Monday, May 22, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
Weekeend Retreat
(or, as Leonard Sweet says, an "advance")
We'll be heading up to Fredricksburg this weekend for our end-of-the-year retreat. The goal is to put a nice book end on the time that we have spent together in community thus far by filtering down those things that we would like to pen for our Vow and Rule.
We have purposefully NOT done those things until we have lived together for an entire year (which we have!), in order to use our experience as the appropriate litmus of who we really are and want to become.
If you think of us, please pray for the Spirit's clear presence and direction...
We'll be heading up to Fredricksburg this weekend for our end-of-the-year retreat. The goal is to put a nice book end on the time that we have spent together in community thus far by filtering down those things that we would like to pen for our Vow and Rule.
We have purposefully NOT done those things until we have lived together for an entire year (which we have!), in order to use our experience as the appropriate litmus of who we really are and want to become.
If you think of us, please pray for the Spirit's clear presence and direction...
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Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop and Theologian
There is a traditional list of eight great Doctors (Teachers, Theologians) of the ancient Church. It lists four Western (Latin) Doctors -- Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome of Strido, and Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I) -- and four Eastern (Greek) Doctors -- Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom of Antioch and Constantinople, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus (also called Gregory Nazianzen).
Gregory of Nazianzus, his friend Basil the Great, and Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa, are jointly known as the Cappadocian
Fathers (Cappadocia is a region in what is now Central Turkey).
In 379, after the death of the Arian Emperor Valens, Gregory was asked to go to Constantinople to preach there. For thirty years, the city had been controlled by Arians or pagans, and the orthodox did not even have a church there. Gregory went. He converted his own house there into a church and held services in it. There he preached the Five Theological Orations for which he is best known, a series of five sermons on the Trinity and in defense of the deity of Christ. People flocked to hear him preach, and the city was largely won over to the Athanasian (Trinitarian, catholic, orthodox) position by his powers of persuasion. The following year, he was consecrated bishop of Constantinople.
More information at dinner. We’re having chicken with a Turkish marinade, rice, and salad. If anyone wants to help grill the chicken around 6, I'd appreciate it. : )
Gregory of Nazianzus, his friend Basil the Great, and Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa, are jointly known as the Cappadocian
Fathers (Cappadocia is a region in what is now Central Turkey).
In 379, after the death of the Arian Emperor Valens, Gregory was asked to go to Constantinople to preach there. For thirty years, the city had been controlled by Arians or pagans, and the orthodox did not even have a church there. Gregory went. He converted his own house there into a church and held services in it. There he preached the Five Theological Orations for which he is best known, a series of five sermons on the Trinity and in defense of the deity of Christ. People flocked to hear him preach, and the city was largely won over to the Athanasian (Trinitarian, catholic, orthodox) position by his powers of persuasion. The following year, he was consecrated bishop of Constantinople.
More information at dinner. We’re having chicken with a Turkish marinade, rice, and salad. If anyone wants to help grill the chicken around 6, I'd appreciate it. : )
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Monday, May 08, 2006
Dame Julian of Norwich
Julian received 16 "showings" or visions. One of the loveliest stories from Julian's collection of visions involves a point where she was asked to hold something little, no bigger than a hazelnut. When she asks God what this is, she is told "It is all that exists." She marvels that this thing could even continue to exist, so small and delicate. She then realizes the reason the universe continues to exist is because "God made it, God loves it, and God keeps it." This sums up Julian's optimistic, visionary theology -- a theology where the love of God is expressed not in terms of law and duty, but in terms of joy and heartfelt compassion.
Biographical info to be shared over dinner . . .
Biographical info to be shared over dinner . . .
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Thursday, May 04, 2006
a night in tunisia
Monnica
MOTHER OF AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (4 MAY 387)
Tonight we honor Monnica the mother of Augustine of Hippo. We don't know much about her, but we do know that she prayed tirelessly for the salvation of her son and died shortly after his conversion.
We are inspired by her dedication and hope and faith in God, but also her belief that the Father listens to his children.
We know about Monnica almost entirely from the autobiography (the Confessions) of her son Augustine, a major Christian writer, theologian and philosopher (see 28 August). Monnica was born in North Africa, near Carthage, in what is now Tunisia, perhaps around 331, of Christian parents, and was a Christian throughout her life. Her name has usually been spelled "Monica," but recently her tomb in Ostia was discovered, and the burial inscription says "Monnica," a spelling which all AC (Archaeologically Correct) persons have hastened to adopt. (On the other hand, it may simply be that the artisan who carved the inscription was a bad speller.) As a girl, she was fond of wine, but on one occasion was taunted by a slave girl for drunkenness, and resolved not to drink thereafter. She was married to a pagan husband, Patricius, a man of hot temper, who was often unfaithful to her, but never insulted or struck her. It was her happiness to see both him and his mother ultimately receive the Gospel.
