What the hell is a Judeo-Christian?

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I don’t know if my dog likes watching news commentary and reporting but, when I come home, that’s what’s on TV sometimes, so he must. From that, I pick up snatches of what your “average joe” is thinking about today.  Today it’s discussion about governments posting religious monuments and stem cell research. It’s a bit like listening to aliens, without the lasers and space ships. One thing that doesn’t seemed to get questioned, I noticed, as I relieved myself in the other room, is the phrase “Judeo-Christian”. Supposedly, the US is predicated on “Judeo-Christian” values and beliefs, and these monuments are “Judeo-Christian”. What the hell is a Judeo-Christian? That, to me, is like saying Islamo-Hindu.

I know, I know, they’re not talking at all about Christianity as I would use the word. They’re linking together components in a historiographical theory that claims there’s some fundamental shared worldview between Jews and Christians. People of the book, they used to call them – tho they don’t include muslims anymore – that went out of vogue in the 1990s – so now that phrase is largely forgotten. I remember the lovely little men who used such terms, with their pony tales and their liberality, who a few years ago wouldn’t think of including muslims in the same breath and, once again, now that the invasion of Iraq and its atrocities are evil, and there’s some color in the white house, they’re back to cautiously regarding the “good muslims” as somehow sharing a history.

One of the exercises we did in college in the History of Mediaeval Philosophy was to compare Avicenna, Averoes, Aquinas, and others, and see whether or not Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics (proto-Protestants) sounded more like each other than any of them resembled Holy Orthodoxy. Even the critics, atheists, and committed religionists of other stripes admitted they did. People of the book, indeed. But the religious psychology has just as much in common w. Brahmanism. I know someone who was in a schismatic Roman Catholic group before converting to Holy Orthodoxy. He was always an agitator and never really was happy with his conversion, and now he’s off being a quasi-Buddhist. He doesn’t realize that he just really went back to his original species. The trappings have changed, but not the fundamental premises.

Anyway, I listen to words like this thrown around, with no one batting an eye, and not one voice asking what precisely is the theory behind this compound “Judeo-Christian” and I realize that if an Orthodox person were to stand up and say that the Jews are the enemies of Christ, that there is no separate “dispensation” of salvation for them apart from the Church (standard evangelical speculation), and that we have nothing to do with these false Jews but are ourselves the New Israel, the Israel of God, the ancient religion of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Solomon and David, we would undoubtedly be labelled anti-semitic. And there can be no greater crime in the current political empire than being anti-semitic – our support for zionist Israel is “unwavering”, and is continually being “renewed”. We wouldn’t have to go that far, though, to incur the wrath of “anti-racists”. Just saying, “Judeo-Christian? Don’t know what you mean. We have nothing to do with the Jews, unless you mean the Christian ones. Yes, we have a Patriarchate in Jerusalem – are you talking about them?” – that would do it. That would incur the ire, the wrath, the hatred and vitriol of those who insist that there’s a standing dogma about Jews that we all must share – support for the nation of Israel, and hence for Zionism, their supposed shared content and historical continuity with Christians (yes, I deny that, too), and the notion that the religion of these folk is just as salvific, not to mention the unwillingness to even say the word “Jew” unless it’s in delightfully upbeat or solemnly positive context.

Judeo-Christian? No such thing. Not if we, the Orthodox, are Christian. If we’re not, then yes, certainly, Judaism, Islam, and Protestant Roman Catholicism have a lot of substance and history in common. As religious philosophies, most certainly. Historically, though, Judaism is a concoction of the enemies of Christ, that section of Hebrews who wished to remain anti-Christian, when Christ rose again and filled the world with his body, the Church. Reformed Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Judaism in general – this is not the faith of the ancients. These are religions of recent invention. True, they draw upon a gnostic and occult that existed alongside the ancient faith, and certainly they draw upon early anti-Christian gnosticism and hermetics, and mediaeval scholastic inventions, just as Protestantism and Roman Catholicism do. But they are not the faith held by the Patriarchs, our Saints. And no Orthodox mind can declare them to be such. All such dispensationalism is abjectly heretical.

It will be deemed anti-semitic to say there is no separate salvation for the Jews. Why not be honest – there’s no separate salvation for anyone? Why make the Jews an issue. We feel the same way about the Greeks. Nationalism doesn’t save. Ethnicity doesn’t save. Christ saves. And apart from Christ, there is no salvation. That is the Christian Faith; it is the very statement of that Faith for which Christ himself was crucified – it is indisputable. Calling something else administratively “Christian” or to declare it “Christian” by sheer exercise of ecclesiastical judgment, is simply dishonest. Words become nonsense when they don’t have even the remotest resemblance to their historical significance.

