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buying local, locally

2012-01-27T10:19:00.000-05:00

As I expressed in my post on overthinking footwear, I consider it a top priority to buy products made and sold as locally as possible. This presents an inherent conflict--what happens if locally made and locally sold products are mutually exclusive? Case in point--I couldn't find the boots that I needed at In Step Leather, which was pretty much the only independently owned supplier in Elkridge. I settled on buying boots from L. L. Bean, which is at least an American-based company with strong community ties (in Maine), and which has a retail store in my area. But there's rarely a good solution.

I recently needed to buy new underwear. There aren't a lot of American-made options (let alone anything truly local to Elkridge or Maryland). You can pay $100+ for boutique briefs, or you can buy something that's American-made for the sake of being American-made. I respect that, but it doesn't always equal quality. And neither kind is easy to find on a local store shelf. For that matter, locally owned clothing stores are few and far between. So I settled for Campbellsville Apparel, which makes underwear for the U. S. military. I'm not a big supporter of the military-industrial complex, but economic reality is what it is. To make relatively inexpensive underwear in America and stay viable, I can't imagine there are many options that don't involve a government contract. Plus, in this area military is local (sort of). Instead of ordering them online, I got a friend to pick up a couple of packages on base.

I'm also trying to find some dress socks--the thin kind that you're supposed to wear with dress shoes. I don't use them so much that I go through them quickly, but right now I have only one pair, and it doesn't look like it's going to last much longer. I found one locally-owned men's store, but they didn't sell anything American-made. I found a few suppliers online, but I don't know enough about socks to order with much confidence that I'll get the kind I really want. Since it looks like I'll have to buy from a chain store one way or another, it occurred to me to check back with L. L. Bean. Their products are hit-and-miss. I think they genuinely try to contract American when they can, but many of their products are made overseas as well. I think I may be in luck--I found several styles that look right and are designated USA-made. It's probably worth another trip to check them out.

But these are only two examples of a systemic problem. It's hard to succeed in small business, especially if you're competing directly with multinational corporations. So I suspect there's a quite a bit of pressure to sell competitively priced products, which generally means stuff made overseas. Either that, or find yourself a niche like high-quality, high-end. Maybe that would lead you to $100 underwear, but it still doesn't meet the need of a thrifty but socially conscious consumer. So unless you're fortunate enough to have a local niche retailer who specializes in American-made, chances are pretty good that you won't just happen across that sort of thing.

The Internet is a marvelous invention. As far as I'm concerned, one of its greatest accomplishments is to connect people with their interests, however obscure. I might not know a single person in my community who collects used dental floss, but if there are half a dozen of us in the world, we can now find each other and form a club. If there are 50 of us, someone can figure out how to make money at it. Right now, American-made is a lifestyle choice. However much one might argue that it's economically more beneficial in the grand scheme of things, most consumers will look at the price tag and go with whatever's cheapest. So the challenge in the real world is finding enough customers who will pay extra for a clean conscience. Online, there's a much larger pool to draw from, and you're more likely to create a viable business selling this stuff.

But for me, it's not just about American-made. It's about supporting local economy in whatever way I can. I want my products made as locally as possible, but I also want the rest of the supply chain as local as possible. If more products were made right here in and around Elkridge, the rest would probably fall into place a bit more neatly. But as it is, "locally made" rarely gets much better than "made in the same time-zone." So how am I really affecting my community, if instead of buying underwear made in Honduras from the Walmart down the road, I'm supporting a business that's local somewhere in Kentucky?

Maybe I'm just too lazy for this. If I see a need, I should work to meet it. Instead of just ordering my own pair of socks, maybe I should try to become a local supplier of those socks to others in my community. Or better yet, get some training and equipment, and start making socks in my garage, and selling them at local craft fairs and farmer's markets. But in the meantime, how can I support my local economy? Is it even a realistic objective?

boots

2011-10-11T15:21:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned an earlier post, buying responsibly requires a lot of effort. You have to become a minor expert in the product that you want. Putting in all that work, just so you can spend money (usually, spend more than you would otherwise) and then hopefully not do it again for years to come, seems like something of a letdown. There should be more payoff. For a blogger, of course, this means that surely I'm here to educate others about how they can also make more informed purchases. So now you get the gory details of my attempt to buy the right boots.

I started by searching online for boot brands that could be repaired. I identified local dealers, figuring that if they carried one or two repairable brands, they'd probably carry others. My first visit was to In Step Leather, a local biker shop. They had a decent selection, but understandably most of their stock was taller than I really wanted. Because I needed to ride a bicycle in winter, I couldn't have my boots restricting ankle movement. They offered to help track down what I needed, if I could come up with a good set of criteria; so I started a list:

Welt construction
Steel shank
6" height
Soft toe
Lug sole
Waterproof
Non-insulated
Brown or tan leather

A logger boot would work, but I only found one brand that carried 6" loggers. For the most part, I was looking at work boots. I found four brands, each of which had one style that looked promising, ranging in price from $100 to $200. I tried other stores to see if I could try them on, but it was nearly impossible to find anything in stock. General-purpose shoe and clothing stores didn't carry the heavy-duty lines that I was interested in; industrial stores carried almost exclusively safety-toe boots.

Along the way, a friend suggested L. L. Bean, which I didn't know carried work boots. It turned out that they had one that fit my criteria, and it was made by Chippewa--one of the brands I had looked at but ruled out because I couldn't find the right style. The local store actually had my size in stock (sort of), and their satisfaction guarantee, free shipping, and no-hassle return policy were some added benefits to consider. Those factors alone would weigh heavily against most other options, where I'd be faced with ordering something online and paying return shipping if it didn't fit.

I also discovered that two of the boots were not made smaller than a size 8, which ruled them out altogether. So my list was down to three. Of those, the L. L. Bean was the most expensive (but with significant benefits, as I already mentioned). The Wolverine (it appears that the 6" is no longer available) was close in price, and both were American-made. But since I couldn't find a local supplier, it wasn't worth the small savings over the L. L. Bean. The remaining option was a Carhartt work boot, made by Red Wing. I discovered when I called about sizing that all Carhartt styles were temporarily discontinued. They had ended their contract with Red Wing and were transitioning to a new manufacturer. This explained why the Red Wing store was listed online as a Carhartt retailer, but said when I visited that they'd stopped carrying them. There were still boots out there in my size, but I would have to order them online, and the more time went on, the harder it would be to exchange them. Still, they could be had for about $50 less than the L. L. Bean, and as far as I could tell, would fit most of my criteria.

The main disadvantage to the L. L. Bean was the price tag. But the advantages were substantial. Again, I could try on the boots in the store and know what I was getting. Even if they didn't have my size in stock, I could order with free shipping and return them to the store if they didn't work out for any reason. L. L. Bean has a lifetime satisfaction guarantee, so that extends the benefit considerably. Also, they were American made, which was one of my top priorities starting out. $50 extra was still a tough pill to swallow, but in the end it seemed like the better option, especially if I could bide my time and wait for a decent sale.

It took a while, but I finally caught a 10% off everything sale for Columbus Day. In the meantime, I'd discovered that I could use points from one of our credit cards toward a $50 L. L. Bean gift card. I returned to the store, so I could try them on one more time, and realized that the medium was very snug. They came in a wide (EE) option, but the store didn't stock them. So I ordered online (knowing I could exchange them for free if they were too big) and waited an extra week for delivery. It was a good move. I don't think my feet are supposed to be EE, but they fit perfectly. The construction is exactly what I wanted, and the quality seems high. Out of my footwear purchases so far, this seems like the biggest win.

dress shoes

2011-09-23T10:35:00.000-04:00

My old dress shoes were from Payless, because of course, I wanted to pay less. I actually had two pairs--one that I kept at work, and one that I wore to church. That doesn't say much for multitasking, but it saved me a lot of trouble commuting. I didn't have to wear dress shoes with shorts, or mess them up by traveling in the rain and snow, and I didn't have to carry them back and forth in my already overstuffed bag. It also created a natural rotation so that (if I had shoes where it mattered), they could rest between uses. I managed to keep them going for quite some time, but as luck would have it, they both wore out within a few months of each other.

My first thought was to select a high-quality brand, figure out what size and style I would need, and then watch for a used pair on eBay. I started the process some time ago by visiting a shoe repair shop and asking what to look for in a repairable shoe. That gave me a little bit to go on, but I still felt in over my head. I tracked down some brands that were listed on shoe repair sites and visited a few stores to try them on. I hadn't achieved much clarity, when it occurred to me that I might still have another pair hanging around. These were the shoes that I wore in our wedding 15 years ago. I believe I got them free at church. Sure enough, I had shoved them somewhere in the back of the closet and forgotten about them. They're extremely stiff and not very comfortable, but I figured I could get by with them for a while.

A few months later, while shopping for boots, it occurred to me that work shoes might be a better way to go. I rarely need to dress up all that much, so they would probably meet my needs. They would be designed for comfort and probably have wider, less constricting toes. Good ones should be repairable, like any good work boot. So I started looking for brands of work shoes. I knew Red Wing, of course, and I discovered some John Deere oxfords. I also discovered Doc Martens, which appeared to have an industrial line.

I couldn't find a promising local vendor for the John Deere shoes or for Doc Martens. Sure, plenty of stores sell Doc Martens, but to get the industrial line, you have to go somewhere that specializes in safety shoes. I didn't want steel toe or anything like that, and the selections weren't good enough to find anything else. They ran more expensive than the John Deere, so if it came to ordering a shoe online, I figured there wasn't much point.

I thought Red Wings would be my best bet, since I knew there were local dealers. But there was really only one style that I was interested in, and the local store didn't carry it in stock. They said I'd have to pay in advance to order, so I wasn't much better off than with the other brands--plus, they were the most expensive option.

I finally decided to try ordering the John Deere shoes, but I discovered that they were discontinued. I also discovered that a lot of online stores will list sizes based on what they think they can get from the manufacturer. So although it appeared that I could get them for around $70, I was all the way up to $100 by the time I found someone who could get me a pair in my freakishly small size. (I don't know why they could get them when others couldn't, but who am I to complain?) And even at that, they weren't sure there would actually be any available.

After I ordered, I started wondering what I would do if I couldn't get the John Deere shoes. I had pretty much assumed that I couldn't get anything American made, but by this point I'd started to think a little more about that issue. Sure, locally made was my first choice, and American made was the next best thing. But if I couldn't get that, was everything else all the same? I would say now, not really. You see, there are at least two kinds of imports. There's the stuff, like Persian rugs, that we import because it originated in some part of the world where the quality is simply unparalleled. That's just where you have to go to get the real thing. Then there's the stuff that we import because it's cheaper to make it somewhere else and ship it halfway around the world. I would say the first kind is morally superior, because it's not about eliminating jobs here and exploiting lower standards over there, just to save a few bucks.

So even though Doc Martens are a British brand, that doesn't necessarily put them on a par with Dan Post boots (the manufacturer of the John Deere brand) made in China. As it turns out, most Doc Martens are also made in Asia, but not all. Some of their vintage styles are still made in the UK, and although this does not include their industrial line, they are still supposed to be roomy, comfortable, repairable shoes. Of course, they're also more expensive than other Doc Martens, but that's to be expected. I found an online coupon and ordered a pair to replace my shoes at work, which had just developed a split in the sole.

The John Deeres arrived, and the sizing was pretty accurate. If anything, they were a touch loose--but I can live with that. I was mostly concerned that they might end up being too small, so I couldn't wear them. They're oiled leather and look very much like work boots--more than I was expecting once you're wearing them with pants so you can't see how high they go. But I think they'll do the job, and the nice thing is, the care should be the same as for whatever boots I finally buy. I kind of wish I'd thought more about the whole "made in China" thing sooner, but aside from that, I'm happy with the purchase.

The Doc Martens took quite a bit longer to arrive, but they also turned out to be the right size. They're not pointy like a lot of dress shoes, but they're also not quite as roomy as I was hoping. I think that and the stiff leather account for any discomfort I felt up front. I doubt they'll ever be my most comfortable shoes, but as dress shoes go, they should break in OK. I think I'll keep them at home for a while and try to figure out which pair makes more sense to have at work. The Doc Martens look nicer and would probably work with a wider range of casual-to-dress clothes. But if they're the less comfortable of the two, I might better save them for less sustained use, like church and special occasions.

obsessing about leather

2011-09-22T09:24:00.000-04:00

Of course, if I'm going to invest in shoes and boots that I hope will last for years to come, I also need to make sure I take proper care of them. There's no point resoling worn-out uppers. Coincidentally, we also recently bought a used leather couch. (That one was Julie's idea, but I like it.) In the process of moving it, I managed to scuff some corners, so we'd been trying to figure out what we could do about that. It all worked out nicely, because it turned out the solutions were quite similar.

I spent quite a bit of time looking online for information about leather care. One thing I began to discover was that experts tend not to advise what's popular. Products like mink oil and Sno Seal are downplayed in favor of regular conditioning. The general idea seems to be that leather is skin, and its main problem is that it's no longer wrapped around a living animal. Since it lacks a natural source of moisturizing agents, it needs regular treatment to keep it flexible, breathable, and waterproof. Greasy or waxy products that clog the pores will diminish breathability and will generally not soak into the leather well enough to keep it flexible. Instead they advise conditioners made mostly of beeswax or lanolin.

Of course, one of the problems with looking online for this kind of information is knowing how far to trust the sources. Mostly you find Web sites for leather care products, where they tell you why other stuff doesn't work right. Obviously. But I did find one or two sites run by leather repair shops that said the same thing. I also got an important recommendation in passing from a biker apparel shop. When I was looking for local boot dealers, I came across In Step Leather, which specializes in motorcycle apparel but sells a wide range of boots. Unfortunately, they didn't have the specific brands and styles that I settled on, but they were very helpful throughout the process. Since they do a lot with leather, I asked about our couch, and they recommended Outback Leather on Main Street in Laurel.

Outback does all kinds of leather repair and sells some leather care products. They specialize in equestrian, which I guess is a good idea, so close to the Laurel Race Track. The shop has loads of character, and the proprietor was very helpful. He confirmed what I'd read online about leather conditioning and recommended a brand called Bickmore. Regarding the couch, he suggested conditioning the whole thing, while emphasizing the scuffed areas. After a few applications, there was significant improvement. You can still see the marks if you look for them, but some are almost completely invisible, while the worst are just slightly discolored.

Because regular conditioning is supposed to waterproof leather, I've also become a bit obsessive about applying the stuff to my shoes. I figure I'll do this for a while, since I don't know how long they sat around before shipping, or how well the leather was oiled in the first place. Later, I'll settle into a more regular routine. So far, my obsession has paid off. I don't know if I ever would have found the solution for the couch if I hadn't been thinking so much about boots. It will take longer to determine how much it helps to extend the life of my shoes.

overthinking footwear

2011-09-20T10:50:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid I've developed something of a shoe fetish. Don't get me wrong--I won't be the next Imelda Marcos or anything; my closet should fit me for years to come. But just as the Fathers warn that there are two types of gluttony--the kind where you eat everything in sight, and the kind where you eat only the best food money can buy--I'm pretty sure there are at least two types of obsession when it comes to shoes.

For quite some time, I've been thinking (more than doing anything) about buying more responsibly. I've tried to be realistic about it, which I guess is part of the reason that not much has happened. You see, my financial decisions affect more people than me, and while I would be willing to make a certain level of sacrifice to placate my own sense of moral responsibility, in general I've tried to avoid forcing that on others. So, once you subtract out the big-ticket items that affect the whole household and the routine purchases that Julie typically handles, there's really not much left. In fact, my primary means of buying responsibly is not to buy at all, or to muddle along with something until it's completely worthless. An example here would be my infamous first pair of Crocs, which I'm still wearing years later, even though they have rather large holes in the bottom.

A somewhat less well-known example is my trusty pair of boots. My real snow boots, which I'd had since I think 5th or 6th grade, wore out sometime after we moved to Maryland. Since Maryland winters never get very severe, I decided not to replace them and fell back on my hiking boots, which I'd got free from my father-in-law. They're probably around 15 years old now, and the past couple of winters I've had to hit them with Super Glue to keep them from falling apart. I realized last winter that this couldn't go on forever, so I started planning to buy new boots.

Now, at this point I should probably explain what I mean by "buying responsibly." (There's hardly an accepted definition.) The path of least resistance is to buy in accordance with the marketing we're subjected to every day. Being a world-class cheapskate and someone who doesn't exactly like to shop around, for me this would normally mean buying from Walmart or a similar discount department store. After all, who doesn't like everyday low prices? But when you stop and think about it, this is a very superficial way to do business.

Somewhere back in the dawn of time, someone needed food or clothing or shelter, and did what he could to find it or make it. Before too long, he figured out that, although he wasn't good at everything, he could trade for things that others did better. This created an opportunity to specialize and get even more skilled, and everyone benefited from the system. Money was introduced, because it's easier to carry than, say, a sheep; and merchants arose, whose business was getting stuff from remote places. But generally speaking, you were still not far removed from the actual producer. Values of things made sense and depended on factors like how much labor went into production, how far you had to go to get them, and how scarce the raw materials were. You pretty much knew what you were getting, where it came from, and whether it was a fair price. In those days, the effect that your purchases had on people in your own community was pretty obvious.

Today, the system is much more complex, and part of the outcome is that I can easily conduct a transaction without even thinking about the people involved. I'll never know anything about the Third-World sweatshop worker who assembled my sneakers. The guy in the store who helps me buy them doesn't know her either. He also doesn't know much of anything about the product and barely knows how to run a cash register. I'm pretty sure some kind of machine could do his job better, and if I buy my sneakers online, I assume it did. I'm not thinking about the small shop owner who can't make enough money to stay in business, or the laid-off factory worker who can't find a job for his skill set, or the absurd amount of fuel that it takes to move my cheap goods halfway around the world, or the living standard of the person who does make them. I'm just thinking about what I want and how cheap I can get it.

So, if I'm going to buy responsibly, I need to turn off the marketing, stop buying reflexively, and consider the most important priorities. For me, there are at least three:

Products made and sold as locally as possible. Some products can realistically be found in the local community; for other things, like shoes, this often means buying American. It's hard enough to find shoes manufactured in the USA, without worrying about whether they were made in the Pacific Northwest or the Deep South. I would love to buy a shoe made here in Maryland, but if I can't do that, I'd at least like to know that most of my money is helping to support American industry.
Products made to last. This means at least two things. They should be made well, so that they don't wear out quickly; and they should be constructed according to renewable methods, so that they can be easily repaired. Most shoes these days are made with glue-on soles. Repair shops have figured out ways to work with them--mostly by cutting off the soles and re-building them according to more traditional methods--but it seems more sensible to buy shoes made properly in the first place, if the intention is to use them as long as possible. I'd rather not chuck shoes in a landfill when they still have life in them. So repairability is big for me.
Products that can multitask. I don't want to have to buy a separate pair of shoes for every activity. So for instance, if I'm buying boots, I want them to work for walking, hiking, shoveling snow, and riding a bike in winter.

Following these priorities is not easy. It's not the kind of information that manufacturers or retailers want you to think about. So I've found myself spending a lot of time thinking about shoes. I tell myself that it's just for now--that once I've bought the shoes I hope to buy, I can go years and years without thinking about them again. But right now, it really does feel like an obsession. Case in point, this is already a long post, and I haven't got to the details of my purchases yet. There is more to come . . . .

1812 Overture

2011-06-27T14:16:00.003-04:00

Ft. McHenry is one of the few places where I can feel patriotic. Although it was used to imprison Maryland legislators suspected of favoring secession, it was also where the Battle of Baltimore was fought and won. The War of 1812 may have been a silly war, but at least here in Maryland it wasn't for the sake of American expansion. Here, it was about freedom from British control, plain and simple. Our clippers harried British ships, and when we came under full-scale attack, our well-prepared defenses won the day. The Star Spangled Banner may be our national anthem, but its home is in Baltimore.

While poking around online for information about the War of 1812, I came across a reference to the 1812 Overture. I knew about it, of course--a popular tune at Independence Day celebrations, during fireworks displays, and the music to which V set his explosions in V for Vendetta. If I'd had to guess, I would have supposed it to have some connection with our War of 1812. Not only would I have been wrong, but I would have had twice the reason to be embarrassed.

The same series of Napoleonic Wars that led Britain to blockade American ports also saw the invasion of Russia. But Napoleon stretched his army too far, and he was forced to retreat, losing most of his men along the way. Tsar Alexander I commissioned the building of Christ the Savior Cathedral as a thank-offering, and it was completed 68 years later amid festivities. It was at that point that Tchaikovsky wrote the Overture to commemorate the battle. The piece includes two renditions of the troparion of the Holy Cross, which had been something like the Byzantine national anthem and was often used in times of great distress as a corporate prayer for deliverance. It's a familiar tune to me--my local parish is dedicated to the Holy Cross, so we sing the troparion pretty much every Sunday.

Apparently Tchaikovsky was very popular in America during his lifetime, and his composition was just so well-suited to the 4th of July! It's one of the few classical pieces written for cannons. So despite Cold War concerns about all things Russian, its popularity has survived the 20th c. largely intact. I suspect that most Americans have no idea where it originated or what it's about. (At least, it makes me feel better to think that I'm not the only one.) It's just another selection in our patriotic repertoire.

Which is fine with me. I'll quietly look forward each year to hearing the former Byzantine and Russian national anthems played prominently for American Independence Day.

foreign language in elementary school

2011-05-28T11:02:00.002-04:00

The HC school board is currently considering a proposal to pilot a foreign language program at the elementary school level. The idea is to integrate the use of computer technology into regular classroom instruction and eliminate the hour-long segment that they spend each week in a separate computer lab. (I guess they would still potentially use the lab space, but it would be with their homeroom teacher, and it would relate directly to whatever they're working on in class anyway.) This would free up two half-hour time slots each week for language instruction, which would be undertaken according to a content-based approach. The language instructor would work with the students on content they're expected to learn anyway--science, social studies, etc.--but conduct the class in a high percentage of the foreign language, so they get exposed to its various elements. Obviously, the emphasis would be on vocabulary and situational dialog; there would be little technical discussion of the grammar and structure of the language. The proposal is to teach all students in all schools Mandarin Chinese, but they estimate that they could offer two language options for about 10% more cost.

I have no objection to them studying a foreign language, and I'm reasonably sure the integrated approach to technology could work, though I'm not at all certain that it will. I guess my main question relates to the language selection. Now, I'll readily admit that as someone who has studied several different languages, I'm probably biased by not being personally interested in Chinese. I understand why it was chosen--the number of people in the world who speak the language, the role of China in the world economy, and the length of time and effort required to achieve some level of fluency (which makes it more beneficial to get an early start)--but I still think an argument can be made against it.

It's certainly sensible to learn the language of our new overlords. China produces the goods we buy, and loans us the money to buy them. When our politicians bicker us into default, it is China that will be first in line to repossess our country. History is filled with examples of major powers whose languages became the common currency of trade and government--Akkadian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, etc. English is one of the more recent examples, but we're probably not far from the time when the sun really will set on the British/American Empire. China is a logical choice for the next big thing.

But I wonder if it isn't morally superior to change tactic, especially if we're not quite ready to admit defeat on the world stage, and instead reach out to those who live within our borders in ever-increasing numbers and will likely surpass English-speakers in the overall population. I'm talking about the Hispanic population, with whom we share this half of the world, and many of whom have one way or another made their way to the United States. Learning the language of those who are powerful, because we must, is one thing; but learning the language of those who are not, because we can, is something altogether different.

I also wonder if we aren't missing an important aspect of language learning. It used to be standard to learn Latin, not so much because of all the Latin-speakers out there with whom we could converse, but because of what it teaches us about our own language. I'm not so naive as to think that we'd return to that any time soon, but doesn't this other purpose of learning a foreign language apply to some degree when we learn any other language? It helps us to think about similarities and differences, and with good instruction, we can understand how those connections arise. But the further two languages are removed from one another, the harder it can be to find informative connections. Especially when we're talking about language taught at the elementary school level, they probably won't draw many conclusions about grammatical structure by experiencing two languages. But cognate words are much easier to discover and can be very useful in building vocabulary in one's own native language. It seems to me that students would gain more insight about English by learning one of its closer relatives.

The point about needing more time to learn Chinese was one I didn't think of until it was specifically brought up in discussion. There is a great deal of sense to it, but I wonder how realistic it is. A lot of the point of how this program is designed is to make it something that will work for all students. But do we seriously think that all, or even most, students will continue their study of Chinese once they have other options? And don't the same factors that make it a longer enterprise to learn Chinese also make it that much easier to lose in a summer what they've learned during the school year? How much benefit will they retain over time?

Consider writing, for instance. I don't know if there is any intention to teach Chinese writing--I would assume there would be, but maybe it's considered too complex to bother with. Either way--if they don't cover writing, students have missed an area of learning; if they do, the struggle will be long and hard, and most of them will probably forget everything they ever learned. On the other hand, a language like Arabic would also take substantial time to learn, would have quite a bit of relevance in today's world, and would challenge students with its writing system. But here, "challenging" does not mean "inaccessible." Arabic writing is difficult, but it is still an alphabetic system (technically, it's an abjad, but I'm trying not to be technical) and therefore involves a relatively small set of characters. Even if some information is lost over the summer, the task of reviewing and re-learning at the beginning of the next year is much smaller. But if we're talking about a language program for all students, it's probably better to go with something that uses the same basic Latin characters students are already familiar with.

I also like the argument that teaching English-speaking students Spanish will help them interact with their fellow students whose first language is Spanish. If it is true that Spanish-speakers typically have more difficulty adjusting to American schools than other immigrant groups, anything we can do to help bridge this gap and make the transition easier will likely save the schools money they might otherwise spend on special assistance programs.

For these reasons, I think Spanish is the better way to go. I say this as someone who has never formally studied Spanish, who doesn't speak Spanish, and who has no Hispanic heritage. But if we're going to teach one foreign language in all elementary schools, I think Spanish wins as the most useful and attainable option.

in defense of polygamy

2011-05-19T13:08:00.002-04:00

We've been paying for TV for a couple of years now. It has its advantages, I suppose. There are more options for the kids, not many of which are worth having. (My own recollection of a childhood without pay TV is that I mostly watched prime-time programming--the Muppet Show, of course, but action and sci-fi shows like A-Team, Airwolf, and Automan come to mind.) We decided to pay extra for DVR, which has the distinct benefit of eliminating commercials from much of our viewing. Mostly the broader selection seems to have had the negative effect of niche viewing. Where before Julie and I used to spend time after the kids went to bed watching sit-coms and a few action dramas like Alias and Lost, now she has a long list of TLC-type programming and I have local government TV. I can only take so much of little people and hoarders and coupon clippers, and my tolerance for shows about wedding dresses and giving birth is almost non-existent. She groans in what I assume is agony, if she happens to walk through the room and catch 15 seconds of a school board meeting.

One of the few shows that we have managed to watch together is Sister Wives. I guess it meets all the usual requirements of standard TLC fare--prying into someone else's family life, border-line freak show, abnormal numbers of kids, and the tired format of reality TV, where even the most mundane moments are supposed to generate suspense and tension. I'm mostly interested in the phenomenon of polygamy--interested enough, I guess, that I can put up with the rest of it.

I should say, I'm not a polygamist in reality or in principle. Personally, I can't imagine how or why anyone would want to have more than one wife. Sustaining one such relationship takes enough energy, and as I've told Julie, I don't even envision myself remarrying if something ever happened to her. I also don't think polygamy was ever God's intent for human relationships; but the fact is, he did allow it. And that, I think, is significant.

From Mesopotamian law, we get a picture of polygamy for expedience. The motivation seems to be mostly childbearing. If a first wife couldn't produce, a second wife might be taken. Laws were provided to protect the rights of the first wife, since the wife with children might otherwise supplant her as more valuable. This same pattern plays out in the Bible, with Sarah and Hagar and later with Leah and Rachel. The only other kind of polygamy we see is when Israel's kings start taking multiple wives for political reasons. Both types seem to produce negative side-effects--internal family strife, religious compromise, and even tribal warfare. But they are tolerated within limits, as is divorce, probably to prevent the kind of actions people might have taken without that allowance. (Think, Henry VIII . . . )

What's harder for me to understand is polygamy that seems to be valued for its own sake. I've heard--though I'm no authority on the subject--that Mormon doctrine teaches salvation for the man as head of a household, where his wives' salvation depends on their relationship to him. I suppose, if that is widely known and accepted, it could be a motivation to extend salvation through marriage. But is that really a doctrinal difference between mainstream Mormons and the polygamist type? Or is it simply that polygamy became a cultural norm within Mormonism, and some conservatives turned it into a religious conviction, mostly because their church betrayed that practice? The reason for polygamy never really seems to be addressed in the show--it's presented as a lifestyle choice, often based on upbringing, but otherwise without much explanation.

But I think it's this presentation as a lifestyle choice that holds my attention. In a culture where we've come to accept extramarital sex, cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and even same-sex marriage as more or less a matter of personal choice, why do we look at polygamy as just some obscure freak-show fodder? As a Christian, I look at the options out there, and I see polygamy as a whole lot more defensible than most of them. I'm sure there are abuses, and I would guess that making it illegal skews the numbers of those willing to make that choice toward the lunatic fringe. But the family in the show seems reasonably healthy--arguably, a good deal more healthy than so many half-families and re-mixed families resulting from divorce. The women chose this relationship as adults. The kids seem to interact well together. They seem to be getting by financially. I'm not even sure how they can be prosecuted, since he's only married legally to one of the four wives; but in any case it seems like an archaic legal stance to consider this criminal activity, while a man sleeping with multiple women but married to none of them would be considered safe, legal, and normal.

Is it that we just haven't had enough activism directed at recognizing polygamy as a lifestyle choice? Is it that we're culturally biased to accept choices that destroy family more easily than those that promote it? I don't know, but I can't escape the feeling that this is something worth defending. I wouldn't want to be polygamist, I wouldn't advise polygamy. But if we're destined to have a culture of choice, how can we possibly rule it out as an unacceptable option? And maybe, just maybe, having polygamy as a viable option on one end of the spectrum would help to create a more balanced perspective on traditional family.

from the Akathist for the Repose of Those Who Have Fallen Asleep

2011-05-02T14:05:00.002-04:00

I'm no friend of Osama bin Ladin, and I'm not about to dispute whether he deserved to die. Still, as Gandalf told Frodo, "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life." If we can't give the latter, we shouldn't be too quick to cry for the former either.

