No, I won't be closing this blog down, by the advice of many friends who enjoy it. I will, however, be on a long hiatus, as I am trying to finish a dissertation that needs to be turned in SOON!
After February, I will be back on the helm of The Permanent Things in order to bring you thoughtful essays about faith, the life of the mind, and politics. I am thinking of bringing onboard someone who will co-author this blog for me, since it's good to hear from others. I'm thinking of tapping a friend in England who might just be perfect in presenting you with good, thought-provoking essays on Austrian economics, foreign policy (U.S., U.K. and E.U.), and other such goodies.
Stay tuned!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Closing up shop
It has been a good three-year run!
Given the sporadic nature of my blogging, and that as a result of increased responsibilities in work and scholarship, I have come to the sad but sensible conclusion that this blog needs to go into retirement, at least for now and the foreseeable future.
It has been a good three-year run, interacting with many different souls that have frequented it along the way. I have tried to provide a variety of essays, news items and other items of scholarly, social and theological interest. I hope I have served you well.
I will be providing an occasional essay for Scriptorium Daily, so drop by there once in a while. My colleagues in the Torrey Honors Institute will provide you with great intellectual fare, I assure you, and I am humbled to make my own small contributions.
I will keep the blog up, on case there are past articles and links that are of interest to you. I will later put all of my posts in an archive that you can access before i shut it down for good.
For now, to quote Garrison Keillor: Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Pax vobiscum (Peace be with you all)
Given the sporadic nature of my blogging, and that as a result of increased responsibilities in work and scholarship, I have come to the sad but sensible conclusion that this blog needs to go into retirement, at least for now and the foreseeable future.
It has been a good three-year run, interacting with many different souls that have frequented it along the way. I have tried to provide a variety of essays, news items and other items of scholarly, social and theological interest. I hope I have served you well.
I will be providing an occasional essay for Scriptorium Daily, so drop by there once in a while. My colleagues in the Torrey Honors Institute will provide you with great intellectual fare, I assure you, and I am humbled to make my own small contributions.
I will keep the blog up, on case there are past articles and links that are of interest to you. I will later put all of my posts in an archive that you can access before i shut it down for good.
For now, to quote Garrison Keillor: Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Pax vobiscum (Peace be with you all)
Monday, November 10, 2008
43 Birthday Wishes
Fair Knights and Dames,
If this humble blog has pleased you, infuriated you, or otherwise provided any benefit to you, you may show your appreciation by visiting my Amazon Wish List. There are 43 items there, corresponding to the age I will be turning this Thursday (11/13). One might say that I'm turning 30 for the 13th time, but that would be a bit vain, no doubt.
Items range in price from $5 to $500, most being on the quite affordable end of things.
If this humble blog has pleased you, infuriated you, or otherwise provided any benefit to you, you may show your appreciation by visiting my Amazon Wish List. There are 43 items there, corresponding to the age I will be turning this Thursday (11/13). One might say that I'm turning 30 for the 13th time, but that would be a bit vain, no doubt.
Items range in price from $5 to $500, most being on the quite affordable end of things.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
"That it should come to this..."-Hamlet
I came across a statement, attributed to the late Jaroslav Pelikan, that goes something like this: The history of Christianity can be roughly traced by the kinds of people in succeding ages who are considered virtuouso Christians. The martyr 
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gives way to the monk.
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In the Middle Ages the monk gives way to the priest.
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During the Reformation, the priest is replaced by the scholar-professor.
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Here in America, I think it is my duty to report that the scholar-professor has been replaced by the motivational speaker.
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gives way to the monk.
Image Credit
In the Middle Ages the monk gives way to the priest.
Image credit
During the Reformation, the priest is replaced by the scholar-professor.
Image Credit
Here in America, I think it is my duty to report that the scholar-professor has been replaced by the motivational speaker.