Same with the word Jew? What is a Jew, anyway? Those who bandy about terms like anti-semitic at the drop of a hat can’t answer that authoritatively. An old adage goes, “Want to start an argument in an elevator full of Jews? Ask what is a Jew – is it a practitioner of some form of Judaism, a citizen of the nation of Israel, or an ethnic designation?” The “Jews” themselves can’t agree. What is it, then, that an anti-semite or an anti-anti-semite is really against? Besides, terms like anti-semite are really inappropriate when we repudiate salvation by any other religion, by any national affiliation, and by any ethnic background with equally disregard. If you were a South African Jain Buddhist of Polish descent, and we said it doesn’t convey any special treatment or presumed theosis, what would you call us then? Even “racist” becomes nonsensical, since Buddhism, for example, is not a race. How about “intolerant”? That gets tossed out there a lot – not to mean what it really means – failing to tolerate something – but to label anyone who fails to say what you want to say about others – that it’s all “just as good”, “six of one”, that there are “many roads, all leading to the same place”.  I think it’s you who is intolerant, if you can’t even speak accurately about those with whom you disagree.

My old bishop used to say, when referring to the temple, to the implements of the altar, to the books kept in the altar, to the psalms sung by the choir, the smoke filling the air, the candles, the vestments, indeed all the physical implements of the ancient faith, “Really, we’re just Jews.” Not these cooked up “Messianic Jews” who get together and play at temple the way evangelicals play at church, wearing yamikas, slaughtering lambs, and reading the King James Bible (the scaled-down 66-book version). I’m talking about being able to refer to Saint Moses, the Patriarch, as easily as to St. Paul. I won’t go into a long set of proofs and illustrations. If you’re Orthodox, these things abound. They’re all around you on a consistent basis. If you need text, you might read Georges Barrois, if you’re interested. I’ve heard his “Jesus Christ and the Temple” delves into this. One can just as easily read the scriptures, in the context of the liturgy of the people who wrote them.

The point is that when I listen to people tossing out this “Judeo-Christianity” and it goes unchallenged and without disclaimer, I think, “They’re not talking about anything that has to do with me. This is an alien religion that I don’t have anything in common with. Not even the words on their monuments which my people wrote, since we do not mean the sames things by those words.” In their attempts to be inclusive, they’ve been exclusive. And I imagine, were I a Buddhist, I could feel marginalized. Here, though, I don’t want these US governments creating monuments to my faith. Historically, that’s been a disaster. Look at all the religious crap that’s been commissioned by rulers throughout the ages. Screw the rulers; give me the monks. You don’t get bizarre arias, and weirdly occult tapestries out of decent monks. These stone billboards they’re dropping onto capitol lawns just muddy the waters and spark arguments over things that aren’t even real, like “founded on Judeo-Christian traditions”. Which practicing Jews signed the Declaration or wrote the Constitution? And come now. You mean Protestant traditions. The US is a Protestant nation. Its tolerance for everything else extends just as far as its ability to coopt it and shape it into something seemingly compatible. It’s a syncretic tradition, all right. That’s what the hyphen means. And all this presumed ‘inclusion’ and ‘tolerance’ is just intolerance of anything but that syncretism. If we don’t want to be what you are, don’t want you speaking for us, deciding for us, whatever, you’ll brand us with labels, bomb our villages, and villify us in your pseudo-histories. Tolerance indeed.

Our Christian Names

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In our quasi-revolutionary, neo-gnostic culture, including most especially academia, and especially still religious academia and its amateur counterpart among those of us who read books, it is popular to refer to every scholar (and eventually everyone who has said anything at all) by surname. “Ecco’s thesis is…” “Jaki is daring when…” “Cantor actually challenges the notion…” The depersonalization of the individual, the treatment of the person as genus – as nature or essence – is in fact heretical to Holy Orthodoxy, which is why we do not refer to Saints in such a manner. Applied to the Holy Trinity, this reversal is in fact the reason for the Great Schism by which Holy Orthodoxy has repudiated all heresy, and the heresy of heresies. Person is not interchangeable with genus. So to speak that way, it truly to speak as a heterodox. It is barbarian speak, it is the speech of the unlearned, of the irreverent, of the thoughtless and impious.