The verse from Proverbs that you often hear quoted is interesting:

Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth (24:17)

but mostly, I think, for the words that follow:

Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.

Proverbs is mostly common sense wisdom about the world around us, and as such, it is often messy. We'd like this to be a more exalted standard--love your enemy as God does, or some such thing. But no, the point here is that God may care more about teaching you a lesson in humility than about justly executing your neighbor. Or to put it in more secular terms, dancing in the streets over the death of our opponent may have more far-reaching consequences than the death itself.

But for Christians, the standard is Jesus, is it not? He who rebuked his disciples for wanting to call down fire from heaven. He who forgave his enemies while they were putting him to death. He who told us to love and pray for our enemies. I know it's not an easy standard, but what good would it be if it were? This is one of the things I love about liturgical prayer. There's no rule that says we must pray in the words of the Church, though we are certainly supposed to pray with her heart. When we don't know how to do that, we have a wealth of model language to help us. Here, then, are a few pertinent sections from the Akathist for the Repose of Those Who Have Fallen Asleep:

Kontakion 2

Enlightened by the illumination of the Most High, Saint Macarius heard a voice from a pagan skull: "When you pray for those suffering in Hell, there is relief for the heathen." O wonderful power of Christian prayer, by which even the infernal regions are illumined! Both believers and unbelievers receive comfort when we cry for the whole world: ALLELUIA.

Ikos 3

O Glad Light, Redeemer of the world, embracing the whole universe with Thy love: behold, Thy cry from the Cross for Thine enemies is heard: "Father, forgive them." In the name of Thine all-forgiving love we make bold to pray to our Heavenly Father for the eternal repose of Thine enemies and ours.
Forgive, O Lord,
those who have shed innocent blood,
those who have sown our path of life with sorrows,
those who have waded to prosperity through the tears of their neighbors.
Condemn not, O Lord,
those who persecute us with slander and malice.
Repay with mercy those whom we have wronged or offended through ignorance,
and grant that our prayer for them may be holy through the sacrament of reconciliation.
O Lord of unutterable Love, remember Thy servants who have fallen asleep.

Kontakion 5

Thou hast given us death as a last prodigy to bring us to our senses and to repentance, O Lord. In its threatening light, earthly vanity is exposed, carnal passions and sufferings become subdued, insubmissive reason is humbled. Eternal justice and righteousness opens to our gaze, and then the godless and those burdened with sins confess on their deathbed Thy real and eternal existence and cry to Thy mercy: ALLELUIA.

Ikos 5

O Father of all consolation and comfort, Thou brightenest with the sun, delightest with fruits, and gladdenest with the beauty of the world both Thy friends and enemies.
And we believe that even beyond the grave Thy loving kindness,
which is merciful even to all rejected sinners, does not fail.
We grieve for hardened and wicked blasphemers of Thy Holiness.
May Thy saving and gracious will be over them.
Forgive, O Lord,
those who have died without repentance.
Save those who have committed suicide in the darkness of their mind,
that the flame of their sinfulness may be extinguished in the ocean of Thy grace.
O Lord of unutterable Love, remember Thy servants who have fallen asleep.

Kontakion 6

Terrible is the darkness of a soul separated from God, the torments of conscience, the gnashing of teeth, the unquenchable fire and the undying worm. I tremble at the thought of such a fate, and I pray for those suffering in Hell as for myself. May our song descend upon them as refreshing dew as we sing: ALLELUIA.

Ikos 6

Thy light, O Christ our God, has shone upon those sitting in the darkness and shadow of death and those in Hell who cannot cry to Thee. Descend into the infernal regions of the earth, O Lord, and bring out into the joy of grace Thy children who have been separated from Thee by sin but who have not rejected Thee.
For they suffer cruelly. Have mercy on them.
For they sinned against Heaven and before Thee,
and their sins are infinitely grievous,
and Thy mercy is infinite.
Visit the bitter misery of souls separated from Thee.
Have mercy, O Lord, on those who hated the truth out of ignorance.
May Thy love be to them not a consuming fire
but the coolness of Paradise:
O Lord of unutterable Love, remember Thy servants who have fallen asleep.

six geese a-laying

2010-12-27T21:27:00.004-05:00

It recently occurred to me that I was literally born to celebrate Christmas in the traditional order. What do I mean? Well, let me start with the order. These days, the Christmas season starts sometime in November. I suppose at this point, you'd have to say the "traditional" start is black Friday. Curmudgeons grumble when decorations and piped-in Christmas carols appear before Thanksgiving. The proper start is to haul out the decorations the weekend after, get a live tree if that's your thing, and start shopping, baking, etc. It's the season of church and office parties, all leading up to the main event on December 25. Once the presents are opened, food is packed away, and guests have gone home, it's time to take down the decorations. If you're especially lazy or busy traveling, you might let things go until New Year's.

But it wasn't always that way. We still sing about 12 days of Christmas. Some of us might even have a vague awareness of the Twelfth Night--either as a Shakespearean title or as a geeky excuse to drag out the Renaissance Fair costumes in winter. But what does it mean? 12 days, staring from December 25; that takes you to January 5. Why? Because Epiphany (Theophany in the East) falls on January 6--the next big feast on the calendar ends the Christmas season. Note: the traditional season does not end but starts on December 25. Formally, it ends at Epiphany, but in some places the celebration can actually extend into February.

Traditionally, the season before Christmas Day was Advent--the preparation for the feast. Instead of a month of lesser parties, Christmas songs, and shopping, you had 40 days of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. It was a preparation of the heart for the feast. This is still a common observance among Eastern Orthodox. Among Western Christians, there is sometimes the positive spiritual preparation of the Advent Wreath. I've even spoken with at least one person who knew about an ascetic pre-Christmas season that might preclude listening to Christmas music. I don't think he was Orthodox--perhaps there are vestiges in Roman Catholic practice as well.

But generally speaking, the greatest hardship of the Advent Fast these days is how it runs counter to what everyone else is doing. For a month leading up to Christmas, you must politely abstain from offered foods or other aspects of our culture's pre-celebration. Then, the day finally arrives, and once again you're out of sync. You're finally ready to celebrate, but everyone else wants to put away the decorations and move on to something else.

Fortunately, there is New Year's Eve, which we can all celebrate together. (Apologies--and sympathy--to those of you still following the Julian calendar.) But aside from that, it's hard--especially for an introvert like me--to keep the celebration going on my own. Having visiting family helps--you retain something of a festive atmosphere just because you're together with those you don't see often.

But the point of all this is that my birthday also helps. I was born on the sixth day of Christmas, so I get the advantage of an extra excuse to celebrate. This realization not only encourages me in my feeble attempts to do something with the season; it's also a positive spin on something I've long lamented--the fact that my birthday comes so close to Christmas. And I'm happy to sacrifice December 30 as "my day," if it contributes to his.

sources on St. Peter

2010-12-14T12:40:00.002-05:00

Peter the Aleut is perhaps the most obscure Orthodox saint associated with North America. Very little is known about him, except the account of his martyrdom. And even that is a bit fuzzy, having originated with the testimony of one eyewitness, and recorded in a handful of written reports.

Unfortunately, the transcript of the 1819 eyewitness testimony does not appear to have made it into English yet. It is supposed to have been published in the first volume of the Russian collection Russia in California (ed. by J. Gibson, A. Istomin, V. Tishkov; 2005), with a planned English translation to follow. But I can't find any indication that the English translation has appeared, and since I don't read Russian, it wouldn't do me any good to track down a copy of the original.

A copy of his testimony is said to have been included with the earliest formal report, sent back to St. Petersburg in 1820 by Simeon Ivanovich Yanovsky, chief manager of the Russian Colonies from 1818 to 1820. It would appear that the written testimony was in fact included, since the administrator of the Russian American Company sent a much longer account to Tsar Alexander I later that year. Yanovsky, who eventually became a monk, wrote 45 years later in a letter to Igumen Damascene of Valaam Monastery about his relating the event to St. Herman. It is this last account that is usually repeated in lives of St. Peter.

Yanovsky's 1865 letter is a logical choice for this purpose, not only because it feels more hagiographical than the other accounts, but also because it cites St. Herman himself acknowledging Peter's sainthood. From a historical standpoint, this endorsement may not mean much, but his reaction of simple faith can serve as an example for the rest of us.

Both of Yanovsky's letters are reproduced in The Russian Orthodox Religious Mission in America, 1794-1837. His superior's longer report was published a decade later, in The Russian-American Colonies, To Siberia and Russian America: Three Centuries of Russian Eastward Expansion. All three are quoted in an article by Raymond A. Bucko, S.J., which is helpfully available online, though quite negatively slanted.

A special problem with Peter's martyrdom is identifying the actual location. Both of the 1820 reports indicate that the hunting party was taken captive somewhere on the Bay of San Pedro in 1815, and the eyewitness returned and gave his testimony in 1819. There is no evidence of a mission at San Pedro, so they may have been taken 30 miles north to San Gabriel. From here we're told that most of the party was taken 100 miles west to Santa Barbara, but that only two were placed in prison. It is unclear whether this means they were left imprisoned at the original mission, or were taken on to Santa Barbara with the others and imprisoned there. The former scenario seems more likely, since we're told the eyewitness was taken to Santa Barbara after Peter's death.

singin' "this'll be the day that I die"

2010-12-01T18:34:00.004-05:00

I guess I'm what you would call a historical drinker. I have no inclination to get drunk. I don't drink because I'm in any particular mood. I don't have much of a taste for many types of alcohol. I only drink socially sometimes. But most of my significant motivators have been historical.

In Akkadian class we learned about how Mesopotamia and Egypt were beer cultures, while Palestine was a wine culture. We read an article about how someone actually followed an ancient Sumerian recipe to brew a modern equivalent, and I remember thinking that it would be interesting to sample.

Sometime later, I was exploring Christmas traditions--actually trying to give more meaning to the season--and got interested in wassail. I never did come up with a good recipe, but I gave it a shot--that might be the first beer I ever bought. (Well, I think Julie bought it, but at my request.)

I reacted to the low-carb craze with indignation. Bread in one form or another has been a staple of just about every culture on earth. For most of human history, meat was too expensive to eat very often. I wanted nothing to do with a diet plan that reversed this trend. Drinking beer (liquid bread) was one form of rebellion.

More recently, I was looking up the differences between types of spirits out of curiosity. (Yes, that's what a serious drinker I am--three months ago, I couldn't have told you the difference between bourbon and brandy.) I noticed that several were tied to specific locales--bourbon to Kentucky, vodka to Russia, and of course scotch. I began to wonder--was there a spirit indigenous to Maryland?

Well, as it turns out, there is--or was. Before Prohibition, there were two main variants of American rye whiskey--Pennsylvania and Maryland. There was a minor revival of the industry after the ban was lifted, but over the next few decades labels went under or were sold off. Eventually, rye production--what remained of it--moved entirely to Kentucky. As it happens, the Pennsylvania variety survived almost exclusively. To my knowledge, the last rye to be produced in Maryland, and the only authentic Maryland style rye being distilled today, is Pikesville.

Yes, "rye" is an actual drink, not just a delicious kind of bread. It makes a good deal more sense, now that I know what "them good old boys were drinking" with their whiskey in "American Pie" (the song, not the film). And appropriate, too, that the drink is featured in a song about death and memories. The Free State, where Governor Ritchie thumbed his nose at Prohibition, now has some of the toughest liquor laws in the Union and trucks its favorite drinks from elsewhere.

Anyway, lucky for me the stuff is cheap. At $13, it wasn't too big a risk to buy a bottle and give it a try. (And speaking of cheap, I've already figured out that, matched drink for drink, it's a good deal more economical than beer.) So, how has it gone?

I figured I ought to start by trying it more or less unadulterated. I wasn't quite ready to start pounding shots (don't even own a shot glass), so I had it on the rocks. I don't know enough of the terminology to say what I didn't like about it, but I decided pretty quickly that I'd need to mix it somehow.
My next attempt was a rye sour. That looked pretty simple to make and didn't require any ingredients I didn't already have. Success. The concoction was much more palatable.
I'd seen somewhere that rye was the traditional base for a Manhattan. I didn't have vermouth or bitters, and I didn't want to buy them before knowing what I was getting into, so I ordered one while we were out for dinner. Maybe Red Lobster just doesn't make a good Manhattan, but it tasted almost exactly like cough syrup. Guess I'll stick with the sour.
I also ran across a description of a hot toddy, which is essentially a whiskey sour served hot. Tried one of those the other day--that wasn't too bad either. OK, so now I have a couple of options for using up the bottle.

Well, the other night I was killing some time in the liquor store while waiting to pick up a prescription for Julie. My beer of choice actually is brewed in Maryland (a microbrew, of course--Natty Boh moved away years ago), and I was looking for something to have on-hand. (You never know when you might want to bring something to a party, especially around this time of year.) I decided to pick up a six-pack of imperial stout. I'm not a big fan of hops, so I lean more toward darker beers. I was looking up online this morning to see exactly what makes something a stout (again, you see what an expert I am), and somehow I came across a reference to Diageo, the parent company of Guiness.

What? Diageo makes alcohol? Well, yes. As a matter of fact, they make Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys, J&B, Captain Morgan, . . . they make a lot. But the reason for my double-take is that there's a Diageo plant just up Rt. 1, on the other side of the river in Relay. I've driven by it countless times--on the way to church, on the way to Walmart, on the way to get pit beef, etc. Pretty much everything around here sends you up or down Rt. 1, so odds are pretty good I'm going past the Diageo plant. I had no idea what they did.

I put up a comment on Facebook, and a friend who grew up in the area says it used to smell like whiskey driving Rt. 1 through Relay. Apparently it was once Maryland's largest distillery (including rye), back when it looked something like this:

After Prohibition, Seagram's bought Calvert Distilling Company. Diageo bought Seagram's somewhere around 2000, but before that happened, the distilling operation in Relay shut down. I haven't discovered exactly what they do there now--distribution, and probably bottling? It doesn't smell like whiskey anymore, so I assume they're not distilling. They do, however, turn up here and there in lists of environmental violations, including something about radioactive materials--no idea what that is.

From Maryland rye to miscellaneous alcohol--the story of a state, the story of a town. Sometimes being a localist is just depressing.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T05:19:00.003-05:00

Our parish observes this American holiday at Wednesday compline by singing the Akathist of Thanksgiving. It's not what you might think. Although the Akathist was composed quite recently, it had nothing to do with Pilgrims and sweet potatoes. The hymn is attributed to a priest Gregory Petrov and is said to have been discovered after his death in a Soviet prison camp. I liken it to the Mourner's Kaddish in Jewish tradition, which is recited by those who have recently lost a loved one. The prayer itself seems to have nothing to do with mourning but is rather a beautiful praise to God. Similarly, the Akathist was apparently written amid intense suffering, but its focus is praise for God's manifold goodness. In both cases, the message seems to be that our greatest need to offer praise and thanksgiving is when things aren't going so well--when the only alternative is to slander God for his silence, laziness, or capricious violence.

Still, if we need such expressions most when life is at its worst, that hardly means they can't apply as well in less dire circumstances. So I think it's a good meditation for Thanksgiving Day and probably for the rest of the year. I actually went through the hymn not long ago to pull out some lines that might be useful to memorize for various occasions. In some Jewish prayer books there is a section of short blessings to be said in situations that might come up as we go through our daily lives. I thought it would be nice to have something comparable to work with, though admittedly I haven't thought much about it since.

Anyway, here's the list I came up with. (Certainly there could be others.) A few bracketed items were actually drawn from other blessings, but most of what's here is from the Akathist.

Food

Feast: Glory to Thee for the feast of life!
[Bread: Glory to Thee, who didst bless the five loaves and didst therewith feed the five thousand!
Meat: Glory to Thee, who didst command the fatted calf to be slain for thy son who had gone astray, and who had returned again to Thee!]
Fruit: Glory to Thee for the delightful diversities of berries and of fruits!
[Wine: Glory to Thee, who permittest the fruit of the vine to come to maturity!
Other: Glory to Thee, the Creator and Maker of all things!]

Fragrance

Flowers: Glory to Thee for the perfume of lilies-of-the-valley and of roses!
Other: Glory to Thee Who hast brought forth from the earth’s darkness diverse colours, taste, and fragrance!

Daily Cycle

Morning: Glory to Thee for the diamond brilliance of morning dew!
Sunrise: Glory to Thee for the smile of light awakening!
Meditation: Glory to Thee for the happiness of living, moving, and meditating!
Manual Labor: Glory to Thee for the vivifying power of labour!
Service: Glory to Thee, Who transfigurest our life by good deeds!
Reward for Service: Glory to Thee, Who dost vouchsafe great rewards for precious good deeds!
Sunset: Glory to Thee for the farewell rays of the setting sun!
Evening: Glory to Thee in the tender hour of evening!
Night: Glory to Thee for Thy favour in the darkness, when all the world is distant!
Sleep: Glory to Thee for the rest of grace-filled sleep!

Encounters

Family/Friends: Glory to Thee for the love of kindred, and the faithfulness of friends!
Catechumen: Glory to Thee Who hast founded Thy Church as a quiet refuge for a spent world!
Newly Illumined: Glory to Thee Who renewest us by the life-giving waters of baptism!
Secular Thinker: Glory to Thee for the genius of the human mind!
Scripture/Saint: Glory to Thee for the fiery tongues of inspiration!
Other People: Glory to Thee for providential meetings with people!

Domestic Animals: Glory to Thee for the meekness of animals which serve me!
Wild Animals: Glory to Thee, for the thousands of Thy creatures Thou hast set round about us!
Nature: Glory to Thee Who hast revealed unto me the beauty of the universe!
Science: Glory to Thee Who hast shown Thine unfathomable power in the laws of the universe!
Revelation: Glory to Thee for all that Thou hast revealed unto us by Thy goodness!
Mystery: Glory to Thee for all that Thou hast concealed in Thy wisdom!
Grief: Glory to Thee, Who sendest failures and sorrows, that we might pity the sufferings of others!
Passage of Grief: Glory to Thee Who curest sorrows and bereavements with the healing passage of time!
Confession: Glory to Thee, Who restorest to penitents purity as a spotless lily!
Providence: Glory to Thee for providential coincidence of circumstances!

Who I'm voting for and why

2010-10-12T20:24:00.003-04:00

Election Day is coming, and I've been trying to sort out my votes. I present my choices and reasons here mostly for entertainment value. I don't consider myself a model voter, but my shortcomings are probably normal. I don't pay nearly enough attention to the specifics of what's going on in government. The election rolls around, and I don't even know whether I like the job most of the incumbents are doing or not (and those on whom I have an opinion, it's probably not for very good reasons), let alone what their challengers have to offer. I do what I can to inform myself--I watch the forums sponsored by the League of Women Voters, look at the candidates' Web sites, and try to pay attention if I see anything relevant in the local news. But in the end I'm probably just as bad a judge as anyone else of who should be elected. It's part of the reason that I lean monarchist, but when the day arrives, I still feel like I ought to vote. I may not have much idea why, but I want it to be something better than randomly punching the screen, or voting a party line.

Here, then, are my choices as they stand right now. I might still change my mind before the day arrives:

Governor: Eric Delano Knowles (C). Last time around, I voted for O'Malley. It seemed to me that Ehrlich couldn't speak for five minutes without promoting the legalization of slot machines in MD. He was (and probably still is) the rare Republican candidate who could win in MD--fine. But if he's going to make state-run moral corruption his thing, I'd rather have a bleeding-heart liberal. O'Malley wasn't any better, so I'm going with a third party. I can't really get on board with the Libertarian candidate's scheme to sell the Bay, and if I'm voting conservative I'd rather have someone who's pro-life. Knowles just seems like a better fit to my ideals. Not that I think any third-party candidate has a serious chance of winning, but I live by the assumption that I'm throwing away my vote one way or another. May as well do it with a clean conscience.

U. S. Senator: Eric Wargotz (R). I've never been a fan of the Mik. I'm not voting for him--I'm voting against her. Besides, Wargotz is just a cool name.

Congressional Representative: Jerry McKinley (L). I don't care much for Sarbanes either. He's Greek Orthodox, but sorry--that doesn't seem to make him a good representative of my views. He voted for TARP, which got him on my bad side, and I haven't seen anything to change my opinion since then. I was going to vote for the Republican candidate (who probably can't beat him anyway), but in the LWV forum he came across as angry and hypocritical. He kept attacking Sarbanes for being a lawyer, a career politician, and the son of a career politician. But his idea of bringing in someone from the private sector is a guy who went from the military to defense contracting. Nice try. McKinley had similar views on the issues but sounded a lot more comfortable and level-headed.

State Senator: Edward J. Kasemeyer (D). I've had a few opportunities to hear Kasemeyer answer questions, and he seems to have his head screwed on right. I don't follow state politics all that closely, so I don't have much to go by, but I haven't had occasion to object to any stance he's taken. The Republican candidate, as with the guy running for Congress, is just way too emotional. I dunno--maybe it's the Tea Party thing. Do Republicans think they have to seem perpetually outraged to show they're hip with the times?

State Delegates: James E. Malone Jr. (D) and Joe Hooe (R). This one was a tough call. For those who don't know, we elect two delegates in our sub-district, and my inclination is to go with both parties for the sake of balance. I didn't find much about Hooe's views that I disliked, and he doesn't try to paint himself (at least, not on his Web site) as a big Ehrlich supporter. Plus, he has a cool name and a slogan to go with it. It was kind of a toss-up for me between the incumbents, but I do like Malone's constituent service. If both my picks got elected, at least they'd have in common their love for rhymes.

County Executive: Ken Ulman (D). As far as I can tell, Ulman has done a decent job. In any case, I'm not convinced of the Republicans' argument, that the current budget situation is mostly due to the poor management of the Democrats. We've obviously had a bad economy to deal with over the past few years, and we're doing a lot better than many local governments.

County Council: Courtney Watson (D). Possibly the only candidate I have a serious opinion about is Councilwoman Watson. I've tried to follow the actions of the council, and in general, I've been impressed both with her competence as Council Chair and with her thinking on issues. She's been responsive when I've contacted her about concerns, she seems to have a good understanding of what's important to her constituents, and her politics are generally balanced between left and right. I can only laugh when the Republican candidate accuses her of being a tax-and-spend liberal and part of the entrenched Democratic control of the county.

Circuit Court Clerk: Jason Reddish (D). I read an article the other day about the races for Court Clerk and Register of Wills. Both offices are currently held by Republican women well beyond retirement age; both are being challenged by Democratic men in their 20s. The main reason I even have an opinion is that jobs are hard enough to find these days. I didn't get the impression that either of the incumbents really needs the income, so I favor giving the jobs to the younger challengers, who are of an age when they should be employed. Beyond that, the article mentioned that the Court Clerk's office is badly in need of automation, and if this guy has ideas for making that happen, I say, let him give it a shot.

Register of Wills: Byron Macfarlane (D). See above.

Board of Education: Robert D. Ballinger II, Leslie Kornreich, Brian Meshkin, and David E. Proudfoot. This is a difficult category for me. None of the candidates really stands out, and I'm supposed to vote for four of them. I don't care much for the two incumbents. Aquino seems too arrogant, and French is a Communist who wants to take children away from their parents and brainwash them 24/7. (I'm kidding--but I definitely disagree with her view that we need longer school days and fewer breaks. There are plenty of activities for students who want to (or whose parents want them to) spend all their time away from home, but for parents who still want time to educate their own children in skills and values that they won't get from public school, there needs to be a limit to institutionalization. Ballinger seems to care very genuinely, not only about doing a good job with our kids' education, but also about listening to the voters for their input. Kornreich's platform is far too narrow, but I'm not convinced she'd be worse than any of the others, and she is from Elkridge. Meshkin seems to have some decent ideas and experience on advisory committees for the school board in the past. Proudfoot works in education and seems to have a good handle on the issues. Plus, it's hard to resist the name.

Constitutional Convention: No. This seems to be a formality. The state constitution requires that they ask every 20 years whether we want a convention. Since I'm not at all convinced that we could craft a better constitution today, I say "no."

Jury Trial Amendment: No. The current limit on a civil trial to request a jury is $10k. The amendment would raise the limit to $15k. I don't have much to go on here, but since jury trials are a basic right in our society, I'd rather not see the minimum increase unless someone really convinces me it's necessary.

Baltimore Orphan's Court Amendment: No. Currently there is no requirement in the City of Baltimore that Orphan's Court judges be qualified lawyers. I would guess that in most cases people will probably vote for qualified lawyers anyway (assuming they know or care), but I like the idea of leaving it open to the will of the people.

There are several other offices on the ballot, most of them unopposed, which I'm not going to bother voting on if I know nothing about the candidate. Going forward, I want to pay more consistent attention to county government and school board issues. We have the cable channels--may as well make use of them. Maybe in another two-to-four years I'll be in a better position to make some of these choices. It wouldn't hurt to keep myself better informed about state politics either, though I'm not sure of the best way to do that. National politics really don't concern me much. By the time you get to that level, I have absolutely no hope that my opinion makes any difference anyway.

slowly getting the hang of this bike repair thing

2010-10-09T14:13:00.002-04:00

For some reason, I've never done much in the way of working on stuff. I can change the oil in the car if I have to (since we don't have ramps, I usually don't), but I have to take it to a guy for pretty much everything else. We rented our entire adult life until two years ago, and then we bought a new house under warranty, so that hasn't generated much work either. One thing that riding a bike has done is get me fixing something.

I guess I looked at it as a fresh start. I'd never been a serious cyclist, so there was no reason I ought to have known how to work on one. Plus, part of my agenda in riding a bike is that it's a friendlier mode of transportation. It's cheap to operate, cheap to fix even if you do pay someone else to do the work, and relatively easy to learn to do it yourself. So, I'm learning--slowly, but surely.

I learned basic maintenance like greasing the chain and tightening the brakes early on. I think the first real repairs it needed were a bald back tire and a busted shifter cable. More recently, I've had several flat tires and botched almost as many patch jobs. (Maybe it's just not worth it, but the last one was on a brand new tube that I might have punctured while putting it in. I had to try.) One thing I'm getting really comfortable with is taking off the back wheel, which used to worry me. I was always concerned that I wouldn't know how to put it back on, but after so many times taking it on and off, I feel confident that I could change a back tire on the side of the road if I had to.

This time, in addition to the flat tire (which went flat again after the first three attempts), my chain broke the same day. I didn't have a chain tool, and I wasn't sure I'd know how to get the chain back on the rear derailer properly, so I figured this time I'd let the bike shop install it. It was only $10, and I had enough other stuff to deal with (on a weekend when I'm alone with the kids, no less), so I think it was worth it. It wouldn't shift properly afterward, so I had to figure out the adjustment on that (at least, I think I figured it out). Also, for some reason the rear brake was dragging, which wasn't hard to deal with.

I continue to discover advantages to owning a bike that's probably older than I am. ("Old school," I've heard it called more than once.) I went into the shop expecting to get a $35 10-speed chain. The guy looked at it and said, "Oh, you mean a 5-speed." He went and found a chain that cost half as much, which I guess more than covered the installation charge. Also, after reading online about the various adjustments that might or might not need to be made to address my shifting problem, I discovered that my derailer apparently only has one adjustment mechanism--a single screw that moves it closer to the wheel when you tighten it and further away when you loosen it. The shifting is by no means perfect (it never was), but it will hit all the gears now, so I guess it was a success. Maybe it would be possible to get a better fit with a newer, more complicated derailer. But at least I didn't have to figure one out at this point.

I suppose the drawback is that I'm learning how to fix an obsolete bike. If I ever do get a new one, will I have to learn bicycle repair all over again? It can also be tricky finding the parts that I need for it, and something as simple as mounting a water bottle rack becomes more complicated. At least no one seems interested in stealing it, which may be the best feature of all.

the terrifying world of E. B. White

2010-10-01T08:51:00.002-04:00

"You children be quiet till we get the pig unloaded," said Mrs. Arable.
"Let's let the children go off by themselves," suggested Mr. Arable. "The Fair only comes once a year." Mr. Arable gave Fern two quarters and two dimes. He gave Avery five dimes and four nickels. "Now run along!" he said. "And remember, the money has to last all day. Don't spend it all the first few minutes. And be back here at the truck at noontime so we can all have lunch together. And don't eat a lot of stuff that's going to make you sick to your stomachs."
"And if you go in those swings," said Mrs. Arable, "you hang on tight! You hang on very tight. Hear me?"
"And don't get lost!" said Mrs. Zuckerman.
"And don't get dirty!"
"Don't get overheated!" said their mother.
"Watch out for pickpockets!" cautioned their father.
"And don't cross the race track when the horses are coming!" cried Mrs. Zuckerman.
The children grabbed each other by the hand and danced off in the direction of the merry-go-round, toward the wonderful music and the wonderful adventure and the wonderful excitement, into the wonderful midway where there would be no parents to guard them and guide them, and where they could be happy and free and do as they pleased. Mrs. Arable stood quietly and watched them go. Then she sighed. Then she blew her nose.
"Do you really think it's all right?" she asked.
"Well, they've got to grow up some time," said Mr. Arable. "And a fair is a good place to start, I guess."

And that was the last time they ever saw those dear, sweet children . . . oh, wait. Here it is:

At noon the Zuckermans and the Arables returned to the pigpen. Then, a few minutes later, Fern and Avery showed up. Fern had a monkey doll in her arms and was eating Crackerjack. Avery had a balloon tied to his ear and was chewing a candied apple. The children were hot and dirty.

Two Romanian Elders Discuss Salvation and God's Mercy

2010-08-30T07:26:00.002-04:00

This dialog appeared in The Orthodox Word 272 (2010) 148-51. I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that it beautifully captures the complexity of Orthodox soteriology. There's always this tension between faith and humility, such that it's almost impossible to express without an apparent contradiction.

