Here Comes The Whole Collapse and Blunder Of Our Age

From “The Eternal Revolution” Chesterton challenges us to look at how we have mixed up two very different things.  And by doing so it has altered our understanding of reality.

Lastly, there is a fourth class of people who take whatever it is that they happen to want, and say that that is the ultimate aim of evolution. And these are the only sensible people. This is the only really healthy way with the word evolution, to work for what you want, and to call THAT evolution. The only intelligible sense that progress or advance can have among men, is that we have a definite vision, and that we wish to make the whole world like that vision. If you like to put it so, the essence of the doctrine is that what we have around us is the mere method and preparation for something that we have to create. This is not a world, but rather the material for a world. God has given us not so much the colours of a picture as the colours of a palette. But he has also given us a subject, a model, a fixed vision. We must be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even in order to change it. We now add that we must be fond of another world (real or imaginary) in order to have something to change it to.

We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road–very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape.

Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.

The Eternal Revolution, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton, Edited by Craig M. Kibler, 2002

Being At Peace With Others But Being Who God Made You To Be At the Same Time

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
Isaiah 11:6

“But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is—Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? THAT is the problem the Church attempted; THAT is the miracle she achieved.”  -G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

What Chesterton is asking us to consider carefully is that the animals mentioned in the scripture from Isaiah still retain their identities but are now able to achieve a respectful peace with one another.  We note the conjunction “and” and finally “them”.  This is something the grouping of animals does together.  So any pairings are logical and is why Chesterton highlights the lion and the lamb to emphasize the startling contrast.  The wonderful prospect of differing identities at peace is only achievable through the peace that Jesus gives:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – John 14:27  

We do not have to change the sacred identity that God has given each one of us: that does not glorify God.  But something about us does need to change.  Our rebelliousness and tendency to sin against our godly nature. That needs to change.  Acting in a sinful and rebellious way (which is often called “tolerance” today) does not glorify God. That is what the world does and it encourages an insincere form of love.  This insincere love does not hate what is bad but tolerates it.  This is what leads to division and not peace.  It leaves many broken-hearted in the background in its lust for self and pleasure. This way claims it is “not hurting anyone” but that is a lie.  Like the wolf, the leopard, and the lion above, these ones misuse their natures in a wrong way and encourage others to do the same, simply denying the hurt they are causing because the hurt may not become apparent for some time.  But there is a better way, a complete and full way that lets each of us retain our sacred nature and be at true peace with one another.

Jesus is that Way. Learn from Him.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6

The Servile State Again

Written in 1917, “The Servile State Again” is a continuation of the theme of “The Church of the Servile State” featured on Forthwrite for Christ last week.   It’s an answer to the question “how did we get here” and “here” being what the economists want us to repeat like some catechism: the slow recovery from the Great Recession.   The job framework, as some of us – without raising our hand in class – answered long before it was being admitted by the economists, has permanently shrunk.  Self-sufficiency is the new byword.  You can see the slow (and not so slow) evidences gathering around your towns as you see technology encroaching upon support jobs like cashiers and such.  Cutting costs, cutting spending, cutting employees.  Yes, the word is out: you must provide a real service or product yourself to make it in the new economy.  Or you need to make sure that education you paid for has been directed toward making you a “value-added” employee. Unions have been slowly eradicated in country after country as the protections so dearly won by them for the worker are being lost to the globalized company, their international management strategies and the philosophies of the Human Resources department.   These departments are the ones who set the rules for the stage of employment in the new globalized economy, the rules that they are so careful to remind everyone are in compliance with what is legal – which include so many things that we are told are for our protection such as downsizing and early retirement and outsourcing and plant relocation.   It is the Human Resources profession that brings us to today’s post which deals with a connective theme to our forthcoming quote from the essay “The Servile State Again” by G. K. Chesterton.  It is about someone telling you their profession and its rules exist to protect you, the worker.  Only the question is…protecting you from what, exactly?  And for whose benefit?

The setting is Germany and England around 1917.  The stakes are smaller.  The delivery almost is as if it is a classroom model of future  things yet to come, future things of our day.  And as you read, see if you can see that they have come.

If anyone ask how this extreme and unmistakable subordination of the employed to the employers is brought about, we all know the answer. It is brought about by hunger and hardness of heart, accelerated by a certain kind of legislation, of which we have had a good deal lately in England, but which was almost invariably borrowed from Prussia. Mr. Herbert Samuel’s suggestion that the poor should be able to put their money in little boxes and not be able to get it out again is a sort of standing symbol of all the rest. I have forgotten how the poor were going to benefit eventually by what is for them indistinguishable from dropping sixpence down a drain. Perhaps they were going to get it back some day; perhaps when they could produce a hundred coupons out of the Daily Citizen; perhaps when they got their hair cut; perhaps when they consented to be inoculated, or trepanned, or circumcised, or something. Germany is full of this sort of legislation; and if you asked an innocent German, who honestly believed in it, what it was, he would answer that it was for the protection of workmen.

