An American Pascha Basket

Christ is Risen!


Living my life within a liturgical year is still fresh and new to me, this my 6th Orthodox Pascha. And I suppose I enjoy the feast in the hall afterwards as much as anyone. I find that after 4 years of doing this, our mission is falling into its own rhythm, with small traditions taking shape.


American convert Orthodox remain a self-conscious and self-absorbed bunch--at least we of the online variety, where we often fret about many things, become angst-ridden, and issue dire prognostications about the impossibility of American converts ever really becoming Orthodox (it's all hopeless play-acting, don't you know, etc. etc. etc.) And I'll be the first to admit, we have a ways to go. We will know we will have arrived once we stop thinking and talking about it so dang much.


With the ethnic Orthodox, the preparation of a Pascha basket was no haphazard accumulation of meat, cheese and egg dishes. Every item was prepared in a way to symbolize, in some manner, a truth of the Resurrection. Well, we American converts are not there yet. From my study of Church history, it seems apparent that Orthodoxy takes a long time to gel with a particular culture. Before discounting where we are now, I would suggest checking back in 200 years, to see if we've made any progress or not. That is not a particularly long span in Orthodox time.


The preparation of my own Pascha basket was not carefully planned-out, to be sure. And yet, I found the contents interesting--containing something of a nod to the older traditions, but incorporating foods of my native South, as well. The contents (following) may say as much as anything about the adaptability of an Orthodox ethos in this strange clime.


1. Georgian wine, specifically Khvanchkara. The Georgians claim they invented wine--and I won't argue the point with them. I am not a wine connoisseur, but simply enjoy a smooth, modestly-priced red wine that goes down well with a meal. Khavanchkara is a winner on all three counts, and each year I make new disciples. Having the Khvanchkara at our post-Pascha feast has now become a tradition at our mission. In the weeks leading up, different ones will inquire whether I have ordered the Georgian wine yet. There's a liquor store in D.C. that has the American distributorship, I suppose. I send them an email, and in a few days time, a case of this wonderful stuff arrives at my door.


2. Tsoureki. This is Greek Pascha bread. The recipe, attached to an email I received from an Orthodox friend, stated that it dated back to "Byzantine times." Truth be told, I am something of a Byzantine nut. Attach the word to most anything, and I'm a buyer. If Detroit came out with a new sports car called the "Byzantine," I would somehow convince myself that I needed one. This love of Byzantine history is separate and apart from my being Orthodox--in fact, it came first. Perhaps someday I may tell of my humiliating episode with the "Byzantine" coins at the archaeological site in Syria. Maybe. But back to the bread--once the recipe mentioned the B-word, I knew I had to give it a try. The theological symbolism is not hard to figure out in this bread, with the yeast "rising again," the eggs, and each loaf consisting of 3 intertwined braids. But I also see why it is generally baked only once a year. The process takes the better part of a day, as well as taking-over the entire kitchen. The two loaves could have fed a small Byzantine city through an extended siege. To add another Orthodox element, I stirred the mixture with the hand-carved wooden spoon I picked up at a stall right outside the Bachkovo Monastery in Bulgaria. But I chose not to put the decorative dyed eggs atop the bread. My Protestant wife kept walking through--not a little skeptical of the whole thing and a bit alarmed at the usurpation of her kitchen--with barbed questions as to why I was doing this or that, and why didn't I do it this other way, etc. I figured putting the eggs atop the bread would have exceeded her level of allowable foolishness. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the Greek gentleman sitting next to me at the feast said that I got the taste just right.

3. Salami and cheese. Our city has a new frou-frou grocery store determined to out-do Whole Foods at that game. The establishment is certainly impressive, but perhaps not the place for everyday shopping and everyday budgets. But I did spring for a bit of higher-grade salami. The butcher with the fake Italian accent tried to sell me on the really expensive stuff, assuring me that it would "melt in my mouth." I did not say it, but I didn't want it to melt in my mouth. I wanted to chew it up. Anyway, I settled for salami I could afford. I chose a Gouda cheese to go with, but one that was made in Granbury, Texas.

4. Natchitoches meat pies. I think every agrarian culture develops some variation of a meat pie. In this part of the South, the meat pies became identified with this old French town on the Cane River. Meat pies and hash browns are my favorite Saturday breakfast, so I always include some to break the fast after Pascha.

5. Buttermilk pie. This is a Southern staple that tastes oh so much better than it sounds. I make the pie and the crust from scratch, and it is one of the easiest pies to throw together. My buttermilk pies have come to be expected at these gatherings.

6. Red-dyed eggs. I was the logical one to supply the dyed eggs this year, as my chickens and guinea hens are now laying big-time. This turned into more trouble than I thought, as I discovered at this late date that I really do not know how to boil an egg properly. At age 56, I can't recall ever having done it before. But by the last batch, I about had it down. For the egg-cracking game, those in the know would reach for the smaller guinea eggs, whose shells are much harder than the chicken eggs.