Image credit
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wealth Redistribution: A Story
Just had to post this:
Yesterday on my way to breakfast at the Original Pancake House, I passed a homeless guy at the corner of the parking lot, with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.”My waiter was fast, efficient and courteous, but I could not help but notice the “Obama ’08” tee shirt.So then I told him I was going to play the part of a “loving and caring government” [quoting the waiter back at him] and redistribute his $3 tip to someone that I deemed more in need — and I pointed out the window to the homeless guy outside. My waiter stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
Read the whole thing here
From WendyMcElroy.com, via The Young Fogey
Yesterday on my way to breakfast at the Original Pancake House, I passed a homeless guy at the corner of the parking lot, with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.”My waiter was fast, efficient and courteous, but I could not help but notice the “Obama ’08” tee shirt.So then I told him I was going to play the part of a “loving and caring government” [quoting the waiter back at him] and redistribute his $3 tip to someone that I deemed more in need — and I pointed out the window to the homeless guy outside. My waiter stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
Read the whole thing here
From WendyMcElroy.com, via The Young Fogey
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Patriotism Firmly Rooted in Mid-Air
I am like many self-styled American "conservatives" in this regard: I am extremely impatient of bumper stickers and signs that say "God Bless The World." I know what they're trying to say: God's love encompasses the whole world, and we must not presume to think for one moment that God's providential care is limited to one nation. I reply with a hearty, affirmative "Amen" to this. But I'm afraid there is a more sinister side to this position that these well-meaning folk miss, and miss at their peril. They run the risk of falling victim to an abstract sort of "love for humanity," a solidarity with the "human race" which, C.S. Lewis reminds us, can easily turn into an excuse not to love anyone at all. Stalin and Pol Pot were "lovers of humanity," yet had no qualms sending a good number of indivuduals to their deaths simply because they did not conform to their ideal of "humanity." This is the temptation that befalls all "lovers of humanity"-a destructive love of an abstraction. Love of country forms the basic and and necessary chain of affections which tie a person to a family, a community, and a nation, without which love of the human family is, if not impossible, very, very difficult to attain. How can you love "humanity" without loving particular people? You learn this through the complex web of relationships, beginning with family, extending to one's community, city, village, etc., to the love of one's country, and on to the world.
But I must also wonder about the "good American" who plasters his bumper with "God bless America," the Statue of Liberty prominently displayed bearing the "torch of freedom," stars and stripes fluttering everywhere. What, in fact, is this fellow's love and allegiance? Is it to an actual country, with its complex web of communities, history, traditions, local customs, and shared experiences? Or is it to an abstraction? If you ask a typical "patriotic" American why he has a devotion to his country, the usual answer you are likely to get will include the words "liberty," "freedom," "rights," etc. To him, America is an idea, a concept, which encompasses the "ideals" of liberty, freedom and justice for all.
So is it "ideals" to which the typical American patriot locates his devotion? The American patriot's affections become directed not so much to a place, a community, a nation with history and tradition which mark its own uniqueness, but to a set of abstractions. Do you ever hear any mention of his love for the American people? Do you ever hear him express a love for his city? Of his neighbors? Does he even know his neighbors?
The American notion of patriotism, I'm afraid, is closely akin to that of Imperial Rome's notion of itself as something more than a city on the banks of the Tiber. This is captured in the concept of Roma Aeterna, Eternal Rome, a reality that exists in the mind of the gods (it ws usually figured in coins as a lady seated on a throne, holding the sun and the moon-an emblem of Rome's mastery of the world). For the typical Roman Rome meant order, civilization, light, glory, peace, over against the barbaric hordes that hem her in, and which she must subdue. There was a sense of mission associated with this, as Romans were to subdue the world around her, bringing the light of Roman civilization to every tribe and people that was benighted by the darkness of barbarity and lack if civitas. This sense of "Roman-ness" is captured by that indefagitable celebrant of the new Augustan order, Virgil, who, in his Aeneid, has the central hero, Aeneas, sojourn through the Underworld in Book Six, where he meets his dead father, Anchises. Up to this point, Aeneas (often called pius-"dutiful"), he seems to stumble a great deal, at one point being tempted by the love of Dido to stay in what would eventually become Carthage instead of moving on at the gods' insistence to build the city of Rome. Anchises shows him a "parade" of endless prominent Romans that would be the lions of his race: Cato, Marcellus, Quirinus, Fabius Maximus, etc., and gives him this charge: "Roman, remember by your strength to rule Earth's peoples-for your arts are to be these: To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered, battle down the proud." (Aeneid, [trans. Robert Fitzgerald] New York: Vintage Classics, 1990 Book VI:1151-1154) Rome is thus defined as an entity whose divine mandate was to bring peace, "impose the rule of law," thus bringing a settled life among the world's barbarians.