And if you asked again “Their protection from what?” you would have the whole plan and problem of the Servile State plain in front of you. Whatever notion there is, there is no notion whatever of protecting the employed person _from his employer_. Much less is there any idea of his ever being anywhere except under an employer. Whatever the Capitalist wants he gets. He may have the sense to want washed and well-fed labourers rather than dirty and feeble ones, and the restrictions may happen to exist in the form of laws from the Kaiser or by-laws from the Krupps. But the Kaiser will not offend the Krupps, and the Krupps will not offend the Kaiser. Laws of this kind, then, do not attempt to protect workmen against the injustice of the Capitalist as the English Trade Unions did. They do not attempt to protect workmen against the injustice of the State as the mediaeval guilds did. Obviously they cannot protect workmen against the foreign invader–especially when (as in the comic case of Belgium) they are imposed by the foreign invader. What then are such laws designed to protect workmen against? Tigers, rattlesnakes, hyenas?

Oh, my young friends; oh, my Christian brethren, they are designed to protect this poor person from something which to those of established rank is more horrid than many hyenas. They are designed, my friends, to protect a man from himself–from something that the masters of the earth fear more than famine or war, and which Prussia especially fears as everything fears that which would certainly be its end. They are meant to protect a man against himself–that is, they are meant to protect a man against his manhood.

And if anyone reminds me that there is a Socialist Party in Germany, I reply that there isn’t.

When the raw resources, such as land and the things in and on the land -which the economist teaches the young in its introductory courses at the universities – are obtained from the common man’s possession for something “better”, business is ready to boom and protect the man by supplying him his wants and his needs.  But the question arises: didn’t he already have those means at his disposal before the economist took them?  That is, by exercising his freedom and manhood, he could have supplied for himself what he needed, could have depended on an almighty God to bless that provision.  Instead, he gave away his land and the things on it and in it to someone else, a servile state,  who decided to protect him from himself and make itself a god.

The Church Of The Servile State

In the interest in serving the cause of “nothing new under the sun”, of touching upon the subject of  ”what’s old is new” and of giving a head’s up that “there is no new news. Just old news happening to new people”, I thought I would share today something we have forgotten from 1917….

I confess I cannot see why mere blasphemy by itself should be an excuse for tyranny and treason; or how the mere isolated fact of a man not believing in God should be a reason for my believing in Him.

But the rather spinsterish flutter among some of the old Freethinkers has put one tiny ripple of truth in it; and that affects the idea which I wish to emphasise even to monotony in these pages. I mean the idea that the new community which the capitalists are now constructing will be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate nothing really independent of itself. Now, it is true that any positive creed, true or false, would tend to be independent of itself. It might be Roman Catholicism or Mahomedanism or Materialism; but, if strongly held, it would be a thorn in the side of the Servile State. The Moslem thinks all men immortal: the Materialist thinks all men mortal. But the Moslem does not think the rich Sinbad will live forever; but the poor Sinbad will die on his deathbed. The Materialist does not think that Mr. Haeckel will go to heaven, while all the peasants will go to pot, like their chickens. In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it–or he would be obviously below it. Take even the least attractive and popular side of the larger religions to-day; take the mere vetoes imposed by Islam on Atheism or Catholicism. The Moslem veto upon intoxicants cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely necessary for the capitalist (who presides at a Licensing Committee, and also at a large dinner), it is absolutely necessary for him, to make a distinction between gin and champagne. The Atheist veto upon all miracles cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely necessary for the capitalist to make a distinction between his wife (who is an aristocrat and consults crystal gazers and star gazers in the West End), and vulgar miracles claimed by gipsies or travelling showmen. The Catholic veto upon usury, as defined in dogmatic councils, cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely necessary to the capitalist to distinguish more delicately between two kinds of usury; the kind he finds useful and the kind he does not find useful. The religion of the Servile State must have no dogmas or definitions. It cannot afford to have any definitions. For definitions are very dreadful things: they do the two things that most men, especially comfortable men, cannot endure. They fight; and they fight fair.

Every religion, apart from open devil worship, must appeal to a virtue or the pretence of a virtue. But a virtue, generally speaking, does some good to everybody. It is therefore necessary to distinguish among the people it was meant to benefit those whom it does benefit. Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. It was meant to benefit the rich; and meant to benefit nobody else. And if you think this unwarranted, I will put before you one plain question. There are some pleasures of the poor that may also mean profits for the rich: there are other pleasures of the poor which cannot mean profits for the rich? Watch this one contrast, and you will watch the whole creation of a careful slavery.

In the last resort the two things called Beer and Soap end only in a froth. They are both below the high notice of a real religion. But there is just this difference: that the soap makes the factory more satisfactory, while the beer only makes the workman more satisfied. Wait and see if the Soap does not increase and the Beer decrease. Wait and see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it. Many great religions, Pagan and Christian, have insisted on wine. Only one, I think, has insisted on Soap. You will find it in the New Testament attributed to the Pharisees.