Still, you hear dapper religio-academics referring to “Fr. Schmemman” or just “Schmemman” when they’re being particularly “down to earth”. The sing-songy tone is one of perhaps unintended disdain – the kind of disdain that is inherent in a trivialization of personality, intended or not. One hears it in hip-hop speech, hippie slang, and the “bro” and “dude”-ness of insipid “guy-speak”. And why shouldn’t we expect it among Orthodox, when in some Orthodox Churches you hear of people being called, in the Roman Catholic vein, “Father Anderson” (at least they don’t toss out just “Anderson”), not to mention “Fr. Bill” (who would ever dare to refer to a Saint Bill), or even just “Bill” (“Bill’s not coming to the men’s breakfast today.”) – I think I just threw up. It’s either the heretical anti-personal anthropology of the heterodox or the vain ultra-personalism of their social descendents, thoroughly Protestantized, as if we were joining hands together, singing campfire gospel songs, and listening to the mystical insights of the Fr. Larry or Brother Lenny or even Linda. (well, we have yet to see Father Lisa, but the attitude is the same). The imposition of cultural flippancy on one hand, or cultural utilitarianism on the other, is a great show of religiosity but really a mediocrity of Faith.

I won’t argue this endlessly with naysayers. You are of your tradition, and I am of mine. Be what you are; let’s not argue. I don’t have to eat with you, and you certainly won’t be sitting at my table, if you’re claiming we share the same Faith. And yes, I do eat with out and out Protestants, Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Witches, Warlocks, Atheists, and Spiritualists. I don’t eat with people who, pretending to honor Christ, dishonor his Church, claiming it’s all one big religion and I’m (quite unwillingly) a part of it. Rank me among the unbelievers, if that’s the case. Give me Samaritans any day. Those I can pat on the back and make friends. So before you say, “Christ ate with sinners,” think also about who was *not* at his table. Did he break bread with all the false Christs?

The truth is that speaking in this manner ultimately belies the Holy Incarnation of Christ. Christ shared our nature. Christ became man. And his name is Jesus. When you say in your heart that name, you teach your mind how to say all names, and how to think of all your brethren. Why then, this disdain which masquerades as disregard, mere casualness, and laziness? Piety, as my old Bishop used to say, is taking little pains. What pain it was for God to be born with a man’s name.

But there are those who do not wish to dishonor all that is dishonored by using these inappropriate designations. And sometimes they ask how to cultivate a habit of proper attribution. I’m no wise person to consult, but I think it’s helpful, when you think in your mind of “Fr. Alexander” (Schmemann) or “Fr. John” (Romanides) to think of them in the light of “Saint Alexannder” or “Saint John” for whom they are named. Who among us would have the spite to refer to a Saint Maximovitch or a Saint Hotovitzky? If we can’t bring ourselves to what we know and should sense is irreverence toward the Saints, how dare we do it of anyone among us, especially not those icons of the saints who are our teachers and clergy, those who bear Saint’s names? When you say the name of your brother in Christ, think “he will be glorified” if he is living or, if he is reposed, add “pray for me” to your thoughts when you say his name. Fr. John (“pray for me”) Romanides. Fr. Alexander (“save me by your prayers”) Schmemman. Then, over time, you will find it hard to speak shamefully of such people and, perhaps, with mercy, of anyone (“grant me such mercy, Lord”). In fact, what we’ve been doing is speaking of people in a naturalistic way, as though they are dead, or as though they will not live forever. This is, perhaps, part of the cure for our blindness. And of each other, perhaps especially if we find it hard to honor one another in our thoughts, it is good to remember, to be mindful, of such gentle sayings: “he will be saved, and I will be condemned” Matthew, “by his prayers save me” Michael, “remember me, St. Barbara” Barbara, “pray for me her Angel” Micah.

Keep in mind that we call it your “Christian name” for a reason. The name you received at Baptism is the new name, written on a white stone, the name by which you will be called in paradise, the name that in the Kingdom, this economy of Christ’s Incarnation,  you are known by and are referred to. Doesn’t the priest say this name when you receive Holy Communion? Isn’t it written into the prayers said at the altar, behind the iconostasis? The pride it takes to disregard the name, and shake it off, preferring “Homer” and “Kelly” to the names of your patron Saints who watch over you and pray for you, should you make it pride upon pride by applying it likewise to others?