I think Richard Harris' protrayal of Marcus Aurelius captures the essence of what Roma Aeterna was supposed to express. In a private and candid conversation with the central hero, Maximus, he expresses a notion of Rome he calls "something you uttered only in a whisper," a concept, an idea, that if you uttered it above a whisper, it would disappear.There is a problem when a nation becomes nothing more than an idea, no matter how noble or lofty. It is only that-an idea, a phantom with no rootedness in community, history, and culture.
Freedom, rights, and liberty are great things, but unless they are rooted in natural law, and understood to be mediated through historical and cultural experiences that provide a cohesiveness that binds a people together, then they will forever remian nice ideas that have no relevance to human experience. Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution was precisely directed at its commitment to liberte, egalite, fraternite, having destroyed its existing constitution-the French monarchy, and its institutions-thus cutting itself off from its own history.
I saw two cars last week-on the same day-one bearing the bumper sticker "God Bless the World," and another "God Bless America." The drivers of these two cars have different allegiances, but in the end, I'm afraid, both are equally guilty of a profound allegiance to abstractions.
But I must also wonder about the "good American" who plasters his bumper with "God bless America," the Statue of Liberty prominently displayed bearing the "torch of freedom," stars and stripes fluttering everywhere. What, in fact, is this fellow's love and allegiance? Is it to an actual country, with its complex web of communities, history, traditions, local customs, and shared experiences? Or is it to an abstraction? If you ask a typical "patriotic" American why he has a devotion to his country, the usual answer you are likely to get will include the words "liberty," "freedom," "rights," etc. To him, America is an idea, a concept, which encompasses the "ideals" of liberty, freedom and justice for all.
So is it "ideals" to which the typical American patriot locates his devotion? The American patriot's affections become directed not so much to a place, a community, a nation with history and tradition which mark its own uniqueness, but to a set of abstractions. Do you ever hear any mention of his love for the American people? Do you ever hear him express a love for his city? Of his neighbors? Does he even know his neighbors?
The American notion of patriotism, I'm afraid, is closely akin to that of Imperial Rome's notion of itself as something more than a city on the banks of the Tiber. This is captured in the concept of Roma Aeterna, Eternal Rome, a reality that exists in the mind of the gods (it ws usually figured in coins as a lady seated on a throne, holding the sun and the moon-an emblem of Rome's mastery of the world). For the typical Roman Rome meant order, civilization, light, glory, peace, over against the barbaric hordes that hem her in, and which she must subdue. There was a sense of mission associated with this, as Romans were to subdue the world around her, bringing the light of Roman civilization to every tribe and people that was benighted by the darkness of barbarity and lack if civitas. This sense of "Roman-ness" is captured by that indefagitable celebrant of the new Augustan order, Virgil, who, in his Aeneid, has the central hero, Aeneas, sojourn through the Underworld in Book Six, where he meets his dead father, Anchises. Up to this point, Aeneas (often called pius-"dutiful"), he seems to stumble a great deal, at one point being tempted by the love of Dido to stay in what would eventually become Carthage instead of moving on at the gods' insistence to build the city of Rome. Anchises shows him a "parade" of endless prominent Romans that would be the lions of his race: Cato, Marcellus, Quirinus, Fabius Maximus, etc., and gives him this charge: "Roman, remember by your strength to rule Earth's peoples-for your arts are to be these: To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered, battle down the proud." (Aeneid, [trans. Robert Fitzgerald] New York: Vintage Classics, 1990 Book VI:1151-1154) Rome is thus defined as an entity whose divine mandate was to bring peace, "impose the rule of law," thus bringing a settled life among the world's barbarians.