For such 4th estate wisdom and prophecy upon our so-called ended Great Recession,  I attribute to Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers and other Essays

Grace Is Not An Innertube

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about[a] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.- Jude 3-4 (NIV)

Yesterday I chatted with a friend who lives in Texas about the occurrence of some very sorrowful but unsurprising (to us) recent events. There was the news of a missing girl whose friends chose their own protection over telling the police what they knew that might help find her.  There was the news of the resultant consenting vote in a state to legalize homosexual unions – a vote that would not even be newsworthy were it not that for so long “we the people” of the United States understood that certain acts, such as homosexuality, were and are still morally wrong.  And when something is immoral, you don’t reflect the opposite message in the laws of your country so that it becomes legal.   But “we the people” have been going down that road for some time now.  We’ve allowed doors to be opened that should never have been opened about so many things that viscerally we know are wrong.  For many of us, that knowledge stems from what’s left of the Imago Dei (the image of God) still in is (Romans 2:14).  For those of us who should know better from a Word we have read and through the promptings of the Holy Spirit it is quite another matter.  We have given in, many of us, and that cannot pass without examination and a testimony.

We have given in to the willful child’s argument of our society.  It’s an argument not unlike the nature of which a 13-year old trying to get around their parents uses to get their way: one wrong accepted and tolerated by a powerful person or group supports the argument for another wrong to be accepted and tolerated, even embraced: “But Debbie’s parents are letting her do it!“.   The final coup d’état on this argument is the bully, the  perverse scream,  if not given its way: “But you don’t love me!”  Ad infinitum.  It doesn’t just work in the beleaguered home, it works in the beleaguered society because the beleaguered society is all the homes who agree to this skewed vision of love.  Skewed love in this sense means giving in to whatever behavior pleasures are wanted, no matter how perverse. The abnormal is made to look normal by changing the meaning of words and rational minds (and most dangerously those in authority) stall with sputtering argument when they face such an attack.  Media follows suit until people are “thinking with their eyes and seeing with their feelings”.  Try to look at films, books, magazines, and such promoting what our society now thinks is “normal”  in reverse without all that “willing suspension of disbelief”.  Not an encouraging thought for the cause of critical thinking that education was supposed to supply us, is it?  But that is the state of society.  The church is a whole other matter…or it should be.

And so my friend shared with me this following open letter to the churches.   I warn you its not a pleasant letter to read.  The book of Jude is never a promising start for a “haven’t heard from you in awhile” letter.  But  like Jude’s letter, it is needed.  And after you read it, I want you to meditate on what grace really means.  As my friend said yesterday to me: “Grace is not an innertube in which we float down the river of life.”  No, no it isn’t.  And if you think it is, then a reading of Jude should be the first thing on your summer reading list.  Wilberforce reminded us  that grace is not to be taken lightly. Bonhoeffer reminded us even more.

To put it forthrightly, it really has come to this: there has been a fundamental (and at times willful) misunderstanding and preaching on the atonement of Christ’s sacrifice. It is not to be reduced to a cheap grace or a get-out-of-jail free card to be given at the gates of judgement.

To put it in terms of our own legal system for a stark understanding of where we all stand without grace and with it, I like to use the OJ Simpson case as an example.  He had a murder trial and a civil suit before which he had to stand and answer.  In his case, there were two different verdicts and here is why.  Even in a court of law you have a criminal case and a civil case. One deals with the charges of a crime committed with a penalty sentence. The other deals with the damages resulting from that crime with a restitution involved to see that justice is done. Christ’s sacrifice deals with the first. And from His sacrifice in our place, we are given salvation. He takes that penalty. His Lordship deals with the second case: the damages and the justice. If we are asked to make right to the extent of our ability to do so by the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit  motivates us to do justice for what we have done wrong to those whom we have sinned against.  We long to give restitution.  We long to see justice done to those we have wronged. That’s grace.   But we have been forgiven of the crime because the penalty has been paid for by Christ’s death on the Cross.  Forgiveness is not to be used selfishly.  It is to be gratefully accepted as a means to restore relationship, first with God, and then with others.  We do not skirt the issues involved.  We are given strength to see it through to the right end.  That’s grace. It’s not selfish.  All involved are to benefit from it.  For Christ would never leave a hurt one behind as many of us have done when seeking our own salvation without acknowledging His Lordship in our lives.  To do otherwise, is a cheap grace.  It has no Holy Spirit behind it, no supernatural strength.  And it leads to opening the door for greater and greater sin and perversity to be accepted in the church.  Our love then becomes skewed.  It becomes motivated as Lewis observes, by the “pity of passion rather than the pity of action”.  One gives in to the sin and tries to accommodate it (as noted in the cases at the beginning) and the other takes firm and loving action to help snatch the loved one from his sin. (2 Timothy 2:26, Jude 1:23)

Come, let us pray for forgiveness and strength to do the right thing.  Let us pray for our ministers to take the lead among us to teach what we know by Holy Spirit and His word is true and just so that they may encourage us and God be pleased.

