Lenten Skies

Through the branches of a tree I see the world. The sky must really exist, way up there, but the obstructions seem so great and looming, as though they want to curve you away from the clarity and expanse of the air. I squint, trying to see the heavens above more clearly than I see the barked branches that vie for my focus. I know that the heavens above encompass all, that they are vast and beautiful and the things they contain worthy of constant pursuit. But damn the branches in the way, the fruit which hangs enticing my soul to be overwhelmed by the weight of sin and death.

May I never forget that Love which has pierced this darkness and straightened the crooked path and the Light which even now shines through the brambles and grants a glimpse of the eternal. May your Lenten season allow you to see your sin alight with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Scenes of Wintertide

Wintertide?? We are soooo past the tide part.








And my favorite scene which is all-too familiar for me right now:

More Wedding Pics!

Groomsmen (photo taken by Photographer David Linder:


Phil & I


Bridesmaids:


Bride & Groom:


Apparently I was amused...

Phil's Married!!

And it was gorgeous. The Groom, the Bride, the whole thing was absolutely lovely. Only a few pics for now (as I was in the ceremony, I couldn't get any of the actual proceedings):



A very pleased mother and son:


Dad & I dancing (I probably stepped on his toes at this very moment):


Though looking rather despondent, Timmy actually woke up sick as a dog and suffered through looking dashing all day:


This is my only-slightly-older sister:


Stephan & I:


Bella Mama:

All Together

For the first time in years, my whole immediate family was together for Christmas. And seeing that Phillip is getting married January 5th, this may be the last of "just us".

We revisited our childhood with a multiple-hour-long game of Monopoly:



Because we've always been too poor to buy a new game, our game pieces were quite varied (Energizer battery, quarter, penny, etc...). "We were 'appy though we were poor"....(name that quote and get ten dollars!!



There was much laughter:



Some were left with very little:

His Mountain

Once I sat a-pondering upon a hill not mine own.
I borrowed someone else's mound
To see what they might see.
Or think.
Or feel.

But I did not feel,
Nor think,
Nor see
Anyone's sights, thoughts, or feelings
Other than my very own.

"Methinks", I hushed to myself,
"That there is only One Who has seen all
Thought all
Felt all",
Not only for himself; but for all mankind.

And this is His mound upon which I sit,
Aspiring only to embrace all the world
As He has, is, and ever will.


Picture from Rashan, Kosova, 2006

Transition

Ah... the time has finally come.

Five years of saving for it.

Two years of wondering if I could really give up film

And two weeks of a new digital world.

I have left film behind and have joined the age of today!

Various & Sundry Photography

Midnight Office

I have a growing appreciation and affection for praying the Midnight Office. It's neither Compline nor Lauds, neither the end of a day nor the beginning.

During the Evening Offices, the weight of the day's occurances are nearby in the mind, bringing with them the concerns, problems, and blessings of the day past.

During the Morning Offices there is a certain anticipation for the upcoming day with its schedule, people, meetings, work, and all that we cannot forsee within them.

But at midnight the greatest distraction is your melatonin, and if you can suspend that for fifteen minutes, there is nothing to crowd the mind nor soul. No regret for the past day nor anxiety for the future one. It is peaceful and focused.

St. Mark of Ephesus said regarding the midnight office, "rising from sleep for it, we signify the transportation from the life of the deceit of darkness to the life which is, according to Christ, free and bright, with which we begin to worship God. For it is written, 'The people who sat in darkness saw a great light (Is. 9:2; Mt 4:16)." From Patrologia Graeca 160, 1165D.

There is also a sense of redeeming the darkness, and filling it with the Light of Christ.

I would encourage you to try this, as I have been encouraged in trying to develop the midnight prayer into my daily cycle.

The Shades of Life

While there are moments of fiery brilliance as seen in the skies posted earlier, so often we must learn to handle the gray shades of life. Beautiful, comfortable, regular they loom above us.

Apparently this is the way the Church is too. For all of the beautiful purples and reds and glorious whites of liturgical colors - green - yes, green - is the color we have for twenty-four weeks straight. Green. The color that the trees are on all regular days. Green. The color of the grass ten months out of the year.



My life has seemed gray of late. Or green. During a season when the green is supposed to be preparing for those few months of brilliant leaves and fall colors, my sky has been gray. It's a good gray, with subtle shades, but it is not full of passionate oranges and reds. I think I am being a glimpse into so many people's lives: get up, feed the kids, go to work, get home, make dinner, go to bed; next day: get up, feed the kids, go to work, get home, make dinner, go to bed. Maybe a couple days out of the month have a chisel-tipped pink highliter scratch over them - but most are the same.

I don't want that life. So, how do I make my gray more brilliant? Is it simply by seeing the myriad of colors that go into gray? Or that rainbows are most clearly seen peeking through the gray skies? I think I am going to try to be alright with gray. Try to makethe grays beautiful in a grayish way. I'll tell you if I start seeing rainbows.

