“Bush Vetoes Bill Banning Waterboarding”

Normally, I like to not be in “first-person singular” when I type these things, but this is something I feel strongly about.  First, read the following article from CNN.com:  ”Bush Vetoes Bill Banning Waterboarding“.  It should open either in a new tab or a new window.

Now, think about this from a Christian perspective, which Pres. Bush claims to have.  In my opinion, condoning torture for any reason is not a particularly Christian thing to do.  It is the opposite or absence of love to allow torture.  It is the same to condone the use of torture for any reason.

It is still possible for the Congress to garner the 2/3 majority it needs to make the bill a law.  Who would oversee its enforcement, though?  The CIA is an independent organization responsible only to the President of the United States.  It is not beholden to any Department or any other agency.  It is a member of the Intelligence Community, and its director is the head of that community with the President and National Security Advisor.  I’m not speaking out of paranoia.  I have done plenty of research on the Intelligence Community.

The point is, since the CIA isn’t held responsible in the bureaucracy, how can Congress hold them to the law?  They haven’t been able to do it yet.  The courts haven’t been able to do it.  The CIA gets away with so much… The destruction of video recordings, though they get away with it because they indicate that they were from before whatever subpoena was issued.  Even if they destroyed evidence after the subpoena, they would get away with it.  Sadly, it’s how things work.

Write to your congressmen and representatives.  Let them know how much you want the bill Pres. Bush vetoed to be signed into law.  Let them know you want a provision for holding the CIA accountable.

I close with a quote of Benjamin Franklin, as taken from WikiQuote.org: Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Apply that as you will to what’s going on.

Shine

“Let your light so shine before all men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” — Matthew 5:16 (NKJV, Orthodox Study Bible)

“Shine / Let ‘em wonder what you’ve got / Make ‘em wish that they were not / On the outside lookin’ bored / Shine / Let it shine before all men / Let ‘em see good works, and then / Let ‘em glorify the Lord.”

– the chorus to “Shine”by Newsboys

 

A venerable father and a disciple were walking and talking. The disciple asked the venerable father how one recognized other Christians. The venerable father then glowed with the light of the Holy Spirit such that the disciple was dazzled by it. When the disciple asked about it, the said something like, “We all look like this.” — Paraphrased story from a saint’s life (just whose escapes me now).

 

Lately I have been in talks and conversations I really needed to be in. Normally I won’t speak much of myself in these articles, but a lot of things have been personal lately. The basic concept(s): Worry more about your own salvation; don’t think of trying to save the world first; if you work on your salvation, it’s possible for a thousand others to follow. To compound this, this past Sunday’s Bible study before Divine Liturgy was devoted to James 2, which talks about faith and works.  The important section from the Orthodox Study Bible (NKJV) is below.

“If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?  Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’  Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.  You believe that there is one God.  You do well.  Even the demons believe–and tremble!  But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?  Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? … For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” — James 2:15-22, 26

I’ll leave you with all of the above passages to think about.  Remember, have faith, but you’ve got to let people see it.

 Peace, and cheers,

 Brandon Pisani

Hollow-e’en

Today is 30 October.  Tomorrow is 31 October, and the day known in most of the English-speaking world as Halloween.  Halloween is a Celtic polytheist traditional holiday dating back into Celtic pre-history.  The Gaelic word is Samhain, and it’s the day when the Otherworld and the Living World occupy the same place in space-time.  The tradition of dressing up is manifold, but mostly to honor the denizens of the Otherworld (the dead and the supernatural beings) and to disguise oneself as a denizen of the Otherworld so one wouldn’t be carried away.  Normally the latter applied to the children, but varying stories provide varying tastes among Otherworlders.  Beyond that, it was also a harvest festival, celebrating the end of a bountiful harvest.  November 1 is also the Celtic New Year, so it’s also the big party we do now on 31 December.  More and better information can be found at Living Myths.  It’s become an incredibly hollow “holiday,” though.

So, why all the fuss now?  Because it was an excuse to party then, and is an excuse to party now.  We in the U, feel that it’s fun to take our kids around in some costume to get candy, and the kids enjoy getting the candy.  This, of course, leads to what our current culture loves:  mass marketing.  We love it so much that Christmas Seasonal merchandise is already on the shelves in many stores.  Because of the original auspices of the “holiday,” as well as all the attempts at frightening the snot out of each other, urban legends have cropped up regarding it, too, like razor blades and needles in brownies and candy apples.

