Reading

I grew up in a small, rural town in Southern Indiana – the same town, incidentally as Larry Bird, who was In my class. One of the things I’d like to do in the time I have left is document, for my family, for my community, and for myself, people who would otherwise be forgotten, and I am going to begin with my mother, largely because she has so much to do with who and where I am today – even though I am going to use her largely as a springboard today, and return to her later.

She was a music teacher in our town of 2,000, a pianist, and a voice teacher. Hers was the Campbellite side of my rather intriguingly mixed religious family, and she was the choir director in the local Disciples of Christ Church, which perhaps makes me somewhat more sympathetic to Christopher Reeves and Dr Bob.

I don’t have the most attractive voice, but I have an excellent ear. I have done a little reading, and if I can ever resume giving back to Holy Trinity, I would like to read. (For those not Orthodox, reading is not reading: it is plainchant. When we “read” the Epistle, we do not read or recite it: We chant it.) I do not have the time, or probably will not have the energy, to learn the tones, so reading is a more realistic goal, and Deacon Alex kindly worked on it with me.

I love liturgical music. It is really the only way to use what God gave me to worship Him. I am, however, extremely nervous singing solo, although I can get over that, if people will please be patient. If my time were not so limited, I would love to work with Christopher Reeves to learn Znamenny chant, but I do not have the time to do so. So I want, if at all possible, the chance to read a little in church as a meager attempt to return the amazing Christian compassion all of those at Holy Trinity have shown me to the greater glory of God. It may or may not be possible, depending on how much time and strength I have.

I am rapidly crashing and need to break. Glory to Jesus Christ!

Wondrous in His saints

I have long felt surrounded by the most incredible Christian love and mery at Holy Trinity. A package came from a fellow parishioner, Matt Finke, arrived today. He sent a DVD of St John of San Francisco, and a “q-tip” soaked in the holy oil of the vigil lamp at the reliquary of the Holy Hierarch St John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, and the holy oil from the vigil lamp of St Pantlemon the Wonderworking Physician. Matt writes, “May God who is woundrous in His saints grant you His rich mercy.” i am so very touched that he and Jill would think of me and being annointed with the oil of the God’s holy saints. Tears are in my eyes as I write this.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

For Bill

Six months before we moved to Pennsylvania, a good friend and colleague at the Kelley School of Business was diagnosed with mesothelioma. I have started this four or five times, only to digitally tear it up and toss it away then begin again; this time, I’m going to sludge on, knowing that I cannot do him the credit he deserves, only what I can manage in my current state.

His name was Bill Littlefield.

I have pictures of Bill, just not here, so you’ll need to bear with me (also, this keyboard is dying, and there’s that morphine fog effect, so please from now on, try to put up with my typos). Bill was bit younger than i, so he would have been 52 had he lived. Lank and lean, gruff and quick to insert any jab that would offend the politically correct, in a premature grey flattop, he exhaled the presence of a redneck programmer. He was one of the few you’d find bearing LISP and NRA stickers — and images of wolves, which he loved for their freedom and their ferocity.

I can’t help but think I’m not doing Bill justice, writing in the wounded state I am, but I need to remember Bill. I need to let you know just a little about Bill, as I knew him.

I have very close friends at Kelley. Most followed me there. Bill was there when I began. At first, I found Bill itimidating as most do, but something between us clicked somewhere. I found a great deal to respect, and when Bill raked me over the coals (a talent in which few surpassed Bill), I deserved it, I knew it, and I strove to do better for it.

Not, mind, that we had an adversarial relationship. Far from it. I found Bill medicinal, even refreshing. He was gruff, certainly, and he had a razor sharp sense of humor — often masked by those who did not see past that hardbitten outer self.

But beneath all of that, there was a gentle man, who loved his country, loved his family, and loved his God (and for Fr John’s enlightenment, Bill was another Hoosier Campbellite). I often sought out Bill’s advice and company. Bill’s candid honesty, his unerring moral compass, more than once was he of great aid and comfort to me.

I was pained and mystified at his funeral. I was pained because I had lost a friend whose counsel I would never have again, a friend for whom I felt a great brotherhood, and whom I understood on such a deep level. I was mystified because so many others apparently never saw the deeply religous man who loved Christ as I did, and I found that mystery as painful as losing my friend.

Now that I am in more or less the same position as Bill, I cannot help but wonder. How do people see me? Do they take me as superficially as they did Bill? Will they be as mystified by my love of Christ as they were by Bill’s?

I can only pray not.

I am not doing as poorly as Bill, particularly after they removed his lung. Yet I saw in Bill, though all that blinding pain, a peace and a love of God that others, apparently, missed. I also have over the last five years, felt even closer to Bill, and missed him ever more. I miss his strength, his humanity, his compassion, and I hope and pray that my priests, my deacons, and my fellow Christians can help me pass into the repose as peacefully as Bill, who went to his rest in Christ’s embrace.