Caritas

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation.
The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves

Some questions on love:
- Why are your closest friends and family amazingly adept at "pushing your buttons"? What is it about philial affections that can make us prone to quick offense and subsequently quick repair?
- What is it about our soul that finds the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment in the most sacrificial of loves? I say soul because it doesn't seem as though it would satisfy the flesh, but perhaps I am missing something here.
- What is the connection between love and duty? You have to love your husband, even when he seems unloveable; you have to love your brother even when he's unloveable, etc... Being human, we have to acknowledge love goes so much deeper than the eros, so is the deepest love (agape) still tied to duty, or is it the loves in between?
- Very important question: why is "love" always associated with the heart?

I have begun working on some essays on loves, so am probing for your thoughts.

The Sky Above

Once my mom asked me if I would ever stop taking pictures of the sky. I told her that I would stop when I saw the same one twice. God uses a palette that we cannot even imaging; I suppose He creates a new color each day, one we may not even perceive. Just because it pleases Him. And the colors and clouds never cease to casually change at His command. I like to think that our awe at such a sight is echoed in the sky, as each ray realizes it is part of something gloriously wonderful and continues to obey the whim of the Artist above.




















Budapest sunset on my birthday by Leslie Mezger

Eggplant

Have you ever contemplated the beauty of eggplant? The colors are amazingly swirled together, so sometimes it looks black, sometimes ruby red, and somehow purple all over. I think I might keep an eggplant on my counter all the time now, just to learn more about the hand that made it. Maybe I'll even work up the courage to try to capture its beauty on canvas. But today I'll just stare at it.

From the lips of children

My 2nd-5th grade students had a discussion regarding the Fall of man today. They brought up some things I have never thought about before, and am very humored by:
If Adam hadn't sinned:
1) Would we still get papercuts?
2)Would we die if we got shot by a gun (the gun was of course created, not to hurt people, but to shoot fruit off of high trees)
3) We would be so crammed with people there wouldn't be any room to move.
4) We would have serious traffic jams!
5) If you tripped, would it hurt?
6) Would you be able to swim underwater (because if you couldn't die you couldn't drown....)
7) If you were eaten by a shark, would you live inside it forever.
8) If you stepped on a beetle, would it die?

Henry Tudor

My first lecture of the school year was on "Memorizing", how to effectively store and recall information, the way the brain remembers, etc... While preparing, I was trying to find a history poem to demonstrate that even the dates, people, events of history can be put into rhyme and aid the memory. This is what I found (though I didn't use it with the students due to its PG rating):

I WANT A BOY

Henry Tudor said to Catherine
When he heard she was expecting
‘Darling, you must now prepare
To give birth to my son and heir
Girls are stupid, soft and silly
My baby has to have a willy.’

‘Sorry mate,’ said Henry’s wife
‘I may just be your trouble and strife
But it really isn’t up to me
Whether the baby’s a he or a she
My little egg is unisex
It’s YOUR SPERM that determines the sex.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Henry. ‘That’s not true.
The baby’s sex is down to you.
Don’t try and put the blame on me
If you have a girl, I’ll divorce you and leave
I’ll marry Anne Boleyn instead
And if Anne has a girl, I’ll chop off her head.’

And that’s exactly how Henry behaved
The wives who had daughters he never forgave
But now that the Tudors are long, long gone
We know Catherine was right and Henry was wrong

Miss de Martimprey It Is...

Hats off and glasses up to another year of teaching.






The mission of St. Andrew’s Academy is to equip our students with the tools of learning and to endow them with the wisdom of the ages so that they may serve God and their fellow man with virtue and strength.

Moonlight fire

As our trees and mountains burn, our prayers go up for rain.

Life or Death

Just a question to perhaps get some feedback on. If we believe in the providence of God, the security of our soul in the heavenlies, and the unpredictability of this cosmos we walk on - how should we live? Or more pointedly what I want to ask (and am doing it badly) is: if we knew we had three months to live, would our life change? Or should it? Shouldn't our days be filled with the uncertainty of this moment we call "life" and the vigor of God's mission during it? Our days ARE numbered, why would it make a difference if we knew how many they were?

Ponderings on the Trinity

I have been looking at what the Patristics have thought about the Trinity, and some curious questions have been emanating from this young twenty-first century mind. How odd is it that the Trinity has been studied by numerous eminent minds and men of God, yet even so the greatest of them have ended their discourses with the word, “Mystery”. Why was the Triune nature of the Godhead a doctrine that St. Athanasius was willing to be exiled three times for? Why has the Church labeled many as heretics because of their definition of the Trinity? What is at stake? Let us rummage through the minds of the Patristics to begin to answer some of our inquiries.