Martyrs of the Kvabtakhevi Monastery

Commemorated on April 10

In the 14th century, during the reign of King Bagrat V (1360–1394), Timur (Tamerlane) invaded Georgia seven times. His troops inflicted irreparable damage on the country, seizing centuries-old treasures and razing ancient churches and monasteries. Timur’s armies ravaged Kartli, then took the king, queen, and the entire royal court captive and sent them to Karabakh (in present-day Azerbaijan). Later Timur attempted to entice King Bagrat to renounce the Christian Faith in exchange for permission to return to the throne and for the release of the other Georgian prisoners. For some time Timur was unable to subjugate King Bagrat, but in the end, being powerless and isolated from his kinsmen, the king began to falter. He devised a sly scheme: to confess Islam before the enemy, but to remain a Christian at heart. Satisfied with King Bagrat’s decision to “convert to Islam,” Timur permitted the king to return to the throne of Kartli. At the request of King Bagrat, Timur sent twelve thousand troops with him to complete Georgia’s forcible conversion to Islam. When they were approaching the village of Khunani in southeastern Georgia, Bagrat secretly informed his son Giorgi of everything that had happened and called upon him and his army to massacre the invaders. The news of Bagrat’s betrayal and the ruin of his army infuriated Timur, and he called for immediate revenge. At their leader’s command, his followers destroyed everything in their path, set fire to cities and villages, devastated churches, and thus forced their way through to Kvabtakhevi Monastery. Monastics and laymen alike were gathered in Kvabtakhevi when the enemy came thundering in. Having forced open the gate, the attackers burst into the monastery, then plundered and seized all its treasures. They captured the young and strong, carrying them away. The old and infirm were put to the sword. As the greatest humiliation, they mocked the clergy and monastics by strapping them with sleigh bells and jumping and dancing around them. Already drunk on the blood they had shed, the barbarians posed an ultimatum to those who remained: to renounce Christ and live or to be driven into the church and burned alive. Faced with these terms, the faithful cried out: “Go ahead and burn our flesh—in the Heavenly Kingdom our souls will burn with a divine flame more radiant than the sun!” And in their exceeding humility, the martyrs requested that their martyrdom not be put on display: “We ask only that you not commit this sin before the eyes of men and angels. The Lord alone knows the sincerity of our will and comforts us in our righteous afflictions!” Having been driven like beasts into the church, the martyrs raised up a final prayer to God: “In the multitude of Thy mercy shall I go into Thy house; I shall worship toward Thy holy temple in fear of Thee. O Lord, guide me in the way of Thy righteousness; because of mine enemies, make straight my way before Thee (Ps. 5:6–7) that with a pure mind I may glorify Thee forever….” The executioners hauled in more and more wood, until the flames enveloping the church blazed as high as the heavens and the echo of crackling timber resounded through the mountains. Ensnared in a ring of fire, the blissful martyrs chanted psalms as they gave up their spirits to the Lord. The massacre at Kvabtakhevi took place in 1386. The imprints of the martyrs’ charred bodies remain on the floor of the church to this day.

Michael Scheuer on Looking Ahead to Next Year in the Middle East

The current issue of the American Conservative contains an important and cogent article by Michael Scheuer, former CIA operative now Georgetown University professor and noted author, writer and lecturer on the Middle East. I first become acquainted with his scholarship while reading Imperial Hubris back in 2005. I find Scheuer to be one of the clearest-headed analysists of our predicament in that part of the world. There is little danger that American political leaders--of either faction--will pay much attention to what Sheuer has to say. But it is important that it be said as much as possible. A few selections for the article, below:

A year from now, we will find that most Arab Muslims have neither embraced nor installed what they have long regarded as an irreligious and even pagan ideology—secular democracy. They will have instead adhered even more closely to the faith that has graced, ordered, and regulated their lives for more than 1400 years, and which helped them endure the oppressive rule of Western-supported tyrants and kleptocrats.

As new Arab regimes develop, Westerners also are likely to find that their own deep sense of superiority over devout Muslims—which is especially strong among the secular left, Christian evangelicals, and neoconservatives—is unwarranted. The nearly universal assumption in the West is that Islamic governance could not possibly satisfy the aspirations of Muslims for greater freedom and increased economic opportunity—this even though Iran has a more representative political system than that of any state in the region presided over by a Western-backed dictator. No regime run by the Muslim Brotherhood would look like Canada, but it would be significantly less oppressive than those run by the al-Sauds and Mubarak. This is not to say it would be similar to or more friendly toward the West—neither will be the case—but in terms of respecting and addressing basic human concerns they will be less monstrous.

The West’s biggest surprise a year out may well lie in being forced to learn that Westernization, secularization, and modernization are not synonyms. The postwar West’s arrogance—dare I say hubris?—has long held as an article of its increasingly pagan faith that these concepts are identical, inseparable, and the proudest achievement of superior Western culture. Well, not so. Muslims make an absolute distinction among the concepts.

At day’s end, the success of the United States and its allies in concluding their war with the Islamist movement depends on an adult assessment of the Muslim world. The basis of this analysis must be a realization that modernization, Westernization, and secularization are not interchangeable terms….We must begin to recognize that while America’s neoconservative and progressive thinkers fallaciously prattle on about the Islamists being on the verge of Islamicizing the West, it is the West’s half-century campaign to impose and then maintain secularist tyrants on Muslim states that has supplied the main motivation for the growing number of Muslims who believe themselves and their faith to be at war against the West. Continued failure to make this simple and clear semantic distinction will bring the late Professor Huntington’s concept of a clash of civilizations much closer to fruition.

