My Disgust with Ecumenism and a Resolution (Rant)

As a Byzantine Catholic I find myself highly concerned with Catholic-Orthodox relations, which only makes sense. I am an Orthodox in communion with Rome, it would be good to know when I get to rejoin my Orthodox brethren! And the only way to get this to happen is to hit people at the ground level and help them understand from where the West and East come from, in as charitable a way as humanly possible. With that in mind, I recently joined an ecumenical Facebook group to see what people were discussing and its...

Discouraging is an understatement. The arguments are about who's right and who's wrong, which is exactly the wrong way to go about it. You wouldn't do that in a friendship, would you? You wouldn't go and tell someone that the entire way they've come to live is wrong if they're your friend, right? You would try and understand why they think so differently, and how it might benefit them, before you open your mouth. If you lay blame in a marriage often enough it's going to just destroy the relationship. These are basic human principles that we can all agree to?

SO WHY THE HELL DOES IT SEEM TO BE THE EXCEPTION FOR A GROUP THAT CLAIMS TO BE ECUMENICAL?

Trust me, I'd understand a little more friction in a Hindu-Christian ecumenical group. Those two groups really don't have all that much to discuss without coming to blows. But the holy, apostolic, and catholic Church? We are ONE body! ONE! But instead we let the cancer of our preconceptions and past experiences get in the way of what we're supposed to be doing, which is healing the greatest cause of scandal we have! We have an incredible amount of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it in, and we sit around bickering about whose theology goes which way when I can guarantee that most of the people making these comments have done no serious amounts of studying?

Well, if you want change, be that frickin' change. From here on out I resolve to know East and West like the back of my hand. I want everyone reading this post who has a book or a source they think is relevant to either East or West to post it up on here or on the Facebook link. Doctrinal explanation, mysticism, apologetics, doesn't matter. Someone has to read the information and get it out there for people to read, and it may as well be me! 

Trigun

SPOILERS AHEAD! Well, not really...

  

Gosh, this show took me a long time to finish. I'd watched the show's first 10 episodes about a year or so ago and then... well.. I don't know what happened. I was watching other anime, writing The School's Trees, mourning the death of my grandma, whatever the reasons were, it just amounts to this: I stopped watching.  But Carpe kept insisting that I watch the show, so I kept holding it off. I was going to get to it! Just when I felt like it, that's all. Well, I finally watched it and am done. What did I think? 

I definitely need to see this again.

I have a lot that I want to say about this show,   really do, but when I sit down to write I find that I am at a loss for words. This show covers so much in such a short time that it's a bit mind boggling to put down all my thoughts into one short review. There are tons of themes, questions, answers, all swirling around the characters who embody and channel them. I could go on and on about how Christian this show is, how full of G. K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and anyone whose thought actually matters is in here! I could go on and on. I really could, and someday I might. But, for now, all that needs to be said is this:

Trigun is a show about faith, hope, and love. Watch it if you want to see these things. If you don't, you're not human and need to leave the planet. Like, now.

Me? I'm gonna go and watch this show again. Oh, and listen to this song:



THIS WORLD IS MADE OF LOVE AND PEACE!

The School's Trees: On Pessimism and Clannad

As most people who read this blog know, I used to write and lead a blog called The School's Trees, which is about the TV shows Clannad and Clannad: Afterstory (one of the writers was Carpe Guitarrem, whose blog I suggest checking out, if you love RPGs). I've said repeatedly this is my favorite show of all time. I've now watched the show 9(!) times, and consider it part of the reawakening of my Christianity; a vital part of who I am was formed watching this show. I'm one of those nuts who thinks that people should watch good TV shows, and I heartily recommend what I think is the best of the best. So of course I recommend Clannad to people, and most of the time I get a "the scruffy hobbit with a foul mouth just recommended something to me and said it was really good, I'll pass" look.

But sometimes someone decides to take me up on my offer, albeit with the same look on their face. Two of my friends finished watching the show this Sunday while I was completing an icon of the Resurrection (which is amazing, I'll get a pic uploaded for ya'll later!). One of the friends (we'll call her Mary) loved the show, as well as the ending. I don't know if she "got" it, but I don't think anyone fully gets the ending of this show the first, second, or even third time around. But my other friend (we'll call him Raphael), didn't like the end. When I asked Raphael why he didn't he said that the show had been set up for tragedy since the beginning. I told him that wasn't so, and he looked at me like I was a bit nutty. Which is understandable, I suppose. There are warning signs. But I told him that there had been indications that the ending was going to be happy, that things would end well for Tomoya.

Then he looked at me like I was a real nutcase; that took me aback. I told him to watch it again, and that he could borrow my DVDs if he wished. But that look's stuck with me, and here I am trying to write about it. Because I know I would have given that same look to anyone who had told me that after watching the show for the first time. I went and watched it again, not because I liked the ending, but the exact opposite: I hated the ending, but loved the show so much that I figured I had to have missed something. A show that's this amazing doesn't screw up like this at the end.

