Retreat

The men of my parish just returned from retreat at Camp Crucis.
Well, I wanted to post the most impressive thing I encountered from the material. We dabbled in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. On page 44 he begins,

Cheap grace is...

• the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance
• baptism without church discipline
• communion without confession
• absolution without personal confession
• grace without discipleship
• grace without the cross
• grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate

Costly grace is...

• the treasure hidden in the field
• the pearl of great price
• the kingly rule of Christ
• the call of Jesus Christ
• the sanctuary of God
  

[Silouan] Violence or NOT?

From the Class of Nonviolence

Here is a snip...

• Fred: OK. So you're a pacifist. What would you do if someone were, say, attacking your grandmother?
  Joan: Attacking my poor old grandmother?
  Fred: Yeah, you're in a room with your grandmother and there's a guy about to attack her and you're standing there. What would you do?
  Joan: I'd yell, "Three cheers for Grandma!" and leave the room."

  Fred: No, seriously. Say he had a gun and he was about to shoot her. Would you shoot him first?
  Joan: Do I have a gun?
  Fred: Yes
  Joan: No. I'm a pacifist, I don't have a gun.
  Fred: Well, I say you do.
  Joan: All right. Am I a good shot?
  Fred: Yes.
  Joan: I'd shoot the gun out of his hand.
  Fred: No, then you're not a good shot.
  Joan: I'd be afraid to shoot. Might kill Grandma.

  Fred: Come on, OK, look. We'll take another example. Say, you're driving a truck. You're on a narrow road with a sheer cliff on your side. There's a little girl sitting in the middle of the road. You're going too fast to stop. What would you do?
  Joan: I don't know. What would you do?

Read all the rest before continuing here.

I have a question for Joan. What would you* do if it was culturally acceptable to murder babies before they were born?
Would you* march against it?
Would you* picket against it?
Would you* stage a sit-in?
Would you* boycott?
Would you* lobby?
Is abortion within your* definition of violence?
If not, then you are flippant with life and resting upon the 'luck' of being one of those who were born.
Because, as far as I can tell, ABORTION is as much as a reality as WAR. Both are senseless, shameful, VIOLENT, and fueled by selfishness I cannot begin to describe.
Now let's move on the the elderly.

[After all we're supposed to be eschewing
hypotheticals and considering real-life evils]

What would you* do if they were systematically denied life sustaining medicine/treatment by their "care-givers"?
What would you* do if they were forgotten by their self-indulgence offspring to rot in sub-standard "homes"?
Do you* care that life at its beginning and end are being reduced to decisions of convenience while people try to save the rest of the world from violence, oppression, and hate-crimes?
I am afraid this attitude makes us miss our intended goals to help people and work for the GREATER GOOD. If I were left with only this mantra my best efforts to reach out will have missed a hundred people before my elbows straightened. Ideologue. Blind. Moat-in-eye.
God forgive us both and save us both from blindness.

*Ultimately it matters less what we believe individually...but what does the Church teach...and do...and what are examples of it?
Education, homeless shelters, orphanages, hospitals, reformatories [prisons], soup kitchens, pro-life advocacy, adoption, ad infinitum.

Biretta tip to Silouan.

Metropolitan Hilarion's Message to Dallas Seminary

You may have heard that His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk visited Dallas Seminary on Feb. 11, 2011.

Here is the message given by His Eminence to Dallas Theological Seminary faculty [not chapel or any other broad audience].

photos here.

Lancelot Andrewes' prayers for Lent

On The Wednesdays Of Lent.

O Holy Jesu, I beseech Thy loving-kindness. Despise me not: yea, rather regard me, O Lord, regard me with those eyes wherewith Thou didst regard

Magdalene in the banquet,

Peter in the hall,

the thief on the Cross;

that with Peter I may weep,

with the thief may confess,

with Magdalene may love;

may love much, yea very much, for that many sins are forgiven me.

Spare me, O Lord; spare me, a penitent: at the least desiring to be a penitent, and preparing thereto; recollecting my sins with bitterness, indignant with myself concerning them, remembering and laying hold of Thy most bitter Passion.

Spare, O Lord, have mercy! Spare me, O Lord, have mercy on me! pity me, because it is not difficult to Thy power, nor unbefitting Thy justice, nor unusual to Thy clemency.

O Lamb of God, That takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me.