In 1996, two contemporary spiritual fathers, Fr. Teofil (Paraian) and Fr. Arsenie (Papacioc), met at Techirghiol Monastery in Romania. Fr. Arsenie was a spiritual son of Elder Cleopa (Ilie). He was imprisoned numerous times by the authorities, and at times lived in the wilderness to avoid further arrest. Although an ascetic himself, he is known for counsels on moderation, in combination with continual watchfulness. Today, at the age of 95, he continues to be the spiritual father at Techirghiol Women's Monastery. Fr. Teofil was a hieromonk at the Transylvanian monastery of Simbata de Sus. Born blind, he nevertheless completed his theological studies, learned three languages, and stuidied Patristic texts recorded on cassette tapes. He became one of the great luminaries of the Romanian Church in the twentieth century. He reposed on October 29, 2009, in the rank of archimandrite. Here is a part of that conversation:

Fr. T: Are you certain that all will be well for you in eternity?
Fr. A: I could not say that, most venerable Father! Please, believe me when I say, "I'm the only one who won't be saved!"
Fr. T: Do you believe so?
Fr. A: Yes, but I have great hope!
Fr. T: If you're hopeful, why do you express yourself like that?
Fr. A: The mind in hell and the hope in God! Without the grace of God, our deeds don't save us in any way.
Fr. T: Well . . . but it's impossible for God not to want to save us!
Fr. A: Yes, but I can't impose conditions on Him!
Fr. T: Well, without imposing conditions, God being Love . . .
Fr. A: Most venerable Father, I somehow in all honesty before a father confessor say: I will be saved because I suffered . . .
Fr. T: I honestly tell you that I have the certainty that I will go to the good, but not for my deeds!
Fr. A: I only hope!
Fr. T: Well, I can say that I have the certitude that if I hope . . .
Fr. A: This is not an Orthodox position!
Fr. T: Maybe I'm not Orthodox?
Fr. A: The truth is that our deeds don't save us in any way without God's mercy!
Fr. T: Do you know what I'll say to God when I'm standing in front of Him? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! I won't say anything else to Him!
Fr. A: I made myself a [burial] cross at Zamfira Monastery, where I confess to Fr. Gavril (Stoica), and this is what I wrote on the Cross: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus--forgive me!
Fr. T: I can't imagine God saying, "I don't want you," after I've lived with Him all of my life.
Fr. A: He loves us so much, and this gives me hope!
Fr. T: Father, if we count on God's mercy, we need not hesitate!
Fr. A: I don't want to count on God's mercy without considering our life and deeds. The salvation process involves not just the grace of God, but also our deeds. If only He could find us on the way. The struggle is to be on the way and to be honest with the fight!
Fr. T: I don't worry, because I have confidence in God's goodness!
Fr. A: I worry, but I'm also hopeful!
Fr. T: It's extraordinary when you say this, since God is our Father!
Fr. A: Yes, but I can't say that I have the certitude of salvation!
Fr. T: But why can't you say it?
Fr. A: If God allows me, I will say this on my deathbed: "God, I thank Thee that I die a monk!" But I have the thought that my deeds are leading me to hell. If God wants to save me, He can do it! But I can't say for sure that He will forgive me.
Fr. T: But I am sure that He forgives us!
Fr. A: I also have hope in the Lord! He even told St. Silouan, "Keep thy mind in hell and despair not!" The world does not yet know how much God loves us, how "passionately in love" with us God is!
Fr. T: You see how beautifully you say it.
Fr. A: But I can't say that I have certitude. Only the Protestants say that they have the surety of salvation. For our deeds don't save us without the grace of God; and the grace of God only comes if there is authentic humility. Can I say that I'm humble?

the impermeable Shire

2010-06-26T05:38:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure I have a favorite movie, but if forced to answer the question, I usually refer to the Lord of the Rings project (which is technically more than one movie, but it's a more satisfying answer than nothing). It was an amazing effort, and the result was probably about as successful as anyone could have hoped for. But I'm really a fan of the books. I can enjoy the movies, and that says a lot, but my loyalty is to the original.

Can you blame me? I started reading LOTR when I was in fourth grade and averaged something like 1.5 reps per year until I finished high school (including the Hobbit and the Silmarillion). I traced maps, charted family trees, practiced runes, and imagined myself in the stories for countless hours while mowing the lawn. Those books were the gold standard not only for their own story but for just about everything else I ever read.

Fortunately, I was not quite such a fanatic by the time the movies came out. I was much less obsessed, and I think in general I had matured to the point that I realized a movie must always distort the book on which it is based. To a great extent, I could accept the changes made. They ran upwards of three hours each, with extended DVD versions even longer, but there was still no way they could include everything. And some interactions just don't work on film like they do on paper. I get that.

I probably hadn't watched the movies since 2004, when the last one came out on DVD. Sitting down to watch just one of them without the others seems silly, and carving out enough time to watch all three extended versions (alone, because the kids weren't old enough, and Julie wasn't crazy enough) is no small task. But for a while I'd been thinking about just starting to watch in bits and pieces and eventually getting through. I finally started the other day, and of course it didn't happen like that. I watched roughly one full disc at a sitting and finished in less than a week.

I was surprised to find that, not only could I stomach most of the changes, but I actually had that tingling in the back of my head when the elvish contingent showed up for the battle of Helm's Deep. It's spurious but moving nonetheless.

But the Scouring of the Shire. Jackson not only ignored it--he threw it hurtling from the top of Orthanc to a grisly death below. (Don't feel bad for Saruman--he may not make it to the end of the movie, but he gets an inflated role earlier to make up for it.) The discovery of Longbottom Leaf is retained (at least in the extended version), but is reduced to mere nostalgia instead of the ominous sign that it is in the book.

You could chalk it up to mere length, but as I recall they explicitly stated their reasons, and a significant motivation was that it just seemed to drag out the story anyway. The war is over, so wrap things up and be done with it. But this time watching, I had an epiphany. (I'm sure many have seen it already, but I'm slow with these things.) The Scouring of the Shire (and its absence) has a lot to do with the context in which the story is written.

If you don't know, the Scouring of the Shire is the penultimate act of the story. After the war ends, Aragorn is crowned and married, and everyone travels back home, there remains the task of mending the hobbits' beloved Shire. It comes out that Saruman was deeply involved with that part of Middle Earth, and his henchmen were running things at the expense of the hobbits. The movies get his obsession with machinery and progress; in the books this obsession wrecks the agrarian Shire even after the war seems over. The four hobbits return, Saruman meets his end, and the cleanup process begins.

Tolkien wrote LOTR in the context of WWII. As in most of Europe, the war did not end for England when Berlin fell. There was physical damage to repair, and there were lasting political changes as a result of the war effort (many of which, I would guess, Tolkien also thought needed repair). War had changed the home front, even if its worst effects were elsewhere.

But in 21st c. America (and although Jackson is from New Zealand, I still think it's an American movie), wars don't affect us here at home. Sure, you might get the occasional raid by a Black Rider or two, but the real combat is safely contained somewhere else. Our lifestyle doesn't have to change (if it did, the terrorists would win), our economy doesn't change (well . . . ). War is someone else's problem. The only negative effect is when soldiers return with their scars and have trouble assimilating back into "normal" life. And the life they return to is hopelessly normal. So, instead of the Scouring, we get a scene of the four heroes sitting in the Green Dragon, exchanging knowing looks.

Of course the Scouring seems to drag out the story needlessly when viewed from our perspective. Having a ravaged home after returning from war seems like a superfluous and cruel addition, not a predictable consequence. Tolkien couldn't write his story without it, because it was the stark reality of war. Jackson couldn't write his story with it, because if our wars change anyone's life, it's certainly not ours.

Passion Gospels

2010-04-02T09:19:00.002-04:00

I was curious about exactly how much material was covered in the twelve Passion Gospel readings. The passages are:

John 13:31--18:1
John 18:1-28
Matt 26:57-75
John 18:28--19:16
Matt 27:3-32
Mark 15:16-32
Matt 27:33-54
Luke 23:32-49
John 19:25-37
Mark 15:43-47
John 19:38-42
Matt 27:62-66

Now, the first obvious observation is that these readings do not include the full text of all four Gospels; nor, for that matter, do they contain the full text of any of the four Gospels. John dominates in terms of overall length, mostly because of the first reading, which consists of exclusive material--Jesus's teachings from the Last Supper. But even setting aside that reading, John still ties with Matthew for the most repeat visits. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the impression that the selection mostly revolves around John and Matthew, with Luke and Mark brought in for more thorough coverage of the crucifixion, death, and burial. This is a sensible strategy, given that Matthew is one of the more comprehensive of the Synoptic Gospels, while John's material regularly departs from that of the other three.

Even so, it should be expected that some of the material unique to Luke will be omitted, and that is in fact the case. Particularly, Luke's longer account of the walk to Golgotha is missing, and more notably, the entire hearing before Herod. The Synoptic account of Jesus's prayers in the Garden also fails to make the cut, but it does turn up in the composite reading from the preceding vespers.

The overall flow of the twelve readings is chronological, with a good deal of overlap:

Johannine Last Supper teachings
arrest, Jewish trial, denial (John)
Jewish trial, denial (Matthew)
Roman trial, mockery (John)
Judas, Roman trial, mockery (Matthew)
mockery, crucifixion (Mark)
crucifixion, death (Matthew)
crucifixion, death (Luke)
crucifixion, death (John)
burial (Mark)
burial (John)
guard (Matthew)

Again, it seems that emphasis is placed (as one would expect) on the actual crucifixion. This is the only section covered by all four Gospels, including the sole reading from Luke. The mockery is covered in three Gospels, as is the death. Indeed, there is a loose rise-and-fall to the whole series, from single coverage of the Johannine teachings to double coverage of each trial and Peter's denials, to the core events of the mockery, crucifixion, and death, then back to double coverage of the burial, and Matthew's account of the Jews requesting a guard.

I'm still a bit puzzled as to the omission of the hearing before Herod. Was it incidental, merely a by-product of the overall preference for John and Matthew? Or was it intentional, and if so, why? I'm probably just forgetting something, but I can't recall Herod being mentioned in the liturgical texts of Holy Week. That wouldn't necessarily explain the omission, but it would be consistent. Perhaps it was enough to show both the Jewish side and the Roman side in Jesus's death. Is Herod superfluous in that sense? He seems to have a unique perspective, being mostly interested in Jesus as a wonder-worker. It's an obsession that can preach, but perhaps in the overall message of Jesus's death, it's just not that important.

my story (or a version thereof)

2010-03-30T11:49:00.002-04:00

In a group that Julie and I meet with, we've been discussing "our stories." I've long held the conviction that such things are necessarily selective and fluid, and rarely told the same way twice. So even though I've written down my story before, it's never come out quite this way. Read it as much for what it says about me now as for what it may say about my past:

My governing sins have always been in the areas of pride and vainglory. I have generally been confident in my own intellectual abilities, at the expense of everything else. I think I believed in God from as early as I can remember, but I didn't really start to take my faith seriously until I reached sixth grade. From that point on, I found ways to serve pride through religion.

My Sunday School teacher decided to pay students money as an incentive to read the Bible. That kind of mercenary spirituality would continue into my teen years, with quiz team and a camp scholarship program that required things like reading and Scripture memory. I also began to make friends with men in the church who were older than my parents. As a general practice, this could probably be a good opportunity for spiritual influence on youth, but in my case I saw it as another recognition of intellectual maturity beyond my years. They got me hooked on Christian apologetics, which encouraged me to "share my faith" through argumentation. Throughout high school, it became my personal crusade to show others that Christians (namely, I) could be intellectually respectable.

From time to time adults, impressed with my abilities, would suggest that I become a pastor. At first I scorned the idea, thinking that my intellectual abilities were too great for professional ministry. I had chosen engineering as a career when I was in fourth grade, and I wasn't ready to give up the opportunity to remind people of that choice. I spiritualized it by identifying a calling in my intellect--I, as a smart guy, was best suited to influence other smart guys. Anything less would be a waste of the talent God had given me. But my pride was multifaceted, and it wasn't long before I found a way to make professional ministry serve its ends.

I suppose there is probably some positive use to the notion of ministry as a higher calling, but it's hard for me to see it as anything better than a lesser evil. Men--especially men with a personality to lead--will generally take pride in their career. If they're going to explain why they chose the path of ministry, it will need to be framed as a step above whatever else they could have done. Hearing enough of this sort of thing eventually had its effect on me, and one summer I finally decided to throw my symbolic stick in the fire and dedicate my life to whatever God wanted me to do. Conveniently, God still wanted me to show off my intellect, just in a different field. I made a deal with him at that point--if he would save me from the embarrassment of a weak public speaking ability, I would go to Bible college. At the time, I really did believe that God must have made the difference; now, I'm not so sure it wasn't just the force of my own determination to excel in a different area. Either way, my pride remained.

My pastor tried to advise me against Bible college. He suggested getting a bachelor's degree in some other field, then going to seminary. That way I would have a fall-back career if I needed to support myself, and I would get a higher-level ministry education. I figured school was mostly just a formality anyway--I could learn whatever I needed to, when I needed to--so I wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. Worrying about a fall-back career would just be a sign of weakness. At the same time, I did recognize something about my own tendencies. I was genuinely concerned that if I gave myself too much opportunity I might choose something more comfortable than ministry. But the advice he gave was wiser than I imagined at the time, and it was arrogant to write it off so quickly.

In college, my focus began to shift away from apologetics to the core areas I was studying--Bible and theology. No longer surrounded by unbelievers who needed to be convinced that Christianity was true or respectable, I got my thrills from arguing with classmates about mostly pointless theological controversies. I was attracted (even when I disagreed) to the most intellectual and controversial of professors, and when authority clashed with heresy, I chose the latter. Even so, I had absorbed the narrow focus of the fundamentalist college I was attending. I ended up going on to seminary after all, and I chose one that was comfortably similar in doctrine but intellectually more rigorous.

Even going to seminary was a last-minute decision. It was not my original plan, but as I neared the end of my undergraduate studies, I realized that I was too young for the kind of job I really wanted. Also, school was comfortable for me and held less uncertainty than ministry. Many of the same trends continued in seminary, as I gravitated toward the areas that would be most intellectually challenging, most obscure, most academic. Not surprisingly, I decided before I was done that I would rather teach than pursue pastoral ministry, which meant I would have to go on for a Ph.D. But there was a spiritual dimension to this shift that took me longer to recognize.

I don't think I ever really had much of a true devotional life. In youth group, I was expected to keep a journal of prayer and scriptural meditation. It was checked regularly for completeness, but not at a level that would distinguish real interaction with God from intellectual contemplation of the assigned passages and meticulous maintenance of prayer lists. From time to time, college and seminary classes also required me to keep some kind of devotional journal, and I would comply as necessary. But aside from that, I generally assumed that my school work was spiritual enough. Early on, I developed a methodology for what I was doing. If the goal was to know and serve God better, I needed to understand what he expected of me. To understand that, I needed to grasp biblical theology and praxis. To grasp that, I needed to read and analyze Scripture intelligently. To read and analyze, I needed to get as close to the original texts as I could. And so, my intellectual pursuits were organized around acquiring the tools I needed to do all of this for myself, not to rely on anyone else's conclusions. Assuming I was actually working toward that goal, it all should have added up to spiritual growth, without adding anything else to the mix.

In the same way that I had no real relationship with God, after marriage, I had no real relationship with my wife. Most of my time was devoted to school and work. Even when we were together in our apartment, we were usually doing different things. I did not concern myself with what she wanted or even needed, and I justified it all as a temporary condition that would stop when I was done with school. But school dragged on, and things didn't change.

I was required to serve in church during college and seminary, and so I did. I genuinely cared about doing well whatever I was given, and I honestly looked for ways to apply my abilities to the greatest use. But I don't think it was ever an expression of love for God or even for other people. It was preparation for my chosen career, and I naturally wanted to do it well. But eventually my intellectual pursuits began to outpace other aspects of my life. I sensed a widening gulf between what I thought and what I did. And I knew that there were limits to what I could say out loud or apply in real life. My eccentricity was accepted to a degree, but church life was insufficiently flexible to accommodate full disclosure. That's when I realized that I could not be in paid ministry, whether I wanted to or not, and I also realized that I wouldn't have much future teaching in the kind of schools I'd attended.

So by the time I started my Ph.D. program, I was back to looking at the secular arena for my career. I figured that if necessary a Ph.D. in Semitic languages could be applied in a seminary, but I was really interested in teaching in a secular or at least not-so-fundamentalist college or university, where no one would care exactly what I thought about conclusions, as long as I could teach the right methods. It would probably have been less costly in terms of time, money, energy, and relationships if I'd just decided to pursue a different career altogether. But I was trying to save face, to prove to myself and others that I had not wasted the past several years of my life on a career that I would never pursue.

The crux came when I finished coursework on my Ph.D. and simultaneously became a father. In my self-centered pursuit of academic goals, we had put off having kids as long as we could. But now I had more freedom with how I used my time and more motivation to get things right. I somehow sensed that real life was becoming considerably more important than academia, and I pushed school to the back burner, in favor of sorting out more practical issues like faith and politics. I was still self-centered, to be sure, but I think it was an important step to open up my closed, little world to the influences of reality. I concluded pretty readily that I could not continue down the same "spiritual" path--which, as I said, was never really all that spiritual in the first place. But now it was intellectually impossible, like trying to go back and watch a magic show after you've seen how the trick works. No force of will can make you believe again.

I had followed the path to its end and found that it didn't really lead anywhere. Moving forward would mean making my own path (and knowing it). The only option that retained hope was to back up and turn aside into something altogether different. But I had become so jaded that even this move felt like I was still deliberately charting my own course--like there was no God to be found at the end, only more disappointment. But I could hold out hope that I would never get far enough to find out. I began exploring other faith traditions, looking for something that I could "live with"--something I could respect as honest about itself as a tradition, and intellectually challenging enough to hold my interest. I hadn't really changed all that much--it was still about what would make me feel a certain way, and still without any expectation of a real encounter with a real God.

My first trial was characteristic. I explored Rabbinic Judaism mostly through reading, without opening up to anyone else about my interest. One significant change was that I was by this point pursuing something with a more spiritual dimension to it. So I spent a good deal of time trying out Jewish prayer. But I was still not prepared to follow any path of conversion that would require me to start over. Some things I could give up, but not my freedom to challenge the status quo.

I briefly considered Messianic Judaism as an alternative. It would not require a formal conversion, or a renunciation of anything in particular, and there was a better chance that my wife would go along with it. But it had too many of the same problems that had turned me off to Evangelicalism, in some cases to a greater degree. Ultimately, it was not a viable option, but this stage included some important turning points. One was that I finally opened up to my wife about what was going on. We were still miles apart on these things, but at least I was operating somewhat outside of my own head. Another was that it raised questions for me about early Christianity, which pointed me in the direction of Eastern Orthodoxy. It was a purely intellectual progression at the time, but I don't know how else I would have got there.

Eastern Orthodoxy was a viable candidate in terms of my search. It definitely had a deep sense of tradition and the potential to be very satisfying intellectually. Also, my Ph.D. work had provided me with some useful exposure to Orthodoxy, so that I not only had some sense of what it was and how to get more information, but I knew Eastern Orthodox people whom I could contact for help. But the real difference was the reality of the encounter. Yes, Orthodoxy responded to the questions I was asking; but it went far beyond that by both raising and answering the questions that I ought to have been asking but wasn't. It finally took me beyond what my own intellect could expect, to a real encounter with a real God. No, there were no heavenly visions, no physical symptoms. It was not even what I would have characterized at the time as a spiritual experience. But I was quietly carried along, until I realized after the fact just how far behind I'd left my initial pursuits.

Orthodoxy has plenty of room for intellectual exercise--that was never in question. But it also has centuries of experience ministering to the needs of the most common, illiterate peasant. It has an arsenal of very practical tools for the day-to-day spiritual life. So in addition to a lot of reading about a lot of different things, I was able to immerse myself in more practical matters of prayer, fasting, liturgy, and obedience. These disciplines did their work of softening my heart, to the point where I could accept the teachings of the Church not for their intellectual impressiveness, but implicitly as the faith of the saints. Most importantly, I was finally confronted with the depth of pride in my own life and how it had shaped my story.

One of the most perplexing and frustrating things for me about Orthodoxy was its lack of urgency. I had grown up on the standard appeal: "If you were to die today . . . " But here was a faith that welcomed this questioning seeker with a firm but gentle, "No." No, you may not convert right now. Seriously? Your wife is not with you. But what if I die before she changes her mind? If I had good reason to suspect you were going to die soon, that might change things, but since I don't--No.

So the first lesson of humility was accepting that some priest could tell me it wasn't time. The second was accepting that my own failures had a lot to do with the circumstances in our family. The third was realizing that there would be no quick fix. No, saying a prayer and writing down the date so I can remember when it happened won't do it. I have to wait for God's timing. But in the meantime, there was a fourth lesson--the long, slow process of repairing the damage--of becoming the person I should have been in the first place. And there's no guarantee attached to that either. I'm doing it because it's what I'm supposed to do--if I get there, all glory to God, whether my wife follows or not.

Along the way there have been encouraging moments--like when the priest finally did say "yes," after asking my wife, after she miraculously agreed, after she even allowed the kids to enter the Church with me. But we're still far from being on the same page. And I'm still far from being as humble as I should be. So every day I forget what I'm supposed to be learning. And every day God quietly reminds me. It won't be fixed by my intellect or my effort. And "fixed" won't even necessarily be what I think it should. It will only work out in his timing, according to his plan. I get that on some level, but I still have a long way to go. My Teacher is patient, and I know by that that he is not me.

from The Promise, by Chaim Potok

2010-02-04T20:41:00.005-05:00

There were three phones in Reb Saunders's house, all with the same number, one in Reb Saunders's study, one in the hall of the second-floor apartment where Danny's parents and Levi slept, one in the third-floor hall a few feet from Danny's room. The use of the phone on Shabbat is forbidden by Jewish law except in circumstances that constitute a clear emergency, and so the phones in that house almost never rang on Shabbat. On the rare occasions when they did ring they were ignored, because everyone assumed that the person at the other end had dialed a wrong number.

The phones in Reb Saunders's house began to ring at ten minutes past two that morning. Danny was immediately awake. He lay in bed in the darkness of his room and listened to the ringing of the phones echo through the house. After the seventh ring, the phones stopped. Then they started again. Danny was out of his bed and going down the stairs to the second floor when the phones stopped ringing the second time.

He found his father and brother in the hall of the second-floor apartment, both of them in robes and skull-caps. They were staring at the phone. Reb Saunders was about to say something to Danny when the phone started to ring again. He let it ring twice. Then he said to Danny in Yiddish, speaking over the noise of the ringing, "You think it is for you?"

Danny stared down at the phone and said nothing. He felt as if the sound of the phone were coming from somewhere inside himself.

"Who would ring at such an hour?" Levi asked in Yiddish. He held the robe tightly to his body as though he were cold.

"You think it is for you, Daniel?" Reb Saunders asked again.

"It's the wrong signal," Danny said. He had arranged an emergency telephone signal with the staff member on night duty: three rings, then stop, then ring again. That signal was to be used on Shabbat in case of an emergency with Michael. But the staff member did not know the treatment center administrator was calling Danny, and the administrator had no way of knowing the signal.

The phone stopped ringing. They stood there in the hall that had a single dim night light set in a wall socket, and waited. Almost immediately it began to ring again.

"It must be for you, Daniel," Reb Saunders said. "They are calling you."

Danny stared at the phone.

"Answer the phone, Daniel," Reb Saunders said.

Danny looked at his father.

"Answer," Reb Saunders said. "If it is a mistake, let the sin be on my head."

But Danny remained still. The phone continued to ring.

"Daniel," Levi said. "Our father tells you to answer the phone."

Danny lifted the phone and put it to his ear. He listened as the administrator, who of course knew of Danny's Orthodoxy, thanked him for answering and told him what was happening. Danny said if he did not call him back in five minutes it meant that he was on his way over, and hung up. He looked away from the phone and saw his father and his brother staring at him. Danny's face was white and he had to lean on the phone stand to steady himself.

"What is the matter?" Reb Saunders asked. "Daniel, what has happened? Levi, bring a glass of water. Daniel, tell me what is the matter."

Levi started out of the hall toward the kitchen, but Danny called him back. The three of them stood around the phone, Danny explaining, his father and brother listening. He spoke rapidly, in Yiddish. Had it been any other night of the week, he would have told them nothing. But this was Shabbat. He would be traveling on Shabbat. He had to tell them.

Reb Saunders listened until he understood enough to enable him to make a legal decision. Then he broke in on Danny's words. "Go!" he commanded. "Go quickly! Pickuach nefesh. Quickly! Quickly!"

"Take a taxi," Levi said urgently in Yiddish. "You will find one on Lee Avenue. And take money with you."

"Quickly!" Reb Saunders said again. "Quickly!"

Danny dressed and his father and brother accompanied him to the front door and he raced along his block beneath the naked sycamores and found a cab almost immediately on Lee Avenue. He told the driver it was an emergency. He was at the treatment center in less than half an hour.

celebrating St. John of Damascus

2009-12-02T16:56:00.002-05:00

This coming weekend is a very full schedule, so I'm posting a bit early about Ian's nameday. So far, we haven't really done much to celebrate it. He was a bit young to get the point, and I wasn't sure how to make it stand out among the other festivities leading up to Christmas. (The reality of life, much as I would personally rather wait until Christmas actually gets here to start the celebration.) This year, he's working on his St. George medal for Cub Scouts, and one of the requirements in the book is to know about his patron saint and when his nameday is celebrated.

So I figure we ought to do something; the question is, what? I mean, how do you celebrate a monastic scholar meaningfully for a six-year-old? Here's what I've come up with so far:

Read the life of St. John. This one's pretty obvious, and since we'll be busy, we actually already did it last night.
Let Ian pick the meal Thursday evening. I'm just starting him on fasting, so for this season he's only restricted on Wednesdays and Fridays. He'll be able to pick anything he wants, including eating out. In the future, it will be a fasting meal, but it can still be something nice.
Listen to the eight funeral hymns. Not the most exciting stuff at his age, but I figure we can have it playing while we're doing something else.
Draw a red line around his wrist. For his writing against iconoclasm, the emperor framed St. John and got the caliph to cut off his hand (among other penalties). John prayed, and the hand was restored, but he retained a red scar as a reminder of the miracle.
Read some of St. John's hymns. Given the season, the second Nativity canon seems like a good choice. Also, Ian's been into poetry lately, so he might appreciate the poetic translations of selected hymns by John Mason Neale (1862).
Try some icon writing. At this point, I think we'll call it good enough to color a preprinted icon for his St. George medal requirement. As he gets older, we might try something requiring a little more skill.
Sing the troparion to St. John. Another no-brainer. We usually sing one to start off bedtime prayers anyway, and St. John has been in the rotation for quite a while.
Pray before bed. There's an evening prayer, "O Master, Lover of mankind, is this bed to be my coffin . . . ," that's attributed to St. John. It would be good to incorporate it Thursday evening.
Clean toilets. When St. John entered the monastery of St. Sava, he ended up with a very strict elder. He was supposed to do only what the elder told him to, but when one of the monks begged him to write for his deceased brother's funeral, he consented. His elder banished him, but was later persuaded to let him come back if he would fulfill a difficult task. The task was to clean all the chamber pots and latrines in the monastery with his bare hands. St. John completed it with joy and was restored. I don't know if I'll be able to get Ian excited about this one, but he might embrace it as something he's never done before. Plus, he's at that age where gross things are appealing, at least to talk about.
Wear his skeleton shirt. I was looking back to see if I'd ever written anything about Ian's patron saint on my old blog and came across a post about his beloved skeleton. Now he has a skeleton shirt, which might be a good link to the hymn cited there.

A couple of ideas for the future, since I didn't think of them in time to prepare:

Give him icons as gifts. Since St. John is well-known for his defense of icons, this would be an especially good occasion to give Ian an icon.
Write Christmas cards. St. John was framed for what he wrote against iconoclasm. He was charged with writing a letter to the emperor, conspiring against the caliph, for which his hand was cut off. When his hand was restored, the Theotokos exhorted him to continue writing. So I figure writing something by hand is a fitting way to honor his day. Since it is about that time anyway, writing Christmas cards would be a good way to do something useful.

When he gets older, we could also read some of St. John's theological writings, but I'm pretty sure they'd be over his head for now. Any other ideas?

"Holy Scripture and the Church"

2009-10-24T16:08:00.001-04:00

In its current issue, The Orthodox Word translates "Holy Scripture and the Church," by New Hieromartyr Hilarion, Archbishop of Verey. St Hilarion died in a Soviet gulag in 1929, but before the Revolution, he was Professor of Holy Scripture (New Testament) in the Moscow Theological Academy. Disillusionment with sola scriptura had a lot to do with my spiritual search that ended up in Orthodoxy, and I can't state the issues any better than he does here. (As an extra aid to my humility, he wrote almost a century ago, long before anyone cared about being post-modern.) It's best to read the whole article, but I'm including a few excerpts below.

. . . Furthermore, has the Church herself ever viewed her Founder [Christ] as one of the teachers of mankind? Has she ever considered His teachings as the essence of His work? No, with the utmost exertion of her theological strength, the Christian Church has defended as the greatest religious truth that Christ is the Only-begotten Son of God, One in essence with God the Father, Who became incarnate on earth. For that truth, the greatest Fathers of the Church labored to the point of blood. . . .

But was the Incarnation of the Only-begotten Son of God necessary only in order to write a book and entrust it to mankind? Was it absolutely essential for Him to be the Only-begotten Son of God just to write a book? If the Church insisted with such determination on the Divine dignity of her Founder, then obviously she did not regard writing to be the essence of His work. It was the Incarnation of the Son of God that was necessary for the salvation of mankind, and not a book. No book is able, nor could it ever have been able to save mankind. Christ is not the Teacher but precisely the Savior of mankind. . . .

Christ founded the Church. The Church existed even when there was not yet a single book of New Testament Scripture. . . . Thus, it would not be impertinent to say that it is not by Holy Scripture, as a book, that man is saved, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, Who lives in the Church. The Church guides people to perfection. In the Church there are also other ways, other means to that effect, besides the books of Holy Scripture. . . .

It is possible to know the entire New Testament by heart, it is possible to know perfectly the entire teaching of the New Testament, and still be very, very far from salvation. For salvation it is necessary to be added to the Church, just as it is said in the Book of Acts that those who were being saved were added to the Church (cf. Acts 2:47; 5:13-14). This was when there were no Scriptures, but there was the Church, and there were those who were being saved. Why was it essential to be added to the Church? It is because special grace-bearing power is needed for salvation, and this power can only be possessed by those who participate in the life of the Church, in the life of the single and indivisible Body of Christ. The grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit acts in the Church in many different ways: in the Mysteries and rites of the Church, in common prayer and mutual love, in church services; and, as the divinely inspired Word of God, it also operates through the books of Holy Scripture. . . .