Let us show daily our gratefulness for grace in all our dealings both past and present. Restore your relationships as God would have you do.  Persist and stand firm for Christ!

Holiness: Participating in the life of Christ, Not As Ideal But With Him Living on the Inside

‎”Holiness, my beloved, is not moral improvement. It is ontological and psychological transformation in the Holy Spirit. It comes with complete identification with Christ. Holiness does not merely mean we live differently. It means that we have a different principled life. It is not at root a lifestyle; it is a life. It is a participation in the life of Jesus. Jesus does not represent a moral “ideal”. One of the worst ideas to come down the pike in my lifetime is the idea that it will make a difference if you ask: “What would Jesus do?” It puts Him out there as an “ideal” that we are “copying“. Doesn’t work. Jesus must be the interior principle by which we live, not simply the ideal according to which we live. It’s the experience of which St. Paul calls “Being in Christ“. There is a tremendous, tremendous impulse – I’ve become aware of it only through middle-age – to objectify Jesus, instead of coming to Jesus as an interior subject, somebody we know *inside* us, as a new principle of our life.  Someone whose mind and life are identified with Christ, living in Him, does not ask himself hypothetical questions: ‘What would Jesus do?’ Jesus is a principle of identity. “It is not I that lives”, says St. Paul, “It is Christ who lives in me.”This is a new mode of existence.” – Fr. Patrick Reardon on participating in Christ’s life.

Holiness and History (Hebrews 11:33-12:2) (podcast)

The “And” Culture

In today’s fast paced world of technological changes, it is easier to feel “lost” in the multiple tracks of events, the speed of the constant shifting.  For some, in the natural feeling of overwhelm that ensues, there can grow a sense of chronic, low-level panic and constant questionings: Am I good enough to compete with the world instead of my own backyard?  Do I have enough education to make it in the world marketplace?   How do I plan for this new norm of 5-6 career changes over the course of a lifetime in this age of globalization?  The list of questions goes on as the world shifts.  Anxiety for the “self” and its “existence” in this field of enlarging competition and choice seems a natural outworking.

Social Networks abound with a cacophony of “voices” in blogs, wall-postings, podcasts, and wiki’s.  Everyone is telling their “story” but it is a “story” without a central story of culture or any “holds” at the center.  So there are no permanent anchors, no familiar reference points to speed connections and associations from story to story.  With only 24 hours in the day, surely none of us can be expected to read them all.  But as we try to do so there is a consequence: we seem to have less and less time for our real relationships.  Are we as real “selves” disappearing in the sea of ever-increasing individuality that looks more and more alike?

Technology lures us with the promise of absolute control of our individual worlds: information at our command.  But as we eye with machine-like rapidity, every new consumer product, every new celebrity as postmodern hero, every emerging “lifestyle”, every news story, and every social cause, are we trying to add the conjunction “and” to everything we want and want to do?  Are we  thinking it is possible to find peace and find out who we are at the same time by doing this?

Note what Public Opinion Analyst and Social Scientist, Daniel Yankelovich wrote about our “And” culture:

“If you feel it is imperative to fill all your needs, and if these needs are contradictory or in conflict with those of others, or simply unfillable, then frustration inevitably follows. To Abby and to Mark as well, self-fulfillment means having a career and marriage and children and sexual freedom and autonomy and being liberal and having money and choosing non-conformity and insisting social justice and enjoying city life and country living and simplicity and graciousness and reading and good friends and on and on. The individual is not truly fulfilled by becoming ever more autonomous. Indeed, to move too far in this direction is to risk psychosis, the ultimate form of autonomy. The injunction”–notice this now please– “The injunction that to find one’s self, one must lose one’s self, contains the truth any seeker of self-fulfillment needs to grasp.” (1)

Yankelovich echoes Jesus in the challenge to examine what we think it is to exist: what does it truly mean to be alive?  What does it feel like?  Jesus’ words challenge us to ask these questions when he says: “…whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 16:25b)

In the “And” culture, the legion of choices should challenge us to start asking the hard question of ourselves as did Jesus: For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? (Matt 16:26).  Consider the time it takes us even to look over our choices in this overwhelming world of choices, and then compare that to the idea of our possible death in the next minute!  When that thought sinks down into our deepest grasp, we can begin to realize that finding ourselves is not in trying to experience a myriad of choices as fast as we can (hoping we don’t make a mistake and miss out on what we really wanted!) before its all over, but in realizing that this way of life is not what Christ died for on the cross.  No, He died so that you and I could live a real life of self-fulfillment and live it more abundantly than being forced into the constraints of so many choices, so little time.  That in itself is the ultimate contradiction of having it all.  The only way to real abundance in life, is to deny ourselves now, and follow Christ.  Please promise yourself to examine this choice before any others.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?  For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.  Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” — Matt. 16: 24-28

(1) An Ancient Message, Through Modern Means, to a Post Modern Mind, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, 1998
Taken from © DailyQuote, M.S. Reed, 2007

Till next time….