Lord, let a new manner of life prove that a new spirit hath descended on me: for true penitence is new life; and true praise unremitted penitence, and the observation of a perpetual Sabbath from sin, its occasions, and its danger. For as penitence destroys old sins, so do new sins destroy penitence.

O God, my heart is ready; so saith the Psalmist: but I fear, Lord, lest mine should not be ready. I would that it were: I grieve, if it be not. Lord, prepare it: assist my disposal, and supply my preparation of it. I will put my sins before my sight; that they may not be put before Thine.

By Thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation,

Good Lord, deliver me.

Final Update on My Depression (I Hope)

Modern drugs are wonderful! They also have completely unseen side effects. I wish I could swear that I will never take them. I know so many people that have ruined their lives because they have self-medicated. The side effects are disaster.
Here is a case from a close friend that went through an unexpected depression only to discover later that it was induced by withdrawal from pain meds.
Add Michael's blog to your roster for daily posts and enjoy his entry from today.

***************************************
Final Update on My Depression (I Hope): "

It has been some time since I had an episode of depression. I cannot be sure, but I am fairly certain I know what caused it.

Neither my circumstances nor the pressures of my life have changed but I feel really good. I can be motivated, encouraged, and I am enjoying the things I normally enjoy. Yes, I did almost cry today when I listened to an old country classic with my wife, “Don’t Take the Girl” by Tim McGraw, but that is only to be expected! No more sadness over bizarre things like the aging of Matthew Mcconaughey, the memories of watching Justice League with my son Will, or my days at seminary. I think it is over.

When I wrote before, I said that I was not sure what triggered the depression. I only assumed that it was many things that had built up in my life that I failed to deal with properly. While those thing were factors during the depression, I do not believe that they caused it. So what did?

I mentioned about six months ago that I had been having trouble with my tail-bone. I have a fractured vertebra in my lower back from many years ago. Over the years it has given me lots of trouble. This time, according to the doctor, the trouble was “referred pain” into my tail-bone. I could not hardly sit down for a long time. After going to many doctors, the only solution they had was to get on pain meds until the inflammation went down. I have never been on pain meds before. I don’t even like to take aspirin (tough guy syndrome). But the pain was too bad this time. So I started taking Hydrocodone (Vicodin), which, as I understand it, is a powerful narcotic. It took the edge off and allowed me to function. It also put me in a pretty good mood.

I was taking about 30 per week under the supervision of my doctor. I knew that it was addictive, but I read up enough on it that I felt comfortable with my dosage and plans to get off. I was on it for about three months before the doctor started scaling down. I read up on side effects for coming off it and found that those who were addicted to it were taking much more than I was. Some of them took one hundred a day and did this for over a year! I figured I was safe.

After three and a half months, I decided to just quit cold turkey and skip any further scale downs. It was a week later that I went into the serious depression/panic. I know what you are thinking: “Duh . . . of course that was the cause.” I thought the same thing but dismissed it after I searched across the web looking for side effect of coming off the drug. Only rarely did they mention depression. Most of the time it was severe physical pain. I had none of that so I looked for other reasons. Plus, I watch House and know what he went through!

As you know, after about seven weeks, the depression symptoms disappeared completely. Since then I have talked with a few people who described the exact same thing after coming off the same drug. Because of this, even though I have not had any physical or mental inclination or drive to take the drug again, I have concluded that my depression was because I was addicted to the pain meds. I was going through withdrawals.

I think that there is a sufficiency in the probability that this was the cause due to the available evidence. Alternative theories are possibilities, but not probabilities! (Okay, inside stuff going on there.)

To be truthful, I am glad it was the drugs. I feel as if I don’t have to be timid and avoid emotionally distressing situations or thoughts. I had gotten to the point that I was scared to do certain things I needed to do fearing it would cause another collapse.

While in many ways it is “back to business” in my life, in other ways it will never be. I have said it before and I will say it again: that was the worst thing I have ever been through. I am glad it is over and I hope that I am right about the cause. Either way, my heart is with those who are there right now. Also, be careful with those pain meds. Count the cost for the small amount of relief (and euphoria) they provide. Right now, I will take tailbone pain a thousand times over rather than experience one day of the crash the drugs facilitate!

"

No News

Well, of course, that is silly. There is plenty of news. I just haven't found time to comment on any of it.

Right now I'm reading Robert Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley.

Besides that I'm just trying to take the future as it comes.