I think Richard Harris' protrayal of Marcus Aurelius captures the essence of what Roma Aeterna was supposed to express. In a private and candid conversation with the central hero, Maximus, he expresses a notion of Rome he calls "something you uttered only in a whisper," a concept, an idea, that if you uttered it above a whisper, it would disappear.There is a problem when a nation becomes nothing more than an idea, no matter how noble or lofty. It is only that-an idea, a phantom with no rootedness in community, history, and culture.
Freedom, rights, and liberty are great things, but unless they are rooted in natural law, and understood to be mediated through historical and cultural experiences that provide a cohesiveness that binds a people together, then they will forever remian nice ideas that have no relevance to human experience. Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution was precisely directed at its commitment to liberte, egalite, fraternite, having destroyed its existing constitution-the French monarchy, and its institutions-thus cutting itself off from its own history.
I saw two cars last week-on the same day-one bearing the bumper sticker "God Bless the World," and another "God Bless America." The drivers of these two cars have different allegiances, but in the end, I'm afraid, both are equally guilty of a profound allegiance to abstractions.
Lisa Bohm-Mottesi
Of your charity, please keep in your prayers Lisa Bohm-Mottesi, a young wife and mother of three. Her husband, Marcelo Mottesi, is a chidhood friend of mine. On June 21, 2008, she was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia (AML), resistant to traditional chemotherapy.
She desparately neeeds a bone marrow transplant, and a suitable match has not been found in the National Registry. Please storm heaven with your prayers, for her, Marcelo and the three children. If you can help by participating in a marrow drive, call 1-800-Marrow-2.
Thank you!
She desparately neeeds a bone marrow transplant, and a suitable match has not been found in the National Registry. Please storm heaven with your prayers, for her, Marcelo and the three children. If you can help by participating in a marrow drive, call 1-800-Marrow-2.
Thank you!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Junia: Suppressed Woman Apostle?
Not!
A review of E.J. Epp's Junia-The First Woman Apostle (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005), by John Hunwicke in Touchstone
Epp is honest-It was the liberals who changed her into a him.
A review of E.J. Epp's Junia-The First Woman Apostle (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005), by John Hunwicke in Touchstone
Epp is honest-It was the liberals who changed her into a him.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Fool in His Heart
Or, Why Atheism is Irrational and Agnosticism is not.
By Father Gregory:
Why Atheism is irrational and Agnosticism is not. Why Theism is established both with reason and beyond reason.My definition of atheism – the categorical denial of the existence of a deity or deities.My definition of agnosticism – the inability to be able to know one way or the other whether or not a deity or deities exist.Under these definitions an atheism committed to positivism will regard an agnostic as a cowardly, misguided or delusional atheist. No matter, I am sticking with these definitions as the claim that positivism is a sufficient description of reality and reality talk is a self defeating position .... bound that is to undermine itself.So why is atheism (thus defined) irrational?What is “irrational” though? ... Irrationality is the absence of rationality. What is rationality? Rationality is the conjunction of logical thinking and evidence by the mapping of the former to the latter in a model building process.Why then is atheism the violation of such conjunctional mapping?Consider the supposed evidences for theism. One might be the adaptation of life to survival in a given environment. Life has tenacity. To what do we attribute this tenacity? An atheist might simply reply that genes are selfish in their programming for survival. A theist might contend that such apparent selfishness is rather indicative of a grander purpose to life and that this purpose is divinely inscribed in this tenacity.
Read the rest here.