God bless you,  M. S. Reed, 2010, Dilseacht, le gra go deo

“Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me”

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. – Mark 8:34

Even before Simon of Cyrene was commissioned from the street by the Roman guards to help Christ carry his cross from the place of sentencing to the top of Golgotha where he was crucified, Jesus gave his followers a command: “Take up your cross and follow me.”

When reading the Gospel of Mark, one comes across a startling discovery: it is immediately after Jesus is identified as the Christ that he begins to teach his disciples about what he must suffer and his impending death:

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? – Mark 8:31-37

For whoever wants to save his soul… Who of us does not feel the deep urge for survival?  And yet, we are challenged with agreeing to a contradictory path to get there: being willing to lose our life for Jesus and for the Gospel or Good News.  But it is even more than that, it is willingly doing what Simon Cyrene was forced to do. In order to follow Jesus, we must, after identifying ourselves as Christians, choose to take up our cross in this life.

Can you do it?

Palm Sunday

The little reminders keep us on course; the big reminders help us examine that course. Christian holy days are the big reminders. – M.S.Reed, March 28, 2010

The crowds cried “Hosanna!” when they saw him come through the gates of Jerusalem seated upon a lowly donkey, an asses’ colt. They waved palms to show their joy and to honor him as their King.  At last, their deliverance was near!  But what kind of deliverance was coming? Everyone in the crowd must have had certain expectations.  Would this man live up to them?

Hosanna means to praise the king and at the same time to show gratefulness for salvation.  It is a very powerful salutation!  Hope and relief are endemic in its use. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38) This was the hope of those dwelling in the city of Jerusalem, a nation who had been waiting for a deliverer and King for hundreds of years.

This event was so powerful that people are still talking about it and remembering it.  Why would any king, if he was so powerful, so glorious, choose to make his entry on the most lowly and often stubborn of animals?  What did that say about the man? What did it say about us?  G. K. Chesterton, a writer and Christian Apologist, was so moved about this ironic but telling contrast that he wrote the following poem from the perspective of the donkey:

G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936)

The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

“…For I also had my hour;/One far fierce hour and sweet:/There was a shout about my ears,/And palms before my feet.“  Even the lowly and unruly, as this donkey represented,  somehow were to have an opportunity for the splendid and the peaceful under the stern yet loving kingship of this amazing man!  But in the matter of a few short days the love and praise of the crowd turned against Jesus and he was given over to Pontius Pilate and when asked what should be done with him, the crowds asked that he be crucified. This amazing turn of events was allowed to take place so that you and I might be freed from the burden of and bondage to sin, and conquering it through Jesus, this King, a resurrection to everlasting life.

Today we remember Jesus, our King, and His Triumphal ride into Jerusalem! (John 12:12-20) Walk with us this week to examine the events that changed the world and could change your life!

Till next time….

God bless you,  M. S. Reed, 2010, Dilseacht, le gra go deo

Today we remember Jesus, our King, and His Triumphal ride into Jerusalem! (John 12:12-20)

The Wearin’ of the Green: Some Thoughts About St. Patrick’s Day

[Author's Note: This piece was written two years ago and published on another blog after our last St. Paddy's Day celebration. Since then the economy has taken its toll but not our spirit.  So in the spirit of St. Patrick who faced difficult odds himself, I'm republishing this here for your enjoyment.]

“He worked as a Shepherd on the slopes of Slemish (now part of County Antrim), praying to a Christian God, while captive in a pagan land.”

So the authors of The Wearin of the Green: A history of St. Patrick’s Day write of the Apostle of Ireland upon his state after being kidnapped and enslaved by Irish marauders when Patrick was 16 years old.

Patrick’s love of the Irish people came through his missionary work to bring the message of Christ’s love to those who had orginally sought to do him harm. His example of returning love for evil was so profound that we still remember it today.

St. Patrick’s Day has come to mean a day of celebration and good cheer with a message of hospitality and universal family (being an honorary “Irish” for the day) for many. But as with all things, we can sometimes over emphasize the “fun” aspects of what we want to remember over the actual person or event itself. For our family and friends, we try to include a balance of both, between remembering what Patrick believed and practiced and the normal activites most come to expect in a celebratory feast: good food and drink in moderation, some thoughtful readings about Patrick and his service to God, and prayer and singing of thanksgiving to God for Patrick and our blessings.

To honor Patrick and our Irish ancestors, we usually have Glens of Antrim Irish stew (since Antrim is where Patrick first prayed to God about his purpose in life) and a number of other dishes of celtic origin, such as scotch eggs, and though not a “pint”, we do gather for a wee toast of Guinness to Patrick and the blessing of our family and freinds together, some colcannon, and we top the meal off with a chocolate gauteau and some Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake!  These same kinds of authentic irish foods are offered at our very own local Irish restaurant called The Irish Lion in town where anyone Irish in search of the crack (Scottish) craic (Irish)* can go.