Please, don’t think I’m saying things against Halloween because I’m anti-fun.  I’m completely in favor of having fun.  Give candy to kids?  Absolutely.  Dress them up?  Why not?  Do it in the spirit of a pagan festival celebrating the new year and the conjunction of the realms of the living and the dead?  Absolutely NOT!  There are plenty of alternatives that churches around the country are doing.  Here in East Tennessee, many Baptist churches are doing a SHINE Halloween Alternative event.  The Catholic church near where I live did a “Pumpkin Party” this past weekend.  A lot of churches, too, are doing “Trunk or Treat,” as a safe version of “trick-or-treating”.

“Trick-or-treat”, by the way, means “I can play a trick on you, or you can give me a treat.”  Playing a trick here means to cast a spell.  This is certainly not a Christian thing to do.

Please, find something else to do this 31 October.  I would be more in favor of  ignoring Halloween than giving it credence by having an alternative.  Since it’s on a Wednesday night this year, I’ll be at Vespers and won’t be home for “trick-or-treaters”.  If you’re Catholic, hopefully know that (not incoincidentally, I believe) 1 November is the feast of All Saints and 2 November is the feast of All Souls, the former being a Holy Day of Obligation.  These feasts are not celebrated by the Orthodox churches.  Note:  31 October is not listed as any special feast day on either the Western or Eastern church calendars.

Just some things to think about.

Peace and cheers,

Brandon Pisani

My Memory is Slipping

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Mark 14:22-26 (NKJV)

Priest: [...]On the night when He was delivered up, or rather when He gave Himself up for the life of the world, He took bread in His holy, pure, and blameless hands, gave thanks, blessed, sanctified, broke and gave it to His holy disciples and apostles, saying: Take, eat, this is my Body which is broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.
People: Amen.
Priest: Likewise, after supper, He took the cup, saying: Drink of it all of you; this is my Blood of the new Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
People: Amen

From the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

The first part is something common to most of the communion ceremonies I’ve been in. The second, which draws on the first and its brother passages in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, is how Byzantine Rite Christians say it. I say Byzantine Rite here because the same Divine Liturgy is used in both Eastern (Byzantine) Rite Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy. It is only in the Gospel of St. Luke and St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians that the phrase approximating “do this in memory of me” occurs. St. Luke probably heard St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s versions of the story and wrote his Gospel by what they told him. So, why is this missing?

I think it’s understood, especially in the Orthodox Christian context, and can be confusing if added. One version, the version I was taught in the Baptist church when growing up, holds that we take communion just to remember the fact that Jesus Christ is our focus. In fact, most Baptist churches only have communion service once a quarter (4 times a year) and usually in the evening. In the Orthodox context, it’s more than just remembering the man Jesus Christ. It is an honoring of His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and everything about Him. It isn’t just keeping Him in mind, either, it’s partaking of His body and blood.

Don’t think that this means cannibalism or any such thing. There are two words that have cropped up in Western Christianity concerning the Eucharist (communion): transubstantiation and consubstantiation. These words don’t enter into an Orthodox Christian’s vocabulary concerning Eucharist. (Transubstantiation is the belief that the consecrated bread and wine physically change into flesh and blood. Consubstantiation is that it’s a symbol and nothing more.) To an Orthodox Christian, the Lamb (the bread) and the Blood (wine with boiling water) will, in an earthly context, always be bread and wine and water. If, God forbid, you were to take it out of our stomachs and chemically examine it, it will still be bread, wine, and water. Spiritually, though — in a Heavenly context, if you will, — it is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is why we call it a “sacrament” or a “mystery.” These two words mean the same thing, just one’s a Latin root and the other is a Greek root.

The Eucharist is prefigured a couple of times in the Gospels(feeding of 5000, feeding of 4000, and one or two others), and mentioned a few other times in the Acts and the epistles, and, for those of you into Patristics, the Didache and the Apostolic Fathers’ writings. So, it isn’t a matter of doing this to remember him, but to actually partake in a mystery of the Church. It isn’t a memorial. The Eucharist is giving thanks, breaking bread, sharing a common cup, and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Peace.

