I used to be surprised that a show that tried so much for originality and cleverness fell into such a rut. But on the other hand, it was such a good device. And maybe any probative examination of our human problems always devolves into questions. Even if we can’t answer them, asking them is just more realistic than continuing to end every sentence with a period. I certainly found that to be true in my own blogging and journaling. Am I the only one who has started out trying to make a point but ended up with a flurry of  questions? Why is it that finding the right question to ask is almost as difficult as finding the answer? (See? I’m doing it already.)

But I can take it out of the realm of pop culture — which is just as well  — and back into good Ortho-blog territory: Our relationship with God may well come down more often than we want to admit to the questions we ask. Here’s a quote from this (lengthy-titled) book that was in my church’s last weekly bulletin:

God may answer my question with silence because the answer is silence. In other words, sometimes my question themselves are answer enough.

Good questions have a legitimacy of their own. They add to our understanding even before we can come up with an answer — and sometimes we glean insights precisely because we can’t supply an answer. In such cases the significance of the knotty question derives not from cutting the knot, but instead from the annoying fact that no analytic knife seems adequate to the task. (from Studying the Torah: A Guide to In-Depth Interpretation by Avigdor Bonchek)

(That last paragraph is a quote within the quote, in case that’s not obvious.) But isn’t that an interesting way to look at it? When I consider trying to talk to people who don’t believe in God, I always stall out wondering how you get past all the questions that any normal person would have if they start to consider seriously that God might exist. Any normal person is going to start asking about things like miracles and the problem of pain. It’s very natural for an unbeliever — and for a believer, come to think of it — to come to the end of what is comprehended and begin asking questions.

And I realize that what I would want to try to get the non-believer to do is to put the question(s) to God, rather than me — honestly and with as much humility and faith as they can. What happens next is something that you can’t believe until you experience it: somehow, by even beginning to suppose that God is real and accountable and listening, you begin to come into His presence a little bit. None of us has ever gotten a 25-words-or-less answer to these Big Questions, but as your heart begins to open to God, you begin to change. You begin to believe.

So is that a reason to stop asking questions, or is it a vindication for making those inquiries?

More from the book in the bulletin:

When the Lord offers no clear answer to my questions, it may mean I will learn greater truths by continuing to ask the question. Sometimes questions have many possible answers, so God declines to point to a “correct” one. The most common examples of this phenomenon are bound up in the many paradoxes of the Scriptures … Here the point is this: If I feel a need to ask a question because of a loving desire to draw closer to God, I should ask in as many ways as possible, even if the only answer is repeated silence. So long as I do not attribute that silence to a deficiency on God’s part, merely asking can be a learning experience.

 Pardon me getting dramatic, but the eureka sentence in there is so good, I have to repeat it …

If I feel a need to ask a question because of a loving desire to draw closer to God, I should ask in as many ways as possible, even if the only answer is repeated silence.

That’s so hard to hear. If we asked a person an important question and got the silent treatment, we’d be right to be insulted. But putting our questions before God isn’t the same. Even in asking, we begin to be transformed. When we feel God’s presence, even His silence speaks volumes.

Last word to the book, which, by the way, is titled “The Gospel According to Moses: What My Jewish Friends Taught Me About the Bible” by Athol Dickson:

The answer of silence should not stop me from asking God questions. I may receive a pat on the head and those all too familiar words, “I’ll explain it when you’re older,” but if I want to know what I can know, I must ask anyway, accepting the fact that the boundaries of God’s answers are established by my shortcomings, not by His.

That sounds pretty weird, and it’s even weirder to have it as a full time occupation, so it’s just as well it’s a temporary assignment. I’m illustrating a picture book for Conciliar Press entitled “The Littlest Altar Boy” about the thoughts, anxieties and impressions of an altar boy on his first day of serving. He envisions disasters and comes close to having one or two.

All of that has given me a wonderful opportunity to make the kind of kids’ book that I would want if I were a kid. It’s so easy for the Orthodox life to seem all about serious stuff, and there’s plenty of time for us to grow into that. But I think we’re sometimes a little afraid of showing the lighter side to it all, and that’s what I’ve been working to capture.

And I also wanted to capture a little of all the personalities we encounter, because I think the impression that my non-Orthodox friends and family have sometimes about what goes on in church is that we’re all so busy being holy that we don’t have time to be human. And just the opposite is true: I don’t know where I could see so much humanity on display as in church.

So that’s why I’ve been neglecting the blog, and my apologies there. I’m coming into the homestretch with the book, so I should be able to start spinning up again.

And self-promotionally speaking, if you want to be the first on your block to pre-order, HERE it is in the online catalog from Conciliar.

The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended … This is the day the Lord has made — a day far different from those made when the world was first created, and which are measured by the passage of time. This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

I’m sorry I haven’t been saying much recently. As Mimi says, the work leading up to Pascha has been taking up a lot of spare time.

And it’s been taking up the kind of reflective time that leads me to want to muse “out loud” in this space. Most of my ability to turn things over and look at them has been put trying to wrap my mind around a fraction of what’s been said in the services during Holy Week. It’s enough to keep you busy for the rest of your life, really. This is the entire Gospel in the palm of your hand. This is all the hopes and dreams of humanity re-enacted in a single night — the narrative that revolutionized our history that can be told in small words that anyone can understand.