The Silly Season: Fearless Political Prognostications for 2012

With a little over a year and a half before the next Presidential election, I thought I would have a little fun with the current crop of aspirants. Of course this time around, all the buzz will be on the right, which will be righter right than it has been in quite some time. And while no one has yet announced, the race is clearly underway. The lead pack--Newt, Haley, Sarah, Mike, the Donald, Michelle, Rick and Herman-- has already swarmed Iowa, where they are all busy burnishing-up their birther creds.

Newt keeps the hypocrisy meter spinning, and can say with Groucho Marx: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others."

Haley is a GOP candidate right out of Democratic Central Casting.

Were Mike to be elected, the inauguration would have to be in Jerusalem.

And the Donald...well, as a born-again birther, he has been making the rounds, giving his testimony. I watched a clip of a recent interview he had with Bill O'Reilly. The Donald scoffed at the idea that the family would place a notice announcing little Barack's birth in the Honolulu newspaper, noting that "even the Rockefellers don't do that." Well, Donald, maybe the Rockefellers do not, and maybe your other neighbors on the Upper West Side do not, but in real world America, this practice was commonplace for many decades. The announcements were a public service, and the general practice was for the hospital to release the information to the local paper if so desired. The Donald doesn't mind being the butt of jokes when he is in on the joke, but here he appears clueless. But with 51% of GOP primary voters believing this fantasy, this may be a wise move for Iowa, where the percentage is no doubt much higher.

With these guys in the running, it has had the unintended consequence of making Michelle seem a bit saner.

None of these Dancing Demagogues could remotely win the GOP nomination, unless the Tea Party crowd totally subsumes the Establishment Republicans. What they are doing, however, is using up all the oxygen in the room and preventing any traction for the Sane and Sensible Centrists. For the life of me, I had trouble coming up with any candidates for this category--John H., I suppose; Mitch, who is probably not running anyway, and Ron P. when he is talking foreign policy.

The final category is the Establishment Electables, consisting of only Tim and Mitt. Tim would like to play with the Dancing Demagogues, but cannot yet bring himself to go the birther route. He is certainly trying to compensate, however, with his wild-eyed foreign policy proposals. But at the end of the day, he is even more boring than mild-mannered Mitt. And besides, it is Mitt's turn, a cherished GOP tradition.

So there you have it--it'll be Mitt vs. Barack. Oh yeah, and the VP nominee will be Marco Rubio, protestations to the contrary.

I am not one of these people who can take the high road and disregard it all for the foolishness it is. I am hard-wired for voting, and will do so as long as I am able. I do not think I will live long enough, however, for the GOP to ever convince me to vote their way again. But, if they were to do so, they would first have to nominate a candidate that did not insult my intelligence. So, that particular moral conundrum is at least 5 years out.

Unlikely Headlines

'

National Tea Party Leaders Endorse Obama Re-election Bid

Up: The New Down

Pope Benedict Confesses to being Closet Methodist

Mike Huckabee Exposed as Secret Hamas Agent


And then there is this:

Calvinism Declared by the Church Fathers

Such a claim can be found here. The author maintains that Calvinism, as it has come to be called, is simply a nickname for historical Christianity. But, of course. Although I do not really follow Calvinism, or neo-Calvinism, I have a vague recognition that it is enjoying something of a boomlet here in recent years. Even so, this seems like a new tact.

A writer over at Orthodox Apologetics, among others, is taking such bold-faced revisionism to task. He notes (rightly) that a bit of context and sourcing would have been nice for the carefully cherry-picked quotations assembled by the Calvinist site.

Say what you will about Calvinism, but don't blame it on the Church Fathers!

New Book by Fr. Alexis Trader

I am pleased to pass along news of a new book by Fr. Alexis Trader. The premise certainly sounds interesting. Fr. Alexis explains about the book on guest blogs here and here. By all means, check out what Fr. Alexis has to say.

The False Dream

I have never been one to speak of the "American Dream." I was always a bit skeptical of the concept, and thought it silly to collectively define ourselves by some "dream." The phrase is often utilized by politicians on the make and other demagogues. If someone is talking about the American Dream, you can generally expect it to be accompanied by flag-waving, cheap sentimentality and appeals to questionable historicism.

As I understand it, the "Dream" is simply the belief that each generation of Americans will enjoy a richer, more prosperous life than their parents--bigger, better, more. And that is supposed to be good thing--never mind the social, cultural, moral, financial and ecological wreckage resulting from 65 years of unrestrained consumerism. And yet, I am not convinced that this was necessarily the "dream" of our forebears. We Americans have always been money-crazy, to be sure (if you have any doubts, just brush up on your de Tocqueville.) But I think earlier generations simply wanted to make a good life for themselves. And they wanted their children to have a good life as well. The idea that each succeeding generation must be more prosperous and comfortable than the one before is very much a child of the 20th-century, I think. The hard times of the Depression years and the sacrifices during the Second World War gave way to a new era, one where, buoyed by incredible technical advances, America found itself at the top of the world. Americans seemed ready and eager to make up for lost time, hence the "Dream."

