I'm excited about the paper I'm writing for my Religion & Violence class, so I wanted to share a bit on a couple of the resources I'm using:
The first is a fairly short and readable biography of St. Innocent of Alaska. It's very encouraging, as far as a godly example and as an understanding of the Orthodox Church in mission. Even many non-Orthodox view Alaska as one of the most successful evangelism efforts in the history of the church. Along those lines I'm also readin Fr. Michael Oleksa's Orthodox Alaska. Which is exactly what I needed, an established, successful instance of the evangelization of a people in which the local culture and religion is respected, maintained and complemented. This is exactly the kind of evangelism needed in our contemporary postcolonial pluralistic world.

Anyways, that is what I'm up to. I just finished writing my modern philosophy paper and now I'm going to go back to reading for the R&V paper.
Grace and peace to all of you.

School

So, I wanted to brag that I wrote an in-class Composition Monday without any notice and got a 99. Woot.
Yeah, I should be working on my paper(s) right now, but I'm blogging.

Yesterday there was a fundamentalist Christian street preacher on campus. It caused quite a stir. I shouldn't call him a fundamentalist, but it seems that would be a good description of the beliefs he was stating. The worse part was how he was yelling at people, apparently telling they were going to hell. In my religion & violence class we talked a lot about how people respond to that.
I said that it seems to me that if we have relativism except for one thing (the fact that everyone has to be a relativist) then we're being internally inconsistent. Another way I said it was, "So, to prove to someone that they're not right in trying to dominate other people we'll dominate him into realizing he's not right. Doesn't sound right to me."

Anyways, by the time I got there there was quite a crowd. The man wasn't really saying much of consequence. Mostly he was being harassed by students who weren't even listening to him. Maybe religious tolerance will one day have to include the religiously intolerant. I don't know. This guy was probably going about it in the wrong way, looking for trouble, but they weren't exactly respectful in return.

Now, I must put my creative energies to work on my paper.

Paschal Homily

CHRIST IS RISEN!!
Oh, and, by the way, among the many things that I loved about Pascha and will reflect upon in the coming weeks, was St. John Chrystostom's Paschal Homily (which, if you didn't know, is read in all Orthodox parishes every Pascha). So, here it is:

If any man be devout and loveth God,Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!If any man be a wise servant,Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.
If any have laboured long in fasting,Let him how receive his recompense.If any have wrought from the first hour,Let him today receive his just reward.If any have come at the third hour,Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.If any have arrived at the sixth hour,Let him have no misgivings;Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.If any have delayed until the ninth hour,Let him draw near, fearing nothing.And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.
For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,Will accept the last even as the first.He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.And He showeth mercy upon the last,And careth for the first;And to the one He giveth,And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.And He both accepteth the deeds,And welcometh the intention,And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;Receive your reward,Both the first, and likewise the second.You rich and poor together, hold high festival!You sober and you heedless, honour the day!Rejoice today, both you who have fastedAnd you who have disregarded the fast.The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.
Let no one bewail his poverty,For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.Let no one weep for his iniquities,For pardon has shown forth from the grave.Let no one fear death,For the Saviour's death has set us free.He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:Hell, said he, was embitteredWhen it encountered Thee in the lower regions.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.It was embittered, for it was mocked.It was embittered, for it was slain.It was embittered, for it was overthrown.It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.It took a body, and met God face to face.It took earth, and encountered Heaven.It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!Christ is risen, and life reigns!Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.For Christ, being risen from the dead,Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominionUnto ages of ages.
Amen.

Easter/Pascha

Man have I been busy these past twenty days in which I have not posted on here. Shame on me.

This year we did Easter in our protestant church and Pascha in our Orthodox church. (Mind you, we haven't even been received as catechumens at Nativity of the Virgin Mary yet.)
It's funny because our kids have been saying "Happy Easter 2!" a lot since we celebrated them both to varying degrees.

Pascha at Nativity of the Virgin was awesome. How joyous! One of the choir directors asked me what I thought of it during the feast and I said, "It was both more celebratory and more solemn than I'm used to."

On a sidenote, my wife and I commented on the bell-ringing at 12:30 or so during the procession and later during the gospel reading (at 2 AM). Man, if I lived in that neighborhood...

Anyways, we're very busy lately.
I'm racing towards the end of the semester for college. I have two ten-page papers due in the next week or two. The title for my paper for Modern Philosophy: "Leibniz: Infinite Divisibility, Infinite Regress, and the Ultimate Reality of Things".
For my Religion & Violence class I'm working on a paper on non-coercive/violent evangelism, particularly in a cross-cultural context. I'm looking at some good cases- the Anglican conversion of the Moru people in Sudan and the Orthodox evangelization of native Alaska, especially St. Innocent of Alaska.

So, that's what I'm doing, in case someone checks this blog. Blessings on all of you. I'll post more after my classes wrap up.

God protect Caruthersville

Yesterday I took the afternoon off from classes and drove down to Caruthersville, MO to visit folks. Probably everyone has seen Caruthersville on the news as the site of a really big tornado that destroyed a lot of town. Well, if you have read my blog much you realize that Caruthersville is the town where I was doing Young Life until December. We're now living about an hour and a half north in Jackson, MO.
I parked at a friend's house on the very edge of the damaged zone. The damaged zone itself is blocked by state police and National Guardsmen (who happen to have machine guns on them), so I figured it would be best to walk into the zone to check on people. I walked down to the high school, where I took this picture. This is the high school where I have so many memories of meeting my high school friends.
The whole experience of walking around (I probably walked two miles all together) the damage zone was a bit overwhelming. Even after watching all the videos I could on the Cape News website (www.kfvs12.com) I was blown away by how much of the town is just missing. I got disoriented a couple of times because I was walking along and everything looked the same in every direction: houses, trees and cars busted up and destroyed.

I walked through the east side of town, which is the poorer, mostly black, part of town. It was a ghost town. On the main street of town, Ward Ave. lots of people were out helping people. On the east side barely anyone was doing anything. I guess a lot of the houses on the east side are rentals and landlords haven't gotten to them yet.

Please pray for Caruthersville a lot in the coming months. I don't know how long it's going to get "C-ville" back to normal, if ever.

Links

I wanted to pass on some links to whomever may read this blog:

Our St. Louis Orthodox Young Adults/OCF has a Yahoo! Group: click here

Kh. Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote an interesting article on the interaction and differences between cradle-Orthodox and Orthodox converts as well as a hopeful glimpse at the future of Orthodoxy in America. click here

Some people have set up an Orthodox Wiki which has a whole bunch of information on Orthodoxy. click here

Here is a great Orthodoxy which a little about Orthodoxy in North America, but is especially great for its trans-jurisdictional canonical Orthodox church-finder. click here

Enjoy the links.

Where have I been?

This weekend we went up to St. Louis to "Our Orthodox Family", as we refer to them down here. What a great time. Saturday night was Vespers at Ss. Cyril & Methody in Granite City. After Vespers the ladies (I'm assuming it was the ladies, cause the food was gooooood!) had a great lenten dinner prepared. Towards the end of dinner we young adults settled down at a table to visit with each other and Fr. Andrew of Ss. C & M. And the conversation was great. I was amazed to find out that Fr. Andrew had converted to Orthodoxy (or at least been convinced of it) in East Lansing, MI. That's nearly my hometown! Then, after his chrismation and seminary he was sent back to East Lansing to St. Andrew's, which is an Orthodox Church I drove by a million long before I ever thought of joining the Orthodox Church. Anyways, those were some coincidences.

After dinner we stayed with Shawn and Tara. That was great. Shawn and Tara are converts and very excited about the Orthodox faith. I won't mention the fact that they seriously have a cross of some sort in every room of their house. Oops, I guess I just did.

Sunday liturgy was great. Fr. Oliver gave the homily and it was great. He's a very engaging speaker. As an aside, it is nice going to a not-humongous parish with three priests. Each of them is different from the other two, so together they're a great blend.

Dinner coffee hour I had good conversation with Fr. Oliver about seminary plans and if there could be Orthodox seminary in my future. He offered some valuable insight and discernment. I believe he converted to Orthodoxy while in a protestant seminary, so he knows what I need to know.

Sunday was the first time our kids stayed all the way through Liturgy. A lot of Sundays one of us takes them downstairs at about the 1 hr mark when they get a little too fidgety or too fussy. This time there was none of that. They were awesome. I wonder if part of that is our evolving sense of what a child's role is in the community worship. We're letting go of some of our western sit up, sit straight, pay attention mindset and allowing them to meet God in His Liturgy in their way. And when we don't fuss at them for moving around a little bit, they stop fussing. Of course, we're talking about a little bit of fidgeting, not rolling under the pews or running down the aisles. That wouldn't even fly even in an Orthodox Church.

