Pretty phytogeocenase for you all. Do you think the purple blooms are superior to the white flowers?

Orthodox Shmorthodox

I am fascinated by Orthodoxy. I'll admit it. It draws me. Until I fully understand, from several sources, the split between Rome and the East, I'll be restless. Yet, yesterday, after thought-provoking interactions with Fr. John Heckers in the Narthax at Epiphany, I listened to a CD teaser called Hymned on the way up to see Aspen gold with my wife above Georgetown. The first song was a paen to the singer's grandmother, whose rendition of "In the Sweet By and By" he fondly remembered and to whom he credited his personal faith in Christ. Isn't the faith of his Grandmother, lover of Christ, a part of the "true" church in some deep way? Yes, I think it is.


Although there were Treaty of Tordesillas Catholic incursions of the faith into America, Christianity came to North America through Protestant roots and spread West. Over the centuries, its development into its currently realized secular expression has created the vacuum which the Orthodox now come to fill.

Everything in our deeply intelligent creation seems tied to everything else. In plant communities, there is a complexity that is simple. Plants are never found alone, but in community. Each member of the community somehow intermingled and dependent on the others. From no plants in an area, communities migrate in in sequence. Vegetation geographers call this vegetation succession. Open soil (let's not think about how open soil happens right here, please) is first invaded by plants who tolerate direct sun and dry, even poor soil. They break the bare soil and cover it rapidly. Many call them weeds, much like we look at dandelions. In breaking the soil, they begin to create micro-climates that allow other plants to come in. Eventually, the entire first community of "weeds" is moved out, replaced by plants more suited to the soil and climate, in denser, more complex community. Tall and short, acid resistant and alkaline resistant, drought resistant and water tolerant. Life flourishes this way, but it also has a redundancy built into it with variations that can come to the fore when drought comes, when rain is excessive, when winters are severe, when warming is dominant.

The plant community is the expression of life. Each plant had its place and importance in the evolution of the biome. Even the animals, presumably disruptive, have a place, tightly woven into the intricate symbiosis.

As I listened to this man sing of his grandmother's faith, I began to look at the presence of the Orthodox and the Christianity of America as an incidence of development of God's world and the achievement of His purpose after the pattern of plants. There is no mistake here. There is no imperfection. The frontier needed Evangelism, and the traditional, locally focussed Orthodox were not adapted for that purpose. They got to America as an exceptionally sheltered and exotic species. To grow, the Orthodox needed an environment that gave a higher value to tradition and structure than has been available in America until now. What kind of soil do the Orthodox need to survive and thrive? The Orthodox need a time of apostasy, doctrinal confusion, humanist philosophy which denies God, and openness to mysterium tremendum due to disaffection with mundane life. This social soil is now prepared for their ascent. So, Orthodoxy is replacing earlier simpler extensions of the kingdom. But does this make Orthodoxy "true" and Methodism "false" in Christ. I don't think so, anymore than it would make sense to say that dandelions are "true" and creosote bushes are "false". The full expression of every place on earth will include a mature Christian form, suited to the place and time and people and history and climate (physical and intellectual). God knows what this will look like, in His plan. I know that a community with many varieties seems to be part of everything else in creation. Why should our religious expression be any different.

One of my professors was A. W. Kuchler. He taught me about plant communities and succession. His vegetation maps were of "natural potential vegetation". He wanted to show what the planet would look like when succession reached stasis. I think that the stasis he sought was a wild goose, personally. The flaw in his concept was that fact that "change" is part of the system, so communities evolve and change in response. Most faculty and grad students in the geography department thought his "natural potential vegetation" was a mystical concept. In order for it to have any plausability, it seemed that man needed to be removed from the planet. But, unlike current environmentalists, we didn't all believe that man was unnatural. He was just the most disruptive species on our planet. All the other species had their disruptive effects, too. And, since God made us all, I think He knows what is "natural", and would certainly include man in His equation. Like Kuchler, I think that Fr. John Heckers, is viewing Orthodoxy as a potential natural state of fully developed Christianity. I think in doing so, he is forgetting the role of the dandelion, and its beauty. It fulfills a purpose in God's plan, like the Methodists and Baptists, whose purpose was to bring the word of God to America. The dandelion brings plant life. The "offspring of the whore of Babylon" brought Christ to America. They weren't the only species, but they dominated their phytogeocenase for awhile. But succession in religious expression continues. According to Kuchler, all microclimates and megaclimates have a potential natural succession stasis they are moving toward. Fr. Heckers thinks that Orthodoxy is that stasis in Christianity. He might be right, for this place and time. But he should not deride the species that prepared the soil and which created the social microclimate that Orthodoxy now enjoys and in which it thrives. This too was God's action, not the mistake he thinks he sees, but the preparation for the ground he exists on.