I found out that I was right.

I had completely glossed over every single time the writers had foreshadowed that goodness was at the end of this show. It wasn't even that I ignored it, it had completely gone over my head. I had found all the workings of a tragedy, so that's what I focused on, I let situation blindness get to me, and only looked for what I wanted to find. It was then that I realized something really awful.

I wanted Tomoya to fail. And why shouldn't I? Why should Tomoya get a loved one back when I can't? I don't have an orb of light, children really aren't made of light orbs, wishes usually aren't granted like that, and damnit to hell that's just unreal! I wanted Tomoya to move on, marry Kyou, and be in the same sobering and depressing reality that I live in: that we can't get what we want, but must settle for something else. That'll shut him up, having to labor in a life that's the second choice that's... wait...

I love my life. I'm in a good place, and have everything that I could possibly want and more. I'm doing art and enjoying it for the first time in years. My iconography is finally becoming what I'd always wanted it to be: a personal source of inspiration, giving, healing, and love. I have an amazing girlfriend, someone who came up and out my childhood in a story of hope and love that would put this show to shame. I have friends who I could whistle for and they'd help me. I have an amazing family. All against odds that really are a snowball's chance in hell.

Everything I've asked for I've received, and then some.

So what am I so bitter about?

And that's just it. That's the joke. There's nothing right now that I'm in want for.

Nothing.

Absolutely. Frickin. Nothing.

Well, a car would be nice... a teleporter machine, if I could get my hands on it.

Anyway.

I don't think I've ever asked for a miracle that bends the laws of physics, time and space, so why should I get one? I don't need something like that, and I don't know of anyone who does. And the only people I know of who have gotten such a wish got it because they needed it. A widow had her son returned to her, people die for over an hour, see Heaven, and come back home. The largest religion in the history of the world teaches that we get our bodies back at the end of time because they're so fundamental  to our existence that even God won't let us go without them long.

Come to think of it, reality's a pretty nice place to be! The people who need stuff have it given to them in the time it's needed, in the right amount. As a Christian that's my avowed creed, something that I profess every single day in the Nicene Creed, every Sunday with a whole bunch of people I don't know but am brother to. We get what we need, God sees to that. He is good.

So why be so jaded about Tomoya? He asked, he got. So have I. So did the widow. So did the centurion. So did Francis of Assisi, Peter the Apostle, Saint Padre Pio, Saint Seraphim Rose, Saint Photini, my father, my mother, my girlfriend, my friends at Franciscan, Benedictine, wherever, and whoever's reading this post, even if they don't realize it. We've all got what we need.

So why does it bother us that Tomoya got his wish?

On Vocation

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

vo·ca·tion

 (From dictionary.com) 

–noun

1.

a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling.

2.

a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career.

3.

a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life.

I usually have an issue with dictionaries. They manage to say exactly what the word is while ignoring what the word's about, and the dictionary manages to botch it up yet again. Yes, all three of those definitions are true, and are even satisfactory. But they're just not cutting it for me at the moment. They're too cut and dry.

The last few weeks have been filled with a lot of "what am I going to do?", far more than I 'd like to admit to anyone. For the last six years I'd sought being a professional iconographer as my vocation. I worked my rear end off on doing icons, and I had one particular place in mind: Eikona Studios. I love their work, and thought that maybe I could be one of them. So when I managed (by sheer dumb luck) to get an internship to Eikona I should have been excited. And I was. Sort of. Somewhere, deep down in my heart, I was terrified. I knew that I wasn't a very good artist, and that I hated turning my work into a business. While the money was nice it was the actual act of making contracts and doing the things that are necessary for making a business that repulsed me. I also hadn't been able to take an art class until the Spring Semester of this year, and I knew that was going to show up. But everyone around me encouraged me and told me I'd do just fine, my girlfriend in particular. She encouraged me passionately, telling me that I would do really well. So I swallowed my doubt and believed in her belief, as you sometimes have to do in this world. I went out to Cleveland to do the best job I possibly could.

Unfortunately things didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Within two weeks it was obvious that I didn't have the proper training to help people who were 30 year veterans in the field. I also had doubts that I could actually live the life that these people were living. To them Church and art was their life. The artists seemed to have nothing but each other and their art. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking that kind of life. If you can do it then by all means do so, because that's a very rewarding and awesome life. But for me? I wasn't so sure. I'm dating an awesome girl, and I have a policy about letting people whom I love and are good for me go: I don't. It's as simple as that. Words and ideas are not the most forgiving things, nor the most loving. Unfortunately I find the same applies to art. Can art be there for... whatever? Nope, and it's not supposed to be. Ultimately it all boiled down to my wish to be with this girl.