Thus, Holy Scripture is one of the manifestations of the common grace-filled life of the Church. Holy Scripture is the property of the Church, precious and priceless, but precisely the Church's property. Holy Scripture cannot be torn away from the overall life of the Church. Only the Church gives meaning to the existence of Scripture. . . .

Here St. John Chrysostom defends the necessity of studying Holy Scripture, but at the same time he says that if things were the way they should be, we would not need Holy Scripture; that with a pure life, instead of books, grace would serve the soul, and that this path of spiritual enlightenment is higher. God spoke with the patriarchs and the apostles without the assistance of Scripture. The need for Holy Scripture arose when some turned aside from true doctrine and others from purity of life. Scripture is then a second remedy. We even deserve reproach for being in need of Scripture. . . .

Perhaps the saddest thing in our times is the distortion of Christ and the Church. Christianity is seen not as the new life of saved humanity, united in the Church, but as the sum of certain theoretical and moral positions. They have begun now to talk too much and too often about Christian teachings and have begun to forget about Church life. . . .

If we have before us a teacher, then every word of his, every literary text in which his teaching is reflected in any way, must be accorded special significance. Something similar has happened with Holy Scripture. It was accorded special significance in itself and independently of the Church when the bright ideal of the Church grew dim. Holy Scripture has become the object of special attention and many-sided study since the time of the German Reformation, when the individual person was put in place of the Church and the door to rationalism was opened wide, thus deadening any authentic Church life. . . . Having lost the living Christ and authentic Church life, the Protestants began worshiping the book of the New Testament as if it were some sort of fetish. Go into a Protestant church of the extreme Protestant sects, and you will see rows of pews facing a pulpit with a Bible on it. In short, if you take the icon away from any classroom or auditorium, what you have is a Protestant church. For the Protestants it is as if the Gospel were the work of Christ the Teacher, which has to be studied in order to be a Christian. Thus, Protestantism tries to replace the entire deep river of grace-filled Church life with but a single current, taken separately and in isolation. Having rebelled against the pope (a man), the Protestants have made the Bible into a "paper pope," and the latter adulation is more bitter than the first.

. . . If the grace-filled aspect of Holy Scripture is obliterated outside the Church, then what remains? We are left with the Bible, books, a literary work, a literary memorial. In the Church Holy Scripture is not everything, but outside the Church there is no Holy Scripture, no Word of God at all; what remains of Holy Scripture is only the books. . . .

In defining the essence of Holy Scripture, we can now formulate the following proposition:

Holy Scripture is one of the aspects of the common grace-filled life of the Church, and outside the Church there cannot be any Holy Scripture in the true sense of the word. . . .

By living and being instructed within the Church, within which the Apostolic oral preaching is continued, a person is able to learn the dogmas of Christian Faith from the Ecumenical Church, and this is so not because the Church herself draws her dogmas from Scripture, but because she possesses them innately; if she, deliberating on a certain dogma, cites specific passages from the Bible, this is not done in order to deduce her dogmas, but solely for their confirmation. Therefore, whoever founds his faith upon Scripture alone, does not achieve the fullness of Faith and does not know its properties.

In complete accordance with this authoritative statement, we can reduce everything to faith in the Church. If a man believes in the Church, then for him the Holy Scripture receives its proper significance.

. . . Living within the Church means, first of all, to love, to live by love; and to live by love means to struggle against sinful self-love, from which people suffer a great deal. In particular, faith in the Church is a podvig [an ascetic feat, spiritual labor or, simply, Christian struggle] for the mind, because the Church demands its submission. To make one's reason submit to the Church is especially difficult, because this submission unfailingly affects one's whole life. With regard to the Church, the podvig of the mind is connected with the podvig of the will. Imagine for a moment that people completely submit to the Church. How many idols, how many gods and graven images must they cast down? Not only the Dnieper, but an entire sea would be needed to sink all those idols. And yet, not even one podvig of the mind comes easily to a man whose reason makes him proud. Bishop Theophan the Recluse says: "It is remarkable how Wisdom calls to herself the foolish: Whoso is foolish, let him turn aside to me (Prov. 9:4). Accordingly, the clever are barred from entering into the House of Wisdom, or the Holy Church. One must lay aside every kind of cleverness at the very entrance of this House. On the other hand, if all wisdom and knowledge are to be found within the House of Wisdom, then outside this House, outside the Holy Church, only foolishness, ignorance and blindness prevail. How wondrous is that which God has established! When you enter the Church, put aside your own mind, and you will become truly wise; cast away your self-centered activity, and you will become truly active; renounce your own self, and you will truly become master over yourself. Ah, if only the world could grasp this wisdom! But this is hidden from it. . . . "

The necessity of a Church approach to Scripture is revealed with particular clarity if we thoroughly examine the extreme lie inscribed on the banner of Protestantism, and then look at every kind of sectarianism and, generally speaking, human light-mindedness, in addition to freethinking, which is indissolubly connected to the latter. In principle Protestantism has rejected the necessity of Church standards in interpreting Scripture. I say "in principle," since in actual fact standards have been invented in the form of newly fabricated sectarian creeds. If Church standards are rejected, then man is left alone with Scripture, and in interpreting Scripture, each one is to be guided by his own so-called common sense, having put on his head beforehand the tiara of an infallible pope. . . .

Leave a man alone with Scripture, and Scripture loses any definite meaning and significance. There remains only one man, the whims and oddities of whose mind will be concealed by the authority of the Word of God. Without the Church and outside of the Church, he is inevitably in a state of hopeless wandering, even if he has in his hands the book of Holy Scripture. . . .

St. Irenaeus of Lyons calls Scripture the Tree of Paradise planted in the midst of the Church. For those expelled from Paradise, however, this tree can only be the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and after partaking of it, they can be convinced only of the sad truth that they are naked. It is high time for all opponents of the Church to be persuaded of their shameful nakedness and ask the Church's forgiveness, just as the prodigal son asked his father's forgiveness! The absurd separation of Scripture from the Church has already produced its lethal fruit. . . .

Thus, the truth of the indissoluble bond between the Church and Holy Scripture is also affirmed in a negative way. A relationship with Scripture from outside the Church inevitably leads to absurdity and loss of Holy Scripture itself.

Without the Church, first of all, there is no undergirding whatsoever for the interpretation of Holy Scripture; it is not Scripture that teaches man, but on the contrary, man foists upon Scripture whatever content he desires.

Without the Church, secondly, every definite way to Christ and His teaching is lost, since Christ Himself never wrote anything and the Apostles can be suspected of inaccurately transmitting the teaching of Christ.

Without the Church, thirdly, the canon of Holy Books does not have any significance whatsoever, and all Protestants and sectarians faced with the question of why precisely these books are canonical can only be left with no answer or forced to restort to shameful words of craftiness, words of evil (Ps. 140:4). . . .

The truth we have sought to substantiate is not new, but it should be reiterated in the twentieth [!] century, because although it has been repeatedly verified by history, it is now quite often forgotten.

remembrance of death

2009-10-17T15:39:00.000-04:00

O Lord, grant me tears, and remembrance of death, and compunction.

--from St. John Chrysostom's 24 prayers for the hours of the day and night

Something else I don't remember often enough is death. Even more than the remembrance of God, it is easy to find discussion of this issue in the Fathers.

From the Ladder of Divine Ascent, in Step #6:

To be reminded of death each day is to die each day; to remember one's departure from life is to provoke tears by the hour. . . .

The remembrance of death brings labors and meditations, or rather, the sweetness of dishonor to those living in community, whereas for those living away from turbulence it produces freedom from daily worries and breeds constant prayer and guarding of the mind, virtues that are the cause and the effect of the thought of death. . . .

No one who knew in advance the hour of his death would accept baptism or join a monastery long before it, but instead would pass all his time in sin and would be baptized and do penance only on the day of his demise. Habit would make him a confirmed and quite incorrigible sinner. . . .

If your remembrance of death is clear and specific, you will cut down on your eating, and if, in your humility, you reduce the amount you eat, your passions will be correspondingly reduced. . . .

The Fathers assert that perfect love is sinless. And it seems to me that in the same way a perfect sense of death is free from fear. . . .

We may be sure that remembrance of death, like every other blessing, is a gift from God. How else can you explain the fact that often we can be dry-eyed and hard at a cemetery, yet full of compunction when we are nowhere near such a place?

The man who has died to all things remembers death, but whoever holds some ties with the world will not cease plotting against himself.

From St. Tikhon of Zadonsk's Journey to Heaven, in the section "remember death, judgment, hell and eternal life":

Remember death often, and the judgment of Christ, eternal torment, and eternal life, and inevitably the world with all its lusts and enticements will become abhorrent to you. You will not desire to become rich, to be glorified, or to make merry in this world. Your only care will be to please God, to have a blessed end, not to be put to shame in the judgment of Christ, to escape eternal torment, and to enter into the Kingdom of God. This is truly a great and powerful means by which a man may escape enticement by the vanity of this world and remain in true repentance and contrition of heart, which is absolutely necessary to every Christian. . . .

in the section "on death":

But how suddenly death overtakes him, and then all his dreams and plans perish. He who promised himself a long life quickly dies. He who wished to lay up treasures and become rich, leaves both the world and his body in the world. So our end is unknown to us. Christians! God, Who loves mankind, in caring for us has appointed for us our unknown end, that we may always be prepared for it and abide in true repentance. . . .

It is a wondrous thing that the saints weep when they look upon that hour, but sinners do not weep though they see their brothers dying every day. . . .

in the section "on perpetual repentance and the correction of life":

Death walks invisibly behind us, and the end will overtake us when we least expect it, and it will overtake us where we least expect it, and it will overtake us in a way that we least expect. Abide in perpetual repentance, then, and be prepared for departure at all times and in every place. The wise servant always watches and waits till his master calls him. You, too, should watch and wait till Christ your Lord calls you, for He calls everyone through death. Then always be in your life what you wish to be at death. Always live piously and work out your salvation with fear and trembling (cf. Philip. 2:12). Always and everywhere proceed with caution and guard yourself, lest you be deprived of eternal salvation, which Christ our Lord obtained for us with His Blood and death, and so shall we have a blessed end.

From the Arena, in Chap. 28 "on the remembrance of death":

Our mind is so darkened by the fall that unless we force ourselves to remember death we can completely forget about it. When we forget about death, then we begin to live on earth as if we were immortal, and we sacrifice all our activity to the world without concerning ourselves in the least either about the fearful transition to eternity or about our fate in eternity. Then we boldly and peremptorily override the commandments of Christ; then we commit all the vilest sins; then we abandon not only unceasing prayer but even the prayers appointed for definite times--we begin to scorn this essential and indispensable occupation as if it were an activity of little importance and little needed. Forgetful of physical death, we die a spiritual death.

On the other hand, he who often remembers death of the body rises from the dead in soul. He lives on earth like a stranger in an inn or like a prisoner in gaol, constantly expecting to be called out for trial or execution. Before his eyes the gates into eternity are always open. He continually looks in that direction with spiritual anxiety, with deep sorrow and reflection. He is constantly occupied with wondering what will justify him at Christ's terrible judgment and what his sentence will be. This sentence decides a person's fate for the whole of eternity. No earthly beauty, no earthly pleasure draws his attention or his love. He condemns no one, for he remembers that at the judgment of God such judgment will be passed on him as he passed here on his neighbours. . . .

From Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, in Letter #51:

Behold, another new year! Once again, wishes and hopes. But death is lurking somewhere, waiting for us, too. Some day or night will be the last one of our life. Wherefore, blessed is he who remembers his death day and night and prepares himself to meet it. For it has a habit of coming joyfully to those who wait for it, but it arrives unexpectedly, bitterly, and harshly for those who do not expect it. . . .

From Counsels from the Holy Mountain: Selected from the Letters and Homilies of Elder Ephraim, in the chapter "on Remembrance of Death, Hell, and Judgment":

22. When we remember death, we find an excellent guide that helps us discover the truth of things. Death says, "Why are you treasuring things up, why are you proud, why do you boast, O youth, O health, O science? When I come, I will render you your worth! When you are laid in the dark grave, you will know what the profit of earthly good things is!"

We are departing to the world that transcends the senses, my children. We do not stay in this world which is full of bitterness, distress, sin, and miseries. There in the unfading life, God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of the saved, and there will be no pain, grief, or sighing, but an eternal day, a life without end or death! This is the life, my children, that we should long for wholeheartedly and fervently, so that by God's grace we may acquire it and be delivered from painful hell.

Undoubtedly, these few quotes are but a drop in the bucket. (For the most part, they are already excerpted from much longer sections, and they reflect only what I happen to have in my small library.) But they suffice to show the significance of remembering death. It adjusts our perspective, so that our highest priority is to be ready. Our emphasis is on what is most important. All other cares in life are accordingly diminished.

vigil lamp

2009-10-03T22:04:00.000-04:00

Last year I spent some of my Christmas money on a hanging vigil lamp to replace the candle in my icon corner. I like the idea of leaving it lit all the time (or as much as possible, anyway), the labor involved with tending to it, etc. Also, from a practical standpoint, because I don't have a lot of space in my corner, it's nice to get the light part up off the shelf.

I had a hard time finding information online about how exactly to use a vigil lamp. One piece of advice I saw was that it works a lot like a regular kerosene lamp, but that wasn't much help since I hadn't used one of those either. I eventually did get enough input and try enough options myself to come up with what seems like a fairly effective way of doing things. It may be of some help to others if I write it up here online. (Though I would guess that it's always better if a parent or Godparent can show you in real life.)

Supplies

hanging lamp - I got one of the less expensive lamps that I found online. It's pretty much your call. Since I've had only one lamp, I can't say much about different types. They all seem to work more or less the same way.
hook - The lamp probably won't come with its own hook to mount it. Anywhere that sells the lamps will probably also sell hooks. If you're more creative than I, you could probably also just rig something up yourself. I got a fairly short hook to conserve space. Obviously, it needs to be long enough so the lamp can hang freely and swing a bit without banging into the icons.
glass - Some lamps will include a glass or perhaps a choice of glasses. With others, you'll need to buy a glass separately. I was advised to make sure the glass could handle the heat of being lit all day, but I never got much sense of different types. Mine was pretty inexpensive and seems rather thin, but it appears to work fine.
float - There are actual cork floats that seem to be pretty popular--a cork ring with a metal cover and some kind of loop to hold the wick. I use an Old Believer "float" that consists of a hollow metal cylinder suspended in the middle of twisted wire. You bend it so the wire rests on the rim of the glass and the cylinder hangs down inside. The main difference between the two types is that the cork float rises and falls with the oil level, while the Old Believer style remains at the same height. There's also a trick to the Old Believer style that I missed initially.
wick - I use plain cotton wicking. You can buy it in long, three-ply strands. One ply fits just about right. There are also short, wax-covered wicks. I'm told they burn better than cotton, but I haven't tried them myself. The cotton seems to work fine, and you can cut off a long strand that will last you a couple of weeks.
oil - I've only used one type of oil so far. I read somewhere that you don't want extra virgin olive oil. Get the next grade down. It's supposed to burn better, and it's definitely cheaper. A five-quart jug from a warehouse club is pretty economical.
lighter - I use a regular disposable lighter because we happen to have a lot of them around. I assume it would work with matches or whatever your preferred method is.
container - You'll need somewhere to put the burnt ends that you trim off of the wick. I use a censer, but whatever is convenient for you (obviously, something that won't burn itself). Keep in mind that the ashes will tend to stick to your fingers. Sometimes you can drop them with a little light rubbing, but often I have to wipe my fingers across the edge.
rag - You'll get oil and ashes on your fingers, so keeping a rag handy for wiping them is useful. The oil will actually help get the ashes off if you do things in the right order.

Initial Setup

The best advice I can give about setting up the lamp is to study lamps at church. Pay attention to the height relative to the icons. With relatively small icons, you can't really avoid obscuring something; my basic rule is to minimize that as much as possible. For my eye-line and the angle from which I'm normally looking, the lamp blocks part of a larger Pentecost icon. Enough of the icon remains visible to get the general idea. Obviously, if the lamp hangs in front of an icon with a single figure, you don't want it blocking the face. Mounting the hook will probably be a simple job with a couple of included screws. Use common sense. Measure twice, cut once (so to speak).

Lighting/Use

Once the lamp is hung, the procedure is more or less the same as what you'll do routinely:

Fill the glass with oil. Don't actually fill to the top! With the Old Believer float, you must make sure that the oil is up to at least the bottom of the metal cylinder; I would also make sure that it doesn't go higher than the wire support. (I don't know how much of a fire hazard there is if the flame gets too close to the surface, and I'd rather not find out.) The lamp will keep burning as the oil level descends, but it will not work if you try to light it with the oil too low. I don't understand exactly why this is--it has something to do with the flame drawing oil up the wick. I usually pull out the glass, set it on the floor (a table or shelf would be better, but I don't have one handy with enough room) and pour oil directly from the jug. If you're careful, spilling isn't much of a hazard.
Prepare the wick. If it's a new piece of wick, wind it up and put it in the oil to soak for at least a few seconds. It shouldn't take long to saturate. Pull out one end and feed it up through the float. Holding the wick close to the end and twisting it between your fingers can help. The type that I use is twisted counterclockwise, so going in that direction will narrow it down to fit the end through the float. Once it comes out the top, you can grab it from there and pull it up about 1/4-1/2 inch. I would recommend twisting it a bit any time you do this, so the wick doesn't expand too much and fit too tightly. That seems to affect the strength of the flame. You'll learn through trial and error how much to have it extend out of the float. Too little, and you'll get a small flame. Too much, and it will tend to break as it burns. No big deal if that happens, but you'll end up with a small flame on whatever's left. If it's a used wick, the top will be charred from the previous use. You don't need to cut it. Just pinch it off with your fingers and discard in your container. No need to get all of the char either--a little bit on the end seems actually to help with lighting.
Light the wick. The flame will slowly burn its way down to the float. If the wick was too long, it may break off above the float, but usually enough will be left for it to stay lit. If it burns all the way out, you're probably doing something wrong. This is what I had happen when I didn't add enough oil. If the flame is too small, sometimes you can pick up the float and feed through a little more wick.

There's not much to do while the lamp is burning. I haven't tried keeping it going continuously. Sometimes I'll let it burn all day without any real attention; sometimes, if everyone's leaving the house, I'll blow it out. I always blow it out before bed. Extinguishing the lamp is easy--just cup your hand behind it and blow.

Cleaning

I don't know exactly what's a normal amount of time between cleanings. I know some people do it weekly. If you make it part of your Sunday routine, it might be harder to forget. I just go by feel. Over time, you'll probably get oil drips and fingerprints on the glass. Also, ash will fall into the oil when you trim the wick or when it breaks. Once it starts looking a little scuzzy, I watch for a good opportunity. I find the easiest time to clean the lamp is when the wick runs out:

I pull out the last bit of unused wick and burn it in the censer. (Remember to treat it as you would anything holy. Burning it out is also a good idea since it's saturated with oil and flammable.) I would suggest burning it outside or in a garage or somewhere you won't mind a temporary burnt smell. Normally the oil burns, not the wick. You will smell a faint burnt odor after you blow out the lamp, but it's usually not too bad. Letting the last bit of wick burn itself out is another matter. It will smell pretty strong for a while. I burn it in the garage and try to pay enough attention that I catch it right after it goes out so I can close the lid on the censer.
I empty the oil through a strainer into a clean cup. If you have two glasses for your lamp, I suppose you can make this process easier by pouring through the strainer into the other glass. The strainer should filter out most of the small bits of ash that got into the oil.
I wash the glass and float in soapy water. The float will probably require some scrubbing. I find that my fingernail works fine to get off any stuck-on ash or residue. If there is ash caught in the wire, you might want to use an old toothbrush or a vegetable scrubber. Dry both gently.
I replace the oil in the glass and wash the cup and strainer. Add the float and a new piece of wick according to the instructions above, top off the oil, and put the glass back in the lamp. You're ready to go.

That's about everything I've accumulated. If anyone has corrections or other points to add, feel free. I doubt many people will run across these remarks, but if they do, I want them to be as useful as possible.

remembrance of God

2009-09-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

One of my constant areas of struggle is with remembrance of God. I too easily go through my day without giving God much thought, living like it's just me facing whatever comes my way. It's a common theme in ascetic writing, but two writers in particular come to mind (perhaps because their audience is ordinary laypersons).

From St. Tikhon of Zadonsk's Journey to Heaven, in the section "on the remembrance of God in every endeavor":

Everywhere and in every endeavor remember the Lord your God and His holy love for us. Everything that you may see in heaven and on earth and in your house awakens you to the remembrance of the Lord your God and His holy love. We are enveloped in God's love. Every creature of God bears witness to his love for us. When you see God's creation and make use of it, say to yourself thus: This is the work of the hands of the Lord my God, and it was created for my sake. These luminaries of the heavens . . . . This earth . . . . This water . . . . This cattle . . . . This house . . . . This food . . . . This garment . . . . And so on.

This icon is the image of Christ . . . . I worship His unspeakable love for man.

This icon is the image of the Theotokos . . . . Blessed among women is the Mother that bore God incarnate . . . .

This is the icon of the Forerunner . . . .

This is the icon of the apostle . . . .

This word, the Sacred Scripture which I hear . . . . O Lord, grant me ears to hear Thy holy word.

This holy house, the church in which I stand . . . .

This consecrated man, the bishop or priest . . . .

This brother of mine, every man . . . . In a word, every occasion and every thing can and must inspire you to a loving remembrance of the Lord your God, and must show you His love toward you, since even His chastisement comes from His love toward us. According to the Scripture, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth (Heb. 12:6). Remember, then, everywhere and on every occasion and in all things, the name of the Lord your God. Take care not to forget your Benefactor when you enjoy His benefactions, lest you appear ungrateful to Him; for forgetfulness of a benefactor is a clear sign of ingratitude.

And from St. Theophan the Recluse's The Spiritual Life, in Letter #48:

You write that you cannot manage your thoughts at all, they constantly wander off, your prayer is not going as you would like it, and you scarcely think about God as you go about your daily affairs and deal with other people. . . .

Letter #49:

We have a popular belief, fairly widespread, that holds that as soon as you occupy yourself with work around the house or at your place of business, you have already left the sphere of Godly things and things pleasing to God. . . . This is not the case at all. Life's everyday affairs, upon which the foundation of the home and society depend, are appointed by God, and carrying them out is not a desertion to the sphere of the ungodly, but a continuation of Godly affairs. . . .

Letter #50:

Remembrance of God is necessary. It is necessary to bring this to the point where the thought of God becomes intimately linked with and becomes one with the mind and heart and with our consciousness. . . .

When exerting yourself to maintain the thought on God, do not treat it as ordinary thought. Instead, combine it with every concept of God that you know, Divine attributes and activities, extending the mind first in one thing and then another. Meditate more on the Divine creation and Providence; on the Incarnation of God the Word and the matter of our salvation that He perfected; on His death, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven; the descent of the Holy Spirit; the founding of the Holy Church that is the keeper of truth and grace; and of the place prepared for all believers in the Heavenly Kingdom, including you. Meditate also on the Divine attributes, the inexpressible goodness, wisdom, omnipotence, justice, omnipresence, all-mightiness, all-knowingness, ever-blessedness, and greatness. Review all this, if you will, during prayer, or best of all, when you read. When you have done so, you will clearly comprehend that when you think about God, such thought is not ordinary; instead, it is thought that accompanies and evokes a great number of ideas on salvation that affect the heart and energize the spirit. . . .

Letter #51:

It is necessary for you to reinterpret everything that comes before your eyes in a spiritual sense. This reinterpretation must fill your mind to such an extent that when you look at something, your eyes see something sensual, but your mind contemplates a spiritual truth. . . .

When you have done this, each thing will be like a holy book or an article in a holy book for you. Then each thing will lead you to thought about God, as will each occupation and deed. You will then walk in the midst of the sensual world as if it were the spiritual realm. Everything will speak to you of God and keep your attention on Him. If each time you add the fear of God and awe before His majesty to this remembrance, then what other teachers and advisors do you need?!

It was actually good timing that I started assembling these passages around the feast of the Holy Cross. Abbot Gerasim of St. Herman of Alaska Monastery gave the homily at Great Vespers, speaking about the Scripture readings and hymns of the feast. He highlighted a lot of patristic typology related to the cross, much of which I'd heard before on one occasion or another, but all of which was good to hear again. It seems the cross is everywhere to be seen, if one knows how to look. If I could get that much down, I think I'd be well on my way.

progress

2009-08-14T17:06:00.002-04:00

I've been reading Patapsco: Life Along Maryland's Historic River Valley (2008)--a collection of photos and interviews with longtime residents of Ellicott City, Oella, Elkridge, and Relay. It's a wonderful book, and perfectly suited for my interest in the local history of my adopted home. In the last interview of the book, Harold Hedeman of Avalon (adjacent to Relay) remembers:

I love trains--especially steam trains. Yeah, after the bridge went in, they had local trains that stopped at every station between Baltimore and Washington. Then they had an express train which was Relay, Laurel, Washington, that's all it stopped. And then, of course, they had the Capital Limited, as they called it, and that didn't stop anywhere. That just took you right over.

And from Washington to Baltimore on the steam train ('cause I rode it more than once) it's forty miles exactly. I would have my watch out and usually it was on time. It was supposed to get there in forty minutes--and many times it was there in thirty-eight minutes.

And I'm telling you, there are curves on this end of the line and there are curves on the other end, and there's a lot of straight track in the middle of that route between Baltimore and Washington on the B & O. And when those steam trains were on that straight stretch of track over there, they were going between eighty and ninety miles an hour, because they had to go slower on each end of the line where all the curves were.

Oh, I always loved trains. More than once, I would get over on the boulevard, 'cause Washington Boulevard is right smack alongside of that straight section of B & O track. And when you had a steam train going through there--one of these big locomotives like the Capital Limited, you know, a big long train? And those driving wheels are eighty inches in diameter on that train, three pairs of driving wheels on those passenger engines that run those trains.

And when they went by at that speed, I mean, that was a sight to see. The ground was trembling where you're standing, and you can imagine, you know, that big arm that connects those wheels? You can't believe it that piece of equipment can be going that way, but it's going so fast that you can't even see, you know, it's just a blur. I mean, those wheels and that arm are just a blur going by there.

So, you know, it's a sight to see. So when they changed to diesel engines, I thought, phooey, I don't want any part of those things. I'll take the steam train.

Today the MARC Camden line is the only passenger train that runs the route he's talking about. It doesn't have a nonstop like the Capital Limited. The fastest scheduled time is the 843 morning express, which stops at Dorsey, Savage, Laurel, Muirkirk, and Washington. The scheduled run is 1:04; I don't normally ride that train, so I can't say whether it ever arrives ahead of schedule. In my experience, they sometimes do, but not by much. More often, there are delays, including the ubiquitous summer "heat restrictions"--anytime the temperature gets over 90 degrees, CSX says it's too dangerous to run the trains over 50 mph.

Glad to see we've come so far in 80 years.

A Simple--if Overly Specific--Guide to Commuting between Elkridge and NIH

2009-08-05T13:27:00.003-04:00

When I moved to Elkridge almost a year ago and started commuting back and forth to NIH, I wasn't able to find much information online about the specifics of riding the MARC. On my first attempt, I boarded the wrong train coming home and only just missed sailing off to who-knows-where. It took time to figure out the best places to stand, the kinds of delays to expect, etc. In the interest of perhaps sparing someone such inconveniences, and at the risk of thwarting some adventure, I offer here a hopefully simple (but wordy) guide to my particular commute.

First leg: Elkridge Crossing to Dorsey MARC Station

I live in the Elkridge Crossing neighborhood, near the corner of Rt. 1 and Montgomery Rd. The public transit options include HowardTransit Purple Route, MTA Commuter Route 320, and MTA MARC Train Camden Line. The first two stop within walking distance, but neither is of much use for my commute. The Purple Route first run is at 7:00 a.m. I could catch the 320 a little after 6:00 a.m., but I'd still have to walk 15 min or more from Rt. 1 and Dorsey Rd. to the MARC station. The earliest I could start work is 8:00, which would get me back too late to catch the last 320. The last rush-hour Purple Route would get me home no earlier than 7:00 p.m., just when the kids were going to bed.

So, I bike to and from the MARC station. It takes about 20 min. each way--maybe a bit longer in the evening, since there's more uphill. As I've commented elsewhere, Dorsey is not designed well for bike access. You have no choice but to come down Rt. 1 (there are some more roundabout alternatives, but almost none of them keeps you off it for long), past the station at Rt. 100, turn left on Dorsey Rd., left again on Douglas Legum Dr., right on Deerpath Rd., cut through to the station parking lot, and lock your bike up down by the station itself. I don't know how much the lockers are. I'm cheap, so I just leave my clunker at the bike rack, and so far nothing has happened to it.

NOTE: St. Denis MARC Station is probably about the same distance away, in the opposite direction. I can't comment on getting to it because I've never tried. The train stops there infrequently, so for my schedule it would be impossible.

Second Leg: Dorsey MARC Station to Washington Union Station

I take the first train of the morning, but I haven't noticed much difference on the rare occasion that I've taken a later train. Normally you wait on the platform closest to the station to head south. If the signal is red, it may mean that the train will come in on the opposite track. There are loudspeakers, and sometimes you'll get a message indicating if there's a delay or track change. You can also sign up for e-mail notifications, which I would recommend if you carry a blackberry or some such device.

The main thing you need to know about riding the Camden Line is that it runs on CSX (freight) tracks. Freight traffic seems to get the priority in most cases, so sometimes a train will have to wait for something (never sure what) to happen. Sometimes you'll have to change tracks to accommodate a more important schedule. Then there are signal problems, switching problems, and the ubiquitous "heat restrictions," where CSX limits the speed of the MARC trains any time it gets over 90 degrees. Basically, expect to arrive late, and be appreciative if you arrive on time. Afternoons tend to be worse, but it won't be long before you spend half an hour standing on the platform in the morning, waiting for a train that's delayed for some vague reason.