After dinner there are quiz games about St. Patrick (with prizes for the correct answer, of course) and singing by candlelight (always ending with a stirring rendition of “DannyBoy“).

But the evening would not be complete without the reading of the “Breastplate of St. Patrick” or Lorica…..

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

La Fheile Padraig Sona Duit!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Till next time….

God bless ye, (Melly) M. S. Reed, 2008, Dilseacht, le gra go deo (Celtic for Loyalty, with love forever)

On Why Love Is A Promise That God Expects Us To Keep…And How He Knows That We Can

Have you heard that ” Love is a promise, not a feeling”? Hard to believe when the world about you is filled with songs that say the opposite these days. “Whatever feels right at the moment” is what you hear most often. But when does a broken heart ever “feel” right? When does a “broken” conscience ever let you sleep really peacefully without having to do something distracting to make it go away? Entertainment, addictions, even the approval of the those around you who aren’t really looking through what you’re doing will not eventually make up for what’s missing: real love. The kind of love that only God has made us to want and need in order to feel whole. This love is deep and abiding, encompassing the real passion that its poor substitute tries to get along without in this world. It is relentless in its pursuit of our heart and all the distractions and the false relationships we heap up between us and it show that we cannot get along without it. It won’t let us go in spite of our bad behavior. Why?

Because real love is a promise, not a feeling. God created us to express love that way. Expressing anything less, no matter what temporary heights you reach, robs everyone, including yourself. You see, God, made us to be highly motivated to want the promise much more than just the feeling alone. It is the only way to make the whole thing last and get every last best drop of those precious feelings to be had from it! It is the only way to feel safe in our relationships and with ourselves. Break the promise and every thing thereafter is set up to fall short and be suspect from even the tiniest dread of betrayal. That tiny speck of untrustworthiness has the power to wreck the desperate unity sought after in all that tries to follow. And no amount of “lifestyle compatibility” will change that. Such a choice overlooks the whole focus of achievement that true marriage is about: to reconcile the two into one. It also overlooks the betrayal of one’s own flesh which has already been united with another in a way beyond what can be explained in mere language.  Running from a promise to keep searching for or to try to sustain “being in love”, while boasted by some, is never really proven to happen.

What happens is a looking for someone who will let us get “our way”, hypes us up with high emotions based on physical attraction first and we settle for calling that “love”.   But is this real love?  “No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its form”, said Henry Ward Beecher.   Real love, as God reminds and show us, “does not look for its own interests.” (1 Cor. 13).  It is a rock steady thing, “more stern and splendid than mere kindness” (1).  And with that thought, it emphatically puts to rest our often soul pursuit, especially in this country, of our own “happiness”, a happiness that in truth is really more about satisfying our own pleasure and not the spiritual needs of another.  Sadly, it is rare these days to marry because someone needs taken care of (book of Ruth) out of love.  Books, movies, TV, the culture around us keep telling us “its all about emotional chemistry first” and then maybe a conditional commitment which often is forsaken on the flimsiest pretext of “not being in love” anymore.  So is “falling in love” a bad thing then?

As C. S. Lewis reassures us: “Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling… Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go… But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from “being in love” — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God… “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

When we give our promise in marriage, it is not something our body takes lightly either. Chemical transactions in both the brain and the body are taking place when we give a promise and leaving signatures throughout as evidence. These remain like markers long after what appears to be broken. Because these markers are not merely ignited by feeling, they are reinforced by promise down to the very DNA of our flesh. We may try to run away from what is internal, try to replace it, but the traces remain and call to us. The Holy Spirit of God who is invested in and wants us to have His best also calls to this internal to remind us of that promise as well. He knows what the result will be if we disobey it and Him. (Hebrews 13:4. Malachi 2:16)

So we are given such strength to keep that promise by a Maker who knows that we can…even under the most trying of circumstances (Hosea). God demonstrated that it was possible to love even the adulterous nation of Israel and by such love to lead them back to restoration of their covenant marriage.

As the brother of leading Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, explained to him on the eve of his own marriage: “Write this down and don’t ever forget it. If you will to love someone, you can.”

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

The Ethics of Elfland: On Remembering Who We Are

“Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that, for certain dead levels of our life, we forget that we have forgotten. All that we can call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that, for one awful instant, we remember that we forget….Here I am only trying to describe the enormous emotions that cannot be described. And the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity. The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact that there might be more dragons than princesses*; it was good to be in a fairy tale.” (1)

A lovely modern day example of what Chesterton was discussing in The Ethics of Elfland (about being able to see the power of the Divine (Augustine) in fairy tales as well as to remind us of what he calls our attention to here -” remembering who we are”),  is that of a story in Mary Poppins Comes Back. It is a delightful account written from the infant twins point of view who are able to still speak the language of the Starling bird, the trees, the Sun, and the wind. And the only adult who can hear them and understand their language is, of course, Mary Poppins.  Because she has the power never to forget the wonders of childhood as they give her the magical power of being “practically perfect in every way” as their nanny.  It illustrates exactly what Chesterton wants us to remember in relation to God: we are His children still; in need of wonder and gratitude like that of children who do know what it is like to “exult in monotony”.