We sometimes hear the xenophobes among us complain that this is an “ethnic” tradition – that it’s Russian or Greek. Such statements beg the question, besides which they are inaccurate. This is the ancient tradition, the living tradition, the one tradition. This is not “your” tradition or “mine”. It’s “ours”. How can we claim such things? It is the tradition of paradise, active in Heaven, and indeed throughout the whole of the One Church, undivided and indivisible by Death, which we repudiate, speaking life everywhere. If the Saints speak to each other this way, gathered around us, when we pray, what arrogance says that the bonds of our Death, the cultural of our natural birth, or the affected culture of pseudo-academia is the basis for what comes out of our mouths? The whole man is made new, speech and all. All must be deified – you must not cling to anything and say, “Not this. Except this.”

And do remember your mother in the Faith, the Church whose missionaries founded your Church. It’s impossible to listen to “Americans” (which are not a people, nor a race, nor even a nationality), refer to traditions as Russian when they received the *entire* Orthodox Faith from the Russians in the first place.  Shame. Sadness. Blindness. Again, I won’t argue this here – not today. One thing at a time. Blindness and foolish talk are everywhere – they are cheap and abundant – trying to cover every argument at once makes truth into a commodity also, and I won’t do it. I will say that I think you know, in your heart, when you’re espousing ideology (be it communist, deconstructionst, neo-fascism, or some glib amateur cultural anthropology), and when you are in fact striving to walk in the footsteps of the Saints down through the ages. It is so much easier to be a succesful rhetorician of ideology than a failed but determined adherent of better men who lived wiser lives.  Easier to be the fathers’ widely heard critic than their poor and obscure imitator. Bleh.

Anyway, I write here for a few reasons. To give people answers who bother me with questions, so they’ll go away, and also so I can think through and give answers clearly, be transparent in what I’ve said, submit it to others to correct, and not let the impulses of the moment govern my response, and so I don’t often have to repeat it. I write also to record thoughts for my own memory, because it’s poor (I am neither mindful nor therefore righteous – I’m forgetful of everything I hope to remember). I am writing also to confess my sins – not the specific circumstances of them, but the sins (Whenever someone accuses you falsely, say “I am guilty”, even if you did not do what they say – say “I am guilty of sins like these” and “Yes, I am prideful. I am an angry man. I am impatient and thoughtless. I have committed all the sins you say except, perhaps, renouncing the Orthodox Faith.”) Here is one place I say such things because, saying them, I hope to believe in them fully and be saved. I write here also to think, because, for me, the two things (writing and thinking) are so tightly interwoven and bound. I need to think, and I need a place to think, a place conducive to the kind of thinking I’m doing. I create such places wherever I want to do a new kind of thinking.

Have you ever picked up a bottle of something and it said not to use it for what it was designed for? Like a children’s toy, clearly designed for a certain age group, that says not to let that age group use it? Or batteries that say not to leave them in the device after use? I wish I could offer a disclaimer like that – “This may poison you. What I say may be not only completely useless but actually harmful. And yet, if you want to use it, it’s here. I won’t stop you.”

Comments

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I get a lot of comments I don’t post. I think it’s only fair to say why I post some and not others.

* I don’t post comments that offer an agenda that I find despicable, tedious, or needlessly controversial, especially when it’s not relevant to the content. Things that come through advocating white supremacy, neoconservative imperialism, hatred of particular ethnic groups (recently got one referring to the “Satanic Serbs”) – I don’t post. For one thing, you might read enough to at least realize who you’re talking to and what the blog is about, before vomiting this stuff all over us. But even so, it just would be material I’d have rebut, so someone else doesn’t have to, sparking a flame war. I only have so much energy and inclination to fight (yes, I have a little), and I see no point in letting other people determine when I’ll do so.