The car closest to the engine is usually the quiet car. At some stations, the platform is too small, and you have to board or exit through certain cars. Aside from that, if you want to make the best time possible, identify the car that will get you closest to where you want to go. In the morning, you want one of the front two cars. Normally you can only use the rear doors in the first car or the front doors in the second car. Since they're next to each other, it makes little difference which car you actually ride in--just get as close to the doors as you can. You'll want to wait somewhere around the far end of the second bench on the platform. If you can't get a seat close to the door, you can do like a lot of people and stand in the aisle after Riverdale.

Union Station is the end of the line, so there's no danger of sleeping through your stop. One side of the aisle has two-seaters, the other has three. I prefer the two-seat side if I don't have to go far to get it. The aisle seat on the three-seat side is too short to sleep comfortably, and it's awkward to sit down in the middle seat if there are only two passengers in the row. If you don't mind sitting by the window, the side doesn't matter much. The bathroom is usually in the end car, though personally I've never used it. I usually go when I get to the train station.

When you exit at Union Station, walk toward the front of the train. Once through the doors, head right, then down the escalators, and through the turnstiles. If you need the men's room, it's straight through the doors from the platform. I think the women's room is further down to the left.

Third Leg: Union Station to Medical Center

There's good information on the WMATA site about riding Metro, so I'm not going to say much here. If you have time, head all the way down toward the opposite end of the platform. Wait along the railing next to the last escalator structure. By boarding the train there, you'll be just about in position to head right up the escalator when you get off at the other end. I usually get out of my seat at Bethesda and get in position by the door.

Fourth Leg: Medical Center Metro to Building 31

I usually walk up the escalator to save time. Keep walking straight ahead. Visitors have to go through the Gateway Center to your left. Anyone with a badge can walk down to the other end and enter through the turnstiles. Once inside, you can take a shuttle or walk. If I arrive more or less on schedule, I can usually tell by the time and the number of people waiting whether the Campus Shuttle has already come by or not. If it has, and I don't see Mid-Pike, I'll walk. Otherwise I'll usually wait. Mid-Pike is faster, since it goes straight from the gate to 31. Campus is more regular, because it doesn't have to deal with outside traffic. It also comes more frequently.

Return Trip

I take the Rockledge or Executive Plaza Shuttle back to the Metro. Campus Limited would also work. Again, I jog down the escalator, and if there's a wait, I walk all the way to the opposite end of the platform. The further you can get to the front of the train, the better. The escalator at Union Station will be just outside the front door, and it's usually mobbed. Get a seat right by the door, or stake out a spot to stand somewhere around Metro Center. Doors open on the left.

Up the escalator, through the turnstiles, up the next escalator, then straight ahead. Check the screen for your gate. This is important. There are electronic displays at the end of the tracks, but they don't always work. More on that in a bit. I usually run to the bathroom if I have plenty of time, so I don't have to again before riding home. There's also a display in the passenger waiting area, if you didn't already get your gate number. Everything's Gate A. I think that's all MARC trains--definitely all Camden.

Now, here's the tricky part. If the track displays are working, take a quick look at yours. It should say "far north end," if the trains are stacked. Sometimes they'll put one train in front of another. Unless you're super early, that almost always means yours is out on the end. You'll have to walk *past* the train behind it. Most of the time, the rear train isn't boarding yet, so you can tell by the closed doors that it's not yours. If it is, check the size of the cars. Camden trains are mostly single-decker, occasionally with one double. If you see a lot of double-decker cars, keep walking. Once you've been riding a while, you'll get to know the faces on your regular train and the conductors (though they do change). When in doubt, ask. Ask the conductor if possible; ask people around you if you don't see one. There will usually be an announcement at some point before the train pulls out, but if you got on the wrong one, chances are pretty good you'll miss the one you wanted by the time you hear anything.

This time, you want the rear of the train. I usually go for the second-to-last car, because they fill up faster, and the bathroom in the last car pushes you back from the door. If you don't get a good spot, you can move forward once people start clearing out, or stand in the aisle after Savage. Just watch where the conductor is hanging out, so he'll have room to get by. Once you exit, walk around the rear of the train and across the tracks back to the station side. If you need to use the bathroom or wait for a ride, the doors facing the parking lot should be open.

I ride my bike back the way I came, with one exception. I take Old Washington Blvd at the split to simplify turning left on Montgomery Rd. Traffic is more of an issue later in the day. You have more shoulder to work with, but don't get too comfortable with it. It will vanish into a turn lane or a curb without much warning.

NOTE: A word about MARC tickets. There are ticket machines in most stations. I don't use them, because I get a subsidy and you can't pay with vouchers. The Amtrak counter at Union Station will sell MARC tickets, but for my purposes it's very inefficient. Because I don't commute every day, I buy one-way tickets. Because I get subsidy vouchers, I buy large quantities at a time. At a manned MARC counter, this is pretty easy--they just punch in your destination and the number of tickets, and hit print. At the Amtrak counter, they have to key and print each ticket separately. Make sure to budget time if you have to buy your tickets that way.

What Not to Read

2009-08-05T10:35:00.002-04:00

I'm considering a sporadic series of brief posts on books that the average Orthodox layman or inquirer probably should not read. I realize it's a presumptuous venture. For starters, just because I shouldn't have read something doesn't mean no one should. I understand that, and everything I write here must be qualified, at least by saying that I have no authority to speak from anything but personal experience. Take my advice for what it's worth, or don't take it at all. Another problem is that, obviously, for me to comment that a book is better left unread, I must have read it myself. (I suppose this is not strictly true, since I could just pass along useful advice I've found elsewhere, but that's not really my intention here.) Why, if I bothered to read it myself, would I tell others to avoid it? And why didn't I get (or follow) some good advice before diving in and reading the book in the first place? Well, again, you have to take my advice for what it is. Yes, I do let my curiosity get the better of me. But if I can spare someone else from making the same mistake, it's worth the effort to try.

Having said that, the first book I want to advise against reading is the Rudder. This well-known collection of Orthodox canon law is noteworthy--if you're at all familiar with the field in Roman Catholicism--for its outlandish brevity. Even so, it contains very little that is of any direct use to a layman. Perhaps most importantly, canon must always be handled with economy. Knowing the rule is certainly useful; but knowing the rule without knowing how and when to apply it is dangerous. In practice, many of these rules are relaxed in various ways and at various times. We might quibble over cases where perhaps the rules are relaxed too far (though speaking for myself, I have absolutely no basis from which to quibble), but it is axiomatic in Orthodox canon law that economy plays a critical role. Economy is the domain of clergy, and the specific application of canons is best left to their discretion. A layman is ill-equipped to do much of anything beneficial to himself or anyone else in this area.

That much I knew before I ever tried to read the Rudder, which is actually why I felt safe carrying out the project I assigned myself. I had no serious expectation that I would end up with a bunch of new rules to follow. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity about the contents of the book, particularly how much would have any bearing on someone who's not a monk or cleric. The simple answer is--very little. Most of the canons have to do with things like the appointment, movements, and discipline of clergy and monastics. Of those that don't, two large categories remain--established penalties for various types of sin (which should be applied by a confessor, not by an individual to himself), and statements about doctrine, heresy, and how to resolve schisms. The theological statements may be of some general use, but their contents are repeated in so many places--and often much more clearly and completely--that it hardly bears recommendation as a key source for learning Orthodox doctrine. Even what one might glean from the canons about discipline, since they incidentally identify various types of sin, is probably not worth the trouble. There are plenty of guides for confession, any of which would contain a more or less effective list of sins. The Rudder is not organized as a confession guide, so it's best not used as one. Indeed, if that's what you're looking for, the Exomologetarion would be a much handier tool, and it's still probably in at least the debatable category for lay use.

I might add that most of the sins listed are so straightforward in Scripture that they need no special comment as sins. Again, the point of the canons is to address the means of discipline, not identify the sin as such. As I was skimming through, I found only a handful of offenses that I wouldn't have picked up from a general familiarity with biblical morality. I repeat them here as the minuscule produce of several hundred pages:

Several canons order discipline for participation in or viewing of dramatic entertainment. I can't say myself whether this would apply directly to the kind of entertainment that is popular today, or if there was a more explicitly pagan component at that time. Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to think very carefully about the visual entertainment one consumes.
In a few different places, there are canons indicating that Bright Week (the week after Pascha) should be observed by refraining from work and spending as much time as possible in church. I don't know of any church these days where enough services would be offered (perhaps in a monastery), but it's probably not a bad principle to apply generally, if one can actually spare the time off of work.
In a few places, the importance of Sunday is emphasized. Notably, one should not travel unnecessarily on Sunday, nor should one skip three consecutive Sundays in church without a compelling reason. The latter is pretty straightforward as a general rule; the former is a beautiful continuation of the Jewish Sabbath observance and one that I think we would do well to take seriously in our lives today.
Finally, I found at least one reference in passing to the goal for laymen of eating for sustenance, not primarily for pleasure. The main point, if I understand correctly, was to caution against excessive partying; but I thought it was an interesting argument, which I've seen plenty of times in ascetic literature, but I can't recall whether I've seen it applied elsewhere to laymen.

So there you have it. IMHO these four points are about all a layman might gain for his daily life from reading the Rudder. When weighed against the risks, particularly for those of us who tend to be rule-oriented anyway, it's probably better left to monks and clergy.

flying Simon

2009-07-12T06:07:00.002-04:00

I had the opportunity last night to attend the patronal feast-day vigil at the ROC chapel of Ss. Peter and Paul here in Elkridge. (As much as I would love to have a full Orthodox parish within walking distance, it is still very cool to have a little chapel nearby, like some old-world village where scrounging up a priest to come out and celebrate the patronal feast at a local, all-but-abandoned shrine is an annual highlight. Or more to the point, I would love to see a revival of the tradition where everyone goes to the church dedicated to a particular saint on that saint's feast day. My circumstances don't always allow me to do it, but getting to the only Orthodox house of worship in Elkridge for its patronal feast is definitely going to be high on my recurring priorities.)

I had two revelations in the course of the service. (Not that kind.) First, knowing how to read Greek (loosely interpreted as meaning, at least I know the alphabet and a few other odds and ends) apparently means that I can follow along in the printed Slavonic service books. I hadn't really tried before. In the past, I just relied on my general knowledge of how the services run and getting my bearings whenever they switched to English. But at some point last night I started watching the Slavonic pages as well, and although I can't put together the sounds on my own, I found that I could track in the book with what was being chanted. That was helpful in keeping my place in the service; it also gave me some hope that, even without actually learning Slavonic, I might be able to pick up the pronunciation and improve my understanding of the script just by following along.

The second revelation had to do with the content of the service. Once again, I'm stuck having to rely on a passing observation, without finding a copy of the text; but I'm positive that one of the odes of the canon referred to the confrontation between Peter, Paul, and Simon Magus, where he flew about over the city of Rome, and they prayed to cast him down. I think it was back when I was in college that I was preparing a sermon outline or some such thing on the first part of Acts 8. In looking for more information about Simon Magus (I suppose I was trying to ascertain whether his conversion was genuine or not), I came across this passage in the apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul:

Then Simon went up upon the tower in the face of all, and, crowned with laurels, he stretched forth his hands, and began to fly. And when Nero saw him flying, he said to Peter: This Simon is true; but you and Paul are deceivers. To whom Peter said: Immediately shall you know that we are true disciples of Christ; but that he is not Christ, but a magician, and a malefactor. Nero said: Do you still persist? Behold, you see him going up into heaven. Then Peter, looking steadfastly upon Paul, said: Paul, look up and see. And Paul, having looked up, full of tears, and seeing Simon flying, said: Peter, why are you idle? Finish what you have begun; for already our Lord Jesus Christ is calling us. And Nero hearing them, smiled a little, and said: These men see themselves worsted already, and are gone mad. Peter said: Now you shall know that we are not mad. Paul said to Peter: Do at once what you do.

And Peter, looking steadfastly against Simon, said: I adjure you, you angels of Satan, who are carrying him into the air, to deceive the hearts of the unbelievers, by the God that created all things, and by Jesus Christ, whom on the third day He raised from the dead, no longer from this hour to keep him up, but to let him go. And immediately, being let go, he fell into a place called Sacra Via, that is,Holy Way, and was divided into four parts, having perished by an evil fate.

The story stuck in my head at the time, probably as evidence of how wildly fanciful these apocryphal stories were. But apparently it was embraced in the Tradition of the Church as an authentic encounter. This doesn't mean that the book itself is inspired Scripture, but at least in this instance it happens to record something that actually happened. After a few years of reading lives of saints, I like to think that my take on what's "wildly fanciful" is a bit less biased than it used to be. For some reason, Evangelical Protestants have developed a habit of accepting at face value the supernatural powers manifested in biblical narratives, while discounting out of hand anything extra-biblical that really goes no further. Does it require more faith to believe that Simon flew by demonic power than to believe that demons could give superhuman strength or send a herd of pigs over a cliff? Is it any more fantastic that Peter would pray to end this blasphemous display than any exorcism found in the New Testament? Which came first--the assumption that such things only happened in the first century, or the refusal to accept them on any authority but the Bible?

Anyway, my point in bringing this up is not to preach. I'm just tickled that, after all these years, it turns out I can believe the story really happened.

cautiously optimistic about Chambésy

2009-07-06T08:29:00.002-04:00

Most of the reactions that I've seen online to the recent Preconciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference in Chambésy have been either dismissive--it won't change much of anything--or downright negative--it's a step backward from the goal of Orthodox unity. Personally, I didn't feel like there was enough on which to comment until the publication this weekend of the official statement, and particularly of the promised "rules of operation." Having seen them, I must say I think there's reason to be hopeful.

Some have said that the proposed regional episcopal assemblies won't contribute anything to the American situation in particular, since we already have SCOBA. But there is a definitive difference--SCOBA's membership corresponds with that of the proposed Executive Committee: "the Primatial Bishops of each of the canonical Churches in the Region." The assembly itself, however, will consist of "all Orthodox Bishops of each region . . . who are in canonical communion with all the local Autocephalous Orthodox Churches." This is not only a more canonical arrangement (all bishops participate as equals), but it promises more balanced representation. Instead of, for instance, Bp. Ilia of the Albanian Diocese under the Ecumenical Patriarchate (representing two parishes) holding equal standing with Met. Jonah of the OCA (representing hundreds of parishes), the assembly would include all of the OCA bishops (not to mention, all of the Greek bishops, all of the Antiochian, etc.). It won't be strictly based on numbers of parishes or parishoners represented, but in general the larger jurisdictions will have more bishops in the assembly.

Another important point made clear in the statement is that this is an interim measure, designed to bridge the gap until a fully canonical resolution can be established at a future Pan-Orthodox Council. I realize there is a lot of cynicism about whether such a Council will ever happen, but there should still be at least two positive outcomes. First, the assemblies, to the extent that they perform their desired functions, should foster a unifying process over time. There is even an explicit prohibition on "actions that could hinder the above process for a canonical resolution of the issue of the Diaspora." For instance, there should be less confusion about clerical appointments and discipline: "It must record every decision relating to clerics promulgated by their bishops, in order that this decision is applied among all the Orthodox Churches in the Region." Second, they are specifically directed to work on developing canonical solutions. If that actually happens, we'll probably find ourselves in a better position further down the line, even if a Council never materializes. The latter outcome is safeguarded by specific requirements to meet regularly, and a mechanism for the bishops to call meetings even without the chairman's initiative. The assembly meets at least annually but may meet more often; the executive committee meets at least quarterly. One-third of the membership of either body may call a meeting.

Another point that should not be discounted is that this proposal has the stamp of approval from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. There seems to be a lot of negativity about this--whether anyone will accept the requirement that the chairman must be the ranking EP bishop, whether more conservative jurisdictions will follow, etc. (How much difference will it make that the MP is endorsing this plan?) But it seems to me that at least the perception of SCOBA is that its efforts at unity have stalled in the past because of EP intervention. If that's no longer going to be an obstacle, isn't that reason to be optimistic? Also, given the composition of the assembly and the directive to operate by consensus, I don't think anyone will need to fear a partisan agenda (liberal or otherwise) being pushed through against the wishes of certain jurisdictions.

Of course, if the American bishops aren't also hopeful about this proposal, it probably won't go anywhere. But my ignorant assessment is that it's a workable structure, and probably the best possible arrangement we can hope for right now. There will be time later to see whether the push is toward complete EP dominance, but for right now, taken at face value, I think it's a good opportunity to work out our own issues on our own soil.

more grumbling about the Dorsey station

2009-06-09T14:57:00.002-04:00

It feels like too long since I last grumbled about the Dorsey MARC station and Rt. 100. Apparently the engineering firm that designed the Dorsey station won an award and some honorable mentions for the project. Good for them that I wasn't on the committees handing out awards--I'm not sure they would have fared as well. I suppose it depends on your criteria. The station is designed well as a fortress. It is hemmed in on two sides by steep grades that make overland access virtually impossible. Opposite these, there is an office park and a rather roundabout route, with no real entrance to the station. Fortunately, there is a paved cut-through for foot and bike access (must have been an oversight), but coming from the north you still have to traverse a circuitous path that adds significantly to the travel time involved.

Apparently it's more important that cars have the most direct access possible. I'm not sure why, since they're the fastest-moving option, and extra distance has less effect for them; but there it is. The best access to this modern-day Masada is an air-drop from the elevated highway that reinforces beyond all reason its north-facing impregnability. An elevated highway, I might add, that like most controlled access routes is off-limits to bikes and pedestrians. So, I have to climb over it, then skirt around the other side of the station.

For the most part, this is well-worn ground. The reason for my new rant is that I thought I had discovered an alternate route--shorter distance, and more back roads--but it was not to be. Google Maps thought so, but I was skeptical. For some reason, the address it pulls up for the station puts it on the other side of the tracks. A more suitable phrase cannot be found--apparently that's the way the barbarian hordes will come. I've looked down before on that road, from the lofty perch of the northbound platform. As I suspected, there is no access between the two, designed or incidental. Nor is there anywhere suitable to leave a bike at the bottom of the hill, if one were inclined to bushwhack an assault. So for all the apparent usefulness of that route, you're still left having to travel past the station and double back, to come in the very same way that I already do now.

Now, I'll admit that the engineers and architects may have done the best they could. I doubt that they had anything to do with the height of Rt. 100, and presumably the tracks were already higher than the adjacent road before the station was put in. But surely something could have been done to make it more broadly accessible. The grading isn't as steep elsewhere--perhaps a better location, or more of an effort to create a walkable hill. Failing that, what about putting in a stairway and a bike rack at the bottom? Apparently the completion of Rt. 100 included the station in its design--why couldn't they push the access road all the way through into the industrial park on the north side, so at-grade access from the north would be possible without a car?

The real problem is how the station was envisioned, as a car-accessible enclave, with no real connection to anything beyond Rt. 100. It is surrounded by other roads, but they may as well not exist. They're already talking about mixed-use development around the Savage station; how long before the same thing comes to Dorsey, and with it presumably (hopefully) a complete redesign of the station, at least as it relates to its environment? Wouldn't it have been better to make the place accessible from the beginning?

until next year

2009-06-08T11:50:00.002-04:00

Once again, we come to the great parting of the ways between Orthodox believers on the "Old Calendar" and those on the "New Calendar." The 13-day lag, of course, is with us year-round, since the fixed calendar never really stops. But for those blessed 18 weeks--more than a third of the year--we all share in common the movable feasts and fasts.

The movable calendar starts, at a minimum, ten weeks before Pascha and extends eight weeks after. The four Pre-Lenten Sundays include: Publican and Pharisee, Prodigal Son, Last Judgment, and Expulsion from Eden. Fasting is forbidden during the first week, regular during the second (ending with Meatfare Sunday), and vegetarian during the third (ending with Cheesefare Sunday).

Lent starts with Clean Week, the Monday after Cheesefare. Strict fasting continues for 40 days, including five Sundays: Triumph of Orthodoxy, Gregory Palamas, Exaltation of the Cross, Ladder of Divine Ascent, and Mary of Egypt.

The 40-day fast of Lent ends on Friday, followed by Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday, and the even stricter fast of Holy Week. Pascha follows on Sunday, then Bright Week, with fasting forbidden. Normal fasting resumes after Thomas Sunday, the first of six Sundays identified between Pascha and Pentecost: Thomas, Myrrhbearing Women, Paralytic, Samaritan Woman, Blind Man, and Holy Fathers.

The Feast of Ascension always falls on the Thursday before Holy Fathers, exactly 40 days after Pascha. Pentecost follows, on the 50th day after Pascha, then fasting is forbidden for a week until the Sunday of All Saints. That Monday starts the Apostles' Fast, which lasts until the Feast of Peter and Paul on June 29. This fast bridges the gap back to the fixed calendar and thus marks the end of the movable feasts. It's always 13 days longer on the Old Calendar than the New, and the rest of the year is just more of the same.

At least we have this much in common, but it still seems a high price to pay so we can celebrate Christmas on Western time.

a year ago today

2009-06-07T21:08:00.002-04:00

Today (or rather, yesterday liturgically) being Pentecost, I took a stroll down memory lane. Last year at Pentecost, Ian, Jenna, and I entered the Church through baptism and chrismation. If anyone cares to read, the last few posts from my old blog preserve my reflections before, during, and after the event. It's amazing to me that a full year has passed already, but then sometimes my complacency reminds me that the initial thrill has definitely worn off.

A couple of weird coincidences to mark the occasion:

For the past several months, instead of trying to track each day with the prescribed readings in the lectionary, I've simply been reading through each of the four Gospels, loosely synchronized with the time of year--John in the spring, Matthew in the summer, Luke in the fall, Mark in the winter. I just start at the beginning, try to read a bit each day, and repeat as much as necessary until the end of the season. It happens that, without knowing or planning it, I read today's assigned Gospel passage this morning before church.
When we put Jenna to bed, we realized her cross had come off its chain at some point, exactly a year after she got it. Hopefully it will turn up somewhere . . .

stinkin' Yankees

2009-05-19T07:21:00.002-04:00

Apparently one of the advantages of having preserved the Union is that Northern garbage finds its home in the South. Literally. Garbage. On stinkin' long trains (and I only had to smell it going by on a 40-degree morning), mostly hauling from NYC to various landfills in Virginia. Jeff Davis must be retching in his grave.

I'm sorry. I really am. For being from the inconsiderate North. For eating fast food that comes with more packaging than calories. Tie me to a track in a vain attempt to stop the madness. Or more plausibly, try to get through a day without generating more garbage. (One day isn't so hard--start there, and do the same thing again tomorrow.) Give a rebel yell for the poor and defeated who have more open land than money or dignity. Shed a tear with the old Indian by the road. Repent in dust and ashes before the God who made us stewards of his creation. Or at least go stand on a train platform in August and breathe deep the stench of your own death.

cleanness of teeth

2009-04-19T22:36:00.002-04:00

I'm guessing that somewhere someone is using Amos 4:6a as a life-verse for dentists:

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities . . .

much like the exegetically suspect line reportedly seen in a Christmas card:

And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice . . . and shall make merry, and shall send gifts one to another . . . (Rev 11:10)

But Amos's point is not primarily about oral hygiene. The next line adds:

. . . and want of bread in all your places . . .

suggesting that this cleanness of teeth comes from not eating.

I was reminded of this Hebrew phrase (in the Greek translation it becomes "gnashing of teeth") in the context of fasting for Lent. When you give up meat, flossing loses much of its apparent usefulness. The main purpose, as far as I'm concerned, is to maintain the habit until the fast is over. But actually getting anything stuck in one's teeth becomes a rare occurrence. When you give up all food, as on Holy Friday, even brushing seems reduced to the purpose of covering up (however feebly) the stink of an empty digestive system.

Perhaps now brushing my teeth can become a reminder, however small, of God's blessing--that the food particles I must scrub away every morning and evening are a gift many would feel fortunate to have.

"persecuting giant" in the Holy Saturday canon?

2009-04-19T17:52:00.002-04:00

The irmos of the first ode in the canon that was read for both Holy Saturday matins and the midnight office before Paschal matins:

The One, who of old hid the pursuing tyrant in the waves of the sea, the children of those he saved have hidden beneath the earth; but let us, like the young maidens, sing to the Lord; for he has been greatly glorified.

At least, that seems to be the kind of translation I've seen in print and online. But as we sang it in church, I believe "pursuing tyrant" was replaced with "persecuting giant." Now, "pursuing tyrant" makes me think of Pharaoh at the Red Sea crossing. But when I heard it in church, I couldn't begin to think who this "persecuting giant" was.

The usual translation looks more faithful to the Greek edition that I found online, but I don't read Slavonic. Anyone know where the "persecuting giant" comes from?

spa review

2009-04-13T14:27:00.002-04:00

Um . . . yeah. That's me--your neighborhood spa reviewer. This probably isn't going to be of much use to anyone who's actually looking for a spa in the area. Well, maybe some use. See for yourself.

So, last Friday was Julie's birthday. Every year, the balancing act is to find something that will surprise her, but that she'll also like. I'm not very good at figuring out what she'll like, and as a general rule I don't shop, so my opportunities to happen across something and think, "Hey, Julie would love this!" are limited. I usually have to resort to asking her for suggestions, which seriously diminishes the surprise factor.

Well, this year I wasn't moving very quickly (probably nothing new there), so before I got a chance to get out and look for anything I heard her say something to Ian about wanting "a day at the spa." I'm not made of money (as I like to remind my kids), so an actual day at the spa was out of the question. But I figured I could probably at least get her some kind of decent gift certificate. The only question was, where? Because I know spas. I'm in them all the time, so I know the best, and I know how to pick a good one. Right.

But I do like to shop local. So, I googled something like "Elkridge MD spa" and got a list of results arranged by proximity. I wasn't actually expecting to find anything all that close by, but to my surprise, one of the top hits was something called Oriental Spa, just down the road in a little strip mall on Rt. 1. Their Web site looked OK, and they do massages, which was the kind of thing that I figured would interest her. Worth a shot, right? The first opportunity I had, I went over to ask about a gift certificate. It happened to be an occasion when Ian was looking for somewhere to go, and my answers usually involve walking somewhere or going to church. Even better, Julie was on the tail end of a nap, so we might get there and back without any incriminating questions.

I realized when we got there why I couldn't remember much about it, even though I knew I'd walked through that strip mall a few times before, checking what businesses it contained. Aside from the fact that I normally wouldn't be the least bit interested in a spa, there's not much to say about the outside. The windows are opaque and the glass door covered with blinds. When we walked in, we were faced with another door--solid, with a button to ring a bell. The only other features in the small entryway were a mirror with some kind of picture on it (I wasn't paying much attention) and a sign proclaiming that the establishment was subject to random police inspection. Before I had time to think, "That doesn't sound promising," a female Asian voice yelled through the wall, "No babies!" (I assume she meant my almost six-year-old son) and asked what I wanted. I explained that I wanted to ask about gift certificates, and she said they don't do that. There didn't seem to be much left to do, so we walked back home.

It occurred to me as we were leaving that there are spas, and there are spas. Sometimes a massage is just a massage, and sometimes it's whatever $70 gets you in Elkridge. I settled on a day spa in Columbia. They seem to have a wider range of advertised services, they sell gift certificates, and you can see through their front windows--probably all good signs.

Julie was surprised (she probably would have been either way), and likes what she got, though she hasn't yet redeemed the certificate. If anyone knows of a good spa in Elkridge, I'd appreciate recommendations--never know when I might need to buy another gift. As for the Oriental Spa on Rt. 1, about all I can say is, bring cash, leave the kids at home, and don't expect very good customer service. Maybe it gets better once you're through that second door, but I don't expect I'll ever know.

does a song scream when you emasculate its lyrics?

2009-03-23T06:57:00.002-04:00

Over a year ago, I blogged about coming to terms with my continuing life as a Marylander. At that point, things were starting to look like we'd be staying put for the foreseeable future, and I was looking for anything I could grab onto and identify with my place. Most notably, I came across the Maryland state song, "Maryland, My Maryland!" which seemed to me a surprising breath of fresh air in this state that (around here anyway) often forgets that it is more than a suburb of Washington, DC. How it got there I do not know, but clearly it needs to be preserved and sung, loudly and often.

Sadly, not everyone thinks so. Apparently, instead of teaching our fourth-graders about the complexities of life, history, and politics--and perhaps at the same time reminding them that they live in a (supposedly) sovereign state with its own trajectory, not just some ill-defined tract of a continent-wide empire--we seek to protect their tender ears by abandoning history and place. (Check their iPods to see what fourth-graders don't find offensive.) After four years of indoctrination in political correctness and the sainthood of Lincoln, what an interesting project, to let them read or hear the song and then go react to it by taking political action! Is there really any question how they will perceive it, without some kind of instruction on the context and issues involved?

I'm all for political involvement, and it's not a bad thing to teach kids about it. I would hope that at some point we move beyond teaching them the mechanics of how to make their opinions heard, to instilling in them the kind of critical thinking and values orientation that makes those opinions worth hearing. I'm sure none of this had anything to do with the opinions of the library media specialist who instigated the project, or those of the intern who salvaged the letters, or the sponsoring delegate herself. I'm guessing it had nothing to do either with the political attraction of a cause championed by kids. Perhaps all these well-meaning adults simply agreed with the compelling logic that the song "has too many old fashioned words."

But seriously, can anyone really love the proposed alternative? It has all the appearance of a downloaded state-song template, which probably contained a blank where they inserted the reference to the Chesapeake. Take that out, and it could apply (vaguely) in any patriot's heart just about anywhere. Gone are "the streets of Baltimore," "Carroll's sacred trust," "Howard's warlike thrust," and the other now-virtually-unknown state heroes. Gone are the Old Line, the neigbor-in-need Virginia, and the very historical context and conflict that runs throughout. If everything I need to know I learned in fourth grade, apparently the highlights are that poetry should be easy to read, bland, and unemotive. But don't take my word for it--read the awful specimen for yourself:

WE DEDICATE OUR SONG TO THEE,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND,
THE HOME OF LIGHT AND LIBERTY,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND,
WE LOVE THY STREAMS AND WOODED HILLS,
THY MOUNTAINS WITH THEIR GUSHING RILLS,
THY SCENES––OUR HEART WITH RAPTURE FILLS––
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.

IN TWAIN THE CHESAPEAKE DIVIDES
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND,
WHILE OCEANWARD ITS WATER GLIDES,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
YET WE IN THOUGHT AND PURPOSE ONE,
PURSUE THE WORK SO WELL BEGUN,
AND MAY OUR STATE BE NE’ER OUTDONE,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.