Some Chinese outfit tried to post a Porno comment which reminded me that I have a blog. That is how bad it is.

So....no news.

Theological Defense of Plagiarism

In his former treatise Dr. Griffiths dropped a bombshell on me near the end of the essay. Did I just understand that he advocates plagiarism? Since reading that volume I have shared those notions with many of my colleagues--professional, clergy, and laity. Not one of them escaped the tendency to drop their jaw to the ground! For how could a Priest suggest such anti-nomianism?

Thankfully, Dr. Griffiths has published the refined and expanded version of his thinking on this. If you are not a fan of Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, or John Henry Newman then this is probably not the book for you. You will find their fingerprints within, for sure.

Now I have just realized that I missed reading another one of Dr. Griffiths' books. Oh, the stuff of reading.

The pornographer's dream: or, the problem with contemporary worship

[Article from another Blog]
The pornographer's dream: or, the problem with contemporary worship: "There’s been a lot of speculation in recent years about why so many evangelicals are converting to Rome and to Eastern Orthodoxy. I wonder whether the highly experiential focus of contemporary worship might have something to do with it.

The New York singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega has an entertaining song entitled “Pornographer’s Dream” (from her 2007 album, Beauty and Crime). In the song, Vega asks what kind of woman a pornographer would dream about:

Would he still dream of the thigh? of the flesh upon high?
What he saw so much of?
Wouldn’t he dream of the thing that he never
Could quite get the touch of?

It’s out of his hands, over his head
Out of his reach, under this real life
Hidden in veils, covered in silk
He’s dreaming of what might be

Out of his hands, over his head
Out of his reach, under this real life
Hidden in veils,
He’s dreaming of mystery.

It’s a nice idea: the pornographer, from whom nothing is concealed, dreams only of concealment itself. Unlike the rest of us, his fantasies involve not naked flesh, but a body “hidden in veils, covered in silk.” For the pornographer, the only thing forbidden is mystery, so that his fantasises are of clothed women, veiled flesh.

As an analysis of pornography, I think this is completely correct. The real problem with pornography is not that it is too erotic, but that it is not erotic enough. In seeking to reveal everything, to fulfil every fantasy, it destroys the very possibility of fantasy and eroticism. And so the use of pornography ultimately results not in erotic ecstasy or euphoria, but in mere boredom.

Perhaps all this can serve as a parable for the contemporary preference for experiential worship styles. Where every church service becomes the opportunity for a life-changing experience of the divine presence; where every song and sermon and prayer is designed to produce immediate emotional impact; where the whole Christian life is transformed into the pursuit of a “naked” experience of the divine – here, the final outcome can only be a profound and paralysing boredom. And for those subjected to such boredom, the only remaining spiritual desire is for a mysterious God, a God not merely naked and exposed, but clothed in ritual, sacrament, tradition.

Why are so many evangelicals converting to Rome and Constantinople? Perhaps their infinitely deferred quest for a Deus nudus has finally resulted in an unbearable boredom. Perhaps they’re dreaming of a God who is not always promiscuously available to immediate experience, but is instead “hidden in veils, covered in silk” – a more modest, and therefore more sexy God.

For what it’s worth, my own opinion is that we should avoid the pitfalls both of a promiscuous experientialism and of any reaction towards ritualism for its own sake. Instead of trying by our own efforts either to strip God or to clothe him, we should look to the place where God has both veiled and unveiled himself for us: in the event of Jesus Christ.

"

Evangelism Old Style

Some peoples still know how to do evangelism.





News Flash! It ain't us!

For Those Who Hallow Suffering

Prayer for Good Friday,

For those who hallow suffering:
We thank Thee, O Father, for all who hallow suffering; for those who in their thought for others leave no room for pity for themselves; for those whose faith brings light to the dark places of life; and for those whose patience inspires others to hold on. And grant, O loving Father, to all who are bound in the mysterious fellowship of suffering the sense of comradeship with others and the knowledge of Thy love, and give them Thy peace which passes all understanding; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. Ignatius on Discipleship, part 6

Discipleship as Imitation

Ultimately discipleship is imitating Christ. Ignatius conceives martyrdom as the perfect imitation of Christ.¹ This is the central point of the paper. Ignatius saw following Jesus to be ultimately accomplished in the imitation of his own suffering and passion. A case of true imitation can be seen only in the case of Ignatius’ relationship with Christ.² Examination of the imitation-texts clearly shows that imitation is oriented primarily to suffering, not to the cross specifically but to suffering, as the inevitable consequence of loving like God loves.³ The whole point of the baptism, Eucharist, suffering for God, and Christology is to be an imitator of the one in whom we are baptized, the one whom we partake at the table, who suffered for our sakes and for our salvation, who embraces humanity and redeems it.