Spring Break ends

As my spring break draws to and end I am a tad bit disappointed that the weather here was never very springy, at least during spring break. Now I have to go back to class today. What did I do with my break?
Well, I knew what I would be doing:
more pizza deliveries, more time with my wife and kids, more time doing contact work for YoungLife and catching up on some reading. And that's exactly what I did. I caught up and read ahead on some of reading for Religion & Violence. Today I am writing a 150-word Spanish composition for class.. Woohoo.
Well, that's me. That's what I've been doing. I'm watching with interest two current news stories: the afghan Christian convert looks like he will be released today. Lately, I have been spending some time thinking how shar'ia law could be seriously implemented in western societies for muslims without contradicting the human rights implied in western liberal ideologies. It seems to me that shar'ia is incompatible with western liberal democracy, especially that pesky law about apostasizing. It seems like either western ideals or shar'ia will have to change to make room for islam in the western world.
Also, for some odd reason I have been obsessively checking on the news channels about the wife who shot her minister husband. Morbid, I know. Maybe I have a sneaking suspicion my wife is planning something similar. ;-)
Besides my school read I am currently reading:
St. John Chrystostom's Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans
Fr. Alexander Schmemann's Great Lent
Kh. Frederica Mathewes-Green's The Illumined Heart

By the way, for my non-Orthodox readers, Kh. Frederica's The Open Door is an awesome introduction to worshipping with ikons. I would highly recommend it to anyone, even if they're not actually considering the Orthodox faith.

Blogging theological controversies

I was listening to a sermon from Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon last night, and I was struck with what he had to say about blogs, especially ones that mostly just post theological controversies and discussions.
So, listen here and post your comments. By the way, you can check out Fr. Patrick's church here.
Have a blessed weekend.

Archangels Books

Here's a shameless plug for a little independent Orthodox Bookstore in the Maplewood district of St. Louis. Shawn and Tara took us there after Vespers yesterday.
Also, I think you can order books, icons and everything else right online, so check them out.
Archangels Books
Also, I forgot to mention that during the very moving Vespers service I described Micah had to go to the bathroom, so I sent him by himself. Ten minutes later I went down with Alexis to look for him. He had completely undressed and was walking around in his underwear in the basement of the church. Ahhhh. Unbelieveable.

Forgiveness Sunday

This weekend was a pretty eventful one. Friday my friend Andrew drove up from Caruthersville to stay the night. I even took him on my last delivery of the night. Then we stayed up medium-late playing video games and visiting. Andrew's one of the deepest, most thoughtful high school kids I know.
Saturday we cleaned out the car, said good-bye to Andrew, loaded up the family and drove to St. Louis. We attended Vespers at All Saints of North America Antiochian Orthodox Church. After Vespers we went to a short get-together of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship for the St. Louis area.
Then, we drove to Madison to stay with the Huniaks. This time, their son, Phil, was there. I have heard of Phil. He's a pretty tough marine who no longer attends an Orthodox Church, but attends an Assembly of God church. He is definitely in love with Jesus, and on fire for the Lord. We talked at length about his own journey out of Orthodoxy and the parallels with my journey into Orthodoxy. It was pretty interesting. One thing is for sure, Phil could teach us all about humility, and submission to Christ. That was refreshing.
Sunday we went to Liturgy at Nativity of the Virgin Mary, which has been our usual parish for about two months now.
After liturgy we all went next door to the parish hall for a Cheesefare Sunday meatless egg and dairy meal. It was yummy.
The Forgiveness Vespers, which directly followed the brunch, were an interesting experience.
For those of you who don't know, Forgiveness Vespers begins Great and Holy Lent in the Orthodox Church. About midway through the service, the altar servers came out and switched the paraments to purple. The melodies to the chants all changed to Lenten ones, then the whole congregation began making prostrations. At this point I was about crying, struck by the reality of our separation from God. In the Orthodox Church, the altar area, behind the iconostasis symbolizes Paradise and the Garden of Eden. During the prostrations the curtain between the congregation and paradise slowly closed, visibly showing our separation from God.
Next, starting with the priests, the whole congregation went around asking forgiveness of every other member, kissing them on both cheeks.

May God forgive us all.

The Problem of Relevance

The problem with relevance, as has been said by better thinkers than I, is that it sets the worshipper over the worshipped.
Two thoughts:

1. What if what the modern, contemporary person needs is not what they think they need or what they want? "What you win them with is what you win them to." I think a good case can be made from less theological ideas that what the modern person needs is a church that embodies community, sacramental/incarnational life, experience, and mystery. Enter the Orthodox Church, which in its best moments exemplifies all of these.
2. If God specifically outlined the form of worship for the Jews, which was liturgical, and the early Christians were Jews, what form of worship would they have naturally chosen? So, if God has revealed the way in which the Jews were to worship Him and the way in which the heavenly beings worship Him (and by extension, the way we will worship in eternity), then who are we to invent something else and call it worship?

Pizza, baby

Yesterday I spent a few hours delivering pizza. If you didn't know, that is my illustrious moonlighting job. It's actually quite entertaining. The people I work with are nice [and really funny]. This is my first time being a delivery guy of any variety, so it never gets old. Between delivering pizzas to abandoned gas stations and just general pizza delivery craziness. Yesterday, though, it was just me and the owner. That was a lot of fun. We got to talking about my personal views on religion, theology, and church. Probably not the best idea, but he took it all pretty well.
I work again tonight, then some Caruthersville kids are supposed to come up and stay at our house.
Tomorrow night we're supposed to go to a young adults thing at All Saints of North America in St. Louis, then stay with the Huniaks, so we can attend Liturgy and Nativity of the Virgin this weekend. Yet another opportunity for our kids to be absolutely crazy. Their demons must be resisting that future baptism and excorcism. Just kidding.
Well, I should post even when I don't have much to say, so I did.

More on Changing One's Mind

Continuing where I left off in my previous incoherent post. I have to bring up another point my wife made in our conversation.
"If the Orthodox Church is the 'true church' and we join, what does that say about our christian upbringing(s), the traditions we come from, and everything we've been doing vocationally and ministry-wise, outside of the 'true church'?
And I thought of someone's comment that, "There room for all of it in Orthodoxy". Which signifies, to me, that the core issues of Orthodoxy are ironed out and written in stone, so to speak, but these other traditions, when placed under the authority of an Orthodox bishop, add to the rich diversity in little 't' tradition within the faith.
In the same way, the Orthodox Church does not denounce everything taught under the banner of the heterodox faiths. Of course, many Christian traditions draw on the historic faith and consider the creeds and councils to be authoritative interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. At least, that is, in theory.
So, these faiths, while not containing the fullness of the faith, are leading to it.
Someone said to me, "but most Christian traditions claim to be the New Testament faith!" I pointed out that while all these competing traditions claim to be the historic New Testament church, only one is verifiably THE New Testament church. All these other groups have to do some gerrymandering with their ecclesiology to assert that they are the true church.
History and the Councils speak for themselves that their is one Church which continues to practice the early faith.

Along some other lines, I was just thinking of the concept of generations. Many times a cultural or religious change takes a few generations to reach maturity within a given society.
In the past few years I have lamented my own upbringing and its lack of connection with the historic church. That is, at least, the AD 100-AD 1500 church. I want my kids to grow up within the richness of this historic faith. We may or may not be 'very good' at being Orthodox, but in some ways our conversion now helps to ensure the our kids' future participation in the faith of the Apostles. And they'll go farther, and be 'better at it' than we will in our lifetimes. So, we could make the decision with the next generations in mind. How do we want our children to experience the Christian faith? What will be important for our children to experience when we are no longer here with them? How do we envision the faith/spiritual life and religion of our grandchildren?
These are some the questions that we should ponder.

Of changing one's mind

With my dogged pursuit after the Holy Orthodox faith and our geographical distance from the everyday life of an Orthodox Church comes a particular struggle for my wife, I'd imagine.
We were talking the other night before bed. That morning we had visited a particularly hip, contemporary [and decidedly un-Orthodox] church where a friend goes. This is the only church I've ever seen with the word 'Contemporary' in the name. It's even on the sign.
Now, understand, this is exactly the kind of church we came from and met in. Our former ideal church was one where without fail someone would make disparaging comments about tradition in every worship service. We prided ourselves in our lack of liturgy. In fact, it became quite a tradition to make fun of tradition.
Well, I asked her, "What are you thinking about this Orthodoxy stuff?"
She said that she agreed that it seemed to be the 'real, historic' church, but what if we change our minds.
You see, we both know that we have waffled and changed our opinions on many non-essential issues throughout even our six-year marriage. Early on in our marriage we changed our view of contemporary music in worship, when we were serving in a church which didn't have much contemporary music to speak of. We changed our view of the end-times we encounter Godly, well-read people who pointed out the short tenure of our particular school of eschatology. We changed and re-changed our views on all sorts of issues.
And now we've found the 'changeless', historic faith of the Apostles. And we're convinced. Today. But can we answer for tomorrow?
So, I answered in the way only a man can, "But it's right, though, isn't it?"
I can understand my wife's struggle with knowing whether or not this would be 'right for us' ten years from now or ten months from now.
So, I started at the beginning: for me, without the confines of historic Christianity there is no basis for theological thought to stay, well, Christian. If the interpretation of Scripture is the only authority we have to go on, then, yes, it is true that the heresies of the modern-day quasi-Christian 'cults' are inherently within the protestant tradition. I know without a doubt that there is no limit to the degree that a person can go interpreting the Scripture within their own frame of reference. The problem being we all have our own interpretive frame of reference. Hermeneutics, you say, is the scientific study of the interpretation of such texts. The principles of hermeneutics do not prevent protestant from a diverse reading of even essential issues.
I want to know that I am in a Church where the bodily resurrection of our Lord will never be questioned. However, one thing I love about the Orthodox Church is the fact that there is no 'official position' where there isn't a consensus in the Church Fathers or a ruling in council. So, in some non-essentials there is tremendous diversity.
I guess what I'm saying is this: to me, Orthodoxy represents a protective fence within which wondering is possible and prudent, but outside of which danger lies. And that's a comfortable feeling.
So, the core of Orthodoxy (or orthodoxy, for that matter) will never cease to be 'true for me', unless I cease to be Christian.
I'd rather be sure that I'm within the historic, continuous Body of Christ, and then figure all those issues out from the inside, rather than stand outside the Church and tell the Church how to be the Church by forming yet another ultra-Protestant church, movement or whatever.