* I don’t post comments that disregard the very underlying premise of the conversation. The comments coming in that begin with the assumption that nothing matters but what you and I come to through some process of discussion or argument. These are the inherently Protestant commentaries that try to persuade through appeals solely to feelings, rhetoric, religious philosophy, or some activity of “coming to agreement” we presumably engage in with each other. I look upon these things as abject Roman Catholicism with the papal mitre simply democratized. Each of us is presumably our own pope, and we pronounce de facto what is and isn’t so, confusing our perceptions with the thing perceived – subject and object. It’s a waste of time for me to post those comments, because I find I’m endlessly making the same point in response: “Go away. We’re not really talking to each other at all. You’re trying to converse by saying, “Well, dismissing all you believe, all your sources of understanding, your religion, your fathers,  your creed, all of it – your entire epistemology, and starting with just you and me here in a blog, let’s come up with our own religion, which will work just like a religious philosophy…” What kind of numb nuts goes in for something like that? It’s the Nigerian E-mail scam of the religious world. Might as well ask to borrow my wallet and my car, setting aside any commitments I might have to protect my family. Not being a dunce, nor inclined to needless repetition, and finding these attempts tedious in the extreme, I have responded to a handful of them, and chase the others off wherever possible. Truly, you can’t argue with a committed Protestant; he can’t hear you, so he just keeps ignoring what you’re saying are your premises and offering speculation or alien premises as substitutes. Drain your brain, he’s saying, and then we can talk.

* I don’t post comments that ignore the fact that previous comments made the same point, and are just being offered as a way to flood the comment box with extra “votes”. In fact, I click “spam” on those, and they stop arriving.

* I don’t post comments that offer to argue it out, without a useful end being proposed. See above – if the goal being proposed is that, by argumentation and discussion, we will arrive together at “the truth”, and have now a religious philosophy we can hold to, I have to remind you this is not a Protestant’s blog. I don’t count invitations to apostasy as useful ends. If the idea is argue so that you’ll understand it better, get better at arguing, etc. – what’s in it for me? That’s right – is your desire to be a better debater of one of these topics a claim on my attention and peace of mind? You’ve heard of spiritual warfare – what do you think I’m off doing, in this mind of mine? I really don’t need to fight a war on two fronts, if I can avoid it. This is called a blog of personal confession – I’m in it because it saves me, not because I want to argue, let alone argue for the sake of arguing. If you can propose a useful, and honest goal, that an Orthodox person can legitimately accept, then maybe arguing something out will be beneficial. So far, no one has done that. And “because I really want to know” is not useful or sincere, if that’s really just something you say to get the argument going – a feint, to invite your rhetorical opponent to reveal their hand. What, do you think you’re dealing with hobbyists? I’m not “just curious” – I’m in this for my life – I’ve been around that block – I’m no dummy.

* I don’t post comments that are out and out pretense. When some one writes, “So basically, you’re right, everyone else is wrong, and unless I believe what you believe, I’m going to Hell.” I don’t bother posting it. This person is not asking a sincere question, they’re summarizing via a mischaracterization, and trying to sell it as an innocent question. Again – no dummy here – a rhetorical question is just a statement with a question mark after it. What, do I seem to be of middling intelligence, with the emotional sophistication of a third grader? Besides being insulting to your host, it’s wasting the time of the audience. It’s more appropriate to yell out, “I know you are, but what am I?” than something that tedious and lame.  Your desire to flop about and whine, “but I’m confused – I’m confused – enlighten me” is not a claim on anyone else’s attention. What, do you think I’m trying to get you “saved”? I’ve no such interest. I’m trying to save myself. I’m not responsible for your feigned desperation to “better understand”, when it’s a cliche for agitation. And no, I’m not “judging” you, I’m avoiding you, because you’re patently obvious in gimmicks that we’ve all come to know and recognize if we have any sense. Have you read Proverbs? Do you not see all the warnings against being taken in by scams? Next time you think I’m judging you, be consistent – send your money to that Nigerian scam artist who just wants a few hundred to withdraw and split thousands with you. Don’t judge him – take him at his word.

There are probably one or two other reasons. But these will do. This post is offered in the interest of fair play, transparency, and  yes, you can detect it, a bit of weariness with reading the same diatribes, illicit offers, and offers to participate in peeing matches. I don’t pretend to be democratic – this is not an open forum. I don’t pretend to give voice to all ideas – what the hell would I want to do that for? And I don’t mind seeming to be inconsistent, if you’re not paying close enough attention. Just because you don’t see the pattern, doesn’t mean there’s not a formula in play. Not that there’s anything wrong with being idiosyncratic – I’m a person – it’s a personal blog – a site of personal confession – I’m working things out, and I expect inconsistency. It’s a home-made cake, not store-bought off the shelf with anti-caking agents in a cake, of all things!  I’m willing to have it appear that I only let through posts I like or think I can refute. In truth, I’ve not seen any new arguments – it’s not like my people haven’t been doing this sort of thing for a very long time. You’d think most of the likely arguments, we’d have heard centuries ago and already responded to, wouldn’t you? It’s not like we’re an invented religion cooked up out of the Enlightenment and presuming, like an institution, to start from scratch, issuing all kinds of “original” pronouncements.

