The cold in Armenia is very sharp.

church, saints, ,

The 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste are commemorated on March 9. Their martyrdom was in 320 under the Emperor Licinius, and St. Basil eulogized them only 50 years later in a homily on their feast day:

Homily on The Forty Martyrs

Wikipedia has this to say about the saints:

“A church was built at Caesarea, in Cappadocia, and it was in this church that Basil publicly delivered his homily. Gregory of Nyssa was especially devoted to the Forty Martyrs; two discourses in praise of them, preached by him in the church dedicated to them, are still preserved, and upon the death of his parents he laid them to rest beside the relics of the confessors. Ephrem the Syrian has also eulogized the Forty Martyrs. Sozomen, who was an eye-witness, has left an interesting account of the finding of the relics in Constantinople, in the shrine of Saint Thyrsus built by Caesarius, through the instrumentality of Empress Pulcheria.”

Those noble soldiers of the Master of all let us honor,
for they were united by their faith
as they passed through fire and water,
and being enlisted by Christ
they entered to divine refreshment.
Now those pious warriors stand and intercede
with Christ God for those who cry out.
Glory to Him that hath given you strength.
Glory to him that hath crowned you.
Glory to Him that made you wondrous,
Holy Forty Martyrs.

-Hymn for the feast

A brief pause for this…

Lent, technology, time, ,

You know how it is when the power goes out, and you can’t do anything that requires the computer or TV? You might read a book by candlelight, or play cards with people, or pray… and the temporary result is often more calm, and more quietness of heart. The benefits of deprivation are real.

Orthodox Lent begins Monday, and the Great Fast is a chance to acquire what our hearts need. This year, in addition to our traditional food fast, I plan to “fast” from blog writing and reading. I will still be using email, and if any of you would like to chat about anything or just say hello, I would love to hear from you. You can find my address on my About Page; it is one of the tabs above.

And I have drafted quite a few posts in advance, mostly gleanings from others, scheduled to automatically publish on certain dates. They are articles or re-posts that seem particularly Lenten; I will put them out there without a comment option. Again, comments are possible through direct email.

Until I see you again here, may God bring us all, in every way possible, deeper into His love.

Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters;
And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in fatness.

-Isaiah 55:1-2

People held out their thin arms.

love, poetry,

THE COMING

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
………………..On a bare
Hill, a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

-R.S. Thomas, 2013-2000

 

Seeing below the surface.

Lent, quotes, time, , , , , , , , , ,

Repentance is not self-flagellation;
it is an opening flower.

-Met. Kallistos Ware

In the last weeks I’ve been more aware than ever of the truth that What We Need is Not More Information  – all the while collecting more books and reading, reading, reading. When I read Neil Postman in Technopoly say (in 1992) that our society’s glut of the stuff makes information into so much garbage, I was primed so that the word and image brought me great clarity.

“From millions of sources all over the globe, through every possible channel and medium—light waves, airwaves, ticker tapes, computer banks, telephone wires, television cables, satellites, printing presses—information pours in…. The milieu in which Technopoly flourishes is one in which the tie between information and human purpose has been severed, i.e., information appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning, or purpose.” -Neil Postman in Technopoly

Even more recently Fr. Stephen Freeman re-posted this little meditation on simplicity, When Belief is Complicated, which, though it wasn’t particularly Lenten in focus, brought to mind Metropolitan Kallistos’s quote at top. Now I have two images in my mind, garbage overwhelming and weighing me down, and my soul as a tender flower struggling to open to God’s love and grace, but nearly crushed by the weight of a myriad of non-essentials. And Fr. Stephen introduces another metaphor:

“Kierkegaard wrote that ‘purity of heart is to will one thing.’ But we don’t will one thing. We will everything, regardless of the contradictions.

“Faith is not a matter of ‘belief,’ an act of intellectual willing. Faith is a perception of things that do not necessarily appear obvious. In the language of Scripture – ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen.’ But the perception of faith is similar to the perception of objects beneath the surface of a lake. If the surface is disturbed, the objects disappear. The objects do not go away – but we can no longer perceive them.

“In a world of manifold complication – the surface of the water is rarely still.

“The journey of faith thus becomes a movement away from complication.”

For those of us who feel that life is too complicated; that we ourselves are difficult to understand; and that trust and faith are impossible, Father Stephen has suggestions. My favorites:

  • Quit caring so much. The world does not depend on you getting the right answer to life’s questions. Answers often come when we learn to wait patiently for them.
  • Quit thinking so much. If thinking would solve the problem and make things less complicated, you’d be through by now.
  • Look for beauty. Beauty doesn’t make us think so much as it makes the heart a better listener.
  • Take some time off – from as much as you can.
  • Get some sleep.
  • Give away money. At least someone will benefit by this discipline.
  • Sing (beautiful things). The part of your brain that sings is much more closely wired to your heart than the part that thinks.

To put my hopes in terms of these evocative images: I am encouraged in the work of throwing off the garbage, opening like a flower, and peering down through the limpid water of a quiet lake, to glimpse the beautiful realities that my heart craves.