent. And whether you celebrate the next forty days liturgically or not, it is certainly an appropriate time to explore for yourselves a simple question: “Where do I stand in this journey?”

If you are still partying with a pocketful of cash like the Prodigal Son in his heyday, consider that the party may end in the pig pen. If you have hit bottom and are sitting in the pig pen, consider the possibility of a better life beyond what you can attain for yourself. And if you are already on the way home, rehearsing your speech of repentance, consider that your Father may have been watching for you since you left, and is even now waiting to embrace you without conditions or expectations, waiting to put the ring of His authority on your finger and feed you with the food of joy, peace and eternal life.

Wherever you find yourself on the journey back to God this year, now is the time to come home.

New Podcast: "Disclose and Dispose"

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Click on the picture to go to the podcast.

Looking in the Mirror

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:46:00 +0000

When you look in the bathroom mirror in the morning, what do you see? If you are like me, your first reaction is likely to be displeasure; the human face is not at its most elegant after a night's sleep. Taking a closer survey of your face and noting the flaws—moles, pimples, wrinkles or whatever—you are left even more unsatisfied. Then, after your ablutions are complete, you look in the mirror again. After a thorough cleaning, your face is somewhat improved, but still, despite all your hard word, you are still discontented at the reflection.

Why this unhappiness at the sight of ourselves? The answer, I believe, has two roots. First, our consumer society has convinced us that the human body is a commodity. Properly packaged and sold, our bodies can be used to stroke our own own egos or cause others to desire and envy us. When we look in the mirror, we search for the 'ideal body,' the body that will gain us the most personal power. And when we find a reflection that does not match the ideal, we are unhappy because we believe that our 'packaging' is in some way defective.

Our unhappiness at looking in the mirror has another, deeper source, however. Since the time of Augustine, our Christian-influenced religious culture has taught us that at the root, we are depraved beings. This teaching (whatever its good intentions) leads us to regard ourselves not as human beings, but inhuman beings, fundamentally incapable of goodness. When I look at myself, I am supposed to see a vile sinner doomed to the fires of eternal torment. No wonder I am unhappy; seventeen centuries of western theology have convinced me that I am supposed to feel disgust and loathing, guilt and shame at the sight of myself.

Is there another way to look at ourselves? In contrast to Augustine, the majority of early Christian writers offer a more positive view of the human person. While human beings are enslaved to sin and death, and while we are instinctly inclined towards wrong choices and evil actions, even our most degenerate behaviours cannot eradicate our basic identities as God's precious children. Though we are born into a fallen condition and inevitably adopt a fallen way of life, the lowest depths to which we sink cannot change the fact that God created us in His divine image and likeness, calling us good from the beginning. (see Genesis, chapter 1)

I recall a story about the painting of Dutch master—it may have been Rembrandt. For many years, inspired by his work, art scholars held that muted colours were the true ideal for excellent painting. Then a group undertook a restoration project on one of the masterpieces, and discovered colours more vibrant and bold than they had ever imagined. Centuries of soot and wax from candles had obscured the real brilliance of the work. After that, the scholars did an about face, declaring that actually, brightness has always been the hallmark of truly great art...

When we look in the mirror, it is all too easy to see nothing beyond the layer of dirt—the poor choices and hard living that distort our features, the deepening lines of stress and bitterness and worry, the hardness of expression that reflect a hardening of the heart. Unless we can look past this distorting surface, we inevitably come to the conclusion that we are nothing but commodities with defective packaging and no inherent worth.

Our challenge is to see ourselves as God's own masterpiece, a unique work by the hand of the One whom Orthodox tradition calls the 'Great Artist.' Like the unrestored Rembrandt painting, however, our lives are covered with grime and dust of sin that obscures our true, underlying beauty. In that sense, looking in the mirror should inspire us to undergo a process of restoration. That indeed, is what the spiritual life is all about—a process of cleansing that slowly strips away the distortions of our fallen existence, revealing beneath the genuine and unique vibrancy and brilliance and beauty of our lives as God always intended them to be.