Religion & Violence

To answer someone's question, these are the sources for my class in Religion & Violence:
Books
Charles Selengut. Sacred Fury:Understanding Religious Violence.
Karen Armstrong. The Battle for God.
Karen Armstrong. A History of God.
Richard Fletcher. The Cross and the Crescent.
Mahatma Gandhi Homer A. Jack, (Editor). The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings.
Rene Girard. Violence and the Sacred.
Sam Harris. The End of Faith: religion, terror, and the future of reason.
Mark Juergensmayer. Terror in the Mind of God: the global rise of religious violence.
Jon Krakauer. Under the Banner of Heaven: a story of violent faith.
Walter Wink. Engaging the Powers: discernment and resistance in a world of domination.

Films
Gandhi
The Passion of the Christ
Dead Man Walking
The Kingdom of Heaven

Valentine's Day

Yesterday, I went to class in the morning, then drove to Caruthersville. It has probably been a month since I was last in Cville, so I had to take care of some business. Mostly, I had to collect my money for the van I sold back in December. Then, I had to do my best to take care of some paper work I was behind on down there.
At six-thirty our babysitter showed up. (Lauren, you rock, and you're super-Orthodox!) We had decided to go for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. In my mind, this restaurant couldn't be as busy as all the elegant, romantic, chick-ish restaurants with the flowers and candles. I mean, fire and big knives are surely manly. Anyways, apparently, everyone else thought they were avoiding the crowd, too. There were so many people there! We didn't wait long to be seated. For some reason, they honored our reservations. We got the least experienced and least English-proficient chef in the place. It was a hoot. Our food came all out of order. We were eating our salads while we were supposed to be being entertained by our chef. The food, however, was awesome. We actually ended up getting our appetizer after our food and ate it for dessert. What the lick.
Anyways, I had to drop a class today. I hadn't checked on my online class in a week, and when I checked this time I realized I had missed an exam, two assignments, and a lab. Oops! I guess I need to take that one on campus this summer. The online thingy didn't work. Not for that class, anyway. It just kept being at the very bottom of my list of priorities, since I have four other classes which I'm actually attending which demand my attention, on top of all the other stuff going on in my life.
I've been listening to lots of Our Life in Christ in the car while I deliver pizzas. I downloaded about thirty of their shows to my palm pilot to listen at my convenience. It's a lot more relaxing than listening to the radio. It helps me to have a better night at the pizza place. I'm less flustered, more peaceful.
Tonight, I'm finishing my lesson series on spiritual disciplines at YL Leadership. It has been an interesting time. Tonight we're going to spend some time talking about the Jesus Prayer and Fixed Hour Prayers.

On Greek Food

Today when I stopped at the Greek place to get some mousaka, gyros, and baklava, I asked the woman, on a hunch, if she could tell where the closest Orthodox Church was. She looks at me and says, "What- are you Greek?"
"Um, no, but my family and I are sorta converting to the Orthodox Church."
"Oh, we go up to St. Louis, to St. Nicholas or Assumption."
"We've been going up to an OCA church in the St. Louis area, too. I have a friend who is trying to start an Orthodox Christian Fellowship on campus at SEMO, and so I wanted to see if there were other Orthodox people around."
"Well, there's a lot around here. There's Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians... We always wished there was at least some sort of chapel here, but where do you get the priest from?"
"If you get one started, let me know."
"Oh, you start it."

That was my interesting conversation with the Greek Orthodox woman who cooked my lunch. The gyro was good, by the way.
I guess it'll be interesting to see if I can get her to connect with the other Orthodox in town.

Religion & Violence

So, my class on Religion & Violence is pretty tough. The workload isn't that hard. We just have to read a chapter from one of an assortment of religion books, then come to class prepared to discuss it in class. No quizzes. No exams.
But, it is hard to face up to the violence perpetrated by devout religious people, many times in the name of their religion. And this isn't limited to "those crazy islamists". Throughout the history of the three great monotheistic religions violence has existed amongst the faithful of all three groups. Religion violence doesn't stop with the the Theists. Non-theistic religions like buddhism still result in plenty of interreligious violence.
Yesterday we talked for a while about the roots of Christian anti-semitism. Nothing I've never heard, but still, who wants to talk about the failings of their co-religionists? Since it isn't limited to any one religion, the problem is clearly not the fault of a specific religion. But is it related to religion in general? Who knows. And one might attribute it to so-called "fundamentalists" of whatever religion. Of course, such a word in heavy in connotation, but lacking in substance.
Sometimes when the semester gets going it's hard to think about much outside of class. My brain is consumed learning advanced logic, reading and commenting on chapters on religious violence, reviewing my spanish grammar and listening skills.
Pray for me.

Weekend Recap

First, I'll give a brief summary of our weekend, then I'll reflect on some of the things we did.

1. Friday we went to Barnes and Noble as a family. No, not to support the wholesale homogenization of American culture, but I needed to buy Karen Armstrong's A History of God for my Religion & Violence class.
2. Saturday I listened to Fr. Anthony's interview on Ancient Faith Radio, which was great.
3. Then we took the kids to a great Nature Center in Cape Girardeau.
4. Then in the afternoon we drove up to Madison, IL, to attend Vespers and stay with the Huniaks.
5. Sunday morning we went to Divine Liturgy at Nativity of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church (OCA).
6. Last night I worked four or five hours at my pizza delivery guy gig. I put 40+ miles on my car. Unbelieveable.

1. My Religion & Violence class is going to be a jarring experience as we look at essentially the worst in all three great monotheistic religions. Armstrong's gives an interesting account of the development of monotheism. She particularly disdains the western conception of Christianity. She does a less-than-average job of objective reporting of facts.
2. This nature center is big and nice. But, picture a nature appreciation exhibit as sponsored by the NRA. Everything was like, "How you can hunt [insert animal]..." Kind of comical. One nice thing, the place has great hiking trails. When Micah saw one of them he said, "can we go on an adventure? There's no dangerous species [sic] down there..." So we did. We'll have to go back some time and take full advantage of the nature center.
3. We'd never attended a Vespers service in an Orthodox Church and the Huniaks offered us beds at their house, so we took them up on it. The Huniaks have been so gracious to us, allowing us to stay in their home, feeding us, and letting our kids roam their house. And we've only known them two weeks. They're great. (btw, Huniaks, we got to WalMart and home fine :-) )
4. Sunday morning was a lot easier for us, since we didn't have to get up and leave our house at 7:30 for Liturgy. We got to relax around the house until 9 AM! Then we went to Liturgy. The kids were more of the same, asking, "Is it over yet?!" a little too loudly. They were very well-behaved for 2/3 of the service, then Amy took them downstairs. No use burning them out. They'll eventually learn to be good through the whole service. Oh, and we met the other attached priest, Fr. Oliver. He's very nice.
5. My job at the pizza place is very entertaining. I just smile and laugh at some of the off-the-wall conversations. I had the following weird deliveries last night: 1. I deliver a pizza to a big house. The adults (parents, I guess) are upstairs and say ' we didn't deliver a pizza, it must be for downstairs..' So, I walk through their house to the basement and into a room where a bunch of teens/college age people are watching TV in the dark, 'did you guys order a pizza?' Weird. 2. Apparently when someone from outside our delivery area wants a pizza we can meet them at the edge. Well, last night I delivered a pizza to the parking lot of a closed gas station. So, I'm sitting in my running car waiting, feeling conspicuous when up drives a truck, then they roll their window down. Can we say "pizza deal"?

That's the bulk of my weekend. Now I should be doing some Spanish homework.

Young Life to Orthodoxy

This week Ancient Faith Radio is airing an interview with Fr. Anthony Karbo, who was a Young Life area director and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. He's now the priest of Ss. Constantine and Helen in Colorado Springs, CO. The interview will be on at the following times:

Thu Jan 26 3:00pm CT/ 4:00pm ET
Sat Jan 28 11:00am CT/Noon Et
Mon Jan 30 7:15pm CT/8:15pm Et
Wed Feb 1 3:00am CT/4:00am ET
Fri Feb 3 2:00pm CT/3:00pm ET

As any regular readers know, I have been involved and on staff with Young Life for a few years. I'll be interested to hear Fr. Anthony's conversion story.

Whoo!

I went to my Spanish American Culture class, and it was wayyyy over my head. I could understand every few words. Anyways, I got an email from the professor telling me she had to drop me, since I haven't finished SN200 yet. I emailed her back and said that I was more than happy to drop the class. Hehe. So, I dropped that class and added Religion and Violence (Are we fur it or again' it?).
That should be an interesting class. The professor is the local Episcopal rector. I've not met him yet, but I hear he's pretty great.
Last night I had my Advanced Logic class. It's just like Symbolic Logic I ("Baby Logic"), but harder and they change just about the whole system of notation. Plus, this course involves a lot more explanation of the methods and principles of logic, rather than just learning to symbolize and check for validity all the time (but we'll do plenty of that).