Bill, I miss you. I will be glad to see you once again in the shining glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Thank you

for visiting, Deacon. It means more than I can say.

Psalter: Hymnal of the Church

Psalm 104 — Creation Psalm

Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:

Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.

At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.

They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.

Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.

They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.

By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.

He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;

And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.

The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.

The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.

He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.

Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.

The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.

Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.

O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.

There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.

These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.

Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.

I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.

New category

You’ll notice a new category, The Great Orthodox-Catholic Paradox. I haven’t defined it, because it’s a broad, er, meta-paradox (?) that shows itself in so many ways. It usually has something to do with ecclesiology or structure, and today’s example, related to narcissism, is that while strictly top-down organized Catholicism has its share of problems with narcissism blaspheming the liturgy, not so top-down Orthodoxy has relatively few. A point to contemplate.

Narcissism

Often, modernism or ecumenism is identified as the cancer that is eating away at Christianity (forgive the cancer reference, but I have it on the brain right now). I believe, however, that one of the diseases from which these other symptoms emerge is narcissism, and that it not only affects Christianity, but society as a whole.

Focusing exclusively on Christianity, however, when a woman says, “‘And all mankind’ makes me feel excluded,” she is being narcisssistic. The church and its worship is not about her, or me, or how it may make us feel. It is about worshipping God. Period. My feelings, exclusion, political correctness, all of these are substituting ourselves as the focus of worship. Further, it is narcissistic to the point of dishonesty, as she knows that “mankind” is a gender-neutral word, as is “man.” By insisting that it is not, she is placing herself at the center, and demanding that the liturgy revolve around her.

The crucial concept here is substitute. Narcissism is not merely injected into worship. It replaces God with oneself. It is the purest, most heinous blasphemy. And it goes far further than just wanting “inclusive” language.

Churches can be divided into two groups: Those who view worship as worshipping God, with God at its center; and those who view worship as affirmation of one’s essential goodness, in which God plays no real part. Liberal, mainstream Protestants fall into the second category, as do the Episcopalians. The church is there to make everybody feel good about themselves, whether it is because they are attracted to members of the same sex, or whether it is because they want to grandstand about how open-minded they are about those attracted to the same sex (or pick your favorite liberal issue). Deacon Greg has a couple of examples of narcissism, here and here, and Scelata, here. In fact, there are so many examples of how we have made ourselves God and pushed God out of worship that it’s almost ridiculous to point them out.

Because naricissm replaces God with ourselves, it is fundamentally anti-Christian. Giving in to the narcissistic demands of others is fundamentally anti-Christian. That the church for two thousand years did not confuse the roles of men and women within it is the supreme argument against confusing those roles now, whether by allowing girls access to the Holy Table or creating a deaconess — not the historical deaconess, but the functional equivalent of a deacon — for women. It is not that women have no role within the Church; it is that narcissistic women demand that the roles of men be opened unto them, an entirely different issue. These women have no theological argument other than how they feel — their own narcissism.

Were I a bit less foggy from the morphine, I would argue that the two forces most destructive to Christianity and by extension, civilization, are narcissism and the social gospel. I have dealt some with the meta-heresy of the social gospel in this article. Unfortunately, it has a far more insidious hold than narcissism, and the two will destroy what realms of Christianity eschew God for feelings.

(The particular expression of narcissism I have chosen ties in with another issue Leon J. Podles addressed in his thought provoking historical study, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity which he has placed online here. I just discovered that he’d placed it online — I own a hardcover — and may well blog it more now that I can provide online links.)

Now, a church is certainly primarily a place for worship, but it isn’t entirely so. A church is also a social unit, a community, a network of missions, a body that has all kinds of social functions. Yet all of these are subsumed by the church as a place of worship, and although one needn’t be as mindful of narcissism in more social contexts, one should still be on guard that it doesn’t bleed over into worship. Once God has been displaced, there is no more worship, and no more church, only a social club.

Biopsy

The doc just came in. Biopsy Wednesday, probably around 3 pm. Without the biopsy, there can be no prognosis, which makes everything much more difficult.

God’s Purpose

My journey to Orthodoxy is chronicled here, in which I also said I believed God led me here. Given the cancer, this has taken on deeper layers of meaning.

God led me here, back to Himself and His Church, and to His priest and my confessor, Fr John. If I am granted the time, I would like to develop a deeper relationship with Fr. Basil, Fr Dn Alex, and Fr Dn Mark. Because I am intensely introverted, I have thrown away the chance to meet and work with my brothers and sisters in Christ at my church, and Fr. John and Richard Nakles had helped me past that first wrung by asking me to run for parish council as treasurer. I will serve if it is God’s plan to let me live a while longer.

I owe special thanks to Christopher Reeves and Dr. Bob for allowing me to sing in the choir and chant at Vespers and Matins, and to Fr. Dn. Alex, for working with me to read the Epistle (and possibly future thanks to Dr. Bob for more of the same). Also, I thank the Finkes, who come also from Bloomington, and who have helped me become more comfortable in the parish, as have Willis and Michael. Karen and Gary hold a special place, and I hope and pray that Karen will be relieved of the darkness that burdens her. She is a bright, cheerful soul, and it hurts me to see her in pain.