Conquering Internet Pornography

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:06:00 +0000

We all know (though few of us acknowledge) just how big a problem is the use of internet pornography, both among non-Christians and Christians. A friend of mine and professor at Saint Vladimir's Seminary is speaking out on this issue and offering useful tools, rooted in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, for dealing with this pervasive and destructive virtual reality. Here are a few resources that you might find useful, or that you might want to share with those who struggle with Internet pornography.

A video presentation (6 minutes)

An podcast presentation in two parts:

An article by Dr. Rossi: "Conquering Internet Pornography"

This Week's Podcast: "What Happens in Vegas..."

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:05:00 +0000

Click on the picture to go to the Podcast

The Structure of Prayer

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Many Christians commonly assume that lack of structure in worship and prayer leads to freedom. If we could just be spontaneous enough, they argue, if we can just allow ourselves to be taken wherever our feelings lead us, then we will truly follow the Spirit. By contrast, the use of structure, ritual, and (God forbid) liturgical prayer are nothing less than the way to kill the Spirit and make void the word of God with the traditions of men.

Many flaws may be found in such thinking. For instance, is it really true that God cannot work through a form that we create? Do hymns or choruses—which are structured and ordered by very definition—crush God's ability to speak directly into our hearts? Furthermore, is there such a thing as totally unstructured worship or prayer? Don't we all have to plan our services ahead of time? And finally (and most importantly of all) who says that our feelings are a trustworthy indication of the Spirit's voice anyway? How many churches have come to grief because they were misled by the collective emotional impulses of their congregations?

The fact is, structure is crucial to a healthy and happy existence. Parents know that children are most contented in a familiar environment with good routines. Left to their own devices, they become aggressive, restless and anxious. Because they never know what to expect, they are always on edge and afraid. By contrast, kids whose parents have established good routines for them feel safe, and therefore happy. They grow into well-adjusted adults who themselves maintain healthy structures around eating and sleeping, playing and working.

If structure is essential for our psychological development as human beings, it is perhaps even more essential for our spiritual formation. The collective experience of Christians through the centuries has shown that when prayer is ordered within a daily framework, we can stand before God in peace, free from the anxiety of reinventing the wheel, while the familiarity of our habit liberates us to open our hearts to His transforming Presence.

What does the daily structure of prayer look like? In the Scriptures, we see that the Jewish practice of prayer was built around the hours of the day and night. The Psalms speak of prayer seven times a day, at midnight, evening, morning and noonday. (see Psalms 55 and 119) The habit of praying at particular hours of the day did not end with Judaism, but carried over into the practice of the Apostles and the early Church. (see Acts 10:3,9 and 16:25)

Throughout history, Christians continued to maintain this daily structure of prayer in their worship. The “prayers of the hours” began with Matins, before the dawn. Dawn itself was marked by the first hour, nine o'clock the third hour, noon the sixth hour, three o'clock the nine hour (the time of Jesus' death). Sunset was marked with the praying of Vespers (which just means 'evening' in Latin), followed by Compline (which means 'completion' to signify the end of the work day) and Nocturn (which is the midnight hymns that we see the Apostles Paul and Silas praying in Acts 16:25). In short, Christians punctuated the entire 24 hour period with prayer.

What the Apostles and early Christians actually prayed during those hours is a subject for another article. My point here is that it's time for Christians to rethink some of our assumptions about what makes for meaningful worship, and frankly, build a more regular structure into our prayer lives. We can only benefit from a little more focus and intentionality in following the teachings and example of the Apostles and the early Christians, not to mention the generations that followed them. If it worked for them, why can't it work for us? With their 'Spirit-killing' formality, they brought the Roman Empire to its knees. With thousands of denominations devoted to 'Spirit-led' worship, modern western Christians are rapidly losing members to unbelief or non-Christian religions, at least one of which insists on a daily structure of prayer five times a day...

Check Out the Latest Podcast from Mysterion: "Look Up and Seek Your Maker"

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +0000

Click on the picture to go to the Podcast

Living with the Same Old

lindisfarne@saintaidan.ca — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:07:00 +0000

Perform a little thought experiment with me, if you would. Think back over the past five months, from the New Year until the present, and ask yourself how many days you would characterize as exciting, extraordinary, or life-altering.

