Another Life

(As posted on my regular weblog)

My friend Jim has a couple of good posts on listening to people from the “ex-ex-gay” movement.

I think he is right: the Church does need to hear what people who have tried to convert from homosexual to heterosexual — especially those Christians who believed they could “convert” their sexuality from being gay to being straight. We need to listen especially closely to those men and women who have sincerely attempted to alter their own sexual orientation and failed.

Most importantly, those of us (and, yes, “us” includes me) in the Church who believe that homosexual relationships are sinful need to listen.

Before I tell you what I hear, let me explain a bit about where I'm coming from.

It is no surprise that there are a lot of confused people out there. And by confused, I don't mean the men and women who are homosexual. No, I mean the people who think that being a homosexual is, in and of itself, wrong. There is nothing wrong with being gay.

I would go further, though, and say that if you are not actively seeking a relationship with God, then you are not better off in a straight relationship than in a homosexual one. The thing of primary concern is our relationship with God. Everything hinges on that.

In fact, morality doesn't matter. Morality plays no role in our relationship to God.

This should be clear enough from story of the Publican and Pharisee that the Orthodox begin each celebration of Great Lent with.

The tax-collector may have been the morally disreputable person in Jesus' day — the person everyone knew was doing wrong, cheating them out of their hard-earned money. In his place, I can imagine a gay man, someone all conservative Christians would “know” is a sinner.

The Pharisee stands there proclaiming his piety, ridiculing the tax collector. Likewise, I see many conservative Christians holding themselves up as moral examples, making a very public display of their moral superiority. They kick and scream when they feel they've been wronged — when someone has stripped their courthouse of the Ten Commandments or a creche — and loudly condemn those whose sins are more public.

The answer is not to hide your sin, not to be discreet about it. “All have sinned” and no one persons sin is any less or any more than anyone else's. No one is perfect. No one can exalt themselves above another or look down on another. Jesus told us as much when he said it was the tax collector, not the pharisee, who went home justified.

Which means, of course, that I'm no better than the most flamboyant, promiscuous gay man. In fact, I have no right to comment on anyone else's sin.

I'm reminded of the story of Abba Sisoes from the fourth century:

Considered to be a very holy and venerable man, many drew near to Abba Sisoes while he was on his death bed. In his last moments, he saw choirs of angels and archangels, not to mention prophets, Apostles and saints. Wondering what was going on, those gathered around him asked, “With whom are you speaking, Abba?”

“With the angels,” he replied, and indicated that he was seeking to do penance before he left this life for the next.

Knowing his holiness, one friend said to him, “You have no need for penance, Father.”

Abba Sisoes replied, “I have not yet begun to repent.”

Here is someone no one thought could be condemned, yet, truly embodying the spirit of the publican, he felt he had not yet begun to repent.

At this point, I hope I've made myself clear: I am in no position to proclaim my own piety or tell others that they are condemned.

So what does this all have to do with listening to “ex-ex-gay” people?

One thing I hear is a gay man (Peterson Toscano, founder of Beyond Ex-Gay) who struggled for almost 20 years and spent over $30,000 to become “straighten” himself out. It didn't work.

At this point, it sounds like a bad Scientology tale.

The first thing that comes to mind (and Peterson says as much) is the obsession with sex. Since the focus is on sex continually, it heightens the awareness and temptation. In another video, Peterson even says that he had more sex when he was trying to “de-gay” himself than he has since he gave it up.

But that part of it, obsession with sex, seems to be a part of American Christian culture. Witness sites like Book22.com (a Christian sex-toys web store), or Christian sex toy parties, or even Exodus International's methods — at least, those Peterson describes.

The focus is on sex. Sure, we pay lip service to putting God before all else, but the idea of a married couple voluntarily abstaining from sex? That would be unheard of! Lifelong voluntary “marital fasting” that some saints of the Orthodox church undertook seems impossible and ridiculous to us. As one person described this fasting:

Rather than repudiating the legitimate pleasure taken in eating and in marital relations, fasting assists us in liberating ourselves from greed and lust, so that both these things become not a means of private pleasure but an expression of interpersonal communion.