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

_______________________________________________________________________________________

*[Author's Note: something that the poet Rilke acknowledges in his famous line from "Letters to a Young Poet:"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act,..."]

(1) G. K. Chesterton, The Ethics of Elfland, Orthodoxy, Edited, Craig M. Bibler, 2002 (Annotated Edition)

The Flag of the World: “In” The World But Not “Of” It

I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. – G. K. Chesterton, The Flag of the World, Orthodoxy

How do you and I do that?  How do we be “in” the world but not “of” it?  Jesus tells us that we will be “hated” just as He was.  (John 15:17-19) Are we ready to be “in” the world but not “of” it to the degree that we are willing to be thought of in the same way as some do Him?  With hatred?   “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that we might have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  That is the paradox: the precise application of love, the willing endurance of hate for that love.    Are we willing?  If we are, how do we go about it?

Chesterton was trying to work out the same problem as you and I, to find and understand this foundational of all paradoxes in which we presently live:

And then there followed an experience impossible to describe.  It was as if I had been blundering about since my birth with two huge unmanageable machines, of different shapes and without apparent connection – the world and the Christian tradition. (John 17:15-19)

I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.  I found this projecting feature of Christian theology like a sort of hard spike, the dogmatic insistence that God was personal and had made the world separate from Himself.  The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in the world – it had evidently been meant to go there – and then a strange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the two machines had come together, one after another, all the other parts fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude.  I could hear bolt after bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of relief.  Having got one part right, all the other parts were repeating that rectitude, as clock after clock strikes noon.  Instinct after instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine. Or to vary the metaphor, I was like one who had advanced into a hostile country to take one high fortress.  And when that fort had fallen, the whole country surrendered and turned solid behind me.  The whole land lit up, as it were, back to the first fields of my childhood.

Resolving this problem of being “in” the world but not “of” it is a battle.  It is a battle of the heart and spirit against our own flesh and the experiences we have had and may continue to have.  It is against an enemy who will use those experiences to distract us from a victory each one of us could have.  It is those experiences that distract us and keep us from the real war going on between the  country of our heart against the world’s way of living. Yet the world is still there to love like a family, albeit one with many problems.

Chesterton draws us back to the family metaphor when leaving us some advice on how best to be “in” this world but not “of” it:

The world is not a lodging house in Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable.  It is the fortress of our family with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that, when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

Jesus showed us the way to love the world AND to conquer it: by following Him and keeping busy by preaching the Good News wherever God has placed us, doing good to the poor, loving and caring for our families and those in need.

That’s the way to plant the flag of the world.

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

A Christmas Year In Spirit: A Serious Gladness and A Straight-Through Joy

“When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” – G. K. Chesterton

As we approach this Christmas, there seem to be feelings of ambivalence  even sadness in the air rather than sugarplums dancing: many of us still don’t have jobs or jobs that pay what we may need to make our bills, the economists are not predicting any pull out soon, and the swine flu pandemic has hit the parents of the children who have died very hard.  The talk from many over the Internet is either sprinkled with excitement about Christmas shopping and activities that hardly seem affected by the recession or the thoughts of others  foretell of “lesser” homemade gifts for loved ones coupled with an unwritten underlying wistfulness for more in their “Christmas Accounts” at the bank.   Over all, one could say there is  a subdued tone this Christmas: even the playing of Christmas carols is infrequent through Social Media though  YouTube has an abundant selection

If we feel more serious than glad this Christmas, it is quite all right as there is still a serious gladness to be had and we may find that we feel even better for having had it. It is remarkably the same serious gladness that Chesterton speaks to when he gently reminds us of this mood in the quote above.  To have legs for socks is, indeed, a reason for celebrating( though not one we may willingly concede in the face of lost treats.) But such forthright reminders and disappointments lead us over the bridge to the real hope we have been given, a reason for celebrating more… especially when that hope is felt during seriously hard times.  That same seriousness of mood greeted the birth of our Lord whose gift to mankind we celebrate during this season.

For Joseph and Mary, like many of us,  it was not an easy time.  Mary faced the hardship of possible divorce from an initially disbelieving Joseph, though she was given support through her cousin Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah.  Both Joseph and Mary had to forgo concentrating on fixing up there home for the coming child because they were compelled to pay taxes to Caesar.  The journey to Bethlehem was not an easy one: the terrain and length of the trip  made it necessary to pack water and food was scarce.  Once they arrived, as scripture tells us: “..there was no room at the Inn”.  And yet there was a Christmas light, a star, and there were Christmas carols when the heavenly host broke out in song.  The Christmas gift, of course, lay in a manger for shepherds who wore no special Christmas clothes to come and see.