Web sites used: BibleGateway.com, OrthodoxWiki.com, and Dictionary.com

Pass the Peace, Please

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” – John 14:27 (NKJV)

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:4-7 (NKJV, emphasis added by author)

It is hard in this life to find peace, especially since we’re all so busy in the world. Those of us at a university or college have to deal with classes, roommates, traffic, fraternity parties, football games, street preachers, and that’s just a few. And then there are those who “work for a living”: wake up, brush teeth, shower, pour coffee, drop bagel in toaster, drop coffee on lap, change suits, pour more coffee, forget bagel, put the wife on the bus, the kids in car, and… well, you get the idea of that messed up morning. Then, with the kids, there’s the soccer/football/baseball/other sports practice, the youth group/Sunday School, the PTA meeting, Jenny’s friends’ sleep over, Johnny’s field trip to Washington, DC, and, well, it goes on. It seems like the only peace we get is in our sleep.

There are two meanings for peace here. One is peace, as in quiet solitude. It’s possible to have that in the remote corners of the library with the books on subjects no one studies because they think it’s too hard, too weird, or just too far to class; or in the dorm while the roommate’s out to one of those frat parties. The other is referenced in the Epistle above. When I was Baptist, a song I sang as a kid had a verse/chorus part that went:

I’ve got the peace that passes understanding
Down in my heart
Down in my heart
I’ve got the peace that passes understanding
Down in my hear to stay

That’s the peace of God. That’s the kind of peace Christ said He would leave with us and give to us in John’s Gospel. He didn’t say we would have quiet lives; quite the contrary. He also didn’t say that He came to bring the world to secular, religious, and military peace. In fact, He came to do quite the opposite. Matthew writes in his Gospel that Christ said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34 NKJV) I don’t mean to say that Christ is advocating violence, but that He said He wasn’t here to settle their political differences for them. He did bring them peace, and He did bring peace into the world, but that peace, the peace that passes all understanding, is a sword. This is really confusing imagery. Let me try to sum it up.

Christ came as the Redeemer, the One to Save us. He, the Son of the Living God, the Great ‘I AM,’ was manifested in a physical, human form, not to settle petty disputes between peoples and rulers. The Jews thought that was part of the job description. The Apostles, starting out, thought that was the whole of the job description (saving them from the Romans and other Gentiles). Probably the most political things He said were along the lines of his response about taxes in Matthew (22:21b NKJV), “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (More on that verse and tithing at a later date.) He came to save us from death, from evil, from sin, and, really, from ourselves.

It is part of this Saving Grace that we have a spiritual peace through Him. When the priest says, “Peace be unto you,” or some variation in the Liturgy, he isn’t saying, that quietness and un-warlike thoughts should settle on you. It’s Christ granting us spiritual peace through the priest. This is the peace we need in our daily lives. Once we have the peace of Christ, all of the other kinds of peace start falling into place.

Where can we find the peace of Christ, His spiritual peace? Anywhere you are, since we look for it from within. The best places to find it are in Scripture, in the works of the Fathers, the lives of the saints, the hymns of the church, in repentence, and in prayer. Having a family prayer corner or a family altar in the house will help, too. Having holy icons in the house can help to keep Christ in our minds. If you wear a cross, remember what it means every time you look at it, and remember Christ. We have peace in Him. Pray as often as you can, even just the Prayer of the Heart (aka “The Jesus Prayer”): “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Lord, grant us Your peace, mercy, and forgiveness. Show us your peace in forgiveness. Help us to find You in all things, and through them Your peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Guide us in Your will. Bring us closer to You, Lord. Teach us to pray, and to repent of our sins, so that they might not blind us to Your lovingkindness. By the prayers of Your holy mother, the Lady Theotokos, our holy mothers and fathers, the martyrs, confessors, and saints of your Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, have mercy on us, bless us, and grant us Your peace. In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

All verses from the Bible are New King James Version as found at The Bible Gateway. An on-line concordance at Biblos.com/BibleTab.com was used to help with references.