But it’s like the robin’s eggshell that I found yesterday on my walk, with its little inhabitant off somewhere doing better things — simple, delicate, beautiful, but also profound, mysterious and wonderful.

Christ is Risen!

Behold, the Bridegroom cometh at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find awake. But he whom he shall find neglectful is verily unworthy …

I’ve heard the troparion of the Bridegroom matins services for quite a few years now. What — 20? 25? It’s the musical centerpiece of the services for the next three nights. One of the parish traditions that I loved was that when it was sung, all the lights in the church were turned off, so that the church is totally dark except for the presence light on the altar.

Behold, therefore, my soul: Beware, lest thou fallest into deep slumber, and the door of the kingdom be closed against thee, and thou be delivered unto death.

In years past, this part of it didn’t resonate with me as much as it does this year. The idea of having a dialogue with your soul might have seemed like an archaic literary device. But this year, it seems terribly relevant. I don’t know whether it’s an age thing or a because of recent teaching at our church about the Jesus Prayer, but it doesn’t seem like something irrelevant to be conversing with your soul.

Right now, I’m feeling like mine is rather stubborn. I’m having some growing pains, and there are old bad habits I’m having to break not because I’m wise or good, but just because I finally have no choice. I can’t move forward into things I have to do if I insist on keeping to a comfort zone that includes procrastination, faint-heartedness, self-centeredness and other items on my depressing little list of weaknesses. And to my surprise, I find that my conscious acceptance of that fact doesn’t get me there. I’m encountering resistance at a deeper level. I feel like I’m stepping on the gas pedal of my car and it’s stalling out. Or maybe a better analogy would be riding a mule that has decided to balk. Because mules are known for being particularly difficult, and that’s the way it feels. As St. Paul observed, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. (Romans 7:15)”

But be thou wakeful, crying, “Holy, holy, holy art Thou, O Lord.”

Can I have the last word with my mule of a soul? Can I get it to see reason? If not, can I get it to feel some natural fear for the consequences? I don’t know if you can really bully yourself into better behavior and out of old pitfalls. But maybe that’s why the troparion, at the end, directs the matter to helpers and intercessors …

Through the intercessions of the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

And ultimately, of course, the whole thing is put before God, since He is the one Whose mercy is sought. The cascade here is that I might talk to myself at length, but the results are variable. I can turn to the saints and the mother of God for additional help. And in the end, everything is commended to Almighty God, because it’s to Him that we answer for what we’ve done with our time.

If, as the troparion reminds us, it’s later than we think, thank God I have these helps to turn to.

Blessed Holy Week to us all!

Bad for me, I mean. Other people might have thought it was fabulous, but I’ve been away from these slap-happy churches for too long, and the whole thing … well, it made me sick, actually.

That’s not a very nice thing to say, but hopefully I’m amongst friends and we all know what I mean. I don’t mean all these guys are bad people, because they’re not. I don’t mean that they’re not on the continuum that all Christians — maybe all humans — are on, making our toil-filled way to the one true God. I know they’re on that journey as well.

But I’m sorry, that service was just plain weird. We had The Guy Doing the Thing — young dude in bang-around clothes, not self-identified as a pastor, minister or anything else. He talked loudly and said “awesome” a lot and made sure to let us know that there was absolutely NOTHING going on with a baptism. No “magic” in the water, he told us. Nope. No sacrament here, folks. No miracle. Nothing to see. (I had a chance after the service to mention to him that there’s either a reality or there’s not, and if there’s not, why don’t we all just stay home and think about a baptism? He looked vague at that point, and bored.)

He made sure to tell us again as he was getting into the font (in a t-shirt and swim trunks) that there was still NOTHING SPECIAL happening. And told us that the water was pretty warm.

“Hey, maybe we can all take a dip in the hot tub here!” he said.

My hair caught fire and burned brightly for a few minutes.

But I think the style of the whole thing might have offended my sensibilities as much as the doctrinal issues. All that fizziness! All that froth! Let’s talk like playschool teachers. Let’s incite everyone to some kind of state of plastic euphoria by using happy-but-stupid words. And when we say that God is awesome and Jesus is awesome, say it in a way makes it impossible to experience actual awe.

Well, I feel like I’m being mean to these guys, and maybe unfair as well. When they were doing some of the fluffier-sounding prayers, I was aware that I had the same sensation I had had the day before when I got carried away at how good licorice jellybeans were and ended up eating way too many.

But is that on them or is that me? Listening to all that bright stuff just seems to remind me of my own young adult days in an evangelical church, and I hated it there (and hated myself for hating it — not a good combination). Their brightness only made me feel darker, their constant insistence on bubbly optimism made me feel deeply sad and frighteningly lonely.

I’ve always been willing to say that could have just been my problem. Apparently, there are millions of American Christians who find what they need in these kinds of churches, or at any rate, something that keeps them coming back. And it’s worth me noting that the friend who was baptized had come with us to a Vespers service and felt … physically sick. She didn’t think our service was revolting or anything (so in that way, she might be more open-minded than I’m being), but our forms of address and worship were so foreign, so completely different from what she expected that she felt unsettled and unwell.