My parents fell in with most everyone else during that time. My dad and mother started off with absolutely nothing, and with no resources to fall back upon. But they knew how to work hard, and my dad knew how to put things together. In 1953, they built the big house -(for that day.) In 1963, they bought the first Cadillac--which they used to go on our first vacation. But having known poverty, they were never comfortable with any type of outward show of wealth. We always kept chickens, milked cows and had a big garden. My mother spent the summers working in the garden and canning. My dad always seemed to have a bunch of hay on the ground. Growing up, I suppose my "dream" was a summer not spent in the hayfield. About 1960 or 61, pursuit of the American Dream meant that my dad bought a Yellow Jacket ski boat for my brother who was in high school at the time. This was back in the day when such boats were still wooden, and I will have to say that it was a sharp looking outfit. Very young at the time, I vaguely remember being on the lake in the boat a couple of times at best. But one of those times stands out in my memory, for on that occasion I watched as my nearly 50-year old father tried his hand at water-skiing. Of all the images I have of my dad, this is one that clearly does not fit! Pursuit of the American Dream can put you in odd places. Looking back, I can see where I bought into it at times, myself. (I will, ahem, skip over the ridiculous places it took me.)

But at its core, the Dream is rotten. And now, in some quarters, there is a growing recognition of its basic emptiness. I recently watched an interview with Suze Orman, the colorful financial advisor on television. She is not someone I normally follow, but she was hawking her new book on MSNBC's Morning Joe, which is hands-down the best news show going, and the only television I watch with regularity. Ms. Orman had some wise things to say about how the American Dream--which she labels a false dream--has been redefined since 2008. What she describes as the "new dream" is something I could live with. I highly recommend the interview, here. (Unfortunately, the first 5 minutes of this segment are devoted to the latest idiocy out of the mouth of Newt Gingrich. Scroll forward if possible.)

The Either/Or-edness of Things

I recently engaged in some spirited correspondence with an old friend from back in my Church of Christ days. In that past, we shared a mutual frustration with our church, and often talked of what might be. Even after all these years, I find him every bit as discontented as he was 10, 15, 20 years before. And yet, he is still on the fence, you might say, contemplating which way to go. My friend talks of chucking church altogether and devoting his time to a homeless shelter, soup kitchen, or some other community service. He now chafes at their emphasis on "attendance" at church services, finding it not only unimportant, but actually distracting from what God really wants--"doing good."

I found the whole conversation a bit odd. I suppose our discussions were hampered by the fact that we no longer speak the same language. In Orthodoxy, we have a throw-away line that usually says something to the effect that it is not that Orthodoxy has different answers, but that it asks different questions. I believe this to be true, but it is awfully hard to explain without explicating 2,000 years of church history. And yet, I felt this was exactly the position I was in with my friend. His burning concerns have no real meaning to me any longer. Take for example his beef with "attendance." However one characterizes Orthodox services, the word "attendance" is not a factor. One attends a concert. One attends a class. One attends a lecture. In every case, the attendee is part of an audience. One participates in an Orthodox liturgy.

But this would have been hard to explain to my friend, and would have come across as just more know-it-all triumphalism of which we are sometimes guilty. And I am afraid it comes across that what in print, as well. But the differences are real and substantive. The thing that really frustrated me, however, was my friend's either/or approach to his dilemma--he could either "attend" church or he could "do good." I asked him why he could not do both. In truth, there is no either/or solution. The question is really one of yes/and. He, in turn, was disturbed by my insistence that his anti-communal, individualistic go-it-alone approach was a dead end.

My friend's attitude put me in mind of something Flannery O'Connor once wrote--"The good thing about Protestantism is that it always carries the seeds of its own reversal. It is open at both ends--on one end, to Catholicism, and on the other to unbelief." I sympathized with his frustrations on the limitations of the church he knew--the general churchiness that characterized his worship experience. And having once been there myself, I knew exactly that to which he was speaking. My response that worship did not have to be that way was met with a good bit of incredulity. He could not image anything outside the general context of his experience--Protestant/fundamentalist/evangelical. My concern was with what O'Connor noted--the open end he was tumbled out of was the one which led to unbelief.

And along the way, he was leaving himself wide open to anything and everything--from the fluffy nothingness of Philip Gulley to the latest hot-shot televangelist. He actually convinced me to read Gulley's If The Church Were Christian. He assured me that it would change my life. The book did, in fact, bring tears to my eyes: first because I could never regain the time I had wasted reading the book, and secondly because a small forest was sacrificed to publish that trash. After that, he wanted me to listen to the latest podcast by David Jeremiah. That is where I drew the line. Like I say, different languages.

The either/or dichotomy is not unique to just Protestantism. I came across the following on a Catholic blog:

Anyone who says, "We don't go to Mass, but we are really good people" have missed the Christian bus big time. They don't get it and so greatly don't get it that they are almost uneducable. Their misunderstanding is so profound that you couldn't even say to them what they haven't got because they don't know what they don't know. The astounding blind ness of such folks is that nine times out of then they then turn around and blame the people who do go to Mass for being hypocrites. Their lack of self awareness and spiritual awareness reveals the depth of their own hypocrisy for they think they are good, and never see that the essential prayer--the prayer at the heart of it all is the sinner's plea, "Lord Jesus Christ, Have Mercy on me a Sinner."