The second thing I hear is the singling out of this particular sin. As Peterson says: “I thought I couldn't be gay and a Christian.”

While all Christians are called to live pious lives, many of us struggle with a particular sin or temptation. Sometimes, we sin and are not aware that what we do is sin. So, again, the focus on homosexuality, singling it out for special attention and treatment, and not on whether or not homosexuality is a sin, is where we're going wrong.

Consider the advice that St. Theophan the Recluse gave to a young girl: When confronted with a thought to pursue some sin, don't fight it. Don't grab onto it to beat it into submission. Instead, let it pass and immediately pray the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

By turning our attention to God instead of the thought to sin, we redirect our energy. Note, also, the parallels between the Jesus Prayer and the prayer of the Publican.

Finally, and probably most controversially, it makes me wonder about things that we universally agree are wrong today, but that, at the time the New Testament was written, weren't seen as huge sins.

Slavery, for example. I see no evidence that new Christians freed their slaves or started treating them humanely. I also know of no restrictions on ordaining slave owners.

Yet, today, we see any kind of slavery, not just the brutal kind sometimes practiced in the early American South, as universally wrong.

So what's the point of all this? What have I found from listening to this ex-ex-gay man?

Well, to be honest, I haven't learned anything. I have taken the opportunity, though, to think through my prejudices and to clarify them a bit. Peterson deserves our compassion: he has been ill-served by a church that tried to take him down a road he simply couldn't travel — by a church that made his sexuality more important than his relationship to God.

The focus should, as always, be on God, not our sin.

(as posted on my regular weblog)

In the past 48 hours, I've put 75 miles on my bike. I'm hoping for another 30 tomorrow.

If I keep this up, I can do 200 a week, easily.

I told dvfmama that it took me 30 years to ride a bike and one of the kids asked what that meant.

"Oh, he just means it took him that long to ride using common sense."

Hrm... Not sure I would put it that way... But I've been told plenty of times I have no common sense, so maybe there is something to that.

In any case, today, for the first time in a while, I wiped out. I took my bike over a guardrail.

That sounds more dangerous than it was.

I was fiddling with my water bottle and going around a curve. I try to stay as far from the center of the road as possible -- usually I'm to the right of the white line. On this particular stretch, the road travels through a bit of woods on the side of a hill and, yep, there is a guardrail.

So, with my water bottle fiddling and riding close to the guardrail, I brushed up against it and, after a bit of a struggle to maintain control, went over the guardrail. With my feet in the clips, the bike came with me.

And, of course, the water bottle rolled into the road where oncoming traffic hit it and gave it a nice leak.

(cross posted from my main weblog)
Four years ago, during the last presidential election, I was working like a busy bee on the Clark Campaign in Little Rock, AR.  It was there that I met dcm -- a relationship that took me around the world to Rwanda this year.  He gave me a bike sticker: Fight Terror! Ride a Bike!

Four years later, gas prices have doubled or so and, at almost $4/gallon, we're beginning to think of new ways to avoid using oil.

Last year, before gas prices became really uncomfortable, I bought an old beater of a VW Jetta from Eric.  Still, gas mileage on it is almost twice as good as that of our minivan.  (And I'm sure if I ever get the hang of shifting properly, it'll be even better.)  It has become our go-to car when we don't need to take everyone with us.

And, still, there are times when we can avoid using any gas at all.  Today, for instance, I had my semi-annual dentist appointment to get my teeth clean.  The dentist is eight miles away.  What to do ... what to do ...

Ride a bike, of course!

This past weekend, I upgraded to a road-bike.  The inexpensive Redline Conquest.  With some slick tires to replace the knobby ones it comes with (because I'm not into cyclocross) and clips to replace the clipless pedals (I may be a bike dork, but I ain't changing my shoes to ride a bike), I felt like I was flying down the road compared with the effort-to-speed ratio on my older city bike.

So, I biked to the dentist.  Sixteen miles round-trip.  About half a gallon of gas.  Almost two bucks saved.

I'll make this bike pay for itself yet.

if I didn't use oil to heat my home, I'd wish oil prices went up faster so I could ammortize the bike that much quicker.

