A Little Family Music
Two videos for the small number of fans of this blog. The first is of Catherine and the Valley Middle School beginning band at their first concert:
The second is of Joshua (on the sousaphone) and the Carlsbad High School Marching Band as they win first prize in their division at a field competition here in San Diego:
Friday, October 17, 2008
Once More - Obama's Position on the Unborn
In case you have any doubts - here is an excellent summary of Obama's position on the unborn.
Update: I was thinking after the last debate that Obama had changed his story. He was insisting that his opposition to Born Alive Infants act was due to fact that there were adequate laws in place. My recollection was that earlier in the campaign, he claimed that it was due to risks the law presented to Roe v. Wade. Turns out, my memory wasn't so bad after all.
h/t to Fr. Whiteford
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Influence of Those We Surround Ourselves With
After last night's debate, I find myself pondering the call by Barack Obama to debate the issues, and not level personal attacks against the opponent. There was a time when I might have agreed, but I think that was a mistake. I'm not saying that people should be about muckraking. I don't think there is much benefit to discovering that a candidate, 30 or 40 years ago did something stupid. We all manage that. If the absence of stupid acts in our childhood is requirement for the presidency, then I suspect we could have no one to run.
However, Obama proposes that all questions about his relationship with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, ACORN, Tony Rezko, or any other group should be ignored. Nothing but smear tactics his site will tell you. Obama will even go so far as to repudiate many of the things these people are saying, or maybe did deep in the past. The problem is that politicians, all politicians, say the things that they think people want to hear. That is why Obama has become a "centrist" once the primaries are over - unless he slips and mentions wealth redistribution. However, the company they keep speaks volumes about the beliefs they hold. I can safely say that the people I spend the most time with outside of work and home, are people who tend to share my beliefs. If I'm a politician, or involved in political activities, the activities and people I hang around with will absolutely reflect my beliefs. Perfectly? No, of course not. But you cannot look at the hatred of America displayed by Ayers and Wright, and not realize that Obama must share some of those beliefs. You cannot look at an organization like ACORN, who spend a lot of time engaged in apparent voting fraud, as well as strong-arming banks into issuing more subprime loans, and realize that Obama must have believed that this was a good idea.
I do believe in taking people at their word, but actions do speak louder. The company we keep does as well.
"Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art." - Miguel De Cervantes
Causes of the Current Crisis
The other thing Obama has said (when he isn't pointing the finger inaccurately at George Bush), is that we shouldn't focus on pointing fingers over the subprime debacle, but should focus on fixing it. True, but only to a point. We need to worry about how we got here, so we can avoid doing it again in the future. To that end, a couple of interesting videos about how we got here:
Why TEC Has it Right
Okay, almost right. The problem being that what they have wrong, has sent them far from where they should be. A number of years ago, a (now former) Episcopal Priest gave a sermon shortly after his arrival in California. In that sermon, he noted how he was heading home from an appointment in San Diego, and took what appeared to be a freeway heading in the right direction (probably the 15 if I had to guess, although maybe the 163 which will put you on the 15 before long). Unfortunately, after a while he discovered that he was heading far in the wrong direction. By that point, there wasn't much correction avaliable. he had to turn around, go back, and nearly start over again.
In response to the unfortunate legalism that colors Western Christianity - where Christ's saving work is viewed almost exclusively in terms of a rather cold juridical metaphor, the modern Episcopal Church seeks out the warmth of the experience of God - looking for experience to define what is true. In response to volumes and volumes of canon law and Catechism's, they seek to embrace the idea that the Holy Spirit is still active and revealing God to mankind. So, against doctrine they place experience. Against Tradition, the Holy Spirit.
The Orthodox Church would agree that the experience of God is paramount, and that the Holy Spirit continually reveals God to the Church. So, where has the modern Episcopal Church gone wrong? Well, on the subject of revelation, I would refer you to this post by Fr. Stephen Freeman, where he points out that, "The Orthodox Church adds to this that the Tradition is a function of the Holy Spirit, ever revealing in each generation the one Truth of the one God." So Tradition is a function of the Holy Spirit, it is not something to be compared against "new revelation".
The Orthodox also understand that human language, and human philosophical constructs, while perhaps useful in developing some level of understanding who God is, cannot suffice. The only way to truly understand God is to truly know Him. Therefore, within the Orthodox faith, a true Theologian (of which I believe there are only 4, although I could only find 3 on our Archdiocesan website) is one who has attained to a deep and personal knowledge of God. The fact that there are only 4 who have ever been granted this title, is indicative of the difficulty of growing to know God that well. The Orthodox understanding of Asceticism is that it is necessary in order to purify the nous (that part of the human that apprehends God), and a purified nous is necessary to properly apprehend God. This is an over simplification, but read the link and you'll get a better idea. The Episcopal Church, however, has eliminated the notion of Asceticism, and any sort of spiritual struggle being requisite for developing a true relationship with God. They are not alone, as the entire Charismatic movement suffers from much the same.
By failing to continue in the notion of the Ascetic Struggle, the modernist opens himself to the other major term you will hear used in the context of Orthodox mysticism - Prelest. This is the understanding of spiritual delusion. Satan is always willing to provide us with a spiritual experience if we want one. Orthodox literature is replete with stories of novice monks (and even more seasoned ones) falling prey to Prelest. That is why both Asceticism and the guidance of a Spiritual Father, himself much further along the path of salvation than us, and learned in the Tradition of the Church, are key components of a fruitful life as an Orthodox Christian.
Since the Episcopal Church has, by accident of history or otherwise depending on how one reads the history, divorced itself from the continued Tradition of the Church, as well as the notion of Asceticism, they lack the tools to both understand the continued revelation of the Holy Spirit and to have experiences that can be believed to be of God. This is what has allowed such things as "Clown Eucharists" and same sex blessings to come of age, along with a wholesale abandonment of Christian doctrine.