This prayer, so simple and so profound is the prayer that truly liberates. See how free and how child like you can be if you simply say this prayer? Within this prayer is the soul's freedom and the soul's joy. Within this prayer is the simple trust in God on which everything else depends. Therefore, "Being good or Going to Mass" is a totally false dichotomy.

As one of the students said, "You can't really go to Mass and mean it and be bad, and if you don't go to Mass you can't really be good."

And so, the false dichotomies play out in Catholic circles as well.

My friend's situation has been on my mind for some time now, but only recently did I read of a theory as to why these questions are so common in Western Christendom, whether Catholic or Protestant. Andrea Elizabeth has undertaken a series on Dr. Joseph Farrell's God, History and Dialectic. This is my introduction to this work, which, unfortunately, can be obtained only by e-book. Dr. Farrell examines the difference courses taken by what he calls the First Europe (the East) and Second Europe (the West.) The following is an excerpt from the Introduction, which is available online:

Why did the western half of Christendom split along so cleanly dialectical lines during the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation? Why, for example, is it not only convenient but possible to describe that split by a series of polar oppositions: Faith versus works, Scripture versus Tradition, “private conversion stay-at-home-and-watch-television religion” versus “public, sacramental, institutional” religion; predestination versus free will, Kernel versus Husk, Kerygma versus Dogma, Luther versus Zwingli, Calvin versus Arminius, Whitefield and Edwards versus the Wesleys, Henry VIII versus the Pope? It has its secular counterparts as well: Empiricism versus Rationalism, Materialism versus Idealism, Science versus Religion, Creation versus Evolution, hard versus soft disciplines, and so on. One could
cite an endless litany of similar oppositions. Indeed, theologians, philosophers, and
historians of the Second Europe have long written about this or that pair of these eitheror
polarities, but astonishingly, have either done so in isolation of an examination of the
paradigm of dialectical opposition itself, or they have accepted that paradigm as an
inevitability of Christian theology or of Judeo-Christian civilization itself. The
phenomenon of this acceptance is therefore deeply rooted, and must be accounted for.
These essays argue that the paradigm is itself a direct consequence of Augustine’s
formulation of trinitarian doctrine. But the movement from the specifically Augustinian
formulation of the Trinity to these cultural consequences is certainly not an easy one to
recount, and thus, many theologians — those most adequately equipped to undertake
the task — fail to do so, for they view the original dispute between the East and West
over that formulation as a dispute about words. The troublesome questions multiply:
Why did a Church and a culture, which believed absolutely in the complete union in
Christ of the utterly spiritual and the completely material, without separation and without
confusion, lose sight of the implications of that belief in the movements of the dialectical
deconstruction of its thought and institutions? Why did the same Church, which, heir to
the doctrine of the Trinity, ought to have believed in the “both-andness” of Absolute Unity
and Utter diversity find itself embroiled in life-and-death constitutional struggles between
the Empire and the Papacy, or more fundamentally, between endless contests between
One Pope and Many Bishops? (p.11)

Dr. Farrell would say that the either-or approach of my friend--as opposed to a "both-andness" view--is hardwired into the very makeup of western Christendom, manifesting itself in an endless progression of controversial counterpoints. I believe that to be true. The real question, though, is how does one move past that mentality? We have become accustomed to the rut we are in. Western Christendom steadily declines with the endless re-reforming of the Faith these last few hundred years. There may be no way out until we hit bottom first.

Mike Huckabee is a Buffoon

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MIKE HUCKABEE IS A BUFFOON, Part One:


HUCKABEE: [O]ne thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits –

MALZBERG: Of Winston Churchill.

HUCKABEE: The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.


LARISON:

Almost everything Huckabee said in this part of the recent interview was false, but he said it because it fits into the tiresome narrative that Obama disrespects and “snubs” allies. It appears that Huckabee was also directly channeling Glenn Beck’s view on the subject. It’s hard to imagine Huckabee saying this without the two-year drumbeat of nonsensical foreign policy criticism coming from both mainstream conservative pundits and talk radio.



MIKE HUCKABEE IS A BUFFOON, Part Deux:



Fischer: You know, I was struck by the fact that when he made his tour to Indonesia, he made a point of going to an Indonesian memorial that celebrated the victory of Indonesians over British troops – again, part of that anti-colonial thing. And so I’d like you to comment on that; you seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president.

Huckabee: Well, that’s exactly the point that I make in the book....And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.


LARISON:
Ah, yes, the heroic Indonesian fight against the British. Who can forget that one? There were just a couple small problems with this. As far as I can tell, Obama did not visit any memorial during his Indonesia trip, and Indonesia was formerly a Dutch colony. Not that it will matter to Huckabee, but Obama didn’t attend a madrassa when he was in Indonesia. Of course, there is that famous Punahou madrassa in Honolulu, but everyone knows about that one.