(My daughter's God father is starting to take the train to Harrisburg and looking at folding bikes.  At $140 for a month of rides on the train vs a 45 minute commute and four gallons of gas, the car really does begin to look less attractive.)

I love Nate's 6-word Memoir.  I would love to use it.  But he came up with it first.  Let's see:


Five others? Jeremy, Jim, dcm, a1an, seraphimsigrist

The rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag at least five more blogs with links; and
5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

I'll let this entry do the tagging.

(Also Updated the grandparent post)

I'm in Rwanda for a couple of weeks and I've been writing daily updates on my main weblog. Check it out if you're interested.

Last night, our library showed Ostrov — a popular movie in Russia that did well at Sundance. When I first heard about this movie (I've forgotten where, now), I knew I wanted to see it. dvfmama didn't know I wanted to see it, but when she saw the description at the library, she knew I would be interested.

(Aside: My three oldest children were the only kids there. One of the older ladies asked us afterwards if were were Russian — our children behaved so well throughout a subtitled film! Little did she know that they always turn on subtitles — even for English language films.)

Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

Somewhere in Northern Russia in a small Russian Orthodox monastery lives a very unusual man. His fellow-monks are confused by his bizarre conduct. Those who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future. However, he considers himself unworthy because of a sin he committed in his youth. The film is a parable, combining the realities of Russian everyday life with monastic ritual and routine.

Ostrov is steeped in (Russian) Orthodox monasticism, so well over a third of it is prayers or psalms, but this is what monastics do: they pray.

If orthopraxis were simply about living in a way that others could look at and say “Yes, Father Job is a Holy Man” then Father Job would be the center of attention in this film. Instead Father Job, like the prodigal son's brother, seems jealous of Father Anatoli's gifts. In the meantime, Father Anatoli, instead of living a blissfully pios life, is wracked with guilt and isn't a very pleasant person to be around. He's humble and gifted, to be sure, but he lacks intelligence and people skills.

And that last part is precisely what makes the film so attractive to me. When he was asked why he was spending time with sinners, Jesus replied “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick.” Father Anatoli is clearly not a holy man, but he is blessed, and he blesses others.

(I recommend this movie highly. Still, if you see it, read some of the comments on Amazon.com or IMDB. There are some parts where the subtitles are incorrect. For example, near the end of the movie, he asks someone “Will you take a confession?” and the subtitles translate this as “Do you want to go to confession?”)

I know some people who read my weblog entertain fantasies about publishing a book. Say you get your wish and someone publishes your book. But then it doesn't sell. And no one wants to buy the stock from the publisher. What then? Real Live Preacher tells us.

Oh. My.

After what seems like an eternal hiatus, dvfmama has written something!

God is as separate from His creation in as much as I am separate from my children. I have total sympathy for God.

The recent revelation that Mother Teresa was a doubting Thomas almost the entire time she worked in India but yet remained faithful shows the lie that Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens would like to promulgate: belief in God is comforting.  (And here, I thought we were still struggling with Catholic Guilt.)

While I've no doubt that some believers gain primarily comfort from their belief, the religion that Jesus teaches isn't very comforting at all. "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

And, of course, any Mennonite knows that Martyrs Mirror is filled with stories of people who endured a great deal of suffering. My own children have listened to the lives of many martyrs in the Orthodox lexicon of Saints, Nikolai Velimirovich's Prologue -- so many that whenever they hear the Emperor Diocletian's name mentioned, they can tell you the end of the story.

Perhaps some people make Christianity out to be a nice bedtime story, but anyone who pays attention to what Jesus said or what Paul wrote knows that any comfort offered isn't the whole story: we are called to live sacrificially.

Which is exactly what Mother Teresa did.

What strikes me most among discussions like this one is the idea that Mother Teresa had an obligation to announce her doubts to the world.  "She's a public figure" the thinking goes "and she kept this from us?"

Well, no, her struggle with doubt or the lack of God's Presence was her own and she kept it between herself and her spiritual confessors.  If she wanted to announce her doubt and be done with it, she could have done that without making her life any more uncomfortable.