Monnica soon recognized that her son was a man of extraordinary intellectual gifts, a brilliant thinker and a natural leader of men (as a youngster he was head of a local gang of juvenile delinquents), and she had strong ambitions and high hopes for his success in a secular career. Indeed, though we do not know all the circumstances, most Christians today would say that her efforts to steer him into a socially advantageous marriage were in every way a disaster. However, she grew in spiritual maturity through a life of prayer, and her ambitions for his worldly success were transformed into a desire for his conversion. He, as a youth, rejected her religion with scorn, and looked to various pagan philosophies for clues to the meaning of life. He undertook a career as an orator and teacher of the art of oratory (rhetoric), and moved from Africa to Rome and thence to Milan, at that time the seat of government in Italy. His mother followed him there a few years later. In Milan, Augustine met the bishop Ambrose, from whom he learned that Christianity could be intellectually respectable, and under whose preaching he was eventually converted and baptised on Easter Eve in 387, to the great joy of Monnica.
After his baptism, Augustine and a younger brother Navigius and Monnica planned to return to Africa together, but in Ostia, the port city of Rome, Monnica fell ill and said, "You will bury your mother here. All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord. Do not fret because I am buried far from our home in Africa. Nothing is far from God, and I have no fear that he will not know where to find me, when he comes to raise me to life at the end of the world."
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Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Unexpectedly Festive Feast for Athanasius
Tonight was a rare one, indeed, as not only our entire household was present, but those that will be moving in very shortly were all here, too. In addition, Andy's parents from the UK were our special guests, as was my buddy Callaway. [Methinks this would be a good time to announce that Andy Dollerson is the newest addition to the Abbey, having moved in 3ish weeks ago. You can check out his new blog here.]
Seeing as how it is the feast day for Athanasius (at least in the RC tradition), I attempted an Egyptianesque meal: shiskabobs with a middle eastern dry rub, hummus and pita, couscous with homegrown mint, followed by fruit pastries for dessert. [It is becoming reduntant, yet necessary, to thank - once again - the beloved Jolie for purchasing most of the ingredients and preparing them while I was at work. Handclap praises as well for Angelic (will move in next month) for single-handedly cooking the couscous and Tinamarie (will also move in next month) for brewing the tea.]
On to Athanasius.
I was deeply struck by the complexities of today's story. Athanasius' life is lived amidst numerous world-altering shifts - Christianity goes from marginal and persecuted to central and empowered. There is time to develop doctrines, and the fighting turns inward as various positions attempt to claim "orthodoxy." Athanasius becomes the "black dwarf" as a deacon at the Council of Nicea that gains the attention of those present with his rhetoric and zeal. Shortly thereafter he reluctantly accepts the bishopship at Alexandria, after attempting to hide out among the Dessert Fathers. He takes fighting the Arian heresy extremely seriously, and he is widely considered the greatest threat to the survival of Arian views. He moves in and out of Alexandria like a ping pong ball, as various emperors and bishops side with the Nicenes or the Arians and he is therefore either exiled or allowed to return, depending upon the sympathies of the current leadership. He lives like a dessert monk - at least in terms of having a strict life of discipline and asceticism and authenticity. Yet he is also prone to using violent and fundamentalist means in order to squelch the threat of Arianism. In addition, he is the first to list the books that are now considered inspired in the New Testament. He is a prototype in his development of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the nature of Jesus in relation to the Father. And, perhaps most importantly for us Abbey-types, he is largely responsible for the global awareness of monasticism through his highly-read account, The Life of Antony.
Seeing as how it is the feast day for Athanasius (at least in the RC tradition), I attempted an Egyptianesque meal: shiskabobs with a middle eastern dry rub, hummus and pita, couscous with homegrown mint, followed by fruit pastries for dessert. [It is becoming reduntant, yet necessary, to thank - once again - the beloved Jolie for purchasing most of the ingredients and preparing them while I was at work. Handclap praises as well for Angelic (will move in next month) for single-handedly cooking the couscous and Tinamarie (will also move in next month) for brewing the tea.]
On to Athanasius.
I was deeply struck by the complexities of today's story. Athanasius' life is lived amidst numerous world-altering shifts - Christianity goes from marginal and persecuted to central and empowered. There is time to develop doctrines, and the fighting turns inward as various positions attempt to claim "orthodoxy." Athanasius becomes the "black dwarf" as a deacon at the Council of Nicea that gains the attention of those present with his rhetoric and zeal. Shortly thereafter he reluctantly accepts the bishopship at Alexandria, after attempting to hide out among the Dessert Fathers. He takes fighting the Arian heresy extremely seriously, and he is widely considered the greatest threat to the survival of Arian views. He moves in and out of Alexandria like a ping pong ball, as various emperors and bishops side with the Nicenes or the Arians and he is therefore either exiled or allowed to return, depending upon the sympathies of the current leadership. He lives like a dessert monk - at least in terms of having a strict life of discipline and asceticism and authenticity. Yet he is also prone to using violent and fundamentalist means in order to squelch the threat of Arianism. In addition, he is the first to list the books that are now considered inspired in the New Testament. He is a prototype in his development of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the nature of Jesus in relation to the Father. And, perhaps most importantly for us Abbey-types, he is largely responsible for the global awareness of monasticism through his highly-read account, The Life of Antony.
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