This weekend will be my fourth regional Leader Weekend. It's going to be great, I'm sure. I'm going to try hard to not stir things up too much with our spiritual disciplines seminar. I probably won't even take more than one of my ikons.
Traditionally it's very cold for this weekend. Last year I got ice crystals in my beard walking to and from meals. This year it's supposed to be a high of 57. Well- no ice crystals this year. How about that?

This weekend I'll have to work hard on reviewing my Spanish and I'll have a good time teaching the seminar.
Pray for me.

Class

Yesterday was my first day back in class. What a thrill!
This is my lineup for this semester's classes:
Modern Philosophy
Symbolic Logic II
Spanish III
Spanish American Culture
Chem in our World (Intro Chem)

I'm not too worried about the difficulty of my schedule, although I am a little nervous about the Spanish American Culture class. When I picked up the book for that class, I looked at it and saw that it's completely in Spanish. I guess that makes sense, but it just scared me.
I hope the lectures are in English. I have that class today, so I guess we'll see.

This morning I'm watching the kids, then I'll go to the high school for lunch. It's getting to be more fun to visit the school, as I get to know more kids. It's hard work to walk into a school of strangers and visit. But I guess that's what's meant by "earning the right to be heard."
My awkwardness in hanging around in their school is worth it if it results in building real relationships with kids and pointing them to Christ.

Also, please keep my little brother, Noel, in your prayers. Yesterday he was sentenced to 2-10 years in prison for probation violation. Even though that's the just penalty for the crime, I still wouldn't want anything like that to happen to my kid brother. I just pray that he'll get some help for some of his things in there, and not just the usual.

St. Louis

Yesterday we drove up to St. Louis (Madison, IL, specifically), to visit a different Orthodox Church. Since we've moved an hour and a half north the church in Memphis is not the closest anymore, so we decided to try and find a parish in St. Louis to find.
Not long after we walked in one of the priests, Fr. Michael, squatted down in front of our kids in his vestments, told Alexis she looked like a princess and gave them some spiritual advice.
Our kids' eyes were big as saucers. "Who is this man in a big gold robe talking to us?"
Micah asked several times during liturgy, "when's this going to end?", and one time he said, "This song is sooo long..." We were sitting next to Lauren, the girl from SEMO, and she kept laughing at our kids' hijinks. At one point I leaned over and said to Amy, "Relax. Our kids are being at least as good as those Orthodox kids." "But those kids are little!"
After liturgy we were standing around meeting folks when the older of the two priests came and got me. We sat in a pew and visited some over our story and our interest in Orthodoxy.
After all that, we went to the Huniaks for lunch.
I can say with some authority that this was definitely our kids' favorite visit to an Orthodox Church, even though the liturgy was 2 hours long. They especially liked the chance to play afterwards.
That's the latest in our journey in, around, and to Orthodoxy.

St. Louis

Yesterday we drove up to St. Louis (Madison, IL, specifically), to visit a different Orthodox Church. Since we've moved an hour and a half north the church in Memphis is not the closest anymore, so we decided to try and find a parish in St. Louis to find.
Not long after we walked in one of the priests, Fr. Michael, squatted down in front of our kids in his vestments, told Alexis she looked like a princess and gave them some spiritual advice.
Our kids' eyes were big as saucers. "Who is this man in a big gold robe talking to us?"
Micah asked several times during liturgy, "when's this going to end?", and one time he said, "This song is sooo long..." We were sitting next to Lauren, the girl from SEMO, and she kept laughing at our kids' hijinks. At one point I leaned over and said to Amy, "Relax. Our kids are being at least as good as those Orthodox kids." "But those kids are little!"
After liturgy we were standing around meeting folks when the older of the two priests came and got me. We sat in a pew and visited some over our story and our interest in Orthodoxy.
After all that, we went to the Huniaks for lunch.
I can say with some authority that this was definitely our kids' favorite visit to an Orthodox Church, even though the liturgy was 2 hours long. They especially liked the chance to play afterwards.
That's the latest in our journey in, around, and to Orthodoxy.

Incense

When I was in high school incense was a very popular item. I remember visiting stores with their large collections of incense, mostly of the stick-variety.
Today I added a censer and incense to my prayer corner. I ordered it from Conciliar Press. I should have ordered the manual with the incense starter kit. Unfortunately, I didn't. I lit the little piece of charcoal and, after dropping it on the floor, put it in the censer and added two honking hunks of incense. Whoa. Soon fragrant smoke was pouring out, and now our entire house smells like the incense. That's not so bad, but I also apparently bought the same incense that my wife says gave her a headache at a church.
What a day.
If anyone has incense/censer pointers for me, it would be great. I mean for the incense to add to my prayer rule, not distract from it.
Pray for me.

Life

This morning I took the kids to a school screening. (Un)fortunately, they're both very bright, and so there's no preschool program offered for either of them. Micah will start Kindergarten in the fall. Alexis probably has another year or more to hang at home with me. Poor thing.
Then I took them to McDonald's for a little training in American consumerism. We had a little bit of a breakfast and they played in the Playland.
When Amy came I went to Jackson High School by myself for the second time. This time there were also three of the younger volunteer leaders. They're great. It's really weird walking around on a campus where i know barely any kids. Very nervewracking. In that way, I'm probably not very much help to my new leader friends. I'm sure we'll all do well.
This afternoon we're all driving down to campus so I can pick up my books and I've promised to buy the kids some kind of SEMO shirt. We'll see how that goes.
I start at the pizza place on Monday. Awesome. I always wanted to be a pizza guy. Next weekend I'm team teaching a seminar on spiritual formation/disciplines at the MO YL Leadership Weekend. That should be interesting.
This Sunday Amy and the kids and I are all going to church at an Orthodox Church up in the St. Louis area. Since we're closer now to St. Louis than Memphis we decided to try and find a parish up there instead of driving the three hours to Memphis to go to liturgy.
Did I mention that we got a new cat? He's from the Humane Society. He's a gray/white tabby named Ace. He's about 14 weeks old and very cute.
I've been enjoying all this time at home with the kids, but it is taking to some adjusting. I'm sure it will be a great experience for all of us.
Pray for me.

Moved

Well, we did it.
We're all moved in to our house in Jackson, MO. My dad stopped through for one day and Amy's parents were here for a week to help us with the move.
It went really smoothly. We had a bunch of help in Cville helping load the truck and were met with a bunch of help in Jackson to unload the truck.
Amy doesn't officially start work until next week, but she's going in all this week to have orientation. I guess it's going well. I know she'll do well and maybe even enjoy herself.
I am adjusting to my new stay-at-home househusband role. I fear I won't be very good at it, but the kids seem to like having me around more.
We'll see how soon they get sick of me.
Anyways, I'm at the public library writing this, because we won't be paying for any internet. If I can make it work, we'll be sharing DSL with the church through a wireless network-- if I can make it work.
That's all for now.

Thirsting for God

In the last three days I have re-read two books I'd read about Holy Orthodoxy: Matthew Gallatin's Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells and Clark Carlton's The Way: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church. Yesterday I took an afternoon and read all of Gallatin and today I'm reading Carlton.
Both of them point out the primary problem with Protestantism from the start (and even moreso since the Great Awakening)- individualism. It's clear to see that individual interpretations and preferences are at the very heart of everything we practice and believe.

I guess I was inadvertently quoting Matthew Gallatin when I said to Bob yesterday, "If the Orthodox Church is The Church, then it doesn't matter I think about the Church, it only matters what the Church thinks about me."

He said something about our having better critical and hermeneutical skills than the early church, as well as many developments in psychology and science.
But, wait, by that reasoning we would have a better understanding of church than even the Apostles, because they lived in that age of comparative intellectual darkness. However, if, instead of discounting anything ancient, you assume that Christ's Church will always be present on the earth, (and not in secret, as some Baptists suppose), then the only way to objectively view the interpretation of Scripture is to compare mine to the early Church Fathers. In doing this, one will find that the Holy Orthodox IS the Church founded by Christ in the Apostles. This Church has been continuous for all these centuries.

Now, recognize, that, as a mere inquirer and novice of the Orthodox Faith, I don't assume to apologize for the Faith, but I am merely working through these things in answer to myself.
"What is it in the Orthodox Church that attracts you?"
And I guess that is my answer.
Yes, the Orthodox Church is mystical, experiential, sacramental, and communal- all things that are appealing to my personal bent.
If there is Absolute Truth anywhere, it is to be found in the Holy Orthodox Church.
If the Orthodox Church is The Church, then there's nothing I can do but submit myself to the Church of the Apostles, Fathers, Saints and Martyrs.
Pray for me.

Well, in answer to a question in my comments, here is a regional map. In the center you'll see a big star: that's Jackson. That's where we're moving to. If you follow I-55 south from there a ways you'll see Caruthersville, MO. That's where we're moving from. To get an idea of the relative location in the U.S. I zoomed out so you can see the metro areas that surround us, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Little Rock, Kansas City, etc.
Stacy, I hope this helps you place us. We moved to Missouri last December from Dyersburg, TN. Now we're moving farther north. Further up and further in, as Aslan says...