Mother Teresa was doing something completely foreign to most of us.  Jack Welch was a better humanitarian.  Mother Teresa was not a humanitarian and Christopher Hitchen's was right to discredit this notion of her.  Jesus said "You will always have the poor" and Mother Teresa understood this to mean that we should be more concerned with loving the poor and having compassion for them than with giving them a handout.

"You take care of their tomorrows, I take care of their todays," she said.

Secularists who don't know Mother Teresa won't appreciate the way she chose to use her money.  Evangelicals won't appreciate her Gospel.  Atheists see her doubts as her hypocrisy.

But there is something else going on, also.  She identified with the poor in the same way Christ identified with us.  She emulated his compassion.

And of course isn't that the whole Problem of Evil all over again?  As Judas pointed out, the money spent on the perfume Mary poured on Jesus feet was a year's wages -- surely there was a more practical use for it.  Surely Jesus could have done more than forgive sins, couldn't he?  He was God, after all, shouldn't he have done more?

Mother Teresa is someone many people can admire from a distance.  Most will be repulsed by her, though, if they take a closer look.  She shows us exactly why true religion isn't comforting.

Now, this is interesting. As the email announcing this says:

On Monday, September 3, 2007, Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon went missing in Nevada. An airplane he was flying failed to return. No one has any idea where he is. (Wikipedia article).

The Mechanical Turk project to locate Steve Fossett has been given one week for completion.

Those of you who don't know what the Mechanical Turk is should know that it is “Artificial Artificial Intelligence”. That is, Amazon.com has created a way for computers to use people's work as input.

In this case, people will scan satellite photography taken recently looking for possible places that search and rescue efforts should be focused on.

Which means, you, sitting in your living room thousands of miles away, could help rescue someone.

I've no idea if this will work, but, man, what a concept!

I finally got around to uploading some pictures from our trip last month.

"It's the same sermon, same worship songs in many cases, just done in a more liturgical style," Fitzgerald says. "I don't mind changing the packaging for people. It freshens it up for them and for me."

The new "Liturgical Service," as they call it, has become the most popular service even among young people. After the "standard" evangelical service at 9:30 a.m., workers decorate the platform with candles, non-specific iconography and other religious-looking items. Fitzgerald wears generic vestments and adopts a more somber manner. He reads from a liturgical book and the congregation responds by reading words on the screens.

"I like the reverence and the mood," says one girl, 16. "It feels more spiritual."

"I like the candles," her friend chimes in. — Lark News

When I left the Presbyterian church I was a member of, I went to talk to one of the elders. These people were my friends and I thought I should let them know what was going on. They asked why I was going.

“I want to have communion every Sunday.”

“Yeah, we won't be doing that.”

No big theological issues, no insurmountable doctrine. Just the sacrament.

A while later, I found another Presbyterian church that celebrated communion every Sunday. But even there, it depended on the current pastor. When he left, so did the sacrament. And there was something different, though I'm at a loss these years later, to say exactly what it was.

Before I finally committed to the Orthodox church, I tried to be Roman Catholic (which would have made my mother-in-law extremely happy). In the end, though, Orthodoxy became my spiritual home. As time has past, I've found that the attraction of sacramental living (e.g. “communion every Sunday”) is more than just doing the same thing with different artifacts. Sacrament is interaction with God. And sacramental living extends beyond the Eucharist, beyond the church building. There are far more than just seven sacraments. Sacrament is everywhere.

As my friend Jim once wrote: All of Life is Blessed.

At the same time, this is exactly why adding smells and bells to an Evangelical church service is just so much dross. Liturgy is imbued with meaning. As the Orthodox say, during the Liturgy we enter Heaven and stand around the Throne with the saints and angels. Not just figuratively. We are there!

Putting on a robe, like “Pastor Brian Fitzgerald” in Lark's satirical piece, is just marketing, repackaging what you already have. Orthodox worship, on the other hand is completely different because everything in the liturgy — every word, every action, even form of the priest's garments — is imbued with meaning.