In a way, wouldn’t you expect a blog operated by an Orthodox person to simply toss away most of the same old arguments we’ve heard a thousand times and answered quite effectively and finally once, a long, long time ago?  Why should I repeat all that – read our fathers, if you want to know. Ibid. I don’t need to “hash through” the same old things. I’ve got  a goal here, and if you’re visiting, and reading, and wanting to comment, comment, but keep in mind that goal. I’m not doing this primarily for you, or to broadcast yet another personal religious philosophy from my own pet pulpit. I’m here trying to work out my salvation. If you want to talk with me about it, talk with me about it, but the heterodox agenda stuff, or the personal cultural agenda of some Orthodox people (conservative imperialism, ethnic cleansing, or whatever it may be) is not really an attractive addition to that discussion.

You know, even the post that attracts the most vitriol – the one on Freemasonry – really is just because someone asked me for documentation, and I happily provided it. That’s a good discussion. But then people came along wanting to say, “Yes, but let’s ignore all that, and let’s ignore in fact everything else you’re saying, and let’s make some new religion together, based on our personal whims.” That’s like some prostitute walking up and saying, “Yeah, I see the ring, but wouldn’t a roll in the hay be a great idea today?” I’m married to my Faith. I’m sorry, but building a tinker-toy religion out of parts that we find lying around is really not going to be a temptation for me; in fact, the very idea is repulsive.

If you’ve got nothing else to say but, “Well, but I don’t want you to be that religion, I want you to just walk away from it and come prancing into mine,” then you’re asking us both to commit apostasy – you by cheapening your Faith, and me by departing from the Rock for something as momentarily bewitching as an e-mail scam. What the hell? Don’t you have any self-respect, or respect for what you’re throwing out there and calling “the truth”? If not, why should I respect it, either? My best friend is of another religion. And the turning point, for me, the moment of detente – easing of tensions, came when we both acknowledged that we’re of different peoples. I can break bread with my friend, because I don’t commune with my friend. We don’t confuse things that are distinct, so respect, love, compassion, these are possible. What you offer, when you say that it’s all the same silt, is none of those things – you offer the very death of respect, the meaninglessness of love, and the irrelevance of compassion.

“I am not what you are, and you are not what I am.”  is just as much an appropriate stake at which to be burned as “I will not renounce the Gospel of Christ.” The goal of this blog is not to continually make that confession, but it comes out in nearly every encounter with encroachment, because,  by god, it’s true. And if it were not true, I would make it true, like Abraham, by coming out of Ur, and taking my family with me. The line between us, makes us human, and allows the possibility of real Faith. The absence of the line, the notion that one thing is as good as another, means that no Faith is real – truly, I weary of posting comments by atheists in religious robes. So, sometimes I don’t. I just don’t. In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Lastly, I plead technology. Comments are letters to the editor, not to the world. This isn’t a forum, it’s a blog. I publish what I think fits, whether it praises, is antagonistic, or just asks a question. I don’t publish things I think miss the point, especially not if it seems intentional. I don’t publish things, usually, that I think are inflammatory. I don’t publish things it takes too much time, attention, or emotional involvement to respond to. And I don’t publish things I think will cause needless bickering. But I will, at least, tell you, up front, that I’m not publishing them. I don’t send out rejection letters. Your comment either appears or it doesn’t. We’re not the New York Times. But I don’t pretend it’s an open forum, and then treat it as though it isn’t. Can you really ask anything else of me but honesty? If I’m not what you want, go elsewhere. There are other blogs. If you have a comment, I welcome it, if it takes into account where you are. This is my chapel. It’s not a church, it’s a chapel. It’s not the private chamber of my heart, nor my icon corner. It’s my chapel, a little out of the way, but still the door is unlocked most of the time. But if you want to have your Vegas-style wedding here, I might lock the door. I’m trying to be saved here. Leave me in peace, if you don’t want to be around that, or honor it.

To those I’ve offended, I apologize. I have no doubt that I sometimes ignore the worthy, flame the innocent, and promote the obnoxious. If you can’t think of times I’ve done so, I can. I am guilty, and beg your forgiveness, and your prayers, so that I can be saved by them, unworthy as I am.