Update: Obama did visit the Indonesian national war cemetery, which is what one would expect during a state visit to another country.

I wrestled with the title of this article. The obvious wording--"Mike Huckabee is an Idiot"--seemed somewhat lacking in Christian charity, what with Great Lent upon us and all. And so, I opted for the softer, kinder Buffoon, meant of course, in the nicest John Hagee-ish sort of way.

Bacevich on Being Irrelevant

If the Muslim masses demanding political freedom and economic opportunity prevail, they will do so not thanks to but despite the United States. Yet by liberating themselves, they will also liberate us. Our misbegotten crusade to determine their destiny will finally end. In that case, we will owe them a great debt.

I have come to believe that just about every word Andrew Bacevich puts to paper is worth reading. This article is no exception.

There'll Be No Butter in Hell!

A favorite of mine--from Cold Comfort Farm. Flora Poste accompanies her cousin Amos Starkadder to hear him preach at the Church of the Quivering Brethren.

Met. Hilarion Speaks at Highland Park Presbyterian, Dallas TX: No One Has Ever Seen God

Met. Hilarion Speaks at Highland Park Presbyterian, Dallas TX: No One Has Ever Seen God

The Impasse

The following is an excerpt from The Impasse by Fr. Touma Bitar, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Silouan the Athonite in Douma, Lebanon. I recommend the entire article posted here, on Notes on Arab Orthodoxy (h/t to Samn!) If we believe Fr. Touma to be correct, then the question for us becomes--what do we do with this?

Man’s egoism and self-love preceded his love of money. Love of money gradually progressed into a system of consumption, and the system of consumption made man a prisoner of the logic of profit. The logic of profit transformed the earth’s resources into financial calculations and financial calculations loosened the reins of the passions of soul and body. The passions of soul and body became an uncontrollable harlot and in the absence of internal restraints within people’s souls, the ladder of values and traditional moral restraints collapsed and value and morals came to be centered on purported individual freedom and man’s worship of himself. Then individual freedom and self-worship caused people’s aspirations to become greater than his environment’s capacity to pump vital capital into them and so heaven and earth could no longer match people’s wild cravings. Their storehouses started to be depleted and their balance was thrown off. The environment became ill on account of the illness of man’s heart and the unleashing of his passions beyond any limit.

And now what remains? Souls have become addicted to consumption. Man has become an instrument of consumption! Today man’s worldly identity is in what he consumes! Wills have become feeble and souls have become weak! Man has tasted this number of varieties of selfish freedom and self-worship. He no longer desires or is capable of repentance – that is, of a change of mentality and behavior. For him repentance is identical to death. For this reason he starts to live off of his fantasies, his dreams, his self-esteem, his accomplishments, and his cravings until death. He sees that he is approaching an unstable precipice and he is unable to stop before it, and he doesn’t care! He has become addicted to himself and death has become less painful than resisting his addiction. In letting loose his passions, his will to live starts to die. Death becomes life for him, and he has no other life!

Americanism as Religion, Plainly Stated

I really should stop reading the local newspaper as it is not good for my blood pressure. I live near the most right-wing city in the nation. (If you have other contenders, let me know and we will compare statistics.) Not surprisingly, we are also the tightest notch on the Bible Belt. This makes for some interesting submissions to the "Letters to the Editor" section on the opinion page. (When I can stand it no longer, I occasionally write to the paper myself. This amuses my friends and probably drives away potential clients.) Today's paper contains a gem of letter, where the writer addresses the apocalypse he believes would surely ensue were the health care plan to take effect. Along the way, he expounds upon compassion as he sees it, and in so doing, succinctly sums-up the Americanist religion. He writes:

Let's set the facts straight regarding Jesus' compassion while on this earth. I can't recall where Jesus said that feeding the 5,000 hungry followers was the responsibility of government, nor did He see the blind, deaf, dumb and lame as the responsibility of the taxpayers. He healed them so they could go to work and provide for themselves.

Wow. So Jesus Christ healed so that people could work hard and be self-sufficient? Wonder how the Apostles and the Church Fathers missed that insight. The sad thing is that this letter is typical of what one often hears and reads around here.

John 6:60+

The Teetotaler engages in a bit of exegesis on John 6:60-63, 66. He quotes from the MSGV (More Spiritual than God Version.) A sampling, below:

John 6:60-63, 66 Therefore, many of His disciples, when they heard this, said “This is a hard saying; who can uncerstand it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?” What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? Anyway, I was just jerkin’ around with you with that “eat my body, drink my blood” stuff. It’s all figurative. Y’all know, don’t ya, that Christianity will be all about angels’n'feelin’ good about yourself? … From that time, many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

Read the full post, here. It is a good one.

Conspiratorialists of the World, Unite!

