Looking At “The Poverty of Love”

I’ve been receiving emails from the Christian Vision Project, and I read this article some time ago. I’ve been interested in the desert fathers for a long time…I forget how I even came across this page, but I bookmarked it and have never lost it. I think it had something to do with a search on monastic rules of conduct.  Regardless, It’s been a great source of inspiration to me.  I really do seek wisdom in conduct and in life, because of its value.  This is something I believe strongly.  But to seek it without guidance, without the conduct of grace and for its own sake is detrimental to the faith that leads to the living of a different life.  The rich blessing of Christ is that we are given guidance, we are given the Counsellor and the Helper, and privileged access to the Father as the Son’s chosen recipients of grace. This is not favour that we are worthy of, nor can we achieve it on our own, but by love we have been given it, and in love we need to exercise it.

And yet our love is clearly to small, if we find it hard to love people in all circumstances.  That, dear readers, is why it is by Christ’s love that we are enabled to show love, and by Christ’s love that we can stand.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Byzantium

The phrase ‘Byzantine intrigues’ is a reference to the kingdom of Byzantium, but the details of that phrase would lead to a very, very large entry, which would break the mandate of brevity for the World Apart series. My thinking on Byzantium leans primarily towards the examination of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and the ‘otherworldliness’ that springs from the churches and arts of the culture. It’s really the otherworldliness that I want to talk about here, just because it’s the current theme of my entries.

The Orthodox church places a lot of emphasis on ikons. For example, this one:

called the Christ Pantokrator. The whole idea of the ikons is to emphasize the otherworldliness, the holiness of the depiction. for more information, see the Wikipedia entry on iconography.

In a sense, we too are meant to be images reflecting holiness; not our own, but Jesus’. We are otherworldly, in a sense, because we know of and have hope in the redemption of this world.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Monasticism

I’m a big fan of the monastic lifestyle for a number of reasons. It’s always been something of my nature to seclude myself, withdrawing from the world for a time and just doing my own thing, and I’m also a big fan of the discipline of retreat. Spiritual disciplines are an entire realm of entries themselves, which might spin off from this next week, but for now I’m just going to look a bit at what it means to be a literal world apart, sequestered unto the Lord.

Thinking about St. Patrick’s Day has got me thinking about the missions of the Celtic saints, and what it was that drew new members to them. What, in fact, all mission should be like, if you think about it at all. Short-term missions work is usually deeds-oriented, offering solutions to practical problems and doing the theology tourist thing. I’m not decrying that form of missions, not at all, but I do want to suggest that it’s not the only kind. Much of a missionary lifestyle is demonstrating the fact that the character is different. That there’s something better than sin, better than Satan. And the monastic communities that won Pictish converts were built as self sustaining, committed communities. Not to impose a belief on pagans, but rather to witness through one’s life and work. To show that there was something honourable, good and holy in the Lord. That’s where we keep slipping up, we frail and foolish creatures. We don’t do any better than the culture we find ourselves in unless we have within us the true knowledge that we have been set apart. That, itself, is something that may take a very long time for any of us to come to terms with.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

It’s in a sense both a true feast-day and also a perversion of one, this St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not Catholic, but the tradition of celebrating saints’ days is, and generally speaking, they are festive occasions. Green beer, lucky clovers, the appeasement of the little people. There’s no real focus to the day, just a hodgepodge of traditions both pagan and Christian, which emerges from the Celtic church in most of the tales associated with its inception and growth. St. Patrick,St. Columba – two big ones in the branches of Celtic Christianity. They both seem to have monastic origins, creating quite literal worlds apart and ennobling a tradition of service and study that most today would find distasteful. While it’s sort of a break from A World Apart, it’s not, really, because I’m going to spend some time this week on the theme of being held apart from the ordinary, the true life that a Christian should lead. So what better way to start off a week of meditations leading up to Good Friday and Easter than to wish everyone a happy St. Patty’s Day!

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.