Ephesians 1:1. ‘Being imitators of God, taking on new life in the blood of God, you have fully completed the task so well suited to you.’ He speaks of imitating God and fulfilling a task. The question is, ‘what is the task?’ Is it imitation or visitation from the larger context of greeting and helping him? It is clear that the Church’s life comes from the blood of Christ, but what is the imitation? The evidence seems to point to a period of persecution at Ephesus. But one cannot contend certainly that this is Ignatius’ intent, for the ‘task’ referred to here as ‘imitation’ is not necessarily withstanding persecution. But one would also not expect him to refer to this in terms of imitation of God. So we think he begins his first letter with a statement about their obedience in terms of imitation.

Eph 9:2 “Ye, therefore, as well as all your fellow-travelers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by means of this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with respect to your Christian life ye love nothing but God only.”

Ephesians 10:1. ‘Let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, who was most maltreated, who endured deprivation and who was rejected.’ Here the instruction to imitate Jesus at the point o suffering is sent to the Church as a whole. The fate of the entire Church is to suffer for the faith. He emphasizes the duty of the whole Church to suffer in imitation the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Church imitates Christ, the logical conclusion is that they will be mistreated, deprived and rejected. In the letter to the Ephesians, Ignatius does not connect discipleship with the faithful Christian life. Rather he connects it to martyrdom. Perhaps, as Rathke suggests, martyrdom is the imitation for a single person whereas the Church is the way of the community, through suffering or not.⁴

Magnesians 4:1. “It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but to be so in reality:” If Docetists believed that Christ appeared only in aspect, then truly they could believe that our expression of his life could remain undercover. We have been called to be the real expressions of a real Person, the man Jesus Christ.

Magnesians 9:1. ‘And this is why we endure: that we might be found disciples of Jesus Christ . . .’ No other passage says it clearer that this one. Endurance is the mark of a disciple. What is there to endure but suffering? Why endure suffering in the first place; because it is an imitation of Christ’s suffering.

Trallians3:1. ‘In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ.’

Romans 1:2. ‘For I fear your love, lest it do me wrong, for it is easy for you to do what you want to, but it will be hard for me to attain to God unless you spare me.’ He asks the Romans not to intervene for him because they in doing so will impede his idea of following Christ. If he is disallowed to join in Christ’s suffering, via the Romans contending for his release, then his discipleship is halted.

Philadelphians 7:2. ‘But the Spirit proclaimed these words: Do nothing without the bishop; keep your bodies as the temples of God; love unity; avoid divisions; be the followers of Jesus Christ, even as He is of His Father.’ He gives us here a direct connection between our obedience to others and Christ’s obedience to the Father. Noteworthy is the absence of the instruction to follow the teachings of Christ. We are told to follow Christ. Surely we are to understand that the Lord’s teachings are for the Church, but the point is to follow a person rather than a principle. I propose that following Christ is the same as following his teachings.

Smyrneans12:1. ‘The love of the brethren at Troas salutes you; whence also I write to you by Burrhus, . . . I would that all may imitate him, as being a pattern of a minister of God. Grace will reward him in all things.’ Here he gives us instruction to follow someone besides Christ. The principle of imitation is the same if we follow the bishop, for the bishop is the head of the presbytery just as the Father above the Son.

Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. 1 Corinthians 4:16. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 1:6; For you, brothers, became imitators of God's Churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those Churches suffered from the Jews 2:14. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Hebrews 6:12; Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 13:7.

How could one miss the connection Ignatius finds in these scriptures to his explicit idea of imitation? We are to imitate the faith of our leaders, of others who are more spiritual [that is those that serve and lead], the Bishop, and ultimately the Father, through Christ.

1 Johannes Quasten, Patrology, (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950), 1: p.71.

2 Daniel N. McNamara, “Ignatius of Antioch on his death, discipleship, sacrifice, and imitation,” (Ph.D. diss. McMaster University, 1978) p. 248.