One disturbing thing I noticed when I first began to travel in Turkey was their penchant for believing the most bizarre conspiracy theories afloat. My acquaintances over there--largely intelligent, well-informed and college-educated--would nevertheless fall for any crackpot theory making the rounds. Alternative reality scenarios for 9/11 were believed almost unquestioningly. One was convinced that the Israelis were building an airbase in Kurdistan. The Armenian Genocide had become the Turkish Genocide. And I was surprised to learn that the New World was actually discovered by...the Turks. At the time, I would shake my head about this sort of thing. Well, no longer--not because they were right, but because we are just as bad. Exhibit A has to be this, the latest lesson from Glenn Beck, in which he charts the course of the coming Islamic Caliphate. That there are some Muslim extremists who dream of a restored "Caliphate" is a fact. Beck's speculations, however, are pure fantasy, perfectly attuned to a fearful audience who know little of people different from themselves.

The Joke is on Me

The other day my son and I were talking about books. He keeps about a dozen books going at the same time. One is T. E. Lawrence's original manuscript, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Yesterday, I had to be in Shreveport for the day, with several hours to kill. After pancakes at George's Grill, I found a place with a few shelves of used books for sale. I was impressed, as they had a selection of books that real readers read, not the usual fare one finds in these places. One that caught my interest was a nice hardbound, modestly-priced Revolt in the Desert, the abridged (and sanitized) version of Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I already have both versions, but thought my son would like it. The previous owner, obviously a great admirer of Lawrence, had scribbled notes throughout--even outlining major points from the book. A folded article on Lawrence was stuck between the pages. I like that sort of thing. But what really caught my interest was the inscription on the frontispiece: To my good and humble friend and protege, __. ___. Muellenkamp. T. E. Lawrence. I have never been one to collect books just because they were signed by the author. (We do have a signed To Kill a Mockingbird, no mean feat considering the reclusive nature of Harper Lee. A 2005 birthday present from our son to his mother, she claims it will be what she grabs as she runs out the door if the house catches fire.) I had to realize, however, that this was a pretty incredible deal for the price. And so I walked out with it, as well as a history, The Kingdom of Armenia. And yet, in the back of my mind, something was gnawing at me. I looked at the book again, and there it was. This particular volume was published in 2004. T. E. Lawrence died in 1935. I laughed out loud at myself. I had not exactly succumbed to the spirit of greed--for I did not make the purchase based on the monetary appreciation an overlooked signed edition would have--but I would have to admit that the spirit of acquisitiveness was undoubtedly at work. We do things for funny reasons sometimes. I am glad I have the book, though, for it is a Muellenkamp. I am curious to know more of this strange man and the strange world in which he lived that would cause him to forge a signature 70 years after the author's death.

Taybeh's Plea vs. the Likes of Mike Huckabee

We've trimmed our magazine subscriptions in recent years. The wife still gets Good Housekeeping and Southern Living (which I also read,) and I am hanging on to the Oxford American, Southern Cultures and Road to Emmaus. The last, billed as a "Journal of Orthodox Faith and Cultures," I consider to be essential reading for all Orthodox Americans. Published quarterly, each issue usually highlights Orthodoxy within a specific region, including some that would not naturally come to mind. I highly recommend the journal.

The current issue focuses on Jerusalem, St. Sophronius, and the village of Taybeh (biblical Ephraim,) the last all-Christian village in Palestine. The mayor is David Khoury, but the interview is with his wife, Dr. Maria C. Khoury, noted Greek-American educator, author, lecturer and advocate for Palestinian Christians. After the Oslo Agreement of 1993, the Khourys returned from the U.S. and founded Palestine's only micro-brewery. Against incredible obstacles, the business survives today.

Before 1948, Christians comprised anywhere from 13% to 25% of Palestine's population (50% in Jerusalem itself.). Now the Christian population is less than 2% in Gaza and the West Bank, and less than 2% in Israel itself. The Palestinian Christian population has been forced to leave the region in even greater percentages than their Muslim neighbors. Their plight is largely overlooked, even by their American Orthodox brethren, of whom many seem as ignorant and ill-informed as the average American. Dr. Khoury recounts lectures to American Greek Orthodox audiences where they would express surprise to learn that all Palestinians were not terrorists, or that there were "good" Palestinians.

The Christians there endure the same indignities as their Muslim neighbors, with 80% affected daily by the 26-ft. high, 280 mile concrete wall which slices through their world. What was once a 10 minute trip into Ramallah to their children's school for the Khourys became a harrowing 2-hour journey each way, through innumerable Israeli checkpoints, with no guarantee of success. Sometimes, they were turned back in sight of the school. Jerusalem is only 25 minutes away, but if they want to send a shipment of Taybeh Beer to the city, they first have to drive to the commercial checkpoint which is 3 hours away. There, the beer is handed off to an Israeli driver and an Israeli truck for the 3 hour drive back to Jerusalem. A simple delivery takes 2 drivers, 2 trucks and all day. Both David and Maria Khoury hold American passports, but they are not able to fly out of Tel Aviv to visit relatives in the U.S. They were told that Israelis do not like to see Palestinians in the airport. Instead, they must spend 2 days, traveling to the King Hussein bridge into Jordan, where they have to fly out of Amman (I have gone through this checkpoint, recounted here.)

The Israelis have undertaken a systematic destruction of the olive groves in the region, as this had provided employment for Palestinians. The Khourys had 12 trees bulldozed by the Israelis. These olive trees had been in the family for many generations and were between 500 and 700 years old. Dr. Khoury and her husband were finally able to cross the border into Egypt and visit St. Catherine's Monastery--after 25 years of making application. Travel is severely limited everywhere, and the Palestinians are not permitted to drive on the roads that the Israelis maintain. Teybah has no water on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays, but the 3 Israeli settlements which ring the village have water 24/7.