Like those shepherds who left their flocks so long ago, we too are invited to leave our burdens behind just for a moment to come and see that gift, to experience that serious gladness that leads to a straight-through joy more satisfying than any modern “Christmas” delight we may miss this year. For we know, we now living in these days, what that child grew up to be: Our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus. And we echo Mary’s song of Joy:

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;

for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty,

hath done great things to me;

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations,

to them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant,

being mindful of his mercy:

As he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

The Christmas Star: A Sweet Monument In the Night To Follow

A body may train, but a soul fasts. The time of abstinence from slack or food takes us on a journey where time takes on a paradox. Everything seems like Dali’s Still Life, Fast Moving. (Nature Morte Vivante) . You may have a ton of things to do but the brain is slack-jawed. It won’t get up and move. I think it must have been like this, this mood, amongst those on the way to Jerusalem on that night long ago. The perfect moment for Eternity to step into Time. A slack-jawed brain time. It wasn’t thinking about a million miles a minute, it was too numb from the journey and all the travails along the way. It was forced to rest and whatever place of rest, the more the mess, would do. It had discovered that things could, and would wait and all would turn out all right in the end. It was primed to see a miracle. And so a bright star would not be a momentary distraction but a sweet monument of peace in the night to follow without concern for anything else. I’m ready. Are you? Let’s drop our burdens and go there together!

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

The Season of Lent and its Purpose

The season of Lent is the journey that has become synonymous with giving up “something” .  For some, that is where the understanding ends.  But for those interested in why such a journey has survived the early practice of Christianity in both the East and the West, I hope to share briefly here what the real purpose of Lent is.

Lent is not a celebration in the sense of Christmas or Easter but it is the journey from one to the other, from the birth of Christ, to His resurrection. Forty days counted somewhat differently between the East and the West, but both ending up at the same place, Easter, the day we celebrate, at last, the purpose of this journey of repentance!

And so the fasting, which you may have heard about.  “What are you giving up for Lent?” is the question often asked.  As journey’s go, most people pack up and prepare food to make it through the long journey to their destination.  But with Lent is a journey of opposites, of freeing oneself up from the burdens of sin and our dependence on material food.  We’re packing it up quick and traveling light for these 40 days.

This kind of repentance God is talking about strikes up a note of somberness, a type of sorrow that is different from worldly sorrow: a sorrow not worried about the loss or the punishment, but a motivating and godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:8-11) as Paul writes to the congregation in Corinth:

” Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”

“See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”  That is the aim of this forty day fast, to give up whatever is holding onto us and preventing us from getting to the point where we are earnest, eager, indignant at our own blindness and sin, ready to see justice done, to do what we can to make things right between ourselves and others, ourselves and God, to then be able to feel at last the real freedom we seek.  Or as Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of  First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew puts it:”…[ To allow ourselves to experience ]a spiritual exercise designed to heighten our perception of basic reality: Sin is much more serious than we think, and God’s forgiveness is much more vast than we think. Left to ourselves, we go around with Playskool impressions of what’s at stake. So the goal of all spiritual disciplines are to cultivate charmolypi — to use a Greek term coined by the 6th-century abbot of the monastery on Mt Sinai, St. John of the Ladder. Charmolypi means the kind of penitence that flips into joyous gratitude, “joy-making sorrow,” repentance shot through with gold.”

Just as Augustine’s Confessions was a running dialog between himself and God recorded to book,  St. Andrew’s Canon is a hymn, a very long and personal meditation that surveys both good and bad examples of people from both the old testament and the new testament of the Bible.  It is a dialog between St. Andrew, who started as a monk in Jerusalem, and his soul, it is a “walk through the Bible” in such a way as to exhort oneself to do better to conform their life to the Christ, to get out of the way and let Him live through us that we may truly live the godly life we were made to live through the purchase of His blood on the Cross .  And to this purpose, many people, whether Eastern Orthodox or not, read it during this time in order to guide their own thoughts and questions. In the Eastern Orthodox church the hymn is sung during the week of Great Lent in its entirety.  But various Christian denominations also practice the disciplines of Lent and each does so with the hope that everyone who journeys there meets the Christ in truth and joy at the end.

As Mathewes-Green notes in her interview with The National Review about her book on the Canon of St. Andrew: “Orthodox don’t have a tradition so much of individually choose[ing] things to give up. Instead, we all take part in a common fast from meat, dairy, eggs, and fish; basically, a vegan diet. This recalls Daniel’s fast from rich foods in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. It’s a strenuous discipline, and can be adapted for health or spiritual reasons.

The fast is not self-punishment or payment for sin. It’s an exercise like weightlifting, designed to strengthen the willpower muscle. If you can resist a slice of pizza, you can resist the urge to yell at someone in traffic. “

For more information about Great Lent, visit the following:

• Getting Serious for 40 Days: An introduction to the Great Canon of St. Andrew.
• Great Lent – wiki