3 Willard M. Swartley, “The Imitatio Christi in the Ignatian letters,” Vigiliae Christianae 27 no. 2 (1973): p. 100.

4 Heinrich Rathke, Ignatius von Antiochien und die Paulusbriefe, (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967) p. 68-75.

Pelikan brief

In his last chapter of The Vindication of Tradition Jaroslav Pelikan describes our task in the Church as that of an Olympic long jumper. He contrasts our task with the standing-long-jumper.

The latter try to jump from a standstill. They ignore the terrain behind them and leap forward with awkward footing. Alas they cannot get very far.

The former begin their jump at...the beginning. They do not ignore the centimeters [read centuries] of the course up to the launch pad. They traverse the entire length before they jump.

He sums it all up with a quote from Goethe:

What you have as heritage,
take now as task;
For thus you will make it your own!

Bear your cross, dear ones

After reading this story I am more and more convinced that we will bear our crosses publicly.
The prayer from our Baptism also comes to mind.

WE receive this Child (or person) into the congregation of Christ’s flock; and do +sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end. Amen. ~1928 BCP.

hat tip to Valle Adurni.

Troll Under the Bridge

This was written in response to things-as-they-are where I work. It is a place where happy evangelicals dutifully work for the salvation of every soul, usually oblivious to any other expression of Christianity. This usually comes out vividly when students write for on-campus newspapers about their summer missionary activities. I wanted to submit this to said newspaper, but I think it's much to threatening for that audience.

Troll under the Bridge

When we are young and impressionable, the big folks like to tell us fables, myths, and legends to pique our imagination. Those tales most often have a purpose too. So it is with the proverbial troll that lives under the bridge. Perhaps there was a widespread desire to keep young children away from bridges. Bridges are not safe for young kids-that is easy to imagine. More likely it was to protect the ‘kids’ from what was beyond the bridge. So it may have been common to protect our cubs by fear. "You know," goes the tale, "there is a troll under the bridge that will scare you/eat you/kill you/molest you. So stay far away from that bridge." We don’t need to know what a troll is to be afraid of the bridge. It works…both ways. We are saved by fear and enticed to imagine.

Then we grow and learn how the world works. There are no ‘boogy men’--at least not the imaginary kind. And that troll never has been caught by our eager eyes. We grow up to feel safe about ‘our world’ and physically safe from the danger of the bridge, er uhm the troll. Maturity leads us to ditch the myth but no one really ever tells us it's a myth. No one ever sits us down and says, "we just wanted to keep you safe and close, so we made up the story of the troll." Forget the Viking stories that we crib from, we simply use tales as best suits us.

I write this because of my great angst about evangelicals’ collective, deep-rooted fantasy. It's somewhat like the troll story I describe, but much more sinister. Whether it be the ‘Church of Christ’, the ‘Methodist Church’, or the ‘Roman Catholic Church’ we prevent our kid-goats wandering too far from the reservation by fear. We protect them by branding the other guys as heretics, cults, or anti-Christs. And this works too. I am particularly beleaguered by the attitude we foster about the Roman Catholic Church. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard the ole line about the Catholics being idolaters, magic peddlers, anti-Christs, and a vast cult bent on usurping the "true" gospel. Many coins would be from my own pocket, sadly. If I banked those dimes I could do a lot of good.

Imagination is a good tool unless we forge it with prejudice or stereotyping. I’m now convinced that’s what we’ve done with the Catholics. We’ve painted them with our own imaginative ignorance. We, in fact, weaken our own view of God’s power when we portray the Catholics as so very influential that they can prohibit the ‘true’ gospel from peoples’ comprehension. In other words, the legend is too weighty to stand up under the smallest scrutiny. All those ‘things’ adorning the gospel are imagined by evangelicals to cloud the truth and veil the Lord from the people. Most prejudice is simply ignorance. What we miss is that all the ‘adornments’ point to Him.

While I had hurled insults at Catholics, I had never stepped inside a Catholic Church in my life. So it is with many of us. Oh, I know, many people embrace Christ ‘personally’ after having been Catholic much of their lives. Others have a sprinkling of Catholic experience because of mixed family ties. In this latter case I bet they still operated with fear and prejudice when they attended that wedding, or that Baptism. I remember once in my college years being afraid that something would happen to me while attending a Church outside my approved list. Good grief! (Shocking as it may be, Dallas Seminary was not on that list either!) Remember what that troll will do to you!