On another note, I did have a couple of conversations about my interest (some would say obsession) with Orthodoxy, and it was interesting. One guy (whom I'll call my benefactor) said that I wouldn't be using my full potential in the Orthodox Church, because I'm more of a free spirit and wouldn't handle being under authority. I wouldn't hesitate to say that he understands me very well, but the exact reason that I need to be under the authority of the Church. It's the only path to truly, humbly serving Christ.

My pastor and I also discussed Orthodoxy for a bit. He's concerned about some 'problem doctrines' like infant baptism. I said, if I'm under the genuine authority of the Church, then it doesn't much matter what I think about a given issue. What has the Church practiced in all times at all places? That's more what we should be interested in. I've been looking for a Saint's principle of hermeneutics: universality, consensus, historicity.

Well, that's all for now.
My benefactor said, "If God's calling you to the Orthodox Church, then you need to sign up now, but I just don't think it would be the best use of your skills and personality."

What to do... what to do??

Dancing in the streets

For those of you who haven't been following my blog for long, a little note of background.
In July I resigned as youth minister at my church. Then I registered to be a full time student at Southeast Missouri State University. This was my first semester as a full time student in five years. It went pretty well. My grades are up this morning- All A's. So, thanks be to God who allowed me to do well in the midst of all these hard transitions in my life.

Over Christmas break we are moving north to live near my college. Over this semester we have been pretty poor while spending around $300 a month in gasoline. Approximately 600 miles a week is a bit extreme.

Seeing as my college is paid for and it's about time I finish my education we decided to make it a priority even over my job and ministry.

So, what will we be doing? That's the real kicker.
God has provided a house next to the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson,MO. They love Young Life, and so they're excited to have a YL family live in their house for free.
Amy will be working as the secretary at the church (making as much as I did with YL) in the mornings. While she's at work, I'll be learning to be a good stay-at-home-dad and house-husband. I'm registered for 18 hours at SEMO in the afternoons and I'll volunteer with Jackson YL in the evenings.
That's what we'll be up to before long. We have a truck for the 28th. Hopefully, we'll have lots of help to load it and unload it.
Pray for us as we go through yet another hard transition. (And pray for a home for our dog.)

Finals

Yesterday I finished my finals. I think I nailed them all. My grades should be up online on Tuesday, so now I just wait... I think I did pretty well.

Tomorrow I'm going to see underoath in Nashville at RCKTWN. Yet another hardcore/screamo concert for yours truly. We'll see how that goes. This time I'm getting really excited because I actually like underoath a lot. (They're not quite as "screamy" as the others.)

Tuesday night it was decided that we are moving. So, we'll be moving to Jackson, MO the week after Christmas. It should be great for us. I'll write more about it later.

Well, that's all in our wild lives.

Pray for us.

Finals Week

Today is my first day of finals. I have one today and three back to back on Wednesday. I will try to be disciplined enough to spend minimal time on the internet in the next three days.

I've been reading The Brothers Karamazov and studying a lot lately. The novel is for pleasure for a break between studying times. We're allowed to bring one page of notes into the final today, so I've been typing that note. My handwriting is awful, so typing will fit a lot more information on the page.

Anyways, there's lots of stuff going on in our lives this week. I'll share more about that thursday when I know more.

Pray for me.

Of finals week

Today is my last day of classes for the semester. Bright and early Monday I'll start my finals. I have one on Monday and three on Wednesday. That'll be a joy.
Consequently, my brain has been preoccupied with school.
Also, we have some big possible life changes and moves looming and I've spent a lot of time thinking about that.

I did want to give a plug for
Our Life In Christ & Ancient Faith Radio
One of the guys from Our Life in Christ read my blog the other day and posted a nice comment, so I want to mention their show. It is very thoughtful stuff. It's especially helpful for protestants who are trying to learn more about Orthodox Christianity. And I wanted to mention Ancient Faith Radio, because I first listened to OLIC on AFR. Ancient Faith, not American Family!!

I'm going to go heat up my car, it's pretty cold.

Pray for me.

Sola scriptura continued

I've received a few messages about my misrepresentation of the protestant cornerstone of thought- sola scriptura. First, I apologize. It's hard not to see (and even point out) glaring problems with my own religious upbringing as I explore the ancient Christian faith.
For the reformers sola scriptura didn't mean "nothing but the Scriptures". I recognize that Luther kept some things that were purely tradition and even Calvin kept some extrabiblical tradition. Now, a lot of protestants today are children Zwingli. Those are easy to spot. If they deny being a Protestant, then they're Zwinglian.
Amy and I were talking about this issue of authority and she said something like this:
For the average (ornery-type) protestant, they study the Bible to find out what they believe, then they take it to their church and point out their faults. Eventually a protestant believer leaves that church and joins one that agrees with his doctrine. What kind of submission to spiritual leadership is that?

That sounds like a better slant to this question of authority. The Fathers never abrogate the Scriptures. They affirm, interpret and apply them.

Of Protestants and Sermons

I've changed the title of my blog to reflect my ongoing fascination and thinking about the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith.

I may have mentioned that I preached at our current church a couple of weeks ago. Our church is a evangelical protestant inter-denominational church. Lately, I have been more and more uncomfortable with the "choose your own faith" attitude that I encounter in all protestant churches. Not that these are particularly dishonorable or arrogant people. This is just a consequence of the reformation. Sola scriptura sold us down the river, so to speak. Now there are no rules. The more that our churches try to set hermeneutical/theological guidelines the more arbitrary it all seems.
For me that is the beauty of the Orthodox Church. Nothing is arbitrary. This is truly the historic faith of the New Testament and the early church fathers. It's scary how much this changes the way I read Scriptures and notice the text-wrestling I was doing before to make it read like it should if my conclusions are true. Then I realize that I NEVER believed in the final authority of the Scripture. I believed in the authority of MY INTERPRETATION of Scripture. I was willing to fight and argue with fellow believers who didn't read this text or that text the same as I did, when the odds are we were both wrong.

For the past two years I have been wondering about the communal nature of truth-knowing and I have wondered (sometimes aloud to myself) what a church would look like that practiced truth-finding/knowing in that way. In the process I became enamored with the spiritual practices of the Orthodox Church. I listened to the Divine Liturgy in Greek a few times a week long before I ever stepped foot in a real live Orthodox church. I started to explore the nature of that faith, realizing that they have always had a communal truth-knowing process.
For ten centuries the church was one and ruled by councils of Bishops. The statements of the councils were then received by the people.

Why would I long for communal truth?
I recognize the all-too likely possibility of error when I read the Scriptures by myself or you do. This is evident by the fact that we all come together and have vastly different readings of the Scriptures. This should definitely not be true when it comes to the all-important ideas of Scripture. Those shouldn't be left to interpretation. If many of us come together, depending on the Holy Spirit, then we're guaranteed that He will guide us (His Church) into all truth. As I've found out, this process leaves a lot of questions unanswered, which is a problem for us western thinkers- we want everything answered. Sometimes we even make things up just to have answer. The Orthodox faith has a lot of mystery where the Scriptures are silent or where the Fathers were not in unanimous agreement.

And from this argument it's a long way down. Once you've lost the idea/importance of personal interpretations of Scripure you lose the do-it-yourself religion of the west, and there's nothing left but to the run to Bride of Christ, where She may be found on this planet.

And I have found that Bride waiting patiently in the Orthodox Church.

Thanksgiving Pt 2

Wednesday we drove to Memphis to stop and visit my friend at Lebonheur, then we headed across the wilderness of Arkansas for Oklahoma. We arrived at my dad's wife's house at about 8 PM. It took a bit longer than we expected.
In case I haven't mentioned, this was the first time I met my step-mom. Hmm. It was an interesting experience.
Judy and her daughters (my stepsisters, maybe) couldn't have been nicer. They were some of the nicest people we've ever met. I'm sure it was weird for them to have us staying at the house, having just met us.
This was positively the first Thanksgiving dinner I ever spent outside on the patio. That's right, we all sat outside on the patio eating thanksgiving dinner. And it was a big big dinner. We went with Judy to her big family Thanksgiving. It was enjoyable being a family of 'random people' at someone else's get together.
Now we're safe and sound back in southeast Missouri.

Thanksgiving- WHOO!

I did it. I threw my money into the capitalism machine (but i did get a discount). I went with two high school guys to watch the latest Harry Potter fare. Interesting. I'm honestly not a big fan. Not that I think it glorifies witchcraft more than C.S. Lewis or Tolkien. It was pretty entertaining. And worth the $5 at any rate.
Tomorrow Amy, the kids and I are driving out to Hugo, OK to have thanksgiving at my new stepmom's house. I'm a little nervous. You see, I haven't met her yet.
So, that should be an eventful visit.
I guess I'll write more about that in the next few days.

Memphis

I went to Memphis today to Memphis today to visit a young man from Caruthersville who is in LeBonheur with some undetermined illness causing brain swelling, a constant headache and vomiting. While I was in Memphis I decided to drive by St. John to buy a new Orthodox Prayer book (mine has gone missing), and possibly an icon of the Nativity ('tis the season). They had neither in stock in their bookstore. I did have a good conversation with their youth director, Joshua. I am particularly interested in what youth ministry looks like in an Orthodox context, so I'll probably have to visit some more with Joshua.
Anyways, I did buy a book while I was there (I figured, why not?). I bought a translation of St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation. I confess I started reading a bit on the way home. Before I left Joshua took me upstairs to photocopy the daily prayers from the service book for me. Fr. John Troy saw me and remembered my name. I was impressed.
I guess I'll order the icon online and buy the prayer book the next time we go to St. John for the Liturgy. 