By Father Gregory:
Why Atheism is irrational and Agnosticism is not. Why Theism is established both with reason and beyond reason.My definition of atheism – the categorical denial of the existence of a deity or deities.My definition of agnosticism – the inability to be able to know one way or the other whether or not a deity or deities exist.Under these definitions an atheism committed to positivism will regard an agnostic as a cowardly, misguided or delusional atheist. No matter, I am sticking with these definitions as the claim that positivism is a sufficient description of reality and reality talk is a self defeating position .... bound that is to undermine itself.So why is atheism (thus defined) irrational?What is “irrational” though? ... Irrationality is the absence of rationality. What is rationality? Rationality is the conjunction of logical thinking and evidence by the mapping of the former to the latter in a model building process.Why then is atheism the violation of such conjunctional mapping?Consider the supposed evidences for theism. One might be the adaptation of life to survival in a given environment. Life has tenacity. To what do we attribute this tenacity? An atheist might simply reply that genes are selfish in their programming for survival. A theist might contend that such apparent selfishness is rather indicative of a grander purpose to life and that this purpose is divinely inscribed in this tenacity.
Read the rest here.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Stop Blaming the Victim!
I interrupt this blogging hiatus to bring you the following news flash: THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE FREE MARKET!
Dominic Lawson explains that it all went wrong when we left the gold standard: "Mises' followers insist that the present problems in the economies of the West have not been caused by laissez-faire, but by the opposite: politically sensitive central bankers so desperate to prevent any stock market slump that they cut interest rates to a level which turbo-charged the debt markets. So when George Osborne, as he did yesterday, declares that "laissez-faire is dead", the Mises-ites – one of whom is the libertarian Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul – would protest that such a policy was never tried in the first place."
What got us into this mess?
FIAT MONEY
Hat tip: The Young Fogey
Dominic Lawson explains that it all went wrong when we left the gold standard: "Mises' followers insist that the present problems in the economies of the West have not been caused by laissez-faire, but by the opposite: politically sensitive central bankers so desperate to prevent any stock market slump that they cut interest rates to a level which turbo-charged the debt markets. So when George Osborne, as he did yesterday, declares that "laissez-faire is dead", the Mises-ites – one of whom is the libertarian Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul – would protest that such a policy was never tried in the first place."
What got us into this mess?
FIAT MONEY
Hat tip: The Young Fogey
Friday, October 10, 2008
My sincere apologies...
Please forgive this blog's inactivity for the past few months. Dissertation work, plus a full teaching load, has made it rather difficult to maintain a consistent blogging activity.
On the upside, I turned in 93 pages of my dissertation last Friday (10/3), and will turn in the rest (a hundred pages or so) in December. The defense should be some time in the spring semester '09.
In January, I will hopefully take a little break from this madness by going to St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England, and then on to Rome.
Your prayers are coveted as I press on to finish this purgatory of a doctorate.
On the upside, I turned in 93 pages of my dissertation last Friday (10/3), and will turn in the rest (a hundred pages or so) in December. The defense should be some time in the spring semester '09.
In January, I will hopefully take a little break from this madness by going to St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England, and then on to Rome.
Your prayers are coveted as I press on to finish this purgatory of a doctorate.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Of your charity...
...please add Perry Robinson of Energetic Procession to your prayer list, and help out any way you can, through money, or perhaps more importantly, empoyment leads in the St. Louis area.
He writes: "As some of you know, last June I lost my teaching position and my academic career was terminated. Needless to say this was due to my having integrity. If I had been dishonest and gone about things in a non-biblical manner by going to the person who stole from me privately, I wouldn’t be in this mess today. If I had know that I was dealing with principalities and powers rather than apparent ministers of righteousness, I would have gone about things differently. But the past is over and done with. As things stand, my wife is still working part time while I look for some kind of employment sufficient to meet our financial needs, while we take turns watching our three girls."
Read the rest here, and pray and do what you can.