Interesting response — both hers and mine. Is there something to it, or is it just a matter of being too limited in your spiritual sight? I gather that more sophisticated Orthodox are able to visit those from very different backgrounds and not be troubled by these kinds of gut reactions. Maybe I’ll get to that point, if I’ve got a reason to keep trying. But until I make it to that higher plain, I better keep an airsick bag stowed inconspicuously about my person, in the interest of more congenial ecumenism.

If you haven’t seen it elsewhere, this is one of the most incredible videos of the tsunami that I’ve seen. It’s nine minutes long, and you need to hang in there until the end. (The photographer did, after all, and he had a lot more reasons to cut and run then you do.)

I can’t add anything to the impact of those gently-undulating waves carrying fishing boats around like toys. But did you notice the near lack of commentary from the photographer? If this were an American (or Canadian or European), they’d be babbling nearly constantly (“Oh wow! Dude!! Duuude!! WOW!!!!) The video speaks for itself, of course. But could I have kept quiet? I think I really would’ve wanted to hear the sound of my own voice, somehow, only if I were only saying inane things.

There’s so much interest in the Japanese culture in the Gen-X crowd and younger. I wonder what the photographer was thinking.

From whence comes this beauty, this miraculous transformation of formless and lifeless matter into beautiful living things? From whence this adaptation to thousands of different purposes and such wise attainment, by simple means, of their purposes by things which of themselves cannot have any know purpose nor attain it? Who is this invisible Sovereign over matter? Who is this eternal Artist and Architect invisibly producing His art before our eyes? Who is this Mind, revealing His most wonderful wisdom in matter and in various animate creatures?

He Who alone is the Creator of all — the Lord! I contemplate Thee with the eyes of my heart in every minute particle of space; Thou until now with Thy Son and Thy Holy Spirit invisibly workest all things. I embrace Thee, present in every place, with my heart; I worship Thee, glorify Thee, and praise Thee!

ST. JOHN OF KRONSTADT

Photo credit belongs to Greg’s worthy self. He was our photographer for a trip to Prescott last week, and when I read the quote above this morning, I had to borrow them from him.

Last Saturday on my way to the printers near the Qalandia checkpoint, it was like a world war with burning tires everywhere, hundreds of stones, and soldiers shooting protesters. I said to my brother-in-law, “It looks a little dangerous here, maybe we should not pass.” His answer was, “What do you mean,? This is normal. They are still passing cars.” Thus, I ducked my head on the steering wheel and drove through the smoke and thought to myself, I can see my enemy, but do not be fooled because your enemy is unseen, and we must fight with the True Light of Christ, no matter where we live. Try to focus your eyes on Jerusalem this Great Lent and see the truth.

I am lost and confused with the evil around me, so I have to at least tell someone. Today, the Roman Catholic chapel in front of my home up on the mountain top was put on fire. It was abandoned since 2000 because people are too scared to come to us, so its retreat area where pilgrims can overnight cheaply sat empty for all these years while thieves’ stole everything that was inside long ago. But why do people want to burn God’s house? It is like we are back in the first centuries here. It is quite ironic that the lights around the numbers to celebrate “2012” have a light that does not turn on at night in Taybeh, so the lights when they come on actually say “201.” It is so funny that last month the graffiti in Jerusalem said “Death to Christians.”

Read the rest HERE.

Officials at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin said Sunday they’re distraught and perplexed over the theft of the church’s most precious relic: the preserved heart of St. Laurence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin.

O’Toole’s heart had been displayed in the cathedral since the 13th century. It was stored in a heart-shaped wooden box and secured in a small, square iron cage on the wall of a chapel dedicated to his memory. On Saturday someone cut through two bars, pried the cage loose, and made off with the relic.

Who would do such a thing? The heart is the only remaining relic of the 12th century Dublin archbishop — it has no value at all on one hand, and is priceless on the other. A church official pointed out that there were other solid gold objects nearby that weren’t taken, so it doesn’t seem to have been done for money.

No way of knowing. It was a crime that took forethought, but it still might have just been someone crazy. Or it could be someone who has an idea of trying to ransom the item back to the church, but that sounds like a risky idea.

So there’s a lot that can’t be known unless the person is caught. But the part that intrigued me was when I kept reading and realized (duh!) that since the church is now a Protestant Church, they don’t venerate the relic themselves or hold with the “cult of saints.” Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral displays the relic of this Catholic saint because it “links our present foundation with its founding father,” in the words of the cathedral’s dean.

Apart from the understanding of saints and veneration of their relics, the preserved heart of Dublin’s patron saint is just an interesting museum article and a pleasant throwback for tourists to look at. In that way, it occurs to me that the headline to the article is right — Dublin’s ancient heart has been stolen. And the mystery isn’t even when and by whom, because those are matters of historic fact. The only question is, “Will they ever recover it?”

I wonder.

Photo credit: Associated Press photographer Shawn Pogatchnik