Last week I got back from a working trip through the South with brief stops along the way in Tennesee; Jackson, Mississipi; Mobile, Alabama and longer stays in New Orleans, Louisiana and Chapel Hill, Nort Carolina. I've some great pictures I want to post here… but not just yet. I'm still recovering. As soon as I can manage to get back on my riding schedule, I should be fine.

But, while I've got this itch, I thought I'd note that I think I've finally figured out why I'm no longer much interested in Theological discussions per se — that is, whose concept of God (or the non-existence of God) is correct.

Of course, part of this is because I've already made up my mind which Tradition I'm going to follow. Another part is watching people like my friend Jim get involved in seeming never-ending discussions surrounding the the Emerging Church or New Perspectives on Paul and I'm just not that interested in discussing the right way to approach Christianity. I'd rather attempt to live it.

I'm reading through John Chryssavgis' The Way of the Fathers: Exploring the Patristic Mind and he makes this point nicely:

Christ proceeds through the ages in the agency of persons. … The trancendence of the divine Word was always easier to acknowlege than the more scandalous immanance and humanity … [Therefore] the teaching of a charismatic elder in the fifth century desert … is never outdated insofar as that person lived and loved as Christ.

[Finally] one must acknowlege that the high points of theology are not confined to one specific “golden” age but pervade every age which happens to be blessed with those “advanced in theoria [vision] … and purified. By analogy, there is decay in the theological world when such saints are wanting.

Father Stephen puts this point of view succinctly when he writes about evil:

Of course, there is much conversation about the metaphysics of evil and the nature of hell and eternal punishment - and though I have recommended articles on the same that I find of value - I think that a large amount of Christian energy is wasted on such matters. For it is not the mastery of the metaphysics of the universe that makes any difference, but rather the embrace of the Gospel of Christ and obedience to His commandments. [emphasis mine — Mark]

So, when I hear Christians arguing amongst themselves about interpretation or the church or whatnot, I'm turned off. I used to be really dogmatic about my beliefs, sure enough of myself that I would argue incessently. And I still talk too much. But more and more I've come to realize how much more I need to embrace the Christ's Gospel and obey his commandments and I've begun to refocus my efforts on my own life rather than figuring out better arguments for what I believe.

In this life, we have no measure of success.

Some people I care deeply about are always trying to figure out what God's plan for their life is.  "This is God's Will" they will say when things are going their way.  Later, when life has thrown them a curve ball and that particular circumstance doesn't seem quite so beneficial, they will, without a hint of self-awareness, say "This can't be God's will!"

What is God's will?  To love Him as well as our neighbor.  Beyond this is only speculation.

...so soon as we agree to take responsibility for the outcome of history, we have agreed to do violence.

Christianity, both progressive and conservative strains, fight too much to change the world into what they think God's ideal for it is.  Instead, the Church acts best when it releases responsibility for the result and just simply shows Love in the here and now without worrying about the end result.  When we scheme, we fail to simply love our neighbor.

Of course, the Church has been terrible at this. We change the Gospel into a self-help seminar, a political movement, or a reformation -- anything but Love, which it seems we cannot actually stand.

I have only begun to learn about this truth through the sacramental life of the Church.  Participating in sacrament doesn't require allegiance to any ideology.  It doesn't require any code of conduct.  Sacrament only needs openness to God and a desire to draw closer to Him.

When you take away sacrament and devotion, what are you left with?  A political movement?  Social reforms?  Ideology?  Moral guidelines?  Scholarship?

These are nothing.  In the Kingdom of God, they are worthless.  Only Love has any meaning.

Robert Epstein, author of The Case Against Adolescence in an interview in Psychology Today:

I believe that young people should have more options—the option to work, marry, own property, sign contracts, start businesses, make decisions about health care and abortions, live on their own—every right, privilege, or responsibility an adult has. [...] competent young people deserve the chance to compete where it counts, and many will surprise us.

There is so much that I want to quote from the interview, I'll just stick with that.  Go read the interview and the book.

I'm just happy to have someone else confirm what I've suspected for a long time: teenagers exhibit behavior problems because we isolate and infantilize them.  Stop treating mature people like small children and they'll become productive citizens.