PROUD SONS AND DAUGHTERS BOAST OF THEE,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
THINE IS A PRECIOUS HISTORY,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
BRAVE HEARTS HAVE HELD THY HONOR DEAR,
HAVE MET THE FOEMAN FAR AND NEAR,
BUT VICTORY HAS FURNISHED CHEER,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.

“SAIL ON, SAIL ON, O SHIP OF STATE!”
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
MAY WE, THY CHILDREN, MAKE THEE GREAT,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
MAY GRATITUDE OUR HEARTS POSSESS,
AND BOLDLY WE THY CLAIMS EXPRESS,
AND BOW IN LOVING THANKFULNESS,
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.

And if you're still awake, compare it with the power it seeks to supplant. Then write your state senators and assemblymen and tell them what I want you to think.

does God read labels?

2009-03-13T08:41:00.002-04:00

Don't get me wrong--I think it's a worthy point that reading labels shouldn't be part of Orthodox fasting. Fr. Pat is technically correct when he says that the Ninevites and Jesus didn't read labels. I'm just not sure things are ever quite so simple.

For starters, these are great examples of fasting, and if we were to follow them literally, our fasting would look quite different. We probably wouldn't eat anything, which does take away a lot of the guesswork. On the other hand, we might struggle a bit with how to align the Ninevites' very public fast with Jesus's instructions to make sure that our fasting isn't obvious. Perhaps the different contexts help--the Ninevites were fasting as a community, so there was no point hiding it. When fasting as a matter of individual ascetic practice, it's better to keep it a secret. But that gets us to what I think is the real issue here--how do we fast in the here and now?

Orthodox may all fast as a community (that puts us somewhat more on the side of the Ninevites), but particularly here in the West we do so as a minority community. Our friends and neighbors often aren't fasting with us. In some cases, even family members aren't fasting together. Indeed, within a given parish, some may fast very strictly, while some do not fast at all. So the individual dimension is pretty hard to get around.

Now, for the specific issue of reading labels. If we start from the high standard of Jesus and the Ninevites, it's very easy--just don't eat anything, and everything's safe (or nothing is, but the outcome is the same). But generally speaking this kind of observance of Lent is discouraged as too extreme. And arguably, even if one is capable of fasting so strictly, one shouldn't. It seems to me that it would be very difficult to do so and avoid the sin of vainglory.

There are only a few days during Lent in which it is even considered that one should fast with this degree of strictness (Holy Friday and Clean Monday, for instance). The next step down is bread and water, which could also be done in a pretty straightforward manner, without reading labels. That is, it could be done if one first knew to stick to basic yeast breads, where dairy products are less likely. Of course, making the bread yourself is always a good way to know for sure.

Beyond that, we get into things like soups and salads and various other concoctions of vegetables and legumes. Again, if you prepare them yourself, it's generally quite simple to avoid meat and dairy. If you buy them pre-mixed in the store (to say nothing of prepared foods in restaurants, etc.), it can be surprising what's in there. And this is precisely the point. If you go back just a couple of generations, you get beyond our current obsession with pre-processed foods. Whatever minimal processing was done was typically done in the home. Things didn't come already mixed together. You might buy a chicken from the butcher already killed, plucked, and ready to cook--but it was just a chicken. Anything else that went in the pot was your business. These days, it seems the exception rather than the rule for people to prepare their own food truly from scratch. It's because we buy things that come with labels that we have to read labels.

Another issue here is the learning curve that converts face. Presumably generation upon generation of Orthodox housewives learned from their mothers and grandmothers what recipes to prepare during Lent. You didn't have to think about it--you just knew the right dishes. Not to mention, much of this tradition had a chance to develop where meat was truly a luxury. Cooking vegetarian was a way of life and an economic necessity, even aside from fasting. These days, many American converts have for the first time even to think about cooking and eating without meat or dairy. Eventually you do figure out what's safe and what's not. But getting to that point takes some study, at least part of which normally involves reading labels.

Of course, we could avoid a lot of this hassle if we just stuck with the basics--homemade breads, soups, and plain veggies. For many people, it would mean spending more time on food preparation during Lent than otherwise, which may be counterproductive; but if you do it with the right attitude, I suppose it could be a spiritual exercise to make things from scratch. If you have little kids, you might need to be a bit more creative. Given a choice between soup and starvation, I suppose at some point they'd pick the soup, but few parents have enough patience for that kind of stand-off. So, you start looking at more prepared foods, snack foods, desserts, etc. Would it be better just to say that they must be too young to fast? Or do they learn at least something about fasting by restricting themselves to Oreos for two months?

And then there's the complication of social interaction with non-Orthodox adults (some of whom may live in the same house with Orthodox). Do you refuse all invitations because it's Lent, or do you insist on picking a vegan restaurant, or do you call love an excuse for breaking the fast every time? I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution here, but at least some of the time you can just quietly pick things that don't break the letter of the fast (and if you're genuinely participating to avoid offense or out of love, you're probably not breaking the spirit either). If you've spent enough time reading labels, it actually cuts both ways. Sometimes it's easier not knowing what's in everything so you can plead ignorance, but sometimes you find pleasant surprises, where something you wouldn't have thought is OK really is. NOTE: I am not advocating reading labels while you're at a party or someone's house. My point is that it helps in such cases to have done some homework on the most common packaged foods.

I'm not saying that reading labels has to be for everyone. Personally, I'd rather not do it, because I know I can get too legalistic about such things. If you can get by with homemade bread and soup the whole time, God bless you! You're better for it. But in some situations, I think there's good cause. The trick is moving beyond label-reading. At some point you hopefully settle down into enough of a routine that you don't have to think about it anymore. You figure out what works for you, you know how to adjust when interacting with others, and you keep your mouth shut when someone does something differently. Reminders from the pulpit about not reading labels are good for pushing us in the right direction and instilling the right attitude; I just hope they understand the practical challenges involved.

St. John Cassian on vainglory

2009-03-10T20:26:00.005-04:00

St. John Cassian's seventh principal fault is one of the most frustrating, in that almost everything we might do to avoid it is equally susceptible to the same temptation:

For where the devil cannot create vainglory in a man by means of his well-fitting and neat dress, he tries to introduce it by means of a dirty, cheap, and uncared-for style. If he cannot drag a man down by honour, he overthrows him by humility. If he cannot make him puffed up by the grace of knowledge and eloquence, he pulls him down by the weight of silence. If a man fasts openly, he is attacked by the pride of vanity. If he conceals it for the sake of despising the glory of it, he is assailed by the same sin of pride. In order that he may not be defiled by the stains of vainglory he avoids making long prayers in the sight of the brethren; and yet because he offers them secretly and has no one who is conscious of it, he does not escape the pride of vanity.

What, then, is to be done? St. Cassian advises the following steps:

Think "on that saying of David: 'The Lord hath scattered the bones of those who please men.' . . . consider that we shall not merely lose the fruits of those labours of ours which we have performed at the suggestion of vainglory, but that we shall also be guilty of a great sin, and as impious persons undergo eternal punishments, inasmuch as we have wronged God by doing for the favour of men what we ought to have done for His sake, and are convicted by Him who knows all secrets of having preferred men to God, and the praise of the world to the praise of the Lord."
Do not allow yourself "to do anything at the suggestion of vanity, and for the sake of obtaining vainglory." Often this is easier said than done, and it requires that we constantly examine our motives. If we see that we are doing something for the wrong reason, this is probably a good occasion to cut off our own desires.
When you have begun a thing well, "endeavour to maintain it with just the same care, for fear lest afterwards the malady of vainglory should creep in and make void all the fruits of our labours." Here's the real trick. Once you've started something, even if it was for the right motive to begin with, it's so easy to drift into doing it for the wrong reasons, or to welcome the praise that comes from others. It seems to take even more vigilance here than in starting something new, and I'm really not sure what the best strategy is to apply when we realize we've slipped. Stop doing whatever it is? Or is it enough to acknowledge and repent of the vainglory that has crept in?
Avoid as leading to boasting "anything which is of very little use or value in the common life of the brethren." Again, the particular context of his remarks is a monastery, but the principle applies in other walks of life. If we're doing something that is of little use to anyone else, we're probably doing it just for the sense of accomplishment. This is a hard thing. We're used to climbing the mountain because it's there, or studying humanities for the pure intellectual challenge, or striving in athletics just to beat our own personal best. I think it is possible and appropriate to do things for sheer joy, but if that joy is not centered on God, we too easily drift into pride.
Shun "whatever would render us remarkable amongst the others, and for which credit would be gained among men, as if we were the only people who could do it." This is another thing that's difficult even to pursue. If I can sing well, shouldn't I sing out? If I can fix things, shouldn't I look for ways to serve others with my ability? What about all the parables that teach us to make the best use of what we're given? Isn't it squandering God's gifts if we don't use our unique abilities? But the danger is very real, because if we're not truly using them for Christ, it's worthless--even worse than worthless.

It still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. But it's a start. Somehow, I think a major part of the battle (not necessarily half) is learning to examine even the most basic things that we do and the motives for which we do them. If we get no further than weeping over our sinful addiction to vainglory, we're still better off than before. And the silver lining (if there is one) is that this all-pervasive temptation can yield an element of humility that permeates everything we do. However much I may think I have my act together, I am never more than a blink away from sin. What cause does that leave me for pride?

The Elkridge Blessing (Part 2)

2009-03-10T10:00:00.003-04:00

The pics are finally available from the Theophany service at Ss. Peter and Paul chapel and the blessing of Rockburn Branch. Dcn. Michael has been having issues with his site, but it's nice that at least they're up before the end of winter. I'm easier to spot in the outdoor shots with my bright green coat than the indoor.

St. John Cassian on fasting

2009-03-09T05:57:00.004-04:00

In what amounts to a mostly selfish series of posts (as if anything about my blogging is not), I'm going to try to compile what I find to be some of the more useful remarks in St. John Cassian's books on the eight principal faults. By "useful" I mean, useful to me--undoubtedly, much that is useful to others will not make the cut. What's more, I don't even mean this in the sense of everything that is useful in his books, but mostly what doesn't stick in my head quite as easily, so that I might derive some particular benefit from writing it down. This latter qualification is emphatic, because it has the unfortunate effect of omitting some of the most important points. But precisely because they are so important, they are addressed in almost everything written or said about these subjects, so that I'm constantly reminded of them. The more mundane bits that I'm collecting here are probably less emphasized for good reason.

I should also clarify what St. Cassian's writings are about. He spent a good deal of time traveling throughout the Egyptian deserts, visiting monks in various places to glean their wisdom and practices and distill it all into some useful guidance for monasteries in western Europe. Of course, his writings are directed at monastics, and as such, will not always apply directly to laymen. But as long as we're careful to account for the difference in life situation, we can still glean a lot. After all, the fundamental point of monasticism is not to be different from everyone else, but simply to follow Christ.

We are in Great Lent, and the first fault St. Cassian addresses is gluttony, so fasting seems a logical place to start. There is a wealth contained in this little book, but I keep coming back mostly to the how-to parts. Fasting, of course, cannot succeed in isolation. The other principal faults must be addressed as well, which is why he doesn't stop here. Furthermore, fasting never works as an end in itself. The real objective is to make eating a less significant part of life, in light of more important things:

First then we must trample under foot gluttonous desires, and to this end the mind must be reduced not only by fasting, but also by vigils, by reading, and by frequent compunction of heart for those things in which perhaps it recollects that it has been deceived or overcome, sighing at one time with horror at sin, at another time inflamed with the desire of perfection and saintliness: until it is fully occupied and possessed by such cares and meditations, and recognizes the participation of food to be not so much a concession to pleasure, as a burden laid upon it; and considers it to be rather a necessity for the body than anything desirable for the soul. . . . And so at length we may enter on the course of our life, so that there may be no time in which we feel that we are recalled from our spiritual studies, further than when we are obliged by the weakness of the body to descend for the needful care of it. And when we are subjected to this necessity—of attending to the wants of life rather than the desires, of the soul—we should hasten to withdraw as quickly as possible from it, as if it kept us back from really health-giving studies. For we cannot possibly scorn the gratification of food presented to us, unless the mind is fixed on the contemplation of divine things, and is the rather entranced with the love of virtue and the delight of things celestial. And so a man will despise all things present as transitory, when he has securely fixed his mental gaze on, those things which are immovable and eternal, and already contemplates in heart—though still in the flesh—the blessedness of his future life.

We don't have to look hard to find examples of this principle. My son could practically starve himself to death if he were having enough fun doing other things. Get him playing with friends, or even other kids he just met, and it's almost impossible to drag him over to the table to eat for five minutes. Personally, I've ended up skipping lunch for a lot of reasons in my life--mostly because I had other things that I considered more important. In high school, dropping my lunch period made my schedule flexible enough to take the classes that I wanted. In various jobs, I've skipped lunch so I could leave early or go for a walk or get caught up on something--but it's always easiest to do when I have something to occupy my time instead of eating.

The point, then, is that fasting should not be a mere vacuum in our daily routine. I used to eat at this time--now I just sit around and think about food. Rather, it should be a zeal for our spiritual life that so consumes our efforts and focus that we consider food a distraction and an annoyance. Now, one application of this, I think, is that eating should be more interactive. There are plenty of stories in St. John Cassian and in other monastic writers about elders and hermits who would only eat when they had someone to share a meal with, or about breaking their usual fasting rule to offer hospitality to a guest. Eating has always had a social component to it, and it seems clear that that component should be more important than whatever of my own bodily desires are met by eating.

A guideline that I've toyed with but never really followed very well goes something like this--eat together with others; if no such opportunity arises, then eat when you must, due to hunger. Like anything else, there's still plenty of room to manipulate this kind of principle. The point isn't to seek out parties or to make your friends a means to an end. (No, I really don't care much for you, but you're as good an excuse as any to eat.) Maybe it's a principle that makes sense to me, because I'm not a very social person to begin with. Maybe it just needs to be explicated that part of the pursuit of the spiritual life involves a healthy level of solitude.

This overarching principle of priority leads into the next excerpt:

A monk therefore who wants to proceed to the struggle of interior conflicts should lay down this as a precaution for himself to begin with: viz.: that he will not in any case allow himself to be overcome by any delicacies, or take anything to eat or drink before the fast is over and the proper hour for refreshment has come, outside meal times; nor, when the meal is over, will he allow himself to take a morsel however small; and likewise that he will observe the canonical time and measure of sleep.

The context is in a monastery, where meal times and sleep times are carefully regulated. So the point here is, eat when it's time, with no snacking in between. This means, of course, that you will be eating together with the rest of the community, not based on your own biological urges. No one's going to starve by following this kind of rule. You might be hungry for a while, but you'll make it to the next meal time and eat whatever you need.

In a home where meal times are well-established, this rule could be applied pretty directly and probably is in many of them. We let our kids snack, but when we know it's coming up on a meal time, we make them wait. To them, it may seem like they really are starving to death, but it's a start in the process of learning discipline. Where meal times are less well-established, things can get a bit more complicated. But again, I think the general rule is, eat regular meals rather than snacking. Eat together if possible rather than alone.

Finally, some remarks on the type of food that we eat:

We should then choose for our food, not only that which moderates the heat of burning lust, and avoids kindling it; but what is easily got ready, and what is recommended by its cheapness, and is suitable to the life of the brethren and their common use. For the nature of gluttony is threefold: first, there is that which forces us to anticipate the proper hour for a meal, next that which delights in stuffing the stomach, and gorging all kinds of food; thirdly, that which takes pleasure in more refined and delicate feasting. And so against it a monk should observe a threefold watch: first, he should wait till the proper time for breaking the fast; secondly, he should not give way to gorging; thirdly, he should be contented with any of the commoner sorts of food.

Now, I'm no expert on what food "moderates the heat of burning lust," though if I recall correctly, that's at least part of the point of abstaining from meat and dairy as per the regular canonical fasting routine. My interest here is in the rest of what he has to say--the food we eat should generally be cheap, easy to prepare, and of common use. Now, when he says "common" here, I don't think he's exclusively talking about the avoidance of delicacies, though that's certainly something he has in view throughout. But he goes on to talk about those who want to eat a diet of beans or vegetables, rather than bread. There are many of the desert fathers who were known to subsist on such things, but my take on this is that it's a difference of communal life versus the life of a hermit. Many of the hermits would live on whatever they could forage around their dwellings. Presumably in a communal setting such a departure from the normal rule would require that someone make an extraordinary effort to get the alternate ingredients. In such cases, the best course is to accept whatever makes the most sense for the group; choosing to do otherwise could be a sign of vainglory (more on this later).

I sometimes struggle with this point, because what's cheap and easy in our culture is usually more processed, less healthy, and less basic. Because I generally fast alone, anything else would also mean preparing my own meals, buying a lot of special ingredients, and generally focusing a lot more attention on food than I do right now. Opening up a can of beans and a box of Triscuits is, quite simply, the best sort of meal preparation to keep from getting too obsessive about food. Another rule that I would say applies here is to eat leftovers. Don't get your heart set on whatever you know is in the cupboard, when there's something else that needs to be eaten up before it goes bad.

So, to boil down my personal application of these basic guidelines (again, what I'm shooting for, not where I am right now), I have in mind the following principles:

Focus on spiritual development, so that eating in itself is treated as a distraction from what's really important.
Don't snack--eat actual meals as necessary.
When possible, eat at regular mealtimes with the family, and eat whatever is provided.
Otherwise, choose food that is cheap, easy to procure, and easy to prepare; start with leftovers.
If there's no opportunity to eat with others, eat alone when hunger requires it; usually this means eating late in the day, when you know with more certainty that you need to eat alone.

The other point with all of this that I need to work on is controlling how much I eat at a time. Here the basic rule that almost everyone gives is to eat enough so you're not actually full. To some degree it's trial-and-error, but that's also where a lack of variety can help. For one thing, you're less likely to stuff yourself if the food just isn't that interesting. For another, you start to learn how much is the right amount to eat.

St. John Cassian on anger

2009-02-27T05:57:00.005-05:00

If you fast for quarrels and fights
and you strike a humble person with your fists,
why do you fast for me as you do today
so that your voice may be heard by its clamor?
--Isa 58:4

When the aged John, who was superior of a large monastery and of a quantity of brethren, had come to visit the aged Pæsius, who was living in a vast desert, and had been asked of him as of a very old friend, what he had done in all the forty years in which he had been separated from him and had scarcely ever been disturbed in his solitude by the brethren: “Never,” said he, “has the sun seen me eating,” “nor me angry,” said the other.
--The Institutes of St. John Cassian 5.27

On the threshold of the Fast, I've been re-reading some of St. John Cassian, particularly his books on the eight principal faults. I planned to read them for Lent anyway, but it occurred to me that I could use a refresher before I start the Fast, so that my attitude is right (or at least better) as I begin. Perhaps no more is this the case than with the fault of anger, since it's so easy to get snippy when one is hungry. The whole book on anger is worth reading several times, but this one, short chapter stood out to me:

Or how can we think that the Lord would have [anger] retained even for an instant, since He does not permit us to offer the spiritual sacrifices of our prayers, if we are aware that another has any bitterness against us: saying, “If then thou bringest thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift at the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matt 5:23-24). How then may we retain displeasure against our brother, I will not say for several days, but even till the going down of the sun, if we are not allowed to offer our prayers to God while he has anything against us? And yet we are commanded by the Apostle: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17); and “in every place lifting up holy hands without wrath and disputing” (1 Tim 2:8). It remains then either that we never pray at all, retaining this poison in our hearts, and become guilty in regard of this apostolic or evangelic charge, in which we are bidden to pray everywhere and without ceasing; or else if, deceiving ourselves, we venture to pour forth our prayers, contrary to His command, we must know that we are offering to God no prayer, but an obstinate temper with a rebellious spirit.
--The Institutes of St. John Cassian 8.13

Ouch! He doesn't leave much room here, does he? St. Cassian goes on at the end of the book on anger to raise this point as one of our best tools for self-correction. If we remember what an impediment anger is to prayer, how can we possibly let it go unchecked?

I would recommend as well a series of talks by now-Met. Jonah of Washington and New York, in which he discusses resentment and reacting (in anger) as obstacles to achieving inner stillness.

Religulous

2009-02-25T15:24:00.004-05:00

I like a good debate as much as the next person--probably more, but I'm working on that. There was once a time when I identified my faith with my ability to reason and defend it. I went looking for debates so I could win them--not, of course, for my own glory, but to show that God was right. For many years, I pursued academic training with the primary goal of enhancing my ability to reason. Ironically, it led me to more questions than answers, and even to the point of practical agnosticism. Actually, it's only ironic from the perspective I had before--now I would say that it was the only logical place my striving could take me.

I've largely recounted my journey back to faith on my earlier blog, so I won't go through it again here. My point is simply that a lot has changed in my approach to faith and reason. I no longer have a burning desire to defend what I believe--certainly not to pick fights over it. If others have questions, I'm happy to discuss. But there's generally not much point going head-to-head with someone who has opposite convictions. No one really learns from it. That's why I'm no longer particularly interested in watching everything that appears in popular media about the roots of Christianity, or the Bible as history, or science and the Bible, etc. For one thing, I've seen most of the arguments before, and what you generally get in an hour or two for mass consumption can't possibly move the discussion forward. For another, I find it tiresome to perform my own analysis of such presentations, which is not likely to interest anyone else anyway.

But, as I say, I'm happy to answer questions when they come. That's why I spent some time this afternoon watching Bill Maher's Religulous, and why I'm sharing thoughts on it here. The friend who brought it up knows who he is. It won't be a blow-by-blow. Far from it, I'm going to try to keep my remarks as brief as possible by highlighting one overriding problem--that Maher cannot disguise his own religious conviction. For anyone who sees this about the film, it comes off as petty and hypocritical.

If you don't get the intensity of Maher's faith, just skip to the sermon he preaches in the last five minutes or so. He gives the most rabid fire-and-brimstone preachers a run for their money, as he warns of the dire consequences if we don't act now to eradicate religion. He shamelessly appeals to emotion and raw chemical response by bombarding the viewer with montages of image and sound. All this, as he declares how humble he is for doubting when those "religious" people (who are somehow different from him) are so certain of themselves. Now, I'm all for doubt as an important component of humility. But his argument is self-defeating, because he feels the need to pooh-pooh their apparent humility. Doubting human reason and submitting to revealed truth is false humility; doubting revelation and submitting to human reason is the real thing!

Of course, Maher has no trouble finding people who are overly certain about far too many things. And for every trucker or televangelist who can speak with utmost confidence, he's got a Catholic priest ready to tear down the faith he's supposedly dedicated his life to preaching, with equal certainty that all those old-fashioned ideas are just silly. I suppose we're meant to come away with a dim view of the believers; personally, I just have to scratch my head at those priests, whose credibility must be based on their position as clergy. Oh, wait--that's not where he's going with this, is he? No, but a two-second clip of someone who claims to have discovered both a "God gene" and a "gay gene" does seem to come ex cathedra. Maher never really comes out and says that he thinks anyone who can claim scholarly credentials--at least, if that results in them speaking against faith--must be believed infallibly, but he often acts like it.

He repeatedly asserts without question that the Gospels are not eye-witness accounts, presumably on the basis of some scholarly opinions. I'm not interested in arguing whether they are or aren't, but I bring up this particular example, because it highlights the contradiction that plagues this film. So, since the Gospels must not be verifiable history, the only logical conclusion is that it was all made up. But when he turns to the virgin birth, he insists that if it really happened, surely all four of the Gospels would have recorded it, not just two. Well, if all four of the Gospels were just recording oral tradition or legends or whatever you want to call them, we might suppose that they all would have repeated some widely-circulated tale of the virgin birth. But if they were in fact eye-witnesses (just supposing for the moment), what would we expect? If four men who met Jesus when he was an adult were writing about his life for the very purpose that they wanted to set down an accurate and reliable account before all the witnesses were gone, how would they tell us about his birth? They weren't there themselves. Would they just repeat rumors? Or would they base their remarks on what they had the opportunity to hear directly from someone who was there--the Virgin herself, for instance? Aren't the odds against all of them having a surviving eye-witness to interview? He can't have it both ways. One argument or the other might get some mileage on its own, but they can't both work.

Not that I expect Maher to be an expert in historical or literary analysis. But by claiming the intellectual high ground, he's set himself up for criticism when his own arguments are so shallow. Who's really promoting blind faith? In the segment on God and country, he never really gets to a point. It's scatter-shot, starting with his assertion that Jesus can't possibly have anything to do with nationalism, then a brief discussion about how the founding fathers of America weren't all Christians (no, really?), then an interview with one apparently clueless senator about the religious faith of Americans and the importance of the Ten Commandments. I suppose we're meant to think of all this that a lot of evil or deluded people are trying to connect God with America, and somehow that's bad, but nailing down anything more specific than that doesn't seem to be on the agenda. I came away feeling like he'd insulted my intelligence as a viewer, not my faith as a believer.

The film did have its bright spots. The discussion in the trucker chapel ended with some heartfelt, honest prayer and the closest thing to a compliment that Maher had to give. In his discussion with the Jesus actor at the Holy Land theme park, he actually asked some substantive questions about how God handles evil in the world and why God is so jealous. A lot more could have been said in response than we see (though Maher should have been impressed with how much the guy admitted ignorance rather than try to explain what lies beyond our understanding), and perhaps a lot more was said. There were several times when I had to question the editing. How many of the awkward pauses were fabricated by splicing in silence where a reply was actually given? (Ken Ham at a loss for words? Now that's implausible!) It's his show--I suppose it's his right to send whatever message he wants (not like he makes any claim to hard-hitting journalism). But for someone who claims to be advocating truth and reason over blind faith and manipulation, it still seems hypocritical to me.

I don't suppose there's much cause for surprise here. An agnostic who cares enough to produce a show about religion can hardly be very agnostic. One might expect that he's just as religious--just as evangelistic--as anyone he sets out to mock. But by sending such a contradictory message, he loses any opportunity he might have had to raise substantive questions for intelligent discussion. In other words, he's preaching to the choir--to his own people, who already agree with him. They get some good laughs, and then they get a rousing challenge at the end to go out there and storm the gates of heaven. Just what we need--one more religious leader shouting antagonism to his followers, and in the name of fixing what's wrong with those people. That's religulous.

this year's evil

2009-02-18T18:16:00.002-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Lent . . .

One of the things we've gained from moving to Elkridge is better proximity to some discount stores. I'll save the Super Walmart that's just up the road for another rant; this time, my beef is with Aldi. If you're not familiar with this store, I can only hope you will get to know it in the deepening economic crisis that yawns before us. Ethical issues aside (I don't know, and I don't want to know), it's just plain cheap. You put in a quarter deposit to unlock your cart and get it back when you return it. (If you don't care about the quarter, someone else will.) The cashiers just chuck your groceries back in the cart as they scan, and you put the mess in bags at a counter along the wall. They carry some name-brand stuff, but a lot of items are their own.

Anyway, my wife's better at singing their praises--I'm here to complain, so let's get down to it. Not long ago--just in time for Lent, it would appear--she discovered their fruit pies. You know the type--single-packaged dough shells filled with some kind of fruit. Since they're cheap, there's nothing fancy in the crust--flour, sugar, and low-grade vegetable oil. So . . . if your definition of "oil" for lent is olive oil, there's nothing objectionable. Nothing, that is, except the decadent, well-preserved sweetness of a dessert that I didn't need to know about. Think, a jelly donut with a long shelf-life. I've tried the apple and the cherry, and even without heating them up, I can tell it's going to be hard to resist.

Now that you know, my recommendation is to stay as far away from the things as possible. If knowing makes you go get one, we'll talk again at Forgiveness Vespers.

riding into the wind

2009-02-12T07:16:00.000-05:00

This morning was probably the windiest ride I've had so far. Last night one of those storms blew through, where it looks like the rain is coming down in sheets, mostly sideways. Clear skies today, but it still says 25-35 mph west winds. I can believe the numbers, and west is definitely right. Rt. 1 runs SW-NE, and I was mostly riding into the wind or getting blown from the right. At points where I normally cruise downhill faster than I can pedal, I felt like I could almost coast to a stop just from the drag. Going uphill, I had to downshift a lot faster than normal and spent a lot of time in first gear. Sometimes when I'd hit an open stretch I could feel the bike wobbling, with the wind cutting across my path. It was a hard ride, but at least the wind helped keep me cool, and since the temperature today is just about right (50s all day), I was traveling light without any extra clothes.

So much for the literal meaning of today's title. The metaphorical ride into the wind refers to the mounting forces that conspire to make my commute more difficult and more expensive. On top of everything else, this morning (or rather, in the dark of night, when nothing good except Pascha happens) I got an e-mail from MTA announcing the installation of ticket machines in its rail stations. This measure "will provide increased access for ticket purchases during business hours." How convenient! Oh, wait. The e-mail is carefully crafted--it never explicitly says that ticket agents will be vanishing from most of these stations. What it does say is, "Odenton, Camden, and Brunswick Stations will have TVMs installed, and will continue to be staffed." That's a relief, but why are you telling me they will continue to be staffed? Was it ever in question? "AMTRAK Stations on the Penn Line . . . will still have ticket agents as well as TVMs. The Amtrak stations, as well as the remaining MARC stations, will continue to accept your Transit Benefits." "Remaining MARC stations?" Are some of them being torn down? Or are they talking about stations that will still have actual people working in them? So presumably this means that the oh-so-convenient machines will not accept our brand new transit vouchers (which, after all, have almost no other purpose than to accommodate the MTA). "Cash or vouchers of any kind cannot be used." Ah, there it is. So what can I do with the lovely things now? "We recommend using CommuterDirect.com."

Hmm. It does turn out that you can buy single-trip tickets online, which is what I need, since they discontinued 10-trip passes. That's better than I thought. Also, there's no shipping charge if you use plain U. S. Mail. But to use the vouchers, you have to send them in after placing your order. That's at least a first-class stamp. Not to mention, you're practically sending cash both ways, so there's good reason to get insurance, which isn't free. The other option is to buy the tickets at a station that still has a manned counter. Fortunately, Union Station is one of them. I'm normally rushing from Metro to train or from train to Metro when I'm there, but I suppose my best option will be to take some time every couple of months and buy a huge wad of tickets on my way home. At least, until the next change. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will do even more to encourage the use of mass transit.

the most wonderful time of the year

2009-02-09T07:42:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't about yet another observance of Christmas according to some obscure, ancient calendar. It's about the 17 glorious weeks (or 19, if I get really grabby) when all the Orthodox churches of the world (except Finland ) are mostly on the same calendar. It's about the Serbian and Russian bloggers talking about the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee together with the Greek and Antiochian. It's about wishing each other a blessed fast and a blessed feast, without the usual caveat that some are two weeks early and some are two weeks late. It's about celebrating the compromise that at least preserved the Traditional Paschalion in the so-called New Calendar (since when did Orthodox want anything new?), even if we still feel a twinge over the separation that exists in the fixed feasts.