Group Norming

Writing about my experience with the conformist non-conformist hardcore crowd got me thinking about the idea of socialization and how group norms function.
Every group has norms, even if it is to have no norms. The most hodgepodge, seemingly random conglomeration of people will naturally mimic one another or some charismatic personality.
There's a movie called SLC Punk which deals with this phenomenon in a humorous way. A memorable moment in the movie is when the main character's "preppy" love interest asks this non-conforming anarchist "did you buy a uniform?"
It's as if each of us choose these affinity groups and adhere strictly to the dress code, mannerisms, and opinions.
To be human is to be in relationship. This is something emphasized a lot in the emerging church conversation and highlighted by early church fathers.
So, is there something ghoulish about the process of norming and socialization? Probably not. In fact, it should be beneficial. Churches establish dress codes, either formally or informally. There are unspoken rules about how to dress. And behavior isn't exempted from this process. Even the hippest-emergingest-mac usingest church or faith community will seek to socialize the people to "the way we do things".
Why not be more explicit? Why not establish written flexible rules about behavior and dress for a given situation?

This summer I took a group of young people to visit various churches. At one of our visits (a predominantly black Baptist Charismatic church) I noticed one of our young men was wearing a rebel flag t-shirt under his dress shirt.
So, I would be in favor of explaining to people that the way we dress in worship should be non-distracting. To me, that means no logos, baudy jewelry, even overly expensive suits and dresses should be nixed. Immodest clothing should be avoided.
I firmly believe that the way a community dresses (intentionally or not) expresses some very important things about what the community values.

So, my church wouldn't hand out "uniforms", but we would be intentional about expressing God's beauty, purity, and grace with our dress.

On Kungfu Dancing and Concerts

Last Sunday I went to a hardcore rock concert with a couple of friends. They were mostly Christian hardcore bands, although they could have been screaming about eating children, for all I know. I don't think they were.
Living in this small town I don't get to cities very often. We drove to Nashville. It was kind of a spontaneous thing. I heard about it in the morning and went with them in the afternoon.
The show was at the club owned by Michael W. Smith, RCKTWN. It's very cool. Very hip. Big plasma screen tv's and a coffee bar.
I have never been to a hardcore concert, but I pretty much knew I'd be out of place. So, I purposely dressed 'adult': collared plaid shirt, blue jeans, fleece vest. Everyone else was dressed in what I lovingly called 'the uniform': girl pants (guys more than girls), black tshirt, same exact hair cut, and the requisite chucks. It was almost humorous, except I didn't want to insult their culture, so I just picked on Brian, one of the guys with us. He's in college and looked like he ordered his outfit, shoes, and haircut from a website called hardcoreuniform.com. Don't click that link. I shudder to think of what it might lead to.
Then there was the dancing. My brother in law is really into this music. He plays in a local band out in Scottsbluff, NE, The Blessed Murder. I was really going to this concert to better understand him and his friends. I don't think they dance like these guys did.
I'm not that old. I've moshed in my day. Heck, I've moshed a lot, but I've never seen kids dancing like kungfu fighting beating the living daylights out of each other inadvertently. What a sight. I stood up on a raised balcony so I could see the show and the mosh pit.
Ear plugs are a must for any rock show these days, especially if the point of the style of music is something like trying to make everyone deaf by their 21st birthday. Dang. I wore my earplugs for the first two bands. They weren't very good. The last three bands were the ones I went to see, so I left my earplugs out. What a mistake.
The national bands at that show were Norma Jean, Still Remains and Haste The Day.
I liked Haste The Day the best. I think I prefer the hardcore music that switches between punk-style lyrics/harmonizing and straight up screaming, like underoath. That way the screaming seems to match the lyrics and music better. It's like it builds.
Haste The Day has the crowd in the palm of their hands. At one point the lead (screamer) singer yelled out "CIRCLE PIT!" and the crowd of adolescents started running in a large circle kungfu fighting each other and whatnot. At another point in the concert they played "American Love" a song which alternates between screaming and worship style lyrics and sincerity. During the slow, thoughtful parts I saw hardcore kids (I could pick them out by the uniform) with hands in the air singing their hearts out. Hmmm, interesting.

I got to bed at 2:30AM. I left my house at 7 AM to get to Biology and take an exam. It turned out okay. I got a 92% on my exam. All day Monday if I sat still I could still hear the voices screaming. Now I'm listening to Haste The Day on my computer.
What have I done.

I do have more serious things to blog about, but those will wait. I've been looking for time to write about my kungfu dancing experience all week.

Today

This morning I dropped my car off at the shop. Let's hope we can get the minor things repaired for under $400.
Speaking at St. Luke's and St. John's went pretty well Sunday. The guy wasn't lying when he said to expect 5-6 people. I'm not kidding. I brought Micah and John, and then there were six of them. But still, it was a neat little prayer service. They actually use the evening prayer service at 1 in the afternoon, if the priest can't be there. There really is something comforting about taking that time to entrust our souls to God for the night ahead and say a prayer for everyone we can think of or can find a collect for. And I promise you we did. We must have said every collect in the Prayer Book and invented some.
But, seriously.
I downloaded David Crowder Band's new CD on Napster yesterday (yes I bought it.). It is great. Last night I had to house to myself for about 3 hours, so I listened to that, lit some candles, did some laundry, and read for Social Philosophy class. What an evening. I should have taken a hot bath to top it off.
The gas prices are supposed to soar this winter. We are nervous, because our electric is on a Budget plan, so we pay the same every month. If our gas bill is high and we pay the same medium-high electric bill, it could be a problem. So, we have our thermostat set at 60-62 during the day. Woohoo. Then we picked up a couple of space heaters. We bought the kind that have plastic housings, so they don't burn the kids. That's a plus. It seems like the little one we bought for their room is stronger than the big oscillating one we bought for our room. Who would have thought?
This weekend JY and I are going to St John in Memphis. You know, sometimes I call that church St. John and sometimes St. John's. If anyone from St. John('s) reads this blog, please correct me and set me straight for the future. I'm excited, anyways, to get to visit there again. I don't know if Amy and the kids are coming along this time. She really liked it last time, but she doesn't feel like taking the 3-hour roundtrip on a lazy Sunday. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for reading. Leave comments. Make me feel loved.

Invitation

Yesterday I was invited to fill in speaking at our local Episcopal church as their acting priest will be out of town. I'm pretty excited.
I had the lay leader who asked me send over the lessons for the day, so I could speak to them.
The funny thing is, since this parish is really small, they don't have a priest and the have their service at 1 on sunday afternoons. So, we'll be going to Tucker Street in the morning, then leaving right after service to get over here and speak at St Luke's & St. John's. (They either have two saint or they are a combined parish of two even smaller defunct parishes-- I'm not sure which.)

Well, now I'm sitting in SEMO's own fancy new computer bar. I'm currently sitting on a nice leather couch that hasn't been at on much. I've never seen more than a couple of students in this place, but then it's only a few weeks old. It smells really new.

This morning my Envir. Bio. class took an interesting tour of the local wastewater treatment plant. It smelled horrible. Lucky for me, the odor didn't cling to me.
When I left my house this morning it wasn't very cold, but it feels dang cold up here. Didn't I complain about the hot weather in my last post. Apparently God answered my prayer. The problem is, I didn't bring a jacket. I didn't expect it to be much colder up here than home.

Living

It's unseasonably warm today. This is particularly annoying, because we have already had some really great fall weather.
I have never liked the summers in this part of country, so I spend the whole summer praying and waiting for fall. Now it's supposed to be here, we've even had some teases, but it's back into stinky hot summer. IN OCTOBER!
Well, we're really scrambling now to figure out ways to make our life in Caruthersville financially viable while I attend college over an hour away. We are trying to stay there because we feel like God has placed us there to reach those high school students.
Now, with finances getting harder, it's hard to see how we'll be able to stay. I know that God has confirmed the rightness of our plan to go ahead with my education. I feel like we're headed in the right direction. Will we have to move? We're trying to avoid moving out of our little town, because we know the results to our little Young Life could be fatal.
Of course, I know God will continue faithfully calling those young people to Himself. My leaving there won't end God's mission to the people of the bootheel.
I don't know what we'll do. We're trying to avoid having Amy work outside of the home. We know our kids need her more now than ever. She might end up having to work even if we move to Cape or wherever.
Who knows.
This is what has been weighing on me lately. I've spent lots of time praying about it.

Dear readers, please pray to the Lord to provide for our needs, and to give us wisdom to know what to do, and boldness to do it.

Gallatin

To my readers who suggested that I read Matthew Gallatin's book, I have. It was recommended to me on my first visit to St. John. I think Dn. James recommended it.
It was my favorite Orthodox convert story I've read/come across so far.
I decided to give The Way a try after I saw a few people carrying it at St. John.
By the way, I have passed on my copy of Becoming Orthodox to a friend, and passed on my copy of Seeking God in a Land of Shallow Wells to my pastor. That is, my protestant Evangelical pastor. He and I are pretty tight, since I used to work there. We'll so how this goes. As busy as he is, he might not get to that book for a while. On the other hand, I think I have caused a minor stir by telling some church members that I am considering converting or that I would convert if I didn't live so far away.