Orthodox Christology was the first battle that our Fathers fought for in the Trinitarian debate. Evans says, “Apart from the divine identity of Jesus as the Son there could not be a Trinity.” Though this may seem evident to us today, it is a primary reason for the Patristic’s tight grasp on orthodox Trinitarian belief. If Christ is not the second Person of the Godhead as truly as He was a walking, breathing human being then there is no Trinity to be spoken of, or really a Christian faith for it too is dependent upon the divinity of Christ. Because of this our Fathers pushed that Jesus was "of the same substance (homoousios)” as God rather than just of “similar stubstance (homoiousios).

Orthodox Soteriology was also in the balance. Gordon Fee said, “[all these soteriological verses] in some form or another reflect the threefold activity of Father, Christ, and Spirit in effecting salvation”. In describing his “economy of salvation” St. Irenaeus highlights the specific purpose of each of the Godhead in salvation saying, “God the Father uncreated, invisible one God, creator of the universe…and the Word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who…in the fullness of time, to gather all things to himself, became a human among humans to…destroy death, bring life, and achieve fellowship between God and humanity…And the Holy Spirit…was poured out in a new way on our humanity to make us new throughout the world in the sight of God.”

Basil of Caesarea was known for his emphasis on the equality of the Spirit in the Trinity. The “filioque controversy” came up because it was important to our Cappadocean Fathers that the Holy Spirit proceed from both the Father and the Son together. They defined the Trinity as one Substance in three Persons so it was necessary that the Holy Spirit be equal, proceeding from both and having in Himself the Substance of the Father and Son together.

The Patristics have used many analogies of the Trinity, two of which particularly lead away from thinking of the Trinity in a neo-Platonic manner. St. Augustine couples the Trinity with charity saying, “charity certainly loves itself, but unless it loves itself loving something it does not love itself as charity.” And further he says, “Now love means someone loving and something loved with love. There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love.” The second I want to mention is one used by Cyril of Alexandria in the fifth century who said, “already the fragrance of the Holy Spirit has breathed upon you…That may you enjoy the Christ-hearing waters in their fragrance”. In this way the fragrance proceeds from the Throne of God (i.e. the Spirit) while Christ is enjoyed in that same fragrance and the fragrance is God the Father.

The Athanasian Creed seems to typify what the Patristics saw as the elemental beliefs that are necessary to maintaining an orthodox view of the Trinity. It says, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith…But this is the Catholic faith: That we worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity; Neither confounding the persons; nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son; another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.” The Creed continues with each aspect of God, attributing it to each Person and then unifying them as One, not Three. It concludes saying, “So that in all things, as aforesaid, the unity in trinity, and the trinity in unity is to be worshipped. He, therefore, that will be saved, must thus think of the trinity.”

A final aspect of the Patristic’s teaching on the Trinity (which Athanasius mentions) is seen in our salvation, when we come to the font of living water which proceeds from the Throne of God, the wound of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Herein we bind unto ourselves the strong name of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three. This is why we may all walk from henceforth to study, meditate upon, and worship the Holy Trinity for the whole of our lives and still be continually awed into a greater understanding of the holy Mystery.

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

People of the River

From Eden flowed four rivers going to nourish the four corners of the earth. As they flowed through the years they changed, and grew, the Nile even changed into blood, but the Lord healed that too. The Sea of Reeds opened up to let the people of God pass through on a quest for the promised land. They got thirsty, like you. They asked their Creator for water, and He even split a Rock in Horeb, though the rock was only a vision of the true Rock to come. They did reach the promised land - by walking through water again. The Psalmists oft sing of the river of God that flows from the base of His sanctuary to give suck to the whole earth. His rivers rush through the minor prophets, the major prophets, making borders and wars, drying up for the ungodly, taking lives and giving them.

And then the River of Life was born in Bethlehem, the One Who would make all rivers true to their course. He Himself was immersed as heaven opened and blessed Him so that He might wash the world with the baptism of river-water, then the water of His tears, and then the water which flowed from His side on Calvary. You and I are born from here, cleansed from here, and redeemed from here.

From Eden to Paradise, we are people of the River, and we must both be born from it, and die again that we might live in the Eternal Font.

The Curse

I felt the curse today.

Keenly I saw it in your eyes as you fondled your child. The one you must still protect from me. I spoke and you listened, but our main discourse occurred between our pupils. Five minutes we looked. Foreigners to one another, yet eight feet away. I thought you to be asking me "why"?

I didn't have the answer.

The division of our languages happened far before Babel. You take me back to Eden with your blink. You don't trust me and I can't earn it back. How is it we share the same air, the same dirt, the same home - the same Creator - and we can't trust each other? I asked you to hear me out. You stood, both of you. You moved your child behind you. Am I so much a threat? I tried to explain it's not my fault. If I could I would remove this distance.

I can't redeem you - or us.

Perhaps you know me better than I do. Do you think I would fail if we had a relationship? Would I kill us both as my father Adam did? Probably. This hurts me more than I can remember before.

You heard me out, and bounded away - or did your fawn jump first? However it was, you returned to the safety of the woods, leaving me to feel the weight of a lost Eden. I can't wait for the not yet of the new earth - then you will let me touch your children and you may play with mine.