Ironically, much of the reason that we even have two calendars to think about (and I do recognize that this is a rather petty sentiment on which to start the season, but I can't deny that I enjoy it nonetheless) stems from the more fundamental, the more--dare I say it--crucial point, that everything in this third of the year revolves around Pascha. Some have asked why we can't just date Pascha by astronomical observation and be done with all these artificial systems. The practical answer (leaving aside the example that even Muslims, who use direct observation, generally end up observing Ramadan on different schedules separated by a day) is another question--how do you observe the first moon of spring ten weeks ahead of time? The most important point is a center, with Great Lent looking forward and Pentecost looking back. It makes calendars more complicated, but on the issues of life and death, it is how everything falls into place.

And that's what really makes this "the most wonderful time of the year." Would that our lives were always a sober preparation of Great Lent for the coming of God to save our souls. Would that they were always a joyful anticipation of the fulfillment of the resurrection promises. For these all-too-brief weeks we pull back the veil and glimpse how the ever-rippling glory of the cross touches our lives, past and future. If we don't come away unchanged, our eyes adjust to see that glory a bit longer in each direction.

This week we remember the Publican and the Pharisee, the latter of whom was scrupulous in his obedience but forgot only one thing--that we never really measure up by what we ourselves can do. What the Publican had, and what he lacked, was a humble heart of repentance. And to remind us that the best of intentions and good works don't make us impressive in God's sight, we live this week without fasting--perhaps the only week all year that's fast-free without a specific celebration. For this rule-boy, it still doesn't feel quite right.

Reason #78 Why I'm not Patriarch of Moscow

2009-02-04T06:38:00.000-05:00

At that time, namely in the year 988, under the rule of prince Vladimir, this newly-founded Church of Russia was placed under the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, in application of the 28th canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council.

--Abp. IRENAIOS of Crete, Head of the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, from his address given at the enthronement of Pat. KIRILL of Moscow

As a newbie to Orthodoxy, I may be way off base here, but this seems like a gratuitous citation of the canon, and a rather insulting one to be made at the enthronement of the new Patriarch. "Congratulations . . . look forward to working with you . . . by the way, I'm right and you're wrong."

Now, for those who might not know, relations between the Ecumenical Patriarch--that's the bishop of Constantinople--and the Patriarch of Moscow have been strained in recent years, to say the least. It's got to the point that their delegations literally cannot be in the same room with each other at what are supposed to be joint theological dialogs between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. I'm not going to try to explain all of the ins and outs of the dispute. I probably don't understand it well enough myself, and I suspect it would bore most readers.

But a major point of contention in their relationship is precisely the "application of the 28th canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council." Yes, that Fourth Ecumenical Council--the one that articulated and defended the doctrine of two natures of Christ. The Ecumencial Councils were called primarily to address major Christological issues, but while they were at it, they also dealt with more practical concerns of Church life in their time. Canon 28, if I may attempt a rough summary, re-affirmed the Ecumenical (imperial) status and prerogatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Included in his responsibilities was the ordination of bishops in certain areas listed in the canon. The controversial part deals with "bishops of the aforementioned dioceses who are among the barbarians." Recent Ecumenical Patriarchs have contended that this means their jurisdiction automatically extends to any "barbaric" area where an independent Orthodox Church is not already established. Moscow Patriarchs (and others) have preferred a more limited reading of the canon--that it applied to the specific territories mentioned and the specific political circumstances of the Empire.

The practical outcome of these competing interpretations is that Constantinople claims jurisdiction in a particular area because of the canon, while Moscow claims jurisdiction in the same area because of history and common sense. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th c., around the same time that Moscow was coming into its own as capital of the Russian Empire. Over the next four centuries or so, Orthodox existence was largely defined by these two Empires. Russia became the default protector of Orthodoxy in many parts of the world, and missionary activity of the Russian Church pushed eastward, all the way into North America. Around the beginning of the 20th c., things changed dramatically, when both Empires collapsed. Waves of emigration from various parts of the Orthodox world brought different ethnic groups into closer contact, far removed geographically from their home churches. Waves of nationalism also swept through the states newly freed from imperial rule, with often controversial claims of ecclesiastical independence. As it suffered under Communism, the Russian Church could no longer oversee much of what it had in the past. At the same time, as Orthodox fled the historic territory of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the new, secular government of Turkey took an even more hostile stance than that of the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch looked to the Greek Diaspora in the West for strength.

Today, Orthodoxy in the West is a patchwork of ethnic jurisdictions. Vestiges of the multinational administrations set up by Imperial Russia no longer have a real claim on territorial unity. Constantinople has had little success convincing anyone of its canonical claims, but it retains control of the populous Greek churches and thus champions the status quo of divided, ethnic structures. Meanwhile, in the post-Communist bloc, fragmenting states and overblown nationalism make fertile ground for schism. Those who fear the West cling to their associations with Moscow, including church jurisdiction; those who fear Russia are quick to set up their own independent churches, either by simply striking out on their own (without recognition from any other Orthodox church) or by appealing to Constantinople.

One bright spot in all of this came a few months back at the anniversary celebration of Orthodoxy in Kiev. There, competing churches abound, but so far the Ecumenical Patriarch has refused to endorse any of them. Instead, he and the Patriarch of Moscow concelebrated, and disaster was averted.

I digress, but hopefully it's of some use to show what a slap this citation of canon 28 could be. I would guess that Pat. KIRILL expected no less and let it go by. He has decades of experience working with other churches, so I can't imagine there's much that would surprise him. The Western press, when it has paid any attention at all to the election and enthronement of the new Patriarch, has mostly been interested in what it means for relations between Russian Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church. Personally, I'm much more interested in what it means for relationships within Orthodoxy--specifically, for that between Moscow and Constantinople. It's a very complicated situation, and I don't profess to understand it fully or to have any substantive answers. But it's a sad testimony to the ways that human fear and pride upset the unity of Christ, and I pray every day that resolution will come quickly.

more MTA woes

2009-01-30T10:44:00.001-05:00

This one's not too much of an issue for us, though I'm guessing Julie will find it more objectionable than I do. In the continuing efforts to balance its budget, the Maryland Transportation Authority is creating a disincentive to use E-ZPass. Now, if you don't know about E-ZPass, it's a device that you attach to your windshield, so that instead of stopping to pay tolls, you just slow down (sometimes--but they actually have some high-speed E-ZPass lanes now) so a scanner can catch your pass and give a green light. It charges the toll against the pass, and you get a monthly charge on your credit card whenever there's anything to pay off. Here in the Mid-North Atlantic states, you can use E-ZPass across state borders. We don't have any regular trips that involve tolls, but for some destinations on the other side of Baltimore, it can be used to pay for tunnels, or to cross the Annapolis Bay Bridge, or we can use it on the PA Turnpike, the NYS Thruway, etc., when we travel. We might easily go a year without using it, but it's a great convenience when needed.

Well, MTA just voted to add a $1.50/mo charge for E-ZPass, starting in July. Now, I'm no economist, but I have to wonder how much they really thought this through. It will generate new revenue, because undoubtedly there will be a lot of drivers who use the thing regularly and consider it worth $1.50/mo to continue using it. But also undoubtedly there will be many users who choose to turn in their E-ZPass rather than pay the extra charge. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll stop paying tolls--they'll just add to the lines at the toll booths. If the state responds by increasing the number or hours of toll booth operators, the extra cost will start to offset the revenue generated. If the state just lets the lines get longer, people will find alternate routes or drive less, either of which means less money collected in tolls. I don't know how much of this will have to happen to cancel out the new revenues, but I hope someone does.

Personally, I can't complain much about any measure that reduces the amount people drive (though I can complain that from everything I've seen, MTA is also making it harder to take mass transit). It will be an inconvenience on those occasions when we would have used it (and probably a bigger inconvenience than I'm thinking, because it's not just us getting back in line--it's a lot of other people getting back in line ahead of us), but since we're only talking about a few select trips, not a huge problem. I just have to wonder about the wisdom in the move.

One final thought: Is there any reason you can't sign up for E-ZPass in another state? What do other states charge in the way of a monthly fee? Something to consider. Something for MTA officials to consider.

Kathisma 20

2009-01-30T05:14:00.000-05:00

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Sion. For He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, He hath blessed thy sons within thee. He bringeth peace upon thy borders, and with the fatness of the wheat He filleth thee. He sendeth His saying unto the earth; right swiftly runneth His word. He giveth His snow like wool; the mist He sprinkleth like ashes. He hurleth His ice like morsels. Who shall stand before His cold? He shall send forth His word and melt them; His wind shall blow and the waters shall flow. He declareth His word unto Jacob, His statutes and judgements to Israel. He hath not dealt so with every nation, nor hath He shown His judgements unto them.

Ps 147 is included in this morning's readings. Perhaps it grabbed my attention because of our recent weather, or perhaps just because I have an affinity for snow (though not so much for ice). Anyway, I thought I'd share some of St. John Chrysostom's commentary:

Hence after saying, Who sends out his word to the earth, he added, his word runs swiftly. Now, he said this to show that he cares not only for our country but for the whole world. Word here means command, the working of his providence. . . .

Now, what does he command? The things that bear on our life - I mean, what concerns the management of the airs, the seasons and climatic changes. Hence he also added the words, Giving snow like wool . . . . Here in my view he presents the invincible and unlimited character of God's power in producing beings from what did not exist, and changing those already made and remodeling them to suit his wishes. . . .

Many other such marvels can be seen in nature. So when it happens each year and comes before your gaze, do not regard the marvel as of little significance: think how wonderful it is, at one time snow coming into view, at another time water, such changes happening in a short space of time. You see, in case any stupid person should think they happen by the natural operation of the elements, and simply regard these things responsible for them instead of knowing who is the one giving the commands, he directs his attention to God's ordinance about all these things, saying, He will send out his word, and they will melt, that is, his ordinance. It was not the nature of the winds taking the initiative and causing this, you see, but the God who made the winds. . . . I mean, just as with unbearable ice and sleet it is easy for him to restore order and settle everything, so too it is very simple for him to bring back to peace and to their own country those held in captivity and embroiled in wars, and guide them to their former prosperity.

He not only suggests this, however, but hints obscurely at something else. What in fact is that? That just as even these things that bring distress often prove useful and beneficial, so too the things that turned out for them disastrously also brought them great benefit. Lest they harm them further, he transformed them in turn to something more tranquil. . . .

Snow and ice, then, are used in this psalm as illustrative of unfriendly weather, which is sent by divine order as much as any other. The lesson is that God sends into our lives both the good and the bad, but just as easily he can turn the bad into good. Snow and ice do not remain forever but melt into flowing water that we need for life.

This is a fairly straightforward lesson taken from the literal sense of the psalm. St. John continues, however:

What has been said, then, is adequate for the literal sense. If, however, you have the desire to take the psalm also in an anagogical sense, we should not decline to travel that path as well, without doing violence to the historical meaning - perish the thought - but along with it adding this as well for the benefit of the scholars to the extent appropriate. . . .

Who sends out his word to the earth, his word runs swiftly: what word? I ask. The one through the apostles, the one that runs everywhere lighter than a feather. Hence David also suggests this in another place, saying, "The Lord will give a word to those spreading good news with great power." But if any stupid people have doubts, let them find proof in what happens with the elements, and learn how the snow falls suddenly, and in a moment of time conceals the whole earth, not covering its face over time but enveloping it all at once. So since he was inspired and it was likely he said this in an anagogical sense to forecast and hint at the future, it was logical he should make his point by reference to the elements. Now, what he means is something like this: All the earth is soon to be instructed by God, with great speed and in a moment of time. Then, lest anyone have doubts as to whether Jews, a single nation enjoying so much care over such a long period of time, proved upright, how it is possible for those inhabiting the world to be reformed in a short time, he takes the examples from the elements for reinforcement of his words - snow, mist, ice - which most of all happen in one moment of time. So have no doubts as to whether their attitude also is likely to be transformed. But are there many who resist? Even these will yield and give way, however: if no one can bear the onset of a little period of extreme cold weather, and instead everyone gives way to it, much more will all adverse influences yield to his word and command.

Prophetically, then, the psalm uses snow to illustrate how God's Word will rapidly spread throughout the world and transform human hearts. As snow comes suddenly and irresistibly and changes people's lives whether they choose it or not, so is God's Word in the wake of Christ's coming. Of course, when snow comes, people can choose to act as if nothing has changed, but to their own peril.

wimp

2009-01-29T05:09:00.000-05:00

Humility is good. Despite my typical bragging about "our weather is worse than your weather" and my intention of riding all through the winter, I'm staying home today. The roads really aren't that bad. It should be a clear day, and the high should be enough to see most of the snow and ice melt away. If I were driving, I probably wouldn't think twice about going in.

But, when I took a walk around the area this morning, there was definitely black ice, especially at the edges of the road. There probably wouldn't be much on Rt. 1, and morning traffic is usually light enough that I could stay well out toward the middle of the lane. But I have no idea what it would be like after I got off Rt. 1, and it only takes one slick patch to cause an accident. I've never ridden on ice, and I'd prefer that my first time not be skating downhill in almost total darkness, carrying a laptop that doesn't belong to me. Julie already expressed that she doesn't want me to try it, especially since my boss gave me the option of working from home.

In Directions on the Spiritual Life, Abba Dorotheus writes:

If we wish to be completely transformed and freed from attachments, let us learn to cut off our own desires, even in the least important things. For nothing brings more profit to men than renouncing their own will, since in truth a man gains a greater benefit from this than from any other virtue. Indeed, the cutting off of one's own will and desires can be practiced at every moment. Suppose a man is walking; his thought says to him, "Look at this and at that," but he cuts off his desire and says nothing. He meets some people talking; his thought says to him: "have a few words with them," but he cuts off his desire and says nothing. He comes to the kitchen; his thought says: "let us go and see what the cook is preparing," but he cuts off his desire and does not go, and so on and so on. But cutting off his desires in this way he acquires a habit of cutting them off and, beginning with small things, ends by easily and calmly cutting them off in big things as well. Thus, finally he begins to have no will of his own at all and remains unperturbed, whatever may happen.

In this case, it's not entirely clear what my "own desire" is. Sure, all things being equal, I'd rather work from home than commute two hours each way by bike, train, and subway. But in this case it seems that my pride would prefer the opportunity to give the nonchalant answer--yeah, of course I rode my bike in this morning; it was no problem--and know (or assume) that people wonder how he does it.

eis polla eti despota!

2009-01-27T14:46:00.000-05:00

Met. Kirill has been elected as the new Patriarch of Moscow!

The Elkridge Blessing (Part 1)

2009-01-19T19:56:00.001-05:00

Sometimes mountainbikers happen across their strange woodland rituals--it might be about a dozen people out in the snow, gathered on the bank of a partially frozen creek, speaking in strange tongues and throwing water around . . .

Honestly, I would love to know what the three cyclists who swerved around our little gathering thought we were up to. If only they'd known that half-way around the world hundreds or thousands of groups were doing the very same thing, except that their festivities probably involved a bit more "walrusing"--what the Russians apparently call a polar bear swim.

As I've mentioned before, one of the things I like about living in Elkridge is that we're about a five-minute bike ride from an Orthodox cemetery. More to the point, it's the cemetery that belongs to Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Baltimore, which has a good relationship with Holy Cross. Generally if a priest is needed in an emergency when Fr. Gregory is away, Fr. John from Holy Trinity is on call. We also use some of the cemetery space and the picnic facilities.

Picnic facilities? This is really starting to sound weird. Well, the fact is, Orthodox take very seriously the "communion of saints." Death is a real separation, but much less so in light of Christ's "trampling down death by death." We pray for our departed friends and family, and we pray to (somewhat less scandalously, with) the departed saints. It is said that the early Christians often had to worship underground, in the same caves where they buried their dead. So when the Book of Revelation talks about the martyrs under the altar, this would have reflected the usual practice. We are never very far from our dead even now, with regular commemorations and memorials of departed loved ones, various Soul Saturdays throughout the year, and one particularly beautiful tradition in the Russian Church. On Thomas Sunday (a week after Easter), they gather in the cemetery and proclaim the resurrection to the dead who lie there.

So it's not so unusual for Orthodox to combine picnic facilities with cemeteries. They also ideally maintain a chapel in proximity, if the cemetery is not already close to the church, so services like that on Thomas Sunday have somewhere to meet. Someone told me today that Ss. Peter and Paul Chapel, which is on the grounds of this particular cemetery, used to be pretty run-down and used basically once a year. Things have changed quite a bit since then. At one point, when Holy Trinity had two priests, they had a full-fledged Russian language mission, with regular vigils and liturgies. Now, they do the first vigil of the month at the main church downtown, but the other weekly vigils are held in the chapel. There are no regular liturgies there, however. So I can't rely on it as an actual neighborhood parish, but it is nice to participate when I have occasion to do so.

I visited a month or two ago for Saturday vigil (part of it anyway--I had Ian with me, and vigil is quite long). I was back again today for Theophany. That's the Orthodox name for what the West calls Epiphany--the end of the traditional 12 days of Christmas. Now, you fact-checkers are probably already calculating--if it's 12 days after Christmas, we're 13 days too late! Not so, if Christmas was in fact 12 days ago :-) Russian Orthodox still follow the Julian calendar, which was the traditional calendar of the Church down to the Great Schism and continued in both East and West until around the time of the Reformation Pope Gregory endorsed an adjustment to the calendar. Scholars had determined that adding a leap day every four years was gradually pushing the Julian calendar behind the actual solar year. They came up with the idea to skip the leap day every century year but the fourth, and to go back and re-calibrate the calendar according to the new system. This meant deleting some days and then moving forward with the new approach. Protestant nations were slow to adopt the new papal calendar; in the British Empire, it didn't take until a few decades before the American Revolution. Orthodox nations didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until the 20th c., and even then there was difference of opinion over its use for Church events. To this day, the Russian Church retains the Julian calendar and therefore observes Christmas and Theophany 13 days later than the West (for the next century anyway).

I wanted to attend Theophany in particular for a few reasons. One is that I missed the Theophany service at Holy Cross due to a schedule conflict with Julie. (If there's any advantage to having Orthodox churches on two different calendars, it's that you get two chances to attend the major feast services.) Another is that I knew they'd have Theophany at the chapel, so it would be close by. Most importantly, they do an outdoor water blessing at Theophany, which Holy Cross doesn't do (it would be considerably more difficult logistically), and they bless a waterway that's in very close proximity to where I live.

Now, I need to explain something about the water blessing. Each year at Theophany, every Orthodox church performs the Great Blessing of Waters, at least inside the church building, but often outside as well. Western Epiphany has come to revolve primarily around the Three Wise Men, but in the East, Theophany is about the baptism of Jesus. This is the point of the name, which means "revelation of God." While Jesus's birth was heralded by angels and witnessed by Jewish shepherds and Gentile wise men, it was a more or less secret affair. It was not a public announcement for everyone to consider. But when Jesus reached adulthood and officially began his ministry, he started with being baptized by St. John. At this point, John proclaimed to his followers that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and the Trinity was revealed with the voice of the Father from heaven, and the Spirit descending in the form of a dove.

But why baptism? John was baptizing people for repentance, but Jesus was without sin. When John himself balked, Jesus said it was to fulfill all righteousness, which the Orthodox Church interprets to mean that his baptism was part of God's redemptive plan. He brought human nature into the water of repentance, but this was also a moment of redemption for the created world, which also suffers the effects of our fall. The water didn't cleanse him--he cleansed the water! And as water is integral to pretty much everything that lives on this planet, a cleansing of water extends to everything else. When we celebrate Theophany, we call on the Spirit to perform anew this miracle of redeeming the natural world. It works to do it indoors, with a big tub of water, but the connection is much more apparent when the blessing takes place at a natural waterway. In our case, the blessing flows from Rockburn Branch, into the Patapsco River, out to the Chesapeake Bay, and then to the Atlantic Ocean.

I didn't have much clue what to expect when I went. I wasn't able to find out until last night when the service would start, and even then I had no idea how long it would last or exactly when the outdoor blessing would take place. The liturgy started at 10:00 and was on the long side at something like two full hours. Then there was the indoor water blessing, so people could fill up jugs to take home. I kind of liked how this part worked. Perhaps it was by necessity because there's no plumbing into the chapel, but most people came in with jugs of water to dump into the containers for the blessing. Not that water is much of an offering, but still--the idea that we bring our fallen, contaminated water, and God gives it back to us made whole. After the blessing, several people left, while others stayed for a light lunch (which had to be set up, so that took more time). Then we got everything together and 13 of us went off to make our way through the woods, down to the creek. Fr. John said this was the first time they'd done it when the creek was significantly frozen, so it took some time to determine the best spot where we could get at the water. With the walk back up to the chapel, it was after 3:00 by the time I got home.

Taking the outdoor blessing in isolation, you couldn't have asked for a better setting--the woods, the light snow falling and just covering the ground, the iced-over creek, the bite in the air. It was exactly what such an outdoor winter sacrament should be. Though I must say, I was a bit relieved to find that they do not observe the custom of throwing the cross into the water, so those who choose to do so can jump in after it. The rest of the day was good as well, though a bit longer than I was hoping. I didn't really want to spend so much time away from my family, but it was nice that I had a chance to meet some of the parishoners and experience the services in both Slavonic and English. I'd probably be pretty lost if it were all in Slavonic, but between having a decent familiarity with the flow of the service and following enough in English, I usually knew right where we were, without once looking at a service book.

A lot of pictures were taken. I'll watch for them to go up on Holy Trinity's site, or more likely, that of Dn. Michael Bishop, and post a link if anything is available.

my short-lived career as an evangelist

2009-01-16T23:29:00.000-05:00

In case anyone doesn't know, I grew up Evangelical. Particularly, I was very involved in a very active youth group. It seems that our primary metaphor was that of spiritual warfare, so we spent a lot of time and energy on how much the world was against what we were doing, and how much we needed to take a stand for our faith. There's a lot of truth in this idea, but I'm not sure I always got it right.

I did not live in the same school district where I went to church, so as far as I knew, when it came to defending my faith, I was mostly on my own. My Christian witness in high school consisted mostly of carrying a Bible wherever I went and arguing with teachers and classmates about certain pet issues (biological macro-evolution, the age of the earth, abortion, Christianity in American history, etc.). It gave me a chance to stand out as different and show off my intellectual abilities all at the same time, without much spiritual investment or love lost on the people around me.

The culmination came when I had to give the valedictory address at high school commencement. I had no idea what one would normally talk about for such things, and since my life had revolved more around church than school, I had no particular sentimental feelings about the event itself. Someone in the school office made the mistake of telling me I should just say whatever I wanted to tell my fellow students. I figured, since we were going our separate ways anyway, this was my chance to do what I had always lacked the courage to do and present the gospel. (As much as I acted like friendships didn't matter, when push came to shove, I was always worried that I'd offend someone and lose their friendship. Note that, for all my courage in these side issues, I was still scandalized by the cross.)

I was required to write out my speech and submit it beforehand for approval. This resulted in a conversation with the school superintendent, who tried to persuade me that I could take my faith seriously without offending. This was just the sort of advice I needed to steel my resolve. He would not forbid the speech outright, and I would not reconsider. Although in hindsight I'm not sure what it really meant, I felt vindicated by the applause-o-meter. Naturally, I have no idea what impact it really had on anyone's life.

My parents recently had the VHS converted to DVD and gave us a copy. As I was watching it last night, I was surprised how familiar the speech felt. I don't think I'd re-visited it in the past 15 years, but I recognized just about every word of it. Here, then, for your enjoyment is a blast from my own past. I take you back to the summer of 1993 . . .

cold? what cold?

2009-01-15T19:55:00.000-05:00

In the past few days we've had some of the coldest weather so far this season. Not that it's been what I would call bitter--lows around 20, highs around 30. I've donned some winter gloves and a headband to keep my ears from freezing; but aside from that, it's still just the usual, well-vented helmet, work clothes, sneakers, and some appropriate layers (work shirt, fleece vest, rain coat to cut the wind). It doesn't take me as long to cool down when I arrive, but I still strip down to one shirt while waiting on the train platform.

The morning rides this week have been unremarkable. I've had to blow my nose whenever I stopped, but otherwise no different from the usual. This evening, it was rough at the beginning, with significant wind, but the rest of the ride was pretty normal. The worst part was actually before I got going. My u-lock was stuck and took a lot of wiggling to get it open. When it finally came, I could see rust on one end. It hadn't occurred to me so far to watch for that kind of thing. It's sat in the rain a few days--nothing terribly heavy, but if it was going on all day, I suppose it would get some moisture in there. Maybe I should start spraying it now and then with some lubricant.

St. Theophan's recommended readings

2009-01-10T17:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know what people did before the Internet, but as I've been reading back through The Spiritual Life, I've tried to follow up any recommendations he makes of other reading materials.

Letter #4:

Long ago, Macarius the Great described this bustle of life with its futile pursuit . . . It expresses the essence of the matter, and, once you have accepted it with conviction, it will serve for you as a restraint from the charm of worldly life. In order to be able to think about this more and to get more familiar with this manner of thought, try to read the entire Fifth Homily of St. Macarius.

Note: The numbering of St. Macarius's homilies in his citations doesn't seem to agree with what I've found in current English sources.

Letter #30:

I take up my pen, and am still just beginning to explain the very same thing to you, that is, the attractiveness of the condition of being filled with grace, in order to set you on the path to attaining it, learning it and being established in it. But this time, I will not offer you my own words, but those of that wise man of God, Macarius the Great, namely from his eighteenth homily.

Letter #31:

Get a notebook, and in it write down the thoughts that come to you as you read the Gospel and other books in this manner: "The Lord says such and such in the Gospel; from this it is obvious that we must act in such and such a way; for me this is feasible in such and such instances; I will act thus; Lord help me!" This does not require much effort, but how much benefit comes from it! Act in this way. Your thought will come into focus and become inspired. The Spirit, moving in the Scriptures, will enter into your heart and heal it.

Letter #33:

After prayer, do some reading with meditation. You need to read, not in order to pack your mind with diverse information and ideas, but to receive edification and to understand how best to accomplish those things which are necessary for us during these days of govenie. For this one must read a little, but each item that is read must be brought to conscious feeling by devoting lengthy attention to it.

What should be read? Just spiritual books, of course. Of these, I cannot recommend anything to you more than the writings of Bishop Tikhon. There is the little book Arise and Conquer, a selection of articles by him that are conducive to repentance. There is another book about repentance and Communion, sermons on Great Lent and the preparatory week preceding it.

He is referring, of course, to St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, for whom St. Tikhon's Monastery is named, not the later Metropolitan of America and Patriarch of All Russia. The only book-length collection of his works that to my knowledge has been translated into English is Journey to Heaven: Counsels on the Particular Duties of Every Christian. This is an anthology of his works, published in Russian under the subtitle of the English and then in Greek under the main English title. Part III, on "Spiritual Struggles," addresses self-examination, sin, and repentance.

. . . Instead of conversation, it would be better to set aside an hour for reading together. This would be very suitable in the evening. Nothing would be better, if one of you could give edifying accounts that manifest the power of repentance and Communion. For your readings together, you should select something from the Lives of the Saints.

Letter #36:

Take the Lives of the Saints for the month of March and read the story of how blessed Theodora endured the toll-houses. This story is included in the life of St. Basil the Younger for March 26. The life itself of that starets is great. Begin immediately with the story of Theodora . . .

Do not desire to be worldly-wise, but take this story to heart, and undertake to correct all your imperfections in accordance with its teaching.

There is a rather heated controversy surrounding this particular story. It seems to me that the purpose for which he is recommending it circumvents a lot of the debate, since he's not making a point primarily about the afterlife but about self-examination.

Letter #45:

I am sending you a little book about this subject entitled Letters on the Spiritual Life. (One could also add the small anthology called The Holy Fathers on Watchfulness and Prayer.) It is directed toward the consolidation of the mind in the heart with attentiveness toward the Lord and prayerful disposition. For the labor of prayer, you need to select and read such books or articles that discuss everything about prayer and prayerful frames of mind.

The first book he mentions here appears to be one of his own volumes in Russian, which as far as I know has not been translated into English. I can't find anything on the second book, but my best guess is that it's his own compilation from the Philokalia, perhaps similar to the book by Archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis--Watchfulness and Prayer.

Letter #48:

I have already written that steadfastness and continuity of labor over oneself is an essential condition for success in the spiritual life. . . . You have St. Macarius the Great's Homilies. Try to read the nineteenth homily, which tells how the Christian must force himself in every good thing.

Letter #50:

For you to meditate on the Divine attributes and activities on your own may be a little difficult. It seems, however, that you have the writings of Bishop Tikhon. You will find his Letters from the Cell to be a most helpful aid. Bishop Tikhon clearly contemplates each Divine attribute and activity, and writes of each one with such warmth and conviction that, if you read attentively, they will permeate your heart.

As noted above (#33), I know of only one book available in English with any of St. Tikhon's writings. There doesn't seem to be a section comparable to the contemplation he mentions here.

Letter #51:

It is necessary for you to reinterpret everything that comes before your eyes in a spiritual sense. This reinterpretation must fill your mind to such an extent that when you look at something, your eyes see something sensual, but your mind contemplates a spiritual truth. . . .

As an aid to yourself, take up Bishop Tikhon once again. He has four entire books of such reinterpretations called Spiritual Treasure Gathered from the World. Get it and read through it. After you have read it and seen how he does it, you will become skilled at doing it on your own. Or you may directly adopt his reinterpretations for yourself. If, perhaps, reading these books seems to be too lengthy an undertaking, there is an abridged version of all the reinterpretations entitled Situation and Spiritual Discourse (Volume II). Here Bishop Tikhon gives a brief reinterpretation of 176 situations. It would be worth a little trouble for you to look over these with attention; besides, they encompass everything that you will need to reinterpret.