Oh, and ditch the current factory-based educational system which only serves to provide outmoded skills while keeping potentially productive members of society in lockdown for no good reason.

Glory to God for All Things; I Really Wasn’t Kidding - There’s Another Gospel Out There:

I will be bold, very bold indeed, and say that if this doctrine of Christ Descent into Hades is not known, then the most essential doctrines of our salvation are misunderstood and incorrectly taught. This is not to create an argument about whose Church is more correct, but to state a simple and plain fact of theology. If the primary story of our salvation is not a matter of agreement, then the conversation regarding the faith has barely begun.
[...]
But I return to my earlier contention, which experience is simply bearing out: another gospel is replacing the gospel of Christ - the primary metaphors of our salvation are being forgotten and set aside for a later, less Scriptural account.

Jim has mentioned before that the Trinity is neglected in many churches.  Perhaps it is just a sign of bigger problems?

Alexis recently took a part time job working the third shift in a group home for the elderly and mentally ill.  She claims it isn't that hard and she gets to nap on the job, so I'm not too worried.

But I'm sure that she is only going to be working temporarily.  A few months ago I found this interview with the author of The Two-Income Trap in Mother Jones:

More and more families today are sending both parents into the workforce -- it's become the norm, it's what we now expect. The overwhelming majority of us do it because we think it will make our families more secure. But that's not how things have worked out. By the end of this decade, one in seven families with children will go bankrupt. Having a child is now the single best predictor of bankruptcy, and this holds true even for families with two incomes.

Most poignant for me was this prodding point from the MJ interviewer:

In the past, it seems like a stay-at-home mom could act as an insurance policy for the family if the dad was laid off or whatnot. But today two-income families have nothing to fall back on in the event of a disaster.

I remember when I first tried to prop up her self-esteem a bit when she was feeling low because she wasn't working.  "You're our backup plan!" I told her.  Little did I know she would have a chance to use it against me.

Tonight, I gave in to my reddit addiction and found this story on the two income trap, with a detailed explanation of the tax problems involved when you have two incomes in addition to the other, more mundane, problems like increased daycare expenses.  Money quote: When you throw two kids in the mix, ... you would get to keep $8,000 a year of a $40k wage.

(Of note, Teri Newton, the author of the bit, writes that it is her husband who stays at home with the kids.)

Finding out how much my blood pressure could peak to was a shock because two people I know under 40 had heart attacks this past year.  My grandfather had a bypass surgery.

Last year, I told a friend I would race him to lose 50 pounds.  Both of us slacked, but in the mean time, I lost 10 pounds by just thinking about it (and cutting back on the donuts). Seeing damog's confession of obesity (with nifty by-country comparison) reminded me that the last time I checked, I was technically obese.  I did the calculation again and discovered that those 10 pounds saved me from the label.

From now until I can drop those other pounds, I'm no longer obese.  just fat.

This past weekend I bought a car from Eric's wife, Shana, and spent some time hanging out with Eric, Nate and Patrick.  I won't be doing that again!

Just before I left, Eric brought out his Sphygmomanometer and let Nate use it.  He and Patrick both got readings that neither found out of line, so I decided to try it.  On the first try, my blood pressure measured something like 186/101.  Shocked, I quickly took another reading.  160/101.  Hrm... Maybe I wasn't using it right.  I adjusted the fit and tried again.  Back up above 180.

Now, I know I am overweight, don't get enough exercise and probably inherited a tendency to high blood pressure, but this was ridiculous.  The three other guys took turns giving me advice on getting it down and telling me not too worry, I couldn't be that bad off.  Just before I left, I half jokingly said I'd try the sphygmomanometer at my local Wal-Mart.

I had enough time on the drive back home to mull it over that I drove straight to the Wal-Mart.  When I got there, I took a couple of readings that hovered around 140/90.  Not great, but much better than 180!

Today, I tried again.  127/73 (pulse under 60).  Phew!  It must be the company I was keeping.

I'll try again tomorrow on yet another sphygmomanometer.  I'll get this thing below 100, yet!

Elder Epiphanios: