Two Weeks To Rod

On Saturday, March 28th, Christ the Lightgiver is going to be hosting Rod Dreher. Rod is an editorial columinst for the Dallas Morning News, and he also writes the popular blog, "Crunchy Con", on beliefnet.

Rod is going to be speaking on one of his favorite topics, what he calls "the Benedict Option," and it just so happens that he was blogging about that subject this past Saturday--which was the day when the Church honors St Benedict of Nursia. Here's a bit of what Rod wrote on the subject:

I highly, highly recommend this reflection from Orthodox Agrarian on the relevance of St. Benedict and his Rule to our time, and to the lives we do live, and ought to live. It touches on what I often call The Benedict Option, which is the idea that the times call on those (Christian and otherwise) who wish to live out a life of virtue in community should to some extent separate from the wider world for the pursuit of that life. (Laypeople, I mean). In our parish here in Dallas, I've been talking with a few people about what that could mean for us, practically speaking (versus idealistically; ideally, we'd all live in the same neighborhood, and build some sort a common life, though that is hardly possible now).

The Orthodox Agarian that Rod mentions also had some really good things to say on the subject. Here's a long passage from his blog:


In my final semester of college, I was required to take a so-called "Values Seminar." Quite serendipitously, I happened to choose a course that exceeded my wildest expectations. It was called Classical Values: the Art of Living. The course took as its premise the idea that philosophy should not be a pedagogical exercise or a graduate school discipline but a way of life, and it should (taking a cue from Pierre Hadot) contain spiritual exercises.

One of the books chosen for the course was After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre's spectacular indictment of the Enlightenment experiment. And at the very end of the book, MacIntyre offers his own remedy for any possible reform of the West, writing:

"It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the more misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age . . . and the epoch in which the Roman Empire declined into the Dark Ages. Nonetheless certain parallels there are. . . . What they [those that withdrew from the Roman commonweal, including monastic communities] set themselves to achieve—often not recognizing fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers, they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are not waiting for Godot, but for another—and doubtless very different—St. Benedict."

Waiting for St. Benedict

As I said above, St. Benedict's life and his Rule offer an important example to the Christian family, what Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, calls the Benedict Option... we should devote our time to the construction of new communities, adapting the methods and means of St. Benedict to the realities and difficulties of contemporary communal and family life. Like St. Benedict's monasteries, these new communities must always be organic developments, not decreed from on high and ordered by a centralizing authority. It will look much like the new growth around Clear Creek Monastery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the slow but steady stream of families that have chosen to settle around the monastery, where access to the sacraments in the traditional rite are readily and openly available, where families have access to rural farmland where they can grow their own food and raise their own livestock. These families are choosing a lifestyle that's both revolutionary and reactionary, a life in tune with both the natural and religious cycles. St. Benedict must surely be smiling. A similar example is the Eastern Orthodox community of Eagle River, Alaska, gathered around St. John's Antiochian Cathedral.

I think to develop this monasticus sensus in the greater Christian community must be one of the great tasks of the future, and the ones who must naturally lead the way are the clergy, and more specifically, the episcopacy. The large bureaucracies and centralized chanceries that characterize most churches (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant) are no model for the kind of de-centralization and sacralization that's needed for American churches. Orthodoxy, in particular, is still a small, if growing, population in this country; the Orthodox Church in this country also has an inordinately large number of bishops (owing to the multiplicity of ethnic jurisdictions). The de-centralization of church bureaucracy, with its concomitant decrease of ecclesiastical paperwork and ecclesiastical committees, will allow for greater episcopal-laity contact. It will also decrease the rather relentless flow of money back and forth between parish and chancery. Like the Christian home, let the parish be as self-sufficient as possible. There's no reason why a parish church cannot provide for much of its own needs if the practice of Christian stewardship is honestly preached and practiced. The homeless within a parish's boundaries should be fed, clothed, and sheltered with the resources of that parish. National collections, or even diocesan-wide collections, can serve a noble purpose, for instance, in collections for particularly baneful disasters, like the Asian Tsunami or Hurricane Katrina, but they should be rare.

Of course, all of this is what we are trying to foster through our community at Christ the Lightgiver. We want the store to be a place where people can gather and get to know one another, a place where people can find support for a world view and a way of life that is increasingly at odds with the prevailing culture. And this isn't at all a marketing ploy: we are all aware of those bookstores and coffee houses and restaurants that are part of large corporate enterprizes, and those bookstores and coffee houses and restaurants often bill themselves as places where people can gather--many times, they even refer to themselves as communities. And, someone, somewhere in the corporate structure may, in fact, want to see that actually happen, but, ultimately, the reason these establishments describe themselves as gathering places and communities is because their market research has indicated that's what folks want to hear.

But at Christ the Lightgiver, we actually are in the community building business. Yes, we sell books and icons and tea, but we do that as a way of providing folks with the best resources available for living a traditional Christian life (we don't believe that beauty and truth are optional); we also want to provide folks with access to some of the pleasures that are a natural part of life ( intelligent discussion, good movies, great tea). And, thankfully, we don't need to make lots and lots of money--we just need to pay Matt and Rebekah and Vickie.

As we get ready to host Rod--he'll be speaking at 4pm on that Saturday, and there should also be plenty of time for him to answer questions and sign books--we'd like to hear about your ideas on community and "the Benedict Option". What would you like to see at Christ the Lightgiver? What could we do to help foster community? What kind of support would help you?

fr. aidan

It's All Connected

I haven't been blogging for a while.

Let's pause there for a moment.

Now that's a sentence I've never written before.

But it is, after all, 2009.

So, let's start over.

I haven't been blogging for a while. I've got this day job as an Orthodox priest, and last week was the first week of Great Lent which means lots of additional services and lots of fasting, none of which leaves much time for messing with technology and none of which leaves much energy for sustained thought. But now it's the second week of Great Lent, and there are a couple of things that I want to write about. The first is the Jan/Feb Touchstone. Of course, you can read the entire issue and enjoy a couple of great cups of tea just by stopping by the bookstore, but, if you don't have time to get through the entire magazine, be sure and read the article "Phony Matimony" by Christopher Oleson. Mr Oleson teaches philosophy at the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum in Thornwood, New York. His article is about the current controversy over the definition of marriage, and he has some really important things to say about the way most conservatives approach the debate. Like this:

What traditionally minded defenders of life-long heterosexual couple hood are left to object to (when it comes to same sex marriage) is either that (1) homosexual behavior is "yucky" (an instinctual and, by itself, subrational repugnance) or (2) that the Bible simply happens to anathematize such behavior (as through God arbitrarily thundered prohibitions without reason and without reference to the goods which human nature is meant to realize). Neither one of these objections provides a rational understanding of why such behavior could be morally problematic or why God would forbid it. They are therefore not only justifiably open to the charge of being intellectually hollow, but constitute a recipe for a public routing in the marriage debate.

The truth of the matter is that the ultimate reason why homosexual acts are contrary to human nature--namely, that the violate the generative purpose of sexual union--is the same reason why contraceptive heterosexual activity is unreasonable behavior. They stand or fall together.

In other words, by embracing contraception in the 1960's, American Christianity paved the way for same-sex marriage in this century.

Of course, there's a whole lot more to the argument, and I'm still thinking about the import of it all, but I've seen this dynamic of unintended consequences at work in another issue that is troubling American Christianity--the ordination of active homosexuals. I was a United Methodist pastor for twelve years, and I was what was then called an evangelical or conservative. Like most conservative pastors in that denomination, I was fully supportive of women's ordination. I wasn't thrilled about the biblical gymnastics that it took to support such a view, but, without the resources of a broader tradition, it was almost impossible to construct a reasonable objection. But then the issue of the ordination of gays and lesbians came along, and I began to realize that the one issue was dependent on the other. That is, if sex wasn't an issue when it came to the ordination of women, then sex shouldn't be an ordination issue at all. Just about all of the conservative pastors I knew were blind-sided by that one. A lot of them eventually gave in on the issue of homosexual ordination; a few, like me, left the denomination (although I would hasten to add that the issue of gay and lesbian pastors was not at all the main reason for my decision); but most of these conservative pastors continue to fight a losing battle against the proponents of homosexual ordination. And they will eventually lose because they cannot remain United Methodists and oppose the ordination of women--but if they can't/won't oppose the ordination of women, then they cannot, with any degree of logic or even good conscience, oppose the ordination of gays and lesbians.

So, like I said, I haven't completely thought through all the implications of Oleson's article, but the dynamic he identifies is a real one: Truth is a unity, and you can't begin to tinker with it in one spot without eventually bringing down the entire structure.

fr. aidan

Cheerios & Christmas

This morning I had a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, and it wasn't that exciting.

In my younger years Cheerios were the highlight of my morning, but the floating little O's just tasted bland and their ability to pop back up to the surface just seemed blah. I don't think floating marshmallows or Fruit Loop colored milk could have cheered me up.

Christmas too has been sub-par. I think of how bright and beautiful that day is, but it has not held that special sweetness of bygone years . I thought it might be that I was sick and unable to travel to be with relatives, or getting used to a new job, or I wasn't in the "mood" for Christmas last year, but now I am starting to think it is something else:

I am getting old.

Now I know all of you octogenarians and forty-somethings are giggling to think of me aging, but I am! (just look at all my grey hair) In my last year of teaching my students thought I had lived through the seventies, rather than just knowing about them.

It seems that somewhere along the line I let go of my ability to be amazed and I want it back again. I turned into one of those stodgy people who think about why Cheerios float instead of just laughing all morning while I try to dunk those little rings. I got too wrapped up in the stuff of Christmas rather than the silent wonder. I never really believed in Santa Claus, but making cookies with my parents and brothers has always been my favorite tradition, but that hasn't happened since 1999!

Perhaps I need to make the effort to find fascination in minuscule things, but who has the time? Anyway, the disappointing cereal has got me thinking about what an adult I've become and I do not like it one bit.

rebekah

Leaning In

After some searching I finally found the blog that Anna picks at from time to time. Being a fairly new friend I spent a few extra minutes looking over what topics appeal to her in the hopes that I might learn something new about her. I was somehow comforted at the end of my perusal to not know anything new.

Anna is a beautiful person whose eyes are constantly sweeping through a room, awaiting a place to land. (at first this habit made me think she was shy, but now I think she is simply a person who drinks in her environment slowly through a deliberate search.) She is a bit shorter than I, but her movements are long, leisurely, with almost a bit of a hop or a skip to them. I've noticed that she flips her hair over her right shoulder more than her left.

These are the things I've learned about her from being around her about once a week for more than three years. It is possible that I could count for you the number of times we have had a personal conversation, but she is still in my heart.

When I think of Anna, I see her in my mind: leaning in. She might be in the kitchen hugging the blue counters close under her folded arms as she listens and sweeps through the room. Anna could be standing just to my left, but I catch her silhouette in my vision; she is angled forward looking always for what it next.

I would rather get to know a person through years of proximity, than months of digital conversation. I confessed to Joe and David on Saturday night that I feel somehow voyeuristic reading the blog of a person I do not know well, or looking at the facebook page of a friends friend.

Here I am blogging, so I obviously see the live journal as a valuable tool, but if I am not known to a person through the sharing of physical space, I am afraid my writings will not make much sense to them.

rebekah

Some Conclusions

Last night we got together for our Disputation. There was a good mix of folks, and, even though we all agreed that we are pretty new to the practice of sustained discussion about serious topics, we did all right. Rather than try to summarize everything that was said during the evening, I thought I would share with our readers some of the conclusions that emerged from the discussion.

1.Technology is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. For sure, there is a whole lot of it; not only that, but, nowadays, it comes at us pretty fast, and most of us are only familiar with the very basics of these devices that play such an increasingly big part in our lives. Nevertheless, we could all give lots of examples of the good things that recent technologies have enabled us to do.

2.However, we also agreed that there are many aspects of these technologies that bring out the worst in people. In the book, Bauerlein talked at length about how these technologies foster and support perpetual adolescence. But we also discussed the economic pressures that these technologies produce, and the other evils they suborn, such as gambling, pornography, and anonymity.

3. We spent a good deal of time considering what impact these technological and social dynamics will have on the Church. Everyone who participated in the discussion was Orthodox, and everyone expressed relief that the Church does not automatically embrace each new technological development and the social configurations that emerge from those developments. But many of the people present voiced concern over how the Church would be changed even when apparently benign technologies are adopted for apparently good motives.

4.While everyone agreed with Bauerlein's analysis in regards to our culture, no one was especially impressed with his solution—basically, he calls on older people to encourage younger people to interact with the larger culture and to find their identity within the greater traditions of our culture. However, as several of our disputants pointed out, that involves suffering—delayed gratification, hard work, and humility—and one of the main characteristics of adolescence is an aversion to any sort of suffering.

5.In spite of our pessimism about Bauerlein's solution, the overall tone of the disputation was positive. Just about everyone present agreed that we are being inundated by a wave of technology and that a good deal of the energy behind that wave is coming from what Holy Scripture calls 'the world'; eventually, that wave may, in fact, wash us away, but we all agreed that greater is He that is in us and in the Church than he that is in the world.

If you weren't able to participate in the discussion in person, then please join us on-line (and, yes, we are completely aware of the irony in that invitation; but, then, part of the joy of the Faith is embracing the absolute and irreducible absurdity of our life in this world). We would love to hear what you think about all these issues, and we would love to have you show up in person for our next disputation. Check the web-site calendar because we'll be posting the date there in the next few days. Or just wait until your spring issue of The Lamp Post arrives; we will be putting the finishing touches on that number in a week or so.

fr. aidan

IQ

This coming Wednesday night, February 18th, we are going to have our first Disputation. The subject will be this winter’s featured book, The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. One of the most interesting sections of the book is Bauerlein’s discussion of the Flynn Effect. James Flynn is a political scientist from New Zealand who has pointed out that IQ scores have been climbing consistently over the last seventy years. So, Bauerlein asks, why haven’t we arrived in “an era of genius”?

His answer is, in part, that IQ tests focus primarily on “abstract problem-solving ability” and not on “learned content” such as “vocabulary, math techniques, and cultural knowledge”, and we are thus not actually getting any smarter. However, I got a completely different perspective when I read Neil Postman’s book Technopoly (it was a Christmas present). Postman has this to say about intelligence testing:

After a lifetime of working in the field of intelligence measurement, EL Thorndike observed that intelligence tests suffer from three small defects: “Just what they measure is not know; how far it is proper to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compute ratios with the measures obtained is not known; just what the measures obtained signify is not known”. In other words, those who administer intelligence tests quite literally do not know what they are doing.

Bauerlein admits that “IQ tests are controversial”, and his discussion of the Flynn Effect is reserved and appropriately skeptical—and, as I noted, he doesn’t buy into it anyway. But Postman’s outright rejection of such testing has left me thinking about the assumptions that our culture makes and how much work it is to continually counter those assumptions.

But work is easier in groups, and that’s why we are going to have our Disputation. I hope many of you can join us.

fr. aidan

Community

I’ve been thinking about community and everything that concept implies. Community is going to be the subject of this fall’s theological seminar, and we’ve already started working on that, but I got a real-life example of someone who just makes community happen this week when Cynthia and I were up in Ft Worth, and we went to visit our Albanian friends, Anesti and Rifi.

Which actually always leaves us exhausted because, even though ‘Nesti and Rifi are a few years older than we are, they are full of energy and constantly on the move and always talking and unbelievably gracious hosts—Would you like something to drink? Would you like something to eat? Please sit over here; this chair is much more comfortable. Would you like to lie down and rest—I can turn down the bed for you?

It has been a couple of years since we had seen our friends, and so they showed us their home—which ‘Nesti had remodeled (he’s a plumber) and Rifi had decorated (she works at Target). ‘Nesti then proceeded to tell us about all his neighbors; he and Rifi have only lived in the house about a year, but ‘Nesti knows everyone on the street, and he’s already done free plumbing for several of them.

This is how he described one of those encounters.

“Ah, this man, he is good man, I think, but he knows nothing about the plumbing, you see, so he ask me if I can look at his bathroom. I look and see right away what is the problem; I go and get my tools and (here there are several swift gestures, a big smile, and then arms raised in the air) all done. This man, he want to pay me money, but I say, No, No, we are neighbors. I love you. And he look at me funny, but I tell him I do it for the God and for him.”

‘Nesti sometimes has trouble with the language, but his inability to speak well often means that he cuts to the heart of the matter. Like saying ‘I love you’ instead of ‘I care about you’ or ‘We’re friends’. Which is what community is finally all about. People loving each other and loving ‘the God’, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
 

fr. aidan

The Dumbest Generation

On Wednesday, February 18th, we will have our first-ever Disputation. We will gather in the bookstore at 7pm; we brew up some tea; we’ll spread out some refreshments, and then we will have a real, old-fashioned, face to face, person to person, discussion. And the topic of our discussion will be this winter’s featured book, The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. The book is about the impact that technology is having on our culture—and, in particular, on the youngest people in our culture. I thought it would be fun to go ahead and kick off the discussion on-line. This approach may simply prove Bauerlein’s thesis, but I’m hoping it will help us identify some issues that we can zero in on during our time together.

For example, I thought one of the most interesting ideas in the book was Bauerlein’s take on cultural warfare:

Culture wars break down the walls. They don’t stop sectarianism, and they can aggravate group commitments, but they also pierce the insulation of each group. Insiders may grow more polarized, but they have to face the arguments and strategies of outsiders. If they ignore them,keeping to themselves and shoring up turf, not articulating values, they lose the war, for the theater has spread to the public square, and combatants can’t rely on the rhetoric that sufficeswithin familiar niches. (p. 220)

That’s not exactly the way most people feel about cultural warfare—in fact, the recent election was supposed to be all about ‘transcending’ these sorts of divisions. But Bauerlein maintains that cultural warfare is an important democratic dynamic, and he worries that we will soon be incapable of generating that sort of interaction or participating in that kind of conflict.

For example, a week ago, our parish community participated in the annual March For Life through downtown Austin. As the march formed up, a small group of counter-demonstrators appeared, and one of them climbed up on a bike rack and began to address the crowd. But the marchers wouldn’t even let him speak—they began to chant slogans in order to drown him out. When I think of culture wars, I think of this sort of clash—either that or those ridiculous television show where commentators and guests interrupt each other and shout at one another.

Apparently, Bauerlein thinks there is another way. Or maybe these are simply the more ‘exciting’ aspects of what he feels is a valuable cultural dynamic.

So what do ya’ll think?

fr. aidan

Presentation

We’re getting ready for the Feast of the Presentation of Christ Jesus in the Temple. Our featured book this past fall was Churchly Joy, a collection of sermons by Father Sergius Bulgakov. Here’s a passage from Father Bulgakov’s homily for the Presentation:

In the nation chosen by God, a blessed elder had been prepared for the meeting with the Lord. This elder had devoted an entire life of ascesis, prayer, and faith to waiting for this encounter; and now his prayer for his peaceful departure from the world merged with his prayer for this meeting. And this prayer was heard, and it was promised to the righteous Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord…And having met the God-Man, he took Him in his arms, blessed God, and said “now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” The hour of his departure from the world had struck, for his eyes had seen the salvation awaited by him. His farewell hymn was a divinely inspired confession of faith in the Savior, a confession that had never before been pronounced on earth, and, thus, according to the Evangelist, Joseph and His mother marveled at the things Simeon said about him.

I don’t know about you, but writing like that just makes me want to pray. It’s that good.

Speaking of prayer, the other day, I was reading a nice article in the current issue of Orion. Orion is one of the magazines that we keep on hand, so, the next time you are in the store, grab a cup of your favorite tea, pick up the January/February number, and read the piece by Anthony Doerr; it’s called “Am I Still Here? Looking For Validation in Wired World”. Here’s an excerpt:

Yesterday—and this is embarrassing—I checked my email before leaving for work and after I got to work, and I checked it every now and then during the day at work, and, after bicycling home from work, a total distance of two miles, I checked my email again…It’s disconcerting,It’s shameful… but checking email or tinkering around on Facebook or reading snippets about Politician A on Blog B is…about asking the world a very urgent question: Am I still here?

Like I said, the article is quite good—and very funny—but it starting me thinking about how Christians should validate themselves. In his letter to the Colossians, St Paul states that we are “dead” and that our “life is hidden with Christ in God”. So that means we aren’t going to get what we need from a blackberry or an iphone or the internet. Because when we ask that basic human question, “Am I still here?”, we’re not asking primarily about our presence in this world (which is only temporary, anyway); what we are asking about, what we really want to know, is whether or not we are present in the Kingdom.

And the way we gauge that is through prayer. In the Holy Gospels, Christ Jesus says we should “pray always’; in his epistles, St Paul says we should “pray without ceasing.” So I’m thinking that we should be praying at least as often as Mr Doerr checks his email.

fr. aidan

Independent Bookstores

In his recent letter to us, Eugene Peterson had this to say about books and the future of independent Christian bookstores:

I think you have a daunting task: to provide good,
solid books and at the same time keep the book-
store financially viable. American Christians
have horrible taste in literature, maybe especially
religious books. The junk is so prevalent, and the
good stuff usually requires more attention than most
are willing to give it.

He’s certainly right about the junk: All you have to do to verify that observation is stroll through the aisles of any of our local big box bookstores. Fortunately, though, we also don’t have the kind of financial pressure those operations do. We have to make enough money to pay Matt and Rebekah and Vickie, our heroic employees, and we have to make enough money to replenish our stock of good books, but we don’t have to make big profits.

As to whether American Christians have horrible taste in literature: That may, in fact, be true, but, ultimately, I’m just not sure that makes much of a difference when it comes to our mission. Because what we are doing at Christ the Lightgiver is what the Church has been doing for centuries and centuries—preserving the very best from the past, cultivating what is most beautiful in our contemporary culture, and creating a community which encourages learning, artistic expression, thoughtful discussion, and, above all, contemplation. That’s what St Columba was doing on Iona; that’s what St Aidan was doing on Lindisfarne; that’s what St Benedict was doing at Monte Cassino; that’s what St Sabbas did in the Kidron Valley—it’s what the monks are still doing at St Catherine’s on Mt Sinai, and it’s what we are doing at Christ the Lightgiver in Cedar Park, Texas. It is slow, quiet work, but it is also transforming.

So, thanks, Eugene, for taking the time to share your observations with us. We are counting on your prayers, as well.

fr. aidan