I don't know if I talked about this in a post before, but Carlton talks about a time when he realized he had to stop choosing the church and start letting the church have him. Or something like that. I guess I'm convinced rationally for why the Orthodox faith is true and the historic faith of the Apostles. I know they're right. I'm not sure I'm ready to be that right.
I have ikons in my home, I pray the morning prayers from my little Orthodox Prayer Book, I pray the Jesus Prayer in my car on the way to work. Heck, I even kiss an icon now and then, and cross myself quite a bit (for a Protestant). The thing is, I still approach it like a WalMart Protestant. (Oh, this works for me- I'll take it.) I'd rather relieve myself of the duty of controlling this life, and give myself over to the Church in Her fullness.
Anyways, that's kind of what I've been thinking about Orthodoxy lately.
I'll probably go visit St. John again in a week or two.

The Way

On my journey with/in Eastern Orthodoxy- I am currently reading The Way: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church by Clark Carlton. It's an interesting read so far. It is a bit more Protestant-bashing in tone that any of the other books I've read Orthodoxy-wise. Carlton does, however, make good arguments against sola

Preaching

In the midst of my crazy life I received an invitation to fill the pulpit at First Baptist Cville this past weekend.
I have to confess that it was probably the most nervous I've ever been to preach. First, I only knew like 4 of these people, so it was a crowd of strangers. Second, I didn't want to say something clearly unBaptist, and get booed down off the platform.
I'm glad that's over.
It was a lot of fun, really. The people were very nice, and even seemed to like what I had to say.
It was especially fun to ge there as a guest preacher. Since I don't work there, I got to say whatever I felt like God wanted me to say.
I preached two sermons that challenged the church to be more inclusive/others focused. I'm having lunch with one of their deacons tomorrow and I plan to loan him my copy of Missional Church. He emailed me and wants to have lunch to talk about ways to draw young people into their church. I'm going to recommend a service-oriented youth ministry. Be careful: what you win them with might be what you win them to.
God's peace on all of you.

Plagiarism

Last night I noticed that I had two nearly identical posts on my blog, one after the other. I thought I had lost the first one, so I made an attempt to re-create it. I'll leave them both up, so let me know which one you like better.

I was describing blogging the other day, and kind of described it (unoriginally, I suppose) as a democratization of voice. One of the most positive things about blogging is how a person can post their thoughts online and hear back nearly instant feedback from readers. It's a twist on the old scientific journal system. Newbigin talks about how science works in The Gospel In a Pluralist Society. If I believe something is true, I am believing it with universal implications. That means I can publish/announce it, and allow my friends, colleagues, or detractors to knock it down. That's how truth is fought out. Wait, you mean truth is based on consensus in science? It would seem so.

I will go to Logic class now. Blessings on anyone who takes the time to read this.
Please leave lots of comments and we'll start a blogversation.
Make sure to check out the blogs on my sidebar.
Ben, yes I was listening to Haste the Day the other day. And it was the CD you passed my way. Now I'm sitting in the library listening to Ancient Faith Radio.

I'm at home today...

Tuesdays and Thursday I stay in Caruthersville. It is kind of weird being totally out of town three days a week. Before I commuted to Dyerburg three or four days a week, but if I had to, I could come back across the river to do something here in Cville in the afternoon or whatever. Now it's like I am totally gone. I really couldn't come back to Caruthersville for just anything during the middle of the day, unless it was an emergency. And that makes me feel distant.
I did a paper on population growth for biology. I turned it in yesterday. I'm wondering how much of a problem population growth is or could be for the environment, and particularly for our future as a species. I think we've well been fruitful and multiplied. Maybe it's time to take care of the earth a little. *gasp* some of my readers just called me a liberal. I heard you.
Anyways, it seems to me like maybe it is a more ethical/humane thing to do to encourage contraceptive use in countries where many children grow up to die anyway. I mean, we should do our part to ease the suffering of the poor. But would it be wrong to encourage people to have few children?
"Capitalism is the best contraceptive" or so goes the common wisdom. So, when the people of the world's developing nations really get a hold of the ideals of our society (commercialism, greed, envy), they will willingly choose to have fewer kids to improve their lifestyle.
Wait, so it's a good thing if the developing nations become greedy and wasteful like us? Because I don't think that would solve anything. When the world's poorest become the world's newest middle class capitalists, there will be some 4 billion SUVs hogging the roads and polluting the air of the world. What would that solve? Maybe as a nation we should (join our developing nation partners) and begin to set an example for fuel-efficiency, environmentalism, leisure, and values that would actually be positive for the developing nations to adopt. Then we can feel as if we are leaving a better world around for our children and theirs.
God forbid that the whole world should become greedy Americans!
God's blessings on my readers.

This morning

I just finished writing my paper on population growth and whether or not it is a problem for the environment. I guess it is.
The other day one of my classmates said the problem was that we haven't had a world war in too many years. I was shocked. He said a few good nukes would lower the population and avert the coming global death. Uh, not exactly. Not if it means that an entire continent is unhabitable for thousands of years. Not if it means that we become less human by giving our implicit agreement to an idea that obscene.
And what would we gain? Lower grain prices. Less smog in the ozone. Fewer people to feed. Less traffic congestion and immigration.
And all that for the measly price of our souls? What a bargain!

That's how I feel thinking about the population growth problem.
Some say the solution is capitalism: "Capitalism is the ultimate contraceptive." But, wouldn't that make things even worse. For, when the developing world begins to lower their rate of population growth, they will be seeking those ideals and values that have made our society less human. They'll have greed in their eyes as they build their own inhumane capitalist societies.
And capitalists consume way more than communists or people living under authoritarian regimes. Not just 'they consume more because they finally can', but they'll go beyond need as we have. They'll be throwing food way, driving four blocks to work. Their capitalistic excess will go beyond what we have known, because, heck, there's 5 billion of them.
Is the problem overpopulation? Not really. The problem is we sold our soul to capitalism. And now the only way we can think of to make it better is to help other people sell theirs too.

If I could, I would sell my car, and ride my bike to class. Only thing is, I'd have to leave my huse the night before. Our society is built around the automobile to such a degree that weaning oneself from it can be nearly impossible.
The automobile is only the beginning of our notions of necessity applied to luxuries.

Here's a sweet picture of our kids hanging around in our living room in their pajamas after Young Life this past week. Thursday was our first regular club for the school year. There's nothing our kids like more than having YL at their house. 

On Campus

I’m sitting here on a bench in the shade on campus trying to avoid thinking about the Symbolic Logic exam I have to take in about thirty minutes. It’s because I don’t know the material or I’m not prepared. The truth is I feel very prepared, and truly studying now will not help me in the least. I’m also listening to Haste the Day. They’re kind of a screamo/hardcore band. This is definitely not increasing my relaxedness quotient. Very un-relaxed at this moment. But that is why I am trying to blog. For me, blogging/journaling has always been a very relaxing activity. I do it to bring my day together, to process what I’ve learned and done that day or in previous days. I think it was Ignatius of Loyola who talked about desolations and something else in his Spiritual Exercises. I don’t really remember, but the basic process is this identifying “highs and lows” of my days and weeks.
Right now there are groups of people walking around campus taking pictures of unusual things. I saw someone take a picture of a sign next to tree that identifies the species of said tree. I’m guessing it’s an exercise for a class, but that doesn’t make it any less odd. What could they do with these pictures?
On another subject altogether, I got a message through facebook about a possible Orthodox Christian Fellowship starting at SEMO. I giggled, since I am nerdy enough to have a list of my study interests listed under my hobbies/interests. That’s how this person found me. Anyways, I am interested in meeting more Orthodox and getting to know more about the faith, so it would be awesome to be involved in an OCF. We’ll see. I’m going to walk into the Art Building, where I have Symbolic Logic, now. I’ll post this and write a new post during my break after my exam. Blessings.

On a drizzly Monday morning...

On a drizzly Monday morning I'm sitting here in the UC using the free wireless like I am on any other Monday morning lately. I just took an exam in my Environmental Biology class. It wasn't hard, but it was longer than I expected.
Yesterday we visited St. John church in Memphis again. This time it was John, Amy, the kids, and me. We drove through a little residual hurricane/tropical storm rain. I thought Mr. Noel's van (which we borrowed) was going to die right in the middle of the downpour. I think the fuel pump is going out.
This was our kids' first visit to an Orthodox church. When we first got there, Micah said, "Cool, it has a basement." So, apparently that high on his criteria list. Then, when we walked up the stairs to the nave, Micah got to the door and stopped. I guess the smell, sound, and sight of Orthodox worship was very foreign to them. It took a while to get them to sit/stand still. I thought the kids would like the icon frescoes on the walls, i.e. something to look at. No. They were pretty freaked out by the giant Pantocrator icon on the ceiling. Sometime during the service, Micah noticed the icon of the Crucifixion, which the cross on top of a hole with a skull inside of it. He kept asking what "that bone head" was about. Silly. Towards the end of the service I had resigned to watching my kids play quietly downstairs rather than try to force them into the nave and fight with them while they fuss. So, I met a neat couple named George and Patty. They're from Michigan (so am I). It was a joy to hear a Michigan accent in Memphis, TN. Anyway, they were cradle Orthodox. They were baptized in a small Orthodox church in Detroit of which St. John reminds them.
So, all this to say that I was downstairs visiting with George and Pat when the liturgy was concluding with the veneration of the Cross. At some point Alexis and Micah had slipped away and were upstairs standing with Amy in the service. When the time came for the veneration of the cross (everyone lines up to kiss the cross the priest is holding) Amy was going to slip out the back with the kids, but Alexis said, "No, I HAVE to kiss that cross." You can probably read that story told better over on Amy's blog. So, they both did.
The kids wanted an icon of Christ like the one I bought at Annunciation, so I bought them a smaller one, and bought myself an icon of the Mother of God with the Christ-child. When we got home I asked the kids where they wanted the icon of Christ hung in their room. They said they wanted it low enough on their wall for them to kiss it when the go to bed at night. Cute.

Well, if you haven't read my blog before, you're probably wondering what all this stuff about the Orthodox Church is, but you'll have to read previous posts. Also, check out this guy's posts on "Why Orthodoxy?"

May God richly bless you as you go through your day.

This is a picture I've been trying to put on my blog for a while. It's Amy and me in front of the Dining Hall at Frontier Ranch in Buena Vista, CO. 

Semi-pelagian Shorter Catechism

Here is a link to a really funny parody - the semi-pelagian shorter catechism.

Understand that I'm not making fun of Semi-pelagians, Calvinists or any other tradition in Christianity, it's just funny.

The balancing act

It turns out it is a bit more difficult than I believed it would be to transition to the life of a full time student while maintaining momentum in my current ministry context. Man, am I tired. It's a good thing I didn't blog Wednesday. I was so tired and depressed. Am I up for this? Do I have "what it takes"? Did I make a tragic mistake/misstep in my seeking after God's will for myself and my family? I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. What would make me think I could be a decent student and be a decent Young Life director while being the husband and father Amy, Micah and Alexis deserve? So I pray. That's the positive thing. Since my staff conference last week, I have been more aware of the spiritual battle that goes on around us and within us. I have prayed more seriously for myself and this ministry in the last week than the two and a half years of Young Life combined. I pray for my kids to be protected from evil spiritual influences. I pray for God to send angels to protect us. During my morning drive I read the Orthodox morning prayers from my little prayer book I bought at St. John's. When it comes time for open intercession in the prayers I pray for a while for everyone who comes to mind. There is so much need I know I forget people and situations. So I find myself at the edge. Where else can I go? You [Christ] have the words of eternal life. I do nothing except seek Your face everyday and trust that all will be well in the end. Lord, protect me from the sin of busyness and distraction. So often I look around, compare myself with others and feel myself sinking in the sea. Lord, save me! Please don't let me sink. In myself I have nothing worthy to bring to You, so I depend completely on Your mercy. Lord, have mercy. Holy Spirit, bring Your peace into my heart and into my life. Guide me into Truth. Christ, be my fellow traveller today. Walk beside me and encourage me. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Returning Home

We had a staff conference this week for Missouri YL. It was good. I'm still really tired. I didn't blog at all, even though the lodge had wireless, because I was tired and busy almost the entire time.
The speaker was John Eldredge, or at least a CD of him. I had read Wild at Heart when it was hot stuff and didn't really know where I stood in relation to it. (I'm mildly wild.) So, this was about his Four Streams- DISCIPLESHIP, SPIRITUAL WARFARE, COUNSELING, and DEEP RESTORATION.
The whole thing was kind of interesting, because I openly stated my queasiness with John, and some of my fellow YLers are big John fans.
Well, I don't know where John and I stand now.
The main thing is, John has these weird experiences and decides to make them normative for the entire church. Then he goes to the Bible and backs it up with what I think is pretty standard Protestant exe/eisigesis. The funny thing is, I read a review of his work on Challies, which I don't normally read. And it addressed some of my concerned.
So I didn't buy Eldredge whole idea, although I did buy a copy of Waking the Dead. I actually ordered it from CBD while I was bored listening to one of the CDs.
That's my week. I'm home now and should mow my lawn today. Peace

I'm 27. I'm married, and I have two kids.
I'm now a college junior- full time.
It's been a strange experience being in college full time again. It's been like five years since I was a full time student. The classes aren't hard, particularly. In fact, since I was missing a few required courses, I am taking core 100-level courses this semester. It's almost down right easy. The funny thing is being old, being a minister by trade, being married, having kids-- and having none of my fellow students know this. It's not that I keep it a secret, as if I were afraid of being 'outed'. I enjoy the look my classmates get on their faces when I mention those facts that make me weird on campus. "I thought you were like 23!" That's only a four year difference from my real age, but it's apparently a world of difference to the average college student. I remember being there. I probably still am there about other ages I've yet to reach. I wonder if that's how my 54-year old best friend feels about running around with us younguns.
So, I think, "am I so immature that it seems unbelieveable that I am grown with responsibilities and all?" I prefer to think of myself as "full of life". It's a lot more fun to be full of life, than to put on my old church guy face and be boring. I already bore myself sometimes with some of my own interests. I listen to myself recounting the basics of church history, dogma, or the current splintered state of American protestantism, and I think, who is that nerd. The thing is, I like it. That's right. I'm a nerd. Not a nerd who likes math and science. Certainly not. I'm more of a humanities/liberal arts guy myself.
The big thing that is revealed and impressed upon me is this: if I went to college more ambitiously right out of high school I would probably be graduated with a degree that wouldn't fit me. I didn't know myself then. I don't really know myself now, but I'm getting closer.
As I sit here in the University Center pontificating on useless thoughts, my fellow students rush to the next party.
The sidewalks all over campus declare in colored chalk, "Go Greek!", "Don't go greek!", "Anime Party", "Party at the Shack". I'm the only one who's wondering what all of this is about. It seems like it's obvious to everyone else what college is all about.
God's blessings.

Kinsey

Last night Amy and I watched the movie "Kinsey". It was a disturbing story of the author of the famed Kinsey Reports. It showed the outwardly moral, but secretly perverse nature of our country at the turn of the century. The most disturbing part is how the study and the newfound sexual freedom starts to tear apart the marriage relationships of those involved.
Alfred Kinsey has been blamed (or credited, in some circles) with the sexual revolution, because of the freedom that his reports resulted in. The thing is, it seems to me like he didn't so much say "do this!" as "this is what people are doing."
If I can use the metaphor, it was as if someone shone a light on the darkside of our nation. Nothing appeared there that wasn't really there. For the first time our country got a good look at itself, and it wasn't pretty.
I was struck by how those who were protecting traditional morality (bravo!) were willing to deceive the children or whoever (boo!) in order to accomplish their goals. Isn't it counterproductive to uphold your system of morality by transgressing that same system in another area? I thought so.
Before I got married I bought or someone bought for us the "Christian sex books" by Wheat and the LaHayes (yes, of Left Behind fame- he was originally a family counselor/author). At least these books were honest about what they knew.

Well, I won't talk about sex anymore. I'll get into trouble.

In the past few days I have checked my counter stats and realized that someone had sat and apparently read my entire blog, start to finish. Now, given the fact that my life is a little less than exciting, it would stand to reason that my blog would be boring. It is.
This weekend Amy and I cleaned the front yard. As my lawn mower is broken, I used the Weed Eater to mow. It looks like it was cut by a blind drunk man. Hehe. Our yard was getting pretty ugly from about a month's worth of neglect. The leaves needed raked. I guess my front yard trees have premature balding problems.
I've been really sidetracked from school work with all my extracurricular reading. I finished reading Matthew Gallatin, now I'm read St. Ignatius and the rest of the Apostolic Fathers. It's very interesting. Yesterday I had a conversation with the local First Baptist pastor, who happens to be the committee chair for Young Life locally. He told me that Baptists saw Acts as descriptive (a historical account), but not normative (for all places at all times). Now, this might not be true of all baptists, but for him anyway, it gives the authority to invent church. The problem for me is this: if the big problem of the Enlightenment and modernity was the invention of the self, then how are we doing better to go into varied forms of self-rule? Now we decide that we have the authority to establish the church any way we like it. This relates to the "personal worship preference" discussion. You see, I have many "personal theology preferences". I also have many "personal church polity preferences". The list could go on and on. From my personal perspective, the problem lies in allowing myself that sort of megalomania-control of my affairs. When I enter a situation/church/theological system my first thought is "do i agree with this, do I agree with that?" but this still maintains me at the very center of my own personal universe. This is highly problematic as a Christian, since Christ explicitly commanded his followers to lose their selves, deny their selves, die to self. How does that line up with a cult of personal preference? The short answer is, "it doesn't."
Talk about countercultural. Die to self. Give no regard to your own preferences. Think more of the other than yourself.
In our society this would be tantamount to treason against the reigning all-supreme self.
Now I have to read some more of Plato's Republic.
May God's richest blessings dwell on all of you and your families.

Blog blog bloggin away..

Here is an interesting blog from a woman who is apparently an Orthodox catechumen and attending BIOLA University, which is a bastion of protestant evangelical fundamentalism:
A Catechumen's Walk
The other day I was surprised to find a hit referred from a blog I didn't recognize, so I checked him out. Apparently this guy has a semi-dormant blog on Orthodox Christianity, and had added me under the links as an Orthodox Inquirer. Uh-oh. I hope the (not Orthodox) deacon who's paying for my college doesn't see that. Just kidding.
Here's his blog:
St. Stephen's Musings

So, I told my pastor (also formerly my boss) that I was looking seriously at the Orthodox Church. His answer: "Hmmmm.."

God's blessings on all.