Travelin' Man

I'm heading out for another business trip tomorrow morning. Tonight I just wanted to peek in at Loin Girders. Recently I have been thinking about the fullness of Christ and His claim on my life. Some of you know that I spent many years with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. During that time, I was dedicated to twice daily meditation and performance of the siddhis, Patanjali's yoga sutras. This took two hour long periods daily in the quietness of my mind. Since deciding several years ago that I was unable to "blend" Christianity and my Vedic techniques, I have been seeking spiritual disciplines that give my life a similar bent to Christ. I have found the Jesus prayer very helpful in this regard ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.") I have also begun saying the rosary, frequently daily. If I wake at night, I may use both a period of Jesus Prayer and a recitation of the rosary before returning to sleep. During the day I use the Jesus Prayer, sometimes without consciously remembering when I began it. I also use the BCP (Book of Common Prayer) prayers on pages 137 through 140 to bracket my day. During my "office" I like to read the leccionary readings for the day listed in the back of the BCP. This is not something I talk about to others, even to my buddies. But, I wonder what others do. I wonder if there is a better "office" for me. I wonder what more I can do to follow Jesus.

Chrismation

I went to John and Amy Holder's Chrismation this morning. With William (5?) and Carolyn (8?), their two darling children and the sponsors for each of them, they went to the front of St. Catherines. Part of the Orthodox ceremony is to recall baptismal vows, renouncing Satan and all his ways, but with a difference. The Orthodox really mean it. They don't just renounce him, they spit three times, blow three times, say the words three times, acknowledge that they have said the words three times. Having seen it, the repetition now seems essential. Episcopal and Methodist formal ceremony omits the repetition. The moment blows by too fast. If you are going to do something this serious, I say let's dwell on the moment. Let it sink in. Using ritual fully you get power, not just ceremonial form.

The next part of the Orthodox ritual is to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. Now we are not talking sprinkling, but anointing with oil by the priest with myrrh/chrismation oil. As a cross is drawn on the forehead, then the cheeks, then the ears, then the throat, then the eyes, then the back of the neck of each in turn, you get the idea. It is an enactment and an announcement to the one they renounced. The members of this family are marked with the Spirit, Satan. They are protected by the ceremony's invocations and by forces you cannot defeat, Satan. They are supported by this community. Hands off.

Another thing that I think rings solidly in Orthodoxy is the sacredness of space. The separation of the "inner sanctum" from the outer by a screen on which are rendered larger than life icons of great saints and angels, with additional life-sized icons all around the nave, a huge icon of Mary and Jesus behind the icon and the giant icon of Christ the King looking down from the center of the ceiling. No doubt who is in charge here. No doubt this is a sacred space. No doubt that the angels and saints glorify God here, in the company of those attending while incense rises, candles burn, ornate chalices and robes flourish. The invocation of the Holy is complete.

The sermon is today on Chuck Swindoll's book on David, from which exerpts were read on forgiveness, what it is and what it is not. My reflection was solemn. My household is infested with unforgiveness. How do I rid us of this curse? I pray for guidance. I am deeply moved.

My next meditation during the preparation and serving of communion, was on the icon above the door into the sanctuary behind the screen where the priests and acolytes busy themselves alone and in groups, coming in, going out. The arched icon is of the Last Supper. Christ in the middle of all the apostles with presumably Judas at his left hand, in a place of honor. What was Judas thinking? How could he have fallen so completely? I have a friend though who is following his lead. He has decided that Christianity is on the wrong track, politically. He feels "torn" but is about to bolt to the "values" of the Democratic party, as he sees them. He has been editing the bible in his family devotions to exclude "offensive" parts that violate "modern" sensibilities for some months. He's just about over the edge. Like Judas, he is re-making the gospel to comport well in the world he understands. He makes no surrender to the King. He is skeptical as to whether enlightenment is possible if he and his family follow this strange Republican Savior. He is mistaken, of course. Jesus was and is not a Republican. He is God. His "fundamentalist" comments in the scripture are difficult for him to reconcile, so he relegates Christianity to those parts of the scripture that he agrees with. Pretty much "God is Love". He ignores Paul and Moses. He doesn't read the Psalms. Like Thomas Jefferson, he has made a bible that fits him. I'm trying to shake him off the linkage between politics and Christianity. I'll let you know whether my ploy works.

Was forgiveness offered to Judas? Ever? A friend told a parable of Judas finding himself after the crucifixion in a deep, dark hole of a cave, with slippery sides. For ages, it seemed, there was not even light. Then Judas saw a light waaaay up at the top of the slippery sided cave, so he attempted to climb to it, slipping and falling back down over and over for a very long time. Finally, with all his might, he made it to the top, asking God to help him. As he crawled into the light he found himself once again at the Last Supper, now attended by the martyred and glorified apostles with Jesus at their head. "Come in, Judas," says the Risen King. "We were waiting for you. Let the feasting begin."

Hmmm.