I am grateful to Mark and Leslyn Radomsky for so warmly welcoming me, and responding (along with the Finkes) so quickly upon hearing of my cancer. I regret not knowing the Radomskys better, and hope I am given the chance, as warm and Christian as their response was to me. I would like the honor of knowing all of the Christians at my parish better, and if it is God’s plan for me to live a little longer, I will use that time to further develop relationships in Christian brotherhood with those at my parish. It is a warm and healthy parish, and I have sinfully wasted my opportunity to grow with it, among my fellow Orthodox Christians. I am sincerely sorry for that.

I also owe Richard Barrett, Fr Peter Jon Gillquist, and All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Bloomington my appreciation for their prayers.

To this day, I am most grateful for what Fr. John said: We don’t close doors. He has no way to really understand how much that means to me, an unworthy sinner.

I would like to see Fr. Alexander and Matushka Olga in the time I have left, but I don’t know that it’s possible. I really have not considered burial, and need to think long and hard about that. I want an Orthodox funeral. I’m just not sure where I want to be buried. With my family in Indiana? With my extended family in West Virginia, with perhaps monastic involvement, since the Hermitage of the Holy Cross is in Wayne, where my kin are? I don’t know. This is very sudden, and I have given cursory thought to these issues (you get to your fifties, especially if you’re the eldest alive in your family, and you think about them some, but you assume you have time time time and more time. I may. I may not. I don’t know yet. But the monastery option seems attractive, since I doubt it was coincidence that a Russian Orthodox hermitage settled so close to my family. Also, one of my extended family from there — and I hadn’t heard from any of them in well over thirty years — had just recently contacted me out of the blue, and wanted to re-establish contact, not just with us, but also his mother and the rest of the family.

Could all of this be coincidence?

I don’t know. Discerning God’s Hand in these questions has become one of my tasks. What does Christ want of me, and why does He send me these people, these links? Only prayer, mine, and others’, can answer that. I just wrote one of the hieromonks at the hermitage, and I plan to email Fr John (and Fr Basil, but I admit with some embarrassment that I do not have his email addy, or Fr Dn Mark’s, for that matter). God will tell me, in His own way and His own time.

One thing is clear. I cannot let the pain of this disease infect my soul. Rather, I must pray that God somehow purify my soul with the cancer, so that if I live, I may become a better follower of God the Son, and if I repose, I will be more worthy to rise again with my Christ at Resurrection.

Our father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done
on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.

Power of positive thinking

Norman Vincent Peale, wasn’t it? When (actually if, but that’s where the positive thinking comes in) I get back home, and by extension, church, I’ll be in a wheelchair (I have no illusions about regaining much use of my legs). Orthodox worship in a wheelchair. It’s kind of upside down, isn’t it? I doubt I’d be able to sing in the choir. I could read from the readers’ stand. I guess I could sing at the kliros if we could figure out how to get the music so all of us could see it. And treasurer, to which I was just elected? Sure, I guess, with Chuck’s help (but I was going to count on that anyway).

Last week when I suddenly lost the use of my legs, that was horrifying. After I found out why, mobility seems less important than being alive.

Pray for me, please.

Surgery vetoed

after I got here and had CAT scans done. Steroids to reduce spinal cord inflammation, radiation to reduce the size of the tumor pressing on the cord, and morphine drip.

Father brought Holy Communion this afternoon and Annointed me. Bless him. I am not worthy.

Very Bad News

Major surgery today. More sometime in the future, when I’m well enough and I have a way to post.

Not good

My legs are pretty much useless today — I can’t even close the recliner. I have an appointment Monday with the orthopedic surgeon, but as bad as this has gotten, I wonder if maybe I should call his office today.

Update

Yesterday, the pain was the worst so far, and it did not let up all night (and I got no sleep). Today, I broke down and hit the pain meds, something I don’t want to do a lot, since there are only a finite number of them, and it takes more than a couple to get the pain under control.

Update

Still excruciating when I awake get up, but if I take a handful of Alleve and sit up/lean forward in my office chair for about an hour, the pain becomes tolerable. Also more mobile.

I can’t make it late enough in the day (since after about 1 or so, the pain increases) to get to Vespers, and because I’m under orders not to stand more than absolutely necessary, I will not be going to Matins. That will be hard.

Another recommendation

Father John on sola scriptura.

Maybe …

Walking is a lot better than it was — mobility is improving rapidly. So I’m starting to hope that this won’t be as bad as it could be (although I awoke in sweat-inducing pain).

Going home

I’ve been discharged.

Hospitalized

I’ve been admitted. I fractured my spine. There’s wi-fi in the room.

Just great

Yesterday while leaving Baby’s, I didn’t see the step down and fell. Blinding pain. I can barely walk, so I’m headed in to see what I did.

As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.