They cannot visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher without a permit into Jerusalem (arbitrary and difficult to obtain) and then a specific permit for the church itself (equally difficult.) Christian pilgrims from the U.S. are discouraged from visiting Bethlehem. If they insist, they will not be allowed to shop in the local Christian stores, but whisked back to the malls in Jerusalem. Dr. Khoury states that in the early 1990s, perhaps 1 woman in 10 in Ramallah would be dressed in the Islamic manner. Now, not 1 in 10 is not. The Christians now find themselves caught between the vice of fanatical Muslims on the one side and the equally fanatical Israeli zealots on the other. I had never before read of the horrific martyrdom of the Archimandrite Philoumenos by Zionists in 1979; nor had I read of the specific targeting of Christian churches in southern Lebanon in the latest war; nor the defecating on their altars as the Israeli troops moved in; nor of the harassment of the monks and nuns who try to maintain the holy sites.

Dr. Khoury on Christian Zionism:

Zionism, a political movement founded by Theodore Herzl in the the 19th century to lobby for a secular homeland for the Jews, took on a Christian religious context when 20th-century evangelical Christians , mostly in America, began linking Zionism to their interpretation of Old Testament passages. Now there are many American evangelical Christians, whom we call Zionist Christians, who believe that modern Israel with the guns, the gunships, the bulldozers, the bombers, is the New Israel of our gospels. According to their thinking, once Israel has a 100% Jewish homeland and gains complete control, then Christ will return. They are trying to hasten the Second Coming.

We Orthodox Christians don't hold this view. Our New Testament Israel is a spiritual homeland because the Messiah came and we have been baptized into Christ. Jesus Christ became man through that Hebrew ethnicity, and when we sing and chant in our services about Israel, we Christians, (the Church) are the New Israel. The New Israel is not the physical Israel with its guns. We believe that the Lord has only told us to be alert, to watch, to be ready, but there is nothing we have to do to bring about Judgment Day. That will come in His own time. Yet this grave misinterpretation drives many evangelical Christians to blindly support Israeli policy.

Case in point, there is this:

Potential 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told Jewish settlers Monday that attempts to prevent them from building in east Jerusalem are as outrageous as housing discrimination in the United States.


"I cannot imagine, as an American, being told I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English," he said.

Huckabee dismissed the notion that Jewish settlements on land the Palestinians want for a future state are obstacles to peace. Instead, he backed the settlers' view that they have the right to build anywhere in "the place that God gave them."

The Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a group that promotes settlements in an attempt to bolster a Jewish presence in mostly Arab areas, hosted Huckabee and actor Jon Voight on the first day of their three-day visit.

Huckabee visited the Shepherd Hotel, the former residence of the mufti of Jerusalem that was destroyed in early January to make way for Jewish homes. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had rebuked Israel for knocking down the hotel - a position Huckabee brushed off.

"I think we ought to be more concerned about Iran building bombs than Israelis building bedrooms," Huckabee said.

I am an unapologetic voter. This is something of a family thing on my dad's side--many generations of what I consider to be principled voting. I am not ideologically driven. We've seen where that's gotten us in the early years of this century. In national elections, I always vote foreign policy. Domestically, we are such an ungovernable muddle, that I do not think it really makes much difference. And the same argument can be made with foreign policy as well. What differences there are are just matters of degree. But these can be crucial. Mr. Huckabee's smug worldview is normative for his party--and that frightens me.

Israel's Palestinian policies have been made possible by the uncritical and unquestioning support that Christian Zionists and the Israeli lobby force on Congress. We are equally culpable in this tragedy. No amount of letter-writing to our congressional representatives will make much difference. The die is cast. I believe our foreign policy misadventuring will one day bring us low. Only then, perhaps, will our folly become apparrent and change occur.

What we can and must do is pray for Christians in Palestine--and their oppressors, the fanatics of both the Muslim and Jewish persuasion.

We can also support journals such as Road to Emmaus, and make sure the story of our Palestinian brethren gets wide circulation. The ignorance and/or indifference of the American Orthodox on this issue is shameful.

Also, if you have some spare change, you might consider http://www.saintgeorgetaybeh.org/.

There are 30 Orthodox Christian families there who have had their homes appropriated by the Israelis. Homes are being built so that they can remain in Taybeh, and perpetuate an almost 2,000-year Christian witness.

Tulips Istanbulli

My friend Hakan posted this close-up of tulips on his fb page. The Theodosian walls of old Constantinople make for a nice backdrop.

St. Ephrem the Syrian

St. Ephrem the Syrian is commemorated today. In June 0f 2006, I visited the ancient Meryamana Kilisesi--the Church of the Virgin Mary, one of the very oldest churches in the world (my full account, here.) A few Suriani families hold on here in a walled compound in the midst of Kurdish Diyarbakir. This is the only icon hanging in the church--Mar Efram. I have never before seen an icon of St. Ephrem in this style.