He writes: "As some of you know, last June I lost my teaching position and my academic career was terminated. Needless to say this was due to my having integrity. If I had been dishonest and gone about things in a non-biblical manner by going to the person who stole from me privately, I wouldn’t be in this mess today. If I had know that I was dealing with principalities and powers rather than apparent ministers of righteousness, I would have gone about things differently. But the past is over and done with. As things stand, my wife is still working part time while I look for some kind of employment sufficient to meet our financial needs, while we take turns watching our three girls."
Read the rest here, and pray and do what you can.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Pray for Peace II
Also from Ad Orientem:
"On Saturday, August 9, 2008, late at night, following all-night vigil at the Cathedral of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in San Francisco, CA, a moleben was performed at the relics of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, which lie uncorrupt in the church, for the cessation of bloodletting and for the increase of love between the Ossetian, Georgian and Russian peoples. Georgian and Ossetian families were in attendance. With tears in their eyes, the worshipers heard the Gospel words on how the Savior gave us a new law: “love one another as I have loved you.” Supplications were intoned for the health and salvation of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, Katolikos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, Archbishop Theophanes of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz, all those wounded and exiled and their relatives and all our Orthodox brethren peoples.Also in attendance were Russian and American parishioners. The Cathedral Choir sang. In his sermon, Protopriest Serge Kotar asked that all pray for the establishment of peace. After the moleben, no one wished to depart."
Thanks be to God that here, at least, the peace of Christ reigns. May St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco continue to offer his prayers on behalf of the warring Ossetian, Georgian and Russian peoples.
"On Saturday, August 9, 2008, late at night, following all-night vigil at the Cathedral of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in San Francisco, CA, a moleben was performed at the relics of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, which lie uncorrupt in the church, for the cessation of bloodletting and for the increase of love between the Ossetian, Georgian and Russian peoples. Georgian and Ossetian families were in attendance. With tears in their eyes, the worshipers heard the Gospel words on how the Savior gave us a new law: “love one another as I have loved you.” Supplications were intoned for the health and salvation of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, Katolikos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, Archbishop Theophanes of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz, all those wounded and exiled and their relatives and all our Orthodox brethren peoples.Also in attendance were Russian and American parishioners. The Cathedral Choir sang. In his sermon, Protopriest Serge Kotar asked that all pray for the establishment of peace. After the moleben, no one wished to depart."
Thanks be to God that here, at least, the peace of Christ reigns. May St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco continue to offer his prayers on behalf of the warring Ossetian, Georgian and Russian peoples.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Pray for Peace
![[Battlefield+confession.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApHgs-9EglKO4jJvecPaYxjgkLZ3OReID4p_dSwXXyS58GBLefle-H-9w3zIhKH5mhDlr-XgeY9NLiSLJdbCokb5diK5weNfleu0TogT7_UAcmyc3x8mbzllOCC6dwryl54JV6g/s1600-h/Battlefield+confession.jpg)
Georgian soldier receives a blessing from an Orthodox priest near the front lines
Courtesy of: Ad Orientem
God's will in creation is that all men be friends. It is built into the fabric of creation, making war a most unnatural abberation of the Father's design. It is especially grievous when combatants are of the same family of faith.
Pray for these two Orthodox Christian countries, one being (Georgia, with Armenia) the oldest Christian nation in the world.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us and upon our world!
On this feast day of the Dormition/Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, let us seek her intercessions on behalf of her warring children, that the peace of her Divine Son may reign in them.
Kyrie Eleison!
Hyperagia Theotokeis, sozon heymas!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
![[czar[1].jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8F6DSicpCgq0Dx2ZP5d2yhBBBCkURVQJiZPQdpul2fuBwAKRKvlKVpyrF50sqYg8KrdvosYbzpKNsgPZtkU4OmEOkVJ_94smc0D5Y6NXKtl72H6OWtCz5zXOgr73QjU12uNPAww/s1600/czar%5B1%5D.jpg)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Science Confirms what Orthodox Christians Have known for Centuries: INCENSE IS GOOD FOR YOU!