Having trouble? As hard I could, I could count no more than five days that come anywhere close to meeting the above criteria. Five days out of about 150—that’s just over 3%. In this, I don’t think I’m really unique. For most of us, 99% of life consists of the mundane, the ordinary, and the plain old dull. We get up, go to work, take care of family stuff, play, watch TV, eat, go on the Internet, go to bed, get up…

The rituals of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly existence are relatively conventional for all of us: births and birthdays, weddings, funerals, graduations, medical appointments, and so on. As human beings, we share this common heritage of customs, ceremonies, and common experiences that bind us together. The “spikes”—unusual or unique events that distinguish us and change our lives—are few and far between.

This reality stands in sharp contrast with human life as it is often portrayed in movies, literature (especially the escapist kind), internet and television. The media by its very nature depicts the high points and the low points of life, often within the span of minutes, not hours. For the most part, the pervasive ordinariness that we all know is glossed over or ignored in favour of the most glamorous or dolorous moments.

If we spend a lot of time consuming media in all its different varieties, we may be tempted into thinking that life should be the way the media portrays it. I remember a comedy sketch I recently heard in which the comedian lamented that he couldn’t say, as characters did in the movies, that he would “be on the next flight out” whenever he wanted to. He was stuck instead looking for the best deals online, and managing all of the frustrating little travel details that movie characters never seem to have to deal with.

The problems start when we come to believe that the life depicted in the media is somehow attainable in the real world. We start to think that the mundane quality of our lives are unusual, perhaps reflecting some defect in ourselves, whether it is a lack of money or a lack of character. Our dissatisfaction drives us to seek out more and more wealth and material possessions. Our unhappiness drives us to fill our lives with “highs” in the form of constant entertainment, thrill-seeking, sex, alcohol or drugs…

When we give in to the media’s deceit, the vast bulk of our daily routines can become a burden to us. We can’t wait for the weekend, when we can inject a little excitement into our existence. We live for the excitement, while a pall falls over the rest of our days, which must be merely endured until the next high arrives.

I think we can all agree that this is no way to live. The question is, how can we stop merely putting up with the “same old” and start actually finding value in it? The first step, I think, is to remind ourselves that media reality does not and cannot correspond one-to-one with real human life. No one on the planet, even the most wealthy and powerful, live exactly as the movies would portray them. Sex is never accompanied by an orchestra, and no one ever just jumps on the next flight to wherever they want to go. Even Bill Gates has to wait for clearance before taking off in his private jet…

We need to stop denying that life is vastly ordinary and mostly pretty dull. Let’s get that through our heads by spending a little less time listening to the voices and watching the images that try to tell us otherwise.

Secondly, we need to realize that routine, ritual, and repetition are processes inherent to human life. God built a whole lot of “same old” into our lives for a reason. We seem to need those times to percolate, marinate, and generally soak in the more intense moments of our existence. We seem to understand deep experiences best by having a period to consider and reflect upon them in long, uninterrupted stretches.

Take marriage, for instance. The intensity and excitement of the engagement, the wedding, the honeymoon, the early months, and even the birth of the first child, require years of quiet routine and habit to find their true meaning in our lives. There is certainly excitement to be found throughout the life of a marriage; my point is that the true significance of a marriage does not become fully evident without those times in which nothing much happens, or else in which the same thing happens over and over again.

The “same old” exists to teach us the deeper meaning of life. Don’t ask me why; it just seems to be the way we were built.

Finally, we need to see the ordinariness of life as a challenge to look deeper and discover the extraordinary. Jesus commands us to avoid “vain repetitions,” but in life—as in prayer—repetition is only vain if we are not really paying attention. The solution to vain repetitions—both in life and prayer—is simply an attitude of greater attentiveness to that which we would otherwise ignore: our own hearts, where the Presence of God dwells. Only the absence of distractions that is the ordinary awakens us to that extraordinary miracle.

The “same old”—those flat, occasionally undulating plains of existence—call us to look at mundane things like clouds and sunsets, to smell the coming rain, to touch a new leaf and taste a cherry, and discover again what Gerard Manley Hopkins called “the dearest freshness deep down things.” The ordinary, repetitive sounds of life—the rush of traffic, the creak of the house, a bird singing, the wind in the trees—call us to delve deeper and really hear the “still, small voice” that speaks to us of eternity.