As noted above (#33), I know of only one book available in English with any of St. Tikhon's writings. There doesn't seem to be a section comparable to the reinterpretations he mentions here.

Letter #58:

One must appeal to the Lord, going down with the attention of the mind into the heart and calling out to Him from there. . . . This same John the Dwarf told the following parable on this subject . . . Resolve to learn this story by heart and always act according to its meaning. You will see how quickly inner peace that has been disturbed by the appearance of the passions is restored within you.

A footnote indicates that "this story may be found in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Oxford: Mowbray & Co. Ltd., 1981), pp. 88-89."

Letter #59:

You have been told almost everything about spiritual warfare now. . . . Do as you have been told, and you will successfully drive out every passion, no matter how forcefully it has arisen within you.

So that you may better remember all this and be persuaded that you must act in no other way, I am providing an excerpt from St. Hesychius the Priest of Jerusalem, whose book, you will recall, I sent to you. . . . Resolve to look over the little book in its entirety.

This text is translated in the English Philokalia (vol. 1) as "On Watchfulness and Holiness," by St. Hesychios the Priest.

Letter #64:

The best remedy for boredom, however, is to acquire a taste for serious reading and the study of subjects that you are unfamiliar with. It is not so much the reading that drives away boredom as the study. . . .

I would note for you that the study Count Speransky is referring to is the study of entire sciences, or certain parts of them. By this, it is obvious that one avoids any reading of frivolous books. . . . Read more the spiritual books (than scientific ones). This is the sphere of the most serious subjects, and, most importantly, the most necessary. In this sphere everything is new and never becomes obsolete. The more you learn, the more you will discover subjects that are as yet unfamiliar.

Letter #65:

Who got you interested in St. Poemen so that you want to know more about him? No matter who it was, I am very glad of it. You will find who St. Poemen was and how he lived in the Menaion under August 27, and also in the book Sayings Concerning the Ascetic Deeds of the Saints and Blessed Fathers. You will find a number of his sayings in these places.

The standard English edition of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, cited above (#58), translates the sayings of St. Poemen on pp. 163-95.

Letter #66:

I wanted to write you something previously concerning tears, but I forgot. I will write something now. You get books to read from the library. Get Zhukovsky and read "The Peri and the Angel." This is in the fifth volume, it seems. It is morally edifying and long.

Zhukovsky actually translated this ballad from part four of Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh.

Letter#70:

I am sending you the writings of St. Anthony by your request. Read and be absorbed. You will be surprised. He was not educated and did not read books of learned men; he only sang the Psalter and read the Gospel along with the Epistle. The grace of God revealed contemplation in his mind, and you see how wise his words are. . . . Books are only for guidance in the spiritual life. Knowledge itself is acquired through deeds. . . .

You write, "I read a lot; is this bad?" It can be bad and it can be good, depending on what you read and how you read it. Read with discrimination and verify what is being read through the genuine truth of our faith. . . .

The question still remains unresolved as to whether one may read anything besides spiritual things. I would tell you with reservation, in a low voice: You may if you like, but just a little and not indiscriminately. . . .

Even books containing human wisdom may nourish the spirit. These are the books that indicate to us the vestiges of wisdom, benevolence, truth and solicitous Divine industry in nature and history. . . .

What about stories and novels? There are good ones among these. To find out whether they are good, however, you must read them, and after you have finished, you will have acquired such tales and images that--God have mercy! You will soil your clean little mind. Afterward, go get cleaned up. Why would you want to bring such labor upon yourself? Therefore, I think it is better not to read them. When a benevolently-minded person who has read some story recommends it, you may read it.

There is a text included in the Philokalia that is attributed to St. Anthony: "On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life." In the English edition, it is relegated to an appendix of the first volume. The editors explain that they do not consider Anthony to be the true author, nor do they even consider its contents to be legitimately Christian. I don't know of any other significant English translation of his writings.

you can't spell "transit" without "rant" (sort of)

2009-01-08T18:51:00.000-05:00

Part of what got me back into carless commuting was the Transhare program. I had worked for a time as a government contractor, and I was hiring back in as a civil servant. One of the benefits I would pick up as a result was the availability of Transhare--a program where one's employer (in this case Uncle Sam) provides a subsidy to encourage using mass transit. Where I work, parking is tight, so the trade-off is that you get either Transhare or a parking pass. The timing was perfect, because our older car seemed to be approaching some steep maintenance costs if we kept it on the road much longer. Faced with the following options:

thousands of dollars in repairs
buying another car to put on the road
essentially free mass transit

it was a no-brainer. I figured out that I could walk about five minutes to the bus stop and get to my work site with only one transfer. It was a long commute--about two hours each way vs. 40 minutes to an hour by car--but I worked an early shift anyway, so I'd still be able to get home around 5:00. Besides, I could read or work on my laptop or sleep on the bus.

The way Transhare worked when I started, you filled out a form every six months with a signed estimate of your commuting costs for each month covered. Then, every two months you'd pick up an allotment of Metrocheks, which could be used like any other farecard on Metrorail, or loaded onto a SmarTrip card for use on Metrorail or Metrobus, or used as currency to buy other types of transit passes. In my case, I could hand them to the commuter bus driver in exchange for a ten-trip pass.

At some point, GAO determined that there was a lot of abuse going on--people selling their Metrocheks on Craig's List and eBay, etc.--and the program was modified to crack down. Here's where it starts to get interesting. One change was the justification form. Instead of estimating a total for each month, you now had to provide all of the calculations--where you travel, by what mode, the specific fare for a single ride, etc. I guess the assumption was that criminals were too lazy to make up the details, or too stupid to do so without getting tripped up. But one thing the new system meant was that you could no longer account for extended absences. With the old form, you were supposed to estimate your actual costs for each month. If you knew you'd be on vacation for three weeks or some kind of extended sick leave or out of town, you'd estimate a lower amount. With the new form, you couldn't do that if you wanted to. You could only give what it cost in a normal week of commuting. Also, on the old form, you could account for things like discounted passes (10-trip, weekly, monthly, etc.); on the new form, there was no way to calculate anything above the level of a single trip. So on both counts, most honest travelers were now forced to overestimate their travel costs.

Another change was that, presumably because the form was now more difficult to complete, you would only have to do it once a year. I suppose you could go out of your way to change your information in between--and certainly you would if your transit expenses went up--but if they went down, how many people would bother to submit a new form before it was necessary? In my case, our office went under renovations for a few months, during which time we all increased our telework. I wasn't sure how long the renovations would take or what would happen to my schedule afterward, so it seemed like a hassle to report my new travel costs. Besides, there's a limit to how much you can actually get per month, so I figured if my costs later ended up exceeding the limit I'd have a reserve I could use. If not, I could turn the Metrocheks in whenever I stopped participating. (I like the program and want it to continue--I have no interest in abusing it.) Besides, I'd have to submit a new form before too long anyway, right?

Then they came up with another change. Instead of everyone submitting their justification at the same time each year, it would now be done alphabetically by last name, spread throughout the year. As it turned out, they started in November or something (when we normally would have renewed), and my name fell in the previous batch (October or whatever). So I wouldn't submit my new form for another 11 months, on top of the 12 months it had already been. If I continued to telework for all that time, I'd accumulate a lot of extra Metrocheks.

Not to worry, though. There's one more change to report. This one came without any fanfare. In fact, it was almost by chance that I discovered it. According to the WMATA Web site, effective Dec 1, Metrocheks will no longer be issued (for some reason I just picked up another batch two days ago, but maybe they're a little behind). Instead they will issue vouchers specifically intended for buying fares that currently do not take SmarTrip--like, for instance, anything run by MTA (including the MARC commuter train and the commuter buses). But unlike Metrocheks, those vouchers cannot be used for anything else. They cannot be loaded onto a SmarTrip card, nor can they be used directly as Metrorail fare.

Now, I need to back up and cover one other new feature. At the same time that they changed the justification procedures, they also switched over to electronic payment of benefits as the default method. Where Metrocheks were anonymous, electronic payment would go onto a specific SmarTrip card, registered in the name of the benefit recipient. And once the value is added to the card, it's hard to get it transferred anywhere else. But because Metrocheks could be used for other transit services that were not set up to take payment by SmarTrip, they still had to provide the option of receiving payment by Metrochek. When you filled out your form, you would indicate the mode of transit and the corresponding kind of payment that you needed. No big deal--those of us who needed to use them for MTA could still load value onto the SmarTrip card for Metrorail or Metrobus.

But the new vouchers cannot be used for anything else. And at least the way they do things at my agency, you can only get your benefit in one form. I suppose there are people who work close enough to Union Station that they can commute solely by MARC. But I would guess that most people who ride the train also use another mode of travel--most likely Metrorail. Metrorail is not cheap, but the MARC is even less so. So, I'll be getting the vouchers I guess. Hopefully MTA will someday start taking payment by SmarTrip. In the meantime, I just got something more than a third cut from my benefit. It's still a lot cheaper than driving, but it's annoying that they can't run this program in a way that makes any sense.

I suppose the bright spot is that MTA is also discontinuing its 10-trip MARC tickets. So now I'll be paying more to ride the train and therefore getting a little more use out of my Transhare benefit than I would otherwise.

four hills, and turn left

2009-01-08T07:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not a big fan of the GPS craze. (Go figure.) Although I must admit, it is nice to have resources like GPS and Google Maps available (I use the latter quite frequently on my Blackberry), I would much rather explore the terrain and the routes around me, and get to know them at a human level. (Of course, now Google Maps brings us Street View, so you can do just that from the comfort of your desk or couch.)

There was a running joke, back when I lived in "the sticks" (if only), about giving directions like: "Turn left where the old barn used to be" (like I know where things are by landmarks that existed 20 years ago) or, "Watch for the driveway when you see cows" (they're always standing right where I need them to be?). There are still plenty of places around this country where route numbers and street signs are scarce, where you're better off knowing the general direction you need to head and keeping a sense of where that is as you go. Places where the main topics of discussion at family reunions are, "Which way did you come?" and "How high's your corn?"

Of course, it helps too if the roads run in more or less definable directions. In the flat wilderness of Western New York, most of the roads run north to south or east to west, with a few notable diagonals. So if you know the major routes and you can remember which direction you're heading, you can usually figure it out. In Grand Junction Colorado, where I lived for a while in fourth grade, roads are actually named on the map grid. We lived on F Rd., which of course was equidistant between E and G roads. There was also F-1/2 Rd., and running perpendicular were numbered roads. There's an artificiality to it, but it's very easy to navigate. At the same time, I have a romantic attraction to more curving, less predictable roads that are shaped by the hills, valleys, and waterways of the land. They require more familiarity with the place where you live. And of course they're infuriating to newcomers and those passing through.

Riding bike in and around the settlement of Elkridge has given me a new perspective on distance and direction. As I always like to mention, Elkridge is situated on the Fall Line--the boundary between the outer Piedmont and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. This location put Elkridge on the map, because it was at one time the furthest point inland on the Patapsco River where tobacco casks could be loaded onto ships and sent across the ocean. It also gives it a very hilly terrain, which makes for a great workout and a somewhat more grueling commute than I would really ask for.

These hills are a rather prominent feature of my rides back and forth to the train station. There are four main hills on my route. I live at the top of one hill, so heading out in the morning, the first leg is the easiest--downhill to Rt. 1, a level stretch, and then a long downhill to get me well on my way. Then comes the first uphill of the morning, past the library, and then another good downhill. That one always gets me breathing hard, but I'm still fresh, so getting over it isn't too much trouble. Thankfully, the second uphill, which crowns just past Ducketts Ln., isn't bad at all. I can conserve some energy for the last, long hill, running up to Rt. 100.

I think in theory I could make it over that hill without stopping, but in practice I never have. There's a bit of shoulder that widens out not too far before the stoplight that precedes the ramp. The road will widen enough at the stoplight for cars to get over and prepare their entrance to the ramp, even though there are no lines marking out a separate lane. I know that if the light is green, they'll want to come hurtling through it, changing lanes to the right, and already speeding up to the 55 mph that they know will apply on 100. I like to get over to the middle of the thru lane as soon as possible, but that means I'm chugging uphill while tying up a lane, with cars passing on both right and left. I want as much energy as possible, so I don't take too long getting past the ramp and back to where I have good shoulder to ride. Even then, I still have to get up and over the bridge. So, I always pull over before I reach the light, take a breather, and check the time to see how I'm doing. Once I'm up the hill, it levels off and even drops down a bit before I reach the station, so I can take it easy, coasting much of the way, or push a little harder if I'm short on time. I make my left turn at Rt. 103, not far beyond 100, and then I'm on pretty quiet roads for the last stretch before the station.

Really, I must say that Rt. 100 is the major landmark on my morning commute and the bane of my existence. If I didn't have to get over Rt. 100, that last hill wouldn't be so bad. For that matter, if I didn't have to get over Rt. 100, I'd have a shorter ride to the station. Even worse, it wasn't until they finished Rt. 100 that the Dorsey station opened, with its practically car-only design. Before that, there was actually an Elkridge train station, which would have been a much shorter ride and more accessible and friendly to biking. I suppose I should be glad I didn't have to experience its closing. It was long gone by the time I had to worry about it.

The return trip is harder for a few reasons:

The traffic is always heavier, which gives me more to worry about. Fortunately, there's some compensation for this. There are some long stretches of real shoulder heading north, and I've come up with a route that makes my only left turn pretty safe and easy. Of course, even the extra shoulder has its problems. It's all well and good to get over on the shoulder, especially when I'm crawling up a long, steep hill; but getting back off the shoulder when it becomes a turn lane isn't always easy.
Even though the ride between the station and Rt. 1 is mostly level, it does have an overall grade that's generally uphill heading home.
Maybe it's just my imagination, but the intermediate uphills seem if anything a bit steeper heading north.
It also seems that the places where I have no shoulder to work with are at the crowns of hills, particularly the second to last hill.
That nice, long downhill that I have first thing in the morning is a nice, long uphill in the evening.
Also, because of the heavier traffic and the long uphill at the end, I have a tough choice to make. If I stay on Rt. 1 all the way, it's more direct and the hill isn't quite as steep. The drawback, however, is that it's heavy traffic, and there's no shoulder for a good bit of the hill. Plus, by the time I get to the end of the climb, I have to get over for a left turn, crossing two lanes of thru traffic. I've opted for the alternative, which is to veer off on Old Washington, take the little bit longer ride and steeper hill but much less traffic and only one lane moving each way. There's a similar problem with shoulders, but with fewer cars it's not such a big deal. I usually have to stop at least once for a rest on the way up (sometimes more than once), but the left turn is much less harrowing. Also, if I luck out, I get a little bit of a downhill to build up some speed before the final push up Montgomery to our development.
Which reminds me--there's also that steep uphill from Rt. 1 to our development entrance. It's a short stretch, but almost inevitably coming from a stop and at the end of the ride so I'm already pretty worn out.

But then I'm topped out on the fourth hill, and I'm home. And that's always good.

tired and damp

2009-01-06T20:04:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day back in the office since Dec 18, my first day with the usual commute in probably three weeks. I had planned to take a few days of vacation around Christmas anyway, and then I ended up taking some sick leave, first because Julie had strep and needed to avoid direct contact with the kids until the antibiotics kicked in, and then because I came down with something myself (probably the flu). I'm still getting over it--it started with nasal drip and a sore throat, then there was a day of fever, then the other symptoms continued a while longer before shifting to a runny/stuffy nose, which has held on ever since. Needless to say, I haven't felt motivated to get on the bike without a good reason. I went for an easy ride on Saturday while everyone else was napping, mostly because I knew I'd need some kind of warm-up before commuting again.

As expected, between still getting over the illness and being a bit out of shape, I was laboring more than usual today. On top of that, it wasn't great weather. The forecast called for "wintry mix," which was downgraded to off-and-on rain and freezing rain. But it never got cold enough to freeze, and when it was time to leave the house this morning it hadn't even started raining yet. I did get dripped on for the last few minutes, and there was more light rain on the walk across campus when I got to work, but nothing serious.

It was still just a light rain on the way home, but it went on pretty much the whole way. So I actually got something you could call wet. Glad I wrapped my backpack in a garbage bag before strapping it to the bike. I don't care too much if I get wet, especially on the way home, but carrying a laptop back and forth for work is another matter. At least this time I knew what to do with my brakes. I had one instance where I had to stop at a light and could have been in trouble if I hadn't been dragging my brakes at every opportunity to keep them somewhat dry. If I ever invest any serious money in this mode of transportation, I think the first thing on my list would be disc brakes, or at least aluminum rims and leather brake shoes--almost anything would be better than the combination I have now.

Anyway, I took things easy and allowed myself to rest when necessary. It was a pretty uneventful trip, but good to get home and change into some dry clothes. Jenna was waiting, but I'm not sure whether she was more interested to see me or to rummage through my bag. Ian barely noticed that I was home, he was so absorbed in a kid's show on PBS. We finally hooked up the DTV converter box last night, and one of the advantages is the extra sub-channels. Fortunately, it seems to be working OK, despite my earlier concerns. I think some of it is that the stations are upping their digital signal strength as the deadline gets closer. A lot of it is that we get much better reception here than in the old place.

some bedtime theologizing

2009-01-02T20:00:00.000-05:00

After reading a brief children's devotional and talking about how God is the one person who's always with you,

Ian [laughing]: "God is in my heart, because I ate him!"

Me: "Actually . . . you did eat God."

Ian looks puzzled.

Me: "Do you know when you ate him?"

Ian: "No."

Me: "Well, for starters, the last time you went to church."

I can't say the conversation got any easier as it went on. I tried to explain about communion, and made sure to clarify for him that as a general rule, we don't eat other people. ("Will you eat me after I die?") There's time. I've learned to set my expectations low for these opportunistic conversations. He'll only pay attention for so long, and he'll only understand a bare minimum of what I say. (I've never been good at communicating with kids, even when I was one.) How much worse, when we're talking about things I don't even understand myself?

another time around the block

2008-12-31T16:32:00.001-05:00

Somewhere I read (I think it was on Fr. Stephen's blog) that you should take things slowly when reading about Orthodox spirituality. I find it almost impossible to read slowly, so I try to make up for it by reading repeatedly. I'm heading back through St. Theophan's The Spiritual Life for a second pass, and I was brought up short again by the same letter as before.

Almost two and a half years ago, I was a recovering progressive, and St. Theophan's 19th-c. remarks on such persons were just what I needed. Today, my politics are in a rather different place, but there's more wisdom for me to deal with in letter #16:

Just exactly what is to be done? Nothing in particular, just that which presents itself to each one according to the circumstances of his life, and which is demanded by the individual events with which each of us meets. That is all. God arranges the lot of each person, and the entire course of life of each one is also His all-good industry, as is each moment and each meeting. . . . Is someone seeking help? Help him. Has someone offended you? Forgive him. Have you offended somebody? Rush to ask forgiveness and make peace. Did somebody praise you? Don't be proud. Did somebody scold you? Do not be angry. Is it time to pray? Pray. Is it time to work? Work. Etc., etc., etc. If, after all of this has been explained, you set about to act in this way in every instance, so that your works will be pleasing to God, having carried them out according to the commandments without any deviation, then all the problems of your life will be solved completely and satisfactorily.

So simple to say, so hard to do with a stubborn, self-willed heart. Lord, have mercy!

all the way to Timbuktu

2008-12-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

Did I ever mention that I played soccer in college? OK, so I went to a pathetically small college. If you were male and breathing, you could start on the team. The real emphasis was men's basketball, but apparently there was some rule about needing to have so many different teams in order to play intercollegiate. So anyone could play on the men's soccer team--anyone. (I mentioned that I played, right?) We were usually lucky to have one sub on the bench. (Basically, our only rehearsed skill was endurance--most of our practice time consisted of running.) Our coach's day job was working at a restaurant. When they scheduled him in conflict with a practice or a game, his pregnant wife would fill in. (Those were the rough times.) When neither one could make it, our team captain was the coach.

Did I mention that soccer really wasn't the thing at that school? Our furthest away game was at Washington Bible College. They gave us some kind of "sack lunch" (which I think included baked potatoes) for the ride down and a few bucks for supper on the way back. There were no drivers, so players drove in shifts. (Picture a reformed dead-head druggie teetering on the edge while driving through miles of concrete-barrier "cattle chutes," in the dark, after a long afternoon of no-sub soccer.) There were no overnight accommodations, so we drove down from NY and back in one day. We arrived with a few minutes to stretch before the game, and when it was over, we piled back in to head out.

By that point, we were starving, so we started watching for somewhere to eat. The signs in MD didn't show you what was off the exit--just the standard fork and spoon logo. So our first attempt led us a few miles down the road to . . . Timbuktu. Seriously. No clue where we were or where to get food, and we ended up at Timbuktu. It looked like more time and more money than we could afford, so we turned around and kept going. Oh, I should mention that the trip wasn't all bad--we scored our one and only goal of the season. Didn't win--but scored. We acted like we'd just won the playoffs or something.

Fast-forward 15 years. To celebrate my birthday and a promotion at work, we drove five minutes to . . . Timbuktu! Yeah, the first time we set foot in the place. We've lived within driving distance for years. Overheard some neighbors talking about it--seemed like a good place but a bit pricey. Now we practically live around the corner, so how could we resist? It was definitely a good decision to skip it on the soccer trip. But it is very good food and a very nice, local restaurant. It's no longer quite as out of the way as when they picked the name, now that Rt. 100 runs right by. But it would still be worth visiting by camel.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

2008-12-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

I wish everyone a blessed feast of the Nativity (Christmas)! And for friends on the Julian calendar, have a blessed fast through the prayers of St. Peter the Aleut (happy name day to me), and you can keep the Christmas wish in your pocket for later. (It gets better with age.)

my desert

2008-12-23T16:30:00.000-05:00

Although a localist at heart, I hail from the wilds of suburbia. Actually, I'm not sure exactly what to call the place where I live--a half-baked new-urbanist development in an unincorporated town. This is where I must struggle for salvation.

First, the neighborhood: Stacked townhouses (one two-story on top of another) in unnaturally long and narrow rows. To call it a "block" would be generous--it is wide enough to accommodate the dwellings, and nothing faces either end. The "alley," where the cars and garages supposedly hide, is as wide as the road and serves as the "view" from our balconies. The zoning is supposedly mixed-use, but so far that means townhouses, elevator condos, and one lonely little commercial building that houses an eye care shop. In their defense, the development was planned during the housing bubble and has been delivered during and after the pop. But nothing that I've seen gives much hope that even the original design really met new urbanist ideals. Maybe one day it will get there, but in the meantime, we're left with the existing surroundings.

The development sits at a busy intersection without crosswalks or pedestrian signals. There is a plaza across the street, if you don't mind dashing through traffic to get there. It has a chain grocery store, a chain drug store, a large liquor store, a dollar store, a pool supply store (that should come in handy), a hair salon, a cell phone store, a Chinese restaurant, a Pizza Hut with crummy dine-in service, and maybe a few other odds and ends. From my standpoint, the most useful of the bunch is the liquor store, which thankfully carries local beer. That's just about the high point in this account. Beyond the plaza there's a seasonal ice cream stand (another plus), a place where you can buy ice 24 hrs/day, and one of several low-end motels in the area. You'll have to stay on the other side of Rt. 1, though, when you come for a visit, if you want a red, heart-shaped jacuzzi.

If you brave the dash across Rt. 1, there are a couple of gas stations, a bank, more motels, McDonald's, Burger King, a Taco Bell/KFC, and a strip mall with a dentist office, a nail salon, a place that does bail bonds, and a Caribbean grocery. Adjacent to the development, there's some kind of factory, a Subway restaurant, a tattoo parlor, a currently Mexican restaurant, and a nursery/farmer's market. The last is another bonus, since it appears that we can actually buy locally grown produce. On the side of the development that's away from the intersection, there's a middle school and an elementary school. There's no safe way to walk to them along the road, but a stairway further back in the development provides access to the ball fields, so it should be possible for the kids to walk to school when they're old enough.

Further up Rt. 1, there's a mess of expressways with some scattered businesses. Down the other way, there's a public library but otherwise not too much useful within biking distance. (As for walking, there's some sidewalk on one side of the road, but without good places to cross, that's of minimal use.) Past the schools is the I-95 underpass and mostly residential neighborhoods on the side streets. On the far side of I-95 is another rare gem--the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cemetery, also known by its previous name of Cathedral Gardens. Holy Trinity Church is actually in downtown Baltimore, but there's a small chapel here on the grounds, as well as picnic facilities. (Holy Cross uses some of the cemetery space and usually has at least one picnic there each year, which is how I discovered it.) They serve vigil there all but the first Saturday of each month, so it's in that sense the closest Orthodox church to where I live. Unfortunately, man does not live by vigil alone, so I'm torn between going one place for vigil (and thereby taking time away from my life at Holy Cross) and another for other services, or traveling out of town for everything.

I've read that Elkridge is the oldest settlement in Howard County. It's barely that, bounded on one side by Anne Arundel County and on another by Baltimore County. The original name was Elk Ridge Landing. The ridge is supposed to be somewhere to the west; the landing refers to days when it was the second busiest sea port in Maryland. Tobacco growers would roll their casks (down Rolling Rd., of course) to the Landing, which was the furthest navigable point inland on the Patapsco River. I've mentioned elsewhere that Elkridge sits on the Fall Line, where the outer Piedmont hills drop down to meet the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Any rivers that cross this line would produce waterfalls and rapids. Later it became something of a little steel town, when there was actually an Elkridge Furnace (now there's just an inn that bears the name). The railroad was important here in its time. Elkridge's most famous landmark is still the Thomas Viaduct, which I think is the longest curved stone railroad bridge.

Today it's still defined by transportation routes, but somewhat differently. Silting has rendered the Patapsco too shallow for ships to navigate, and even the commuter rail station here was closed in favor of the car-friendly Dorsey station at Rt. 100. You can still hear the trains go by, and there's a place I know where you could easily jump a slow-moving freight. But these days the most influential transportation is by road. Rt. 1 is still a north-south alternate between Washington and Baltimore. The 895 interchange takes traffic around Baltimore to the east. A bit further up you can get on 195 toward BWI Airport or 695, the Baltimore Beltway. A lot of trucking comes through here, which I suppose explains all the cheap motels.

Rt. 1 is the source of most of Elkridge's growth, but it is also the bane of its community life. It is too fast and too wide for anything but car through-travel. There are few alternate routes to get anywhere, and most of the residential neighborhoods end up as isolated enclaves, accessible only by car. There is something called "Main St.," or I should say, two somethings. They're divided by train tracks, with a concrete barrier to prevent crossing. I'm not entirely sure how they got the name "Main St."--maybe there was more going on years and years ago, but right now they look like they've been mostly residential. And that's pretty much the story around here--once you get off of Rt. 1, there's not much commercial fabric--some industrial parks, some newer shopping plazas, but no real walkable community services. You need a rebellious streak or the necessity of poverty to survive around here without a car.

Needless to say, the community can hardly sustain jobs for all of its residents. So, many of us commute elsewhere. My best hopes are either to work from home as much as possible or to find a job in Baltimore. There's a commuter bus that stops across the street and runs downtown (or at least, there is as long as we can keep MTA from axing the route). Even biking to work in Baltimore would be feasible. I'd much rather work in Elkridge, but given the realistic options, Baltimore's a better option than DC. Of course, most of the Federal jobs are in DC, so my chances are slim.

This is where we live. We didn't really pick the location; it's just what we've been given and what we have to deal with. It's better than some places, worse than others. God is here as much as anywhere else, and for the foreseeable future we're here. Beyond that, what is there but to live life as it comes?

back in black

2008-12-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

I'm back to blogging, but I make no promises. I still need to learn silence. It may be that I will post infrequently, or perhaps not at all. Who can say? But it's not fair to the other bloggers who must put up with my inane comments, simply because I have nowhere else to speak for myself.

I expect the name of this blog to change. So far, it's the wittiest thing I've been able to come up with. In the time that I've been offline, we've moved to a new house in Elkridge, MD. Where before I could walk to the bus stop, now my commute is a bit more complicated. The nearest mass transit to DC and adjacent areas is the MARC (commuter train). The nearest station is about four miles away. So, I leave the house a little before 5:00, bike down US Rt. 1 to the Dorsey station, catch the train to Union Station in DC, then Metro back out to Bethesda where I work. I typically get to my desk around 7:00 and home around 5:30. My morning bike ride is pretty much always in darkness; these days, so is my evening ride. There's a spot on Rt. 103, as I approach the station, where I catch the street lights just right so my shadow stretches out beside me. There's almost no traffic at that point, and no serious hills. So it's just me racing my own shadow the last bit of the ride.

My commute says a lot about me:

I'm cheap--instead of buying a second car, I dropped $60 for a beat-up old 10-speed off of Craig's List, which I intend to ride year-round.
I'm stubborn--you have to have something to keep you going. Most of my ride is down Rt. 1, a major artery with speed limits ranging 45-50 mph, several good hills, and a general lack of shoulders. If you've seen someone biking that route, it was probably me--yellow raincoat, orange vest, flashing lights, and probably sucking wind on some hill.
I'm anti-automobile--did I mention that I'm not a serious cyclist? Before this, I hadn't ridden in something like twelve years, and that was a brief period after someone gave me a bike. I just can't come up with a cheaper mode of transportation that meets my needs, and now that I'm doing it, I can add the reason that "someone has to." I'm anxiously awaiting the death of the automobile, and in the meantime, anything I can do to remind drivers that they don't own the road is nothing short of a public service.
I'm conservationist--I don't get much of a high from the exercise, and the scenery is nothing to write home about. But I do get a great feeling from the knowledge that I've gone from point A to point B without burning a drop of fossil fuel.

So, when I'm out there racing my own shadow, it's a very defining moment. The day that I hang up my bike and start driving will also be defining, because it will mean that I've yielded to my wife's priorities (like me not getting mowed down by some oblivious driver).

Cycling also gives me something to write about, because it's still very much a learning experience. Like the other day, when I finally bothered to check the recommended air pressure on my tires and realized that I had them way underinflated. It was like finding a whole extra gear! Or the first time I realized how useless my brakes become in wet weather. Oh, and if you think I'm some kind of ironman for biking every day, rain or shine, I should point out that I only commute to work two days per week. The other three weekdays, I don't even put on pants until noon. (That might change once our office renovations are done, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.)

But this isn't a blog about cycling or commuting or anything else really. It's about me--whatever that entails.