By Rich Maloof:
Scientific papers aren’t usually tagged with very exciting titles, but recently I came across a real barn burner: Incensole Acetate, an Incense Component, Elicits Psychoactivity by Activating TRPV3 Channels in the Brain.
Whoa.
Reading between the lines of lab-coat lingo, I realized the report was saying that frankincense—the incense traditionally burned in religious ceremonies—can act on the brain to lower anxiety and diminish depression.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Hebrew University administered incensole acetate, a component of frankincense, to lab mice and learned that it lit up areas of their little mouse brains that control emotion, including nerve circuits affecting anxiety and depression.
Read the rest here.
The fragrance of sanctity is actually good for you after all!!!
For my separated brethren on the West Roman side of the Bosporus: Here's wishing your good Bishop well as he wears down the Post-Vatican II Orcs and restores this venerable and ancient practice on the parish level. Your health may well depend on it!!! ;-)
Biretta tip to: Ben Johnson
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Bishop Hilarion Opposes Radical Liberalization in Protestant Communities
From OrthodoxNet.com:
Not all participants of the inter-Christian dialogue are ready to pursue partnership and solidarity, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, Representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions, said.
“The divergence is so deep, that it can be compared to bottomless abysses,” Hilarion said in his interview to the Soyuznoye Veche, the newspaper of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia, commenting his dialogue with a Lutheran bishop.
According to Hilarion, the bishop refused to recognize abortion as a sin in a joint document, whereby he expressed “a more liberal approach to this challenge” as compared to the position of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“If we fail to reach consensus even on such matters which are seemingly obvious to all Christians, what can we do about other challenges?” Bishop Hilarion said.
Read the rest here
My take on this: I truly, passionately and ardently hope he becomes the next Patriarch of Moscow! Well done, Your Grace!
Not all participants of the inter-Christian dialogue are ready to pursue partnership and solidarity, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, Representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions, said.
“The divergence is so deep, that it can be compared to bottomless abysses,” Hilarion said in his interview to the Soyuznoye Veche, the newspaper of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia, commenting his dialogue with a Lutheran bishop.
According to Hilarion, the bishop refused to recognize abortion as a sin in a joint document, whereby he expressed “a more liberal approach to this challenge” as compared to the position of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“If we fail to reach consensus even on such matters which are seemingly obvious to all Christians, what can we do about other challenges?” Bishop Hilarion said.
Read the rest here
My take on this: I truly, passionately and ardently hope he becomes the next Patriarch of Moscow! Well done, Your Grace!
Note to Liberal Christians: Secular Society Has Passed You By
From The Ochlophobist:
"We have learned this lesson from ECUSA and that sort over and over again. Leader of a very small and not in the slightest bit influential ecclesial body is horrified that other Christian leaders are not "facing the challenges of the modern world." Let us entertain reality for a moment. Nobody in Europe is listening seriously to the rhetoric of ECUSA, or Rowan Williams, or the Lutheran Church in Norway, or the EP. They see some snippets from the EP about the environment in a magazine. In response, they think or intuit (very briefly) 'he is saying what we are supposed to be saying, and he wears a very cool outfit, and looks both stern and happy at the same time, and that's all good because those folks in Eastern Europe who might still believe in that stuff will be more inclined to recycle, and, oh, there's a lingerie ad on the next page....' "
"We have learned this lesson from ECUSA and that sort over and over again. Leader of a very small and not in the slightest bit influential ecclesial body is horrified that other Christian leaders are not "facing the challenges of the modern world." Let us entertain reality for a moment. Nobody in Europe is listening seriously to the rhetoric of ECUSA, or Rowan Williams, or the Lutheran Church in Norway, or the EP. They see some snippets from the EP about the environment in a magazine. In response, they think or intuit (very briefly) 'he is saying what we are supposed to be saying, and he wears a very cool outfit, and looks both stern and happy at the same time, and that's all good because those folks in Eastern Europe who might still believe in that stuff will be more inclined to recycle, and, oh, there's a lingerie ad on the next page....' "
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