But the more sinister aspect of our prejudice is doctrinal. We simply do not understand their system. We fearfully and ignorantly reject their Episcopacy, Sacraments, Veneration of Mary and Saints, etc. The best we can muster is, “We don’t need to know what they believe to be sure that they are wrong.” Yet, you cannot disagree with an unknown. Students of history are urged to suspend judgment until they learn history’s content. That doesn’t mean to chuck judgment entirely, but you must have the facts first. Only then can you discern. In fact, then you must discern. Be not afraid of the truth, but neither be unmoved by it. You are at seminary to learn, to forge the habits that will fuel your future. If your time here is only spent learning how ‘wrong’ others are, are you not becoming a prejudiced servant?

Fear keeps us out of the woods like the 2^nd generation of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. We feel comfortable at the encampment, secure on the reservation. We don’t want to confuse our younglings with crucifixes, statues, smoke, tradition, stained glass, creeds, chants, wafers, alcohol, icons and beauty. We envision what terrible direction those things will lead their imaginations! Children are better served sitting and staring at the hymnal or the back of bro. Bob’s head. Or worse, we remove them from our company and let somebody else tell teach about the most important action in all creation, namely worshiping God. Even worse still, we remove them from worship for play and activity because they don’t understand everything that’s going on…they are stupid and unable to have, much less cultivate, faith. And they should never take communion for we are not ‘sure’ they ‘truly’ ‘believe’ in our ‘fill-in-the-blank-doctrines-necessary-for-true-spiritual-relationship-with-Jesus’. Yep, those Catholics are truly deluded and misguided.

Evangelicals champion the gospel. That name is from the Greek word for gospel, for goodness sake. Yet the gospel isn’t naked. It never has been. It has been clothed and adorned with beauty, tradition, order, dignity, and many other Catholic things. Neither are its recipients bare. We like to think that we are: that God wipes our slates clean at conversion, tabula rasa. Some folks get very near apostasy before they realize that grace’s landing strip needs maintenance. It is not tabula rasa, but tabula humanae. The human mind is vast. God created it that way. But today evangelicals usually see grace only as a heart and soul issue. I hope that you will engage your mind such that you fulfill your Lord’s summary of the Law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” Regarding our estranged brethren in other Churches, I hope you will struggle to honor Jesus’ words concluding the summary, “And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these to commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” This is especially true if you have family devoted to the Catholic Church.

Those of us that consider ourselves students of The Book would do well to appreciate the entity that for centuries preserved our Book. We would do even better if we considered their preservation of Scripture at least as authentic in devotion to Christ as our modern accretions. I implore you to move beyond folklore to fact. Call a cease-fire between those that damage one another. Most of all, carefully avoid friendly-fire. We have enough to battle with Islam and secularization crowding out anyone that bears the name of Christ. Sadly, most of us would simply rather believe in the truth of our own making. We much prefer the safe fantasy world that our masters confined us within.

The Latest with me/us

Okay, there are maybe 3 readers here & that's cool. "Thanks mom" would be a funny comment here but she ain't got that innernet thangy. So whoever you are-thanks for stumbling into my blog.

We finally found the end of our fertility treatment. Here's a rough recap.
Last year we decided for many reasons to try fertility treatments to have another child. So off we went to a specialist. After the first round we had a miscarriage followed by more blood work. That blood work uncovered a problem with our DNA. So we thought we'd try again with a little more treatment than the 1st time to counter-act the DNA issue. But it failed again with another miscarriage. These two events were very, very hard on the Mrs. [not to mention months of shots and pills etc.]. Still we wanted to see if more could be done so that we could have a baby. After all many, many patients endure multiple miscarriages on the way to parenthood. Well, the only way in reality [says the specialist] is to remove one of the two of us from the genetic equation. This is when it gets really hurtful. Donation, surrogacy, etc. became the only options. Surrogacy is for rich folk because it is cost prohibitive. So we're down to egg or sperm donation. At this point all I knew was that it made me uncomfortable. So I set out to find answers. Was this morally right? How would we deal with this in the long run? Could we go through with this?

Where do you go to find answers like this for such new medical treatments?! Christians are divided over this issue. Some say it doesn't matter, so go ahead and do it. Some don't like the idea, but have very little more than anecdotal reasons. The former group sound very uncritical, even un-reflective. The latter sound very critical and uncompromising. One thing is for sure--they all have Bible verses to share. So where is a detailed analysis of this issue? I'm afraid the Anglican Churches have shied away from the issue with typical via-media posturing. Evangelicals can't seem to reason outside of the specific Bible verses they've found...on one side or the other. Then I found the document put out by Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae. 40 years ago the Church foresaw issues like this. And though HV does not specifically address our particular issue, it does say where life is supposed to come from. It discusses the Sacrament of Marriage, the only origin of life ordained from God. It was only a simple deduction for me to decide that we could not 'remove one of us from the equation'.

So it is not a matter of my wife having a baby, rather it is a matter of us having a baby. Today we only hear the media and lobbyists speak of an individual woman and her rights. They've gone too far because neither man nor woman are in this alone, God gave us each other to produce more life within the marriage relationship. Turning the emotional corner together as a couple was really difficult. We had a lot of intense fellowship! What does a couple do when they cannot have a baby?

We already knew the answer. Our 1st child just turned 5 years old. We adopted him at two days old. He is ours. He is a gift...from God...from his birth-mother...from all those who prayed for us through those days. So what, you may ask, is the difference between adopting a child that is not yours & utilizing egg or sperm that is not yours?

That was the biggest hurdle. It seems like wisdom. If you adopted a child from someone else, then it can't be wrong to receive genetic material from someone else so that you can have a child. Love is all that is important, right? Well, I disagree. We are not dealing with 'raw materials'. Physicians are so used to speaking and thinking that way. If my deduction from Humanae Vitae is correct, we should not breach the covenant we cut for any reason, not even to create life. In the case of adoption we did not create the life, yet we redeemed it through adoption. Fertility treatment is for married couples, not individuals, and this couple went as far as a married couple can go with treatment. The two have become one flesh--we cannot undo that for the purpose of bearing children. Our calling is to adopt kids or only have the one, our burden is that we cannot produce our own. So we trust God to help us heal from this hurt [and the hurt of miscarriages].

Already we have turned our attention to the adoption process again. Our son may yet be an only child and we are coming to grips with this too. What ever the future holds we trust God and walk on. What else can we do? As a very dear friend often says, "Life is what happens when there are no longer any options."
Amen.

Moon

A few nights ago we saw the Grand Prairie AirHogs baseball club in action.

When we got home my son had this to say about the overcast sky and bright moon.

"Dad, the moon is all blurry. It soaked up all the day-clouds, that's why it's all blurry."

I love the things that come to his mind!

That day may never come

I was thinking about my failed efforts to Blog my thoughts. You know, I just get overwhelmed with today's blogging culture. Everyone is so fast to link to this or that news story, comment on it, and move to the next bling news story. I simply don't have time to reflect on things that fast. I also think that pace too fast.

I have a running autobiography with the working title, "That day may never come." So far I've cast my life story in two modes of thought. The first is my juvenile attitude that one day I'd be a great man, revered by many, with loads of success. The second mode is my present one in which I simply hope my family will ascribe that description upon my life. Thus the title, which may apply to my 'success' on this blog as well.

Oh, I've got stuff to post on. I've written some things that I could post. I don't think I will just yet. I don't yet know if they are worthy of wide distribution. Just in case I get in the mood to post them, these are some of the things I've written, just email me if you want to read them. I don't know how good they are...


Discipleship according to Ignatius of Antioch. Senior research paper in lieu of thesis at Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002.

H-Net book review of Robert E. Brown. Jonathan Edwards and the Bible. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Xxi + 320pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00 (cloth), 0-253-34093-4. Great book, poor review.

Bibliotheca Sacra article review of “Rapture Fictions and the Changing Evangelical Condition,” Crawford Gribben, Literature & Theology, 18:1 (March 2004): 77-94.

Why Anglicanism? A letter I wrote to family and friends after I left the PCA to join a small Anglican denomination called the Reformed Episcopal Church. Written in 2005.

Bibliotheca Sacra article review of “Spiritual but Not Religious: The Influence of the Current Romantic Movement,” Owen C. Thomas, Anglican Theological Review 88 (summer 2006): 397-415.

I've also written papers for each of the classes I have taken from my new seminary, Cranmer Theological House.

But as I understand blogging, everything I've mentioned should simply serve a background to my thoughts on life and the stories of life. I guess this means--don't check back each day, as you might for the blogs listed to the right, for my daily reflection upon the marketplace of religion. I'm not sure I'll ever get to that point.