The combination of my lack of training and "drive to live the life" stressed me out, and so when some of my friends from Steubenville traveled up to visit I jumped at the chance to hang out and be a nerd for awhile (much to the chagrin of half the group, oops!). Saturday night came, and we drank a bit, which I swear is the male equivalent of getting a pedicure. I mean, what do you do? You sit around and talk and be stupid because you're getting drunk, much how women sit around and talk cause they're getting their nails done. It was pretty obvious that I was depressed, and so after a couple of attempts to get me to talk about what was going on I told them what my concerns were. Fortunately these friends have nothing short of common sense. They told me that if I really doubted I could live the life that my idols lived then I shouldn't, but should find something else to do. After thinking about their advice I told them they were right. I would finish out the internship and find something else to do.

The morning I went back to work was a good one. I'd called my girlfriend, assuming that she'd be up, and wound up waking her up. We had a really good talk, and I walked to work very happy. The sun was out, and that day was one of the most beautiful I'd noticed in a very long time. It was something out of an impressionistic painting, what with all the colors and the swirls and the movement and the vibrancy of life. I walked into the studio, and talked with a few people, cracking joking and enjoying being around them.

That's when I was reminded of my two-week evaluation.

Now, to be fair, it had completely slipped my mind. So my surprise really wasn't warranted; I'd been told about it in the contract I'd signed and everything. It wasn't something that I should have forgotten about. But I had. So I sat downstairs and waited for the judgment, a bit of a pit in my stomach. I knew what decision I'd made if I was in their position: I'd let me go, on the basis of not having enough training. That put a bit of a lump in my throat to go along with the pit in my stomach. I liked being around these people, and I liked the work. I didn't want to leave. But if I was them I'd fire me.

And they did.

I've met some bosses who were absolute jerks about firing people (not that I'd been fired before, understand). This was just the opposite. They were extremely gentle and kind, and sent me off as if I was going away for a long trip that they expected to see me come back from. It was all very humbling , that these people would show as much consideration as they did for me was nothing short of awe-inspiring, and I shan't forget it anytime soon. Hell, they even offered to pay for me to get back to Chicago! They also told me to not take this as a failure, that as soon as I had more training they really wanted to work with me again. That I shouldn't give up, and they wanted to see me again.

But I wasn't giving up. I had seen what vocation was, and I knew that professional iconography wasn't it for me. What is a vocation? Hell if I can put it into words. As verbal as I am I know that some things take years to fight and deeply love to put into words, and the concept and soul behind vocation is one of them. But I know this: it's something far simpler and complex than the definitions from dictionary.com.

On God and Sexuality: When I Was 15 (Pornography Part 1)

In typical fashion my sense of humor can be rather targeting. For those of you who are in the group of people that I targeted and think that I'm wrong, please prove it. I can guarantee that almost all of you can't, and that my remarks are, again, as self deprecating as they are accurate.

Porn... what the hell am I supposed to say about it? Some people think it's of the devil, some think it's a God-send to their pitifully lonely existence, some think it's normal, and a growing number of people keep putting it into their movies (Zach Snyder, I'm lookin' at you, you stupid douche of a director.), so it's obviously not something we can ignore. What do I think? I'm with the people who think it's of the devil.

Let me explain.

At the age of 15 I developed an addiction to pornography. Yeah, t'was a typical "I'm-lonely-and-need-something-to do" phase, like most of the people I know who start up on porn. It was all well and good, I suppose. Beautiful women that are naked are beautiful women that are naked. So that part worked out OK. But, good ole Catholic guilt kicked in. I knew what the Catholic Church said. Any teenaged male with a brain (the minority, I can assure you) knows. So I felt guilty, and so I confessed it to my priest.

His suggestion? Take a figure drawing class.

Now, for those of you who don't know what figure drawing is, that's where a naked person sits in the middle of a room, and people draw the naked person.

In other words, my mother freaked out. Oh, you should have heard the ruckus on that one. Mothers.

But Father was insistent. Far more than insistent, actually. I'm going to invent a word and say commandful. Yeah, I know I could have said commanding. No, I didn't feel like it. Anyway, off I went to take life drawing classes. At the age of fifteen. Was it weird drawing what I normally jerked off to? Well, yeah, duh. But I kept trying, and a funny thing happened. I began to hate porn. It was so...inaccurate. Actually, way too inaccurate. I'm sorry, lonely men, but women do NOT look like that. I took the class again a few years later, and that finished it off. It's actually impossible for me to be aroused by porn for longer than it takes for me to think. Videos are a problem, of course, but pictures? Not really. Does this get rid of my lust, or even my desire? Hell no, you crazy? I'm 22, zero desire is biologically impossible (sorry, Buddhism). But it certainly did help me realize one thing.

Pornography is not reality. And, as an intuitive, I can use all the reality I can get.

Thoughts on God and Sexuality, Part 1-God

This post has elements of sarcasm and cutting humor, most of which (if you don't have a sense of humor) will horribly offend the people it's poked at. To those people who are offended, please be consoled by the fact that I'm a 22 year old man sitting in his parent's house while his friends are off galavanting around without him because he's a stick in the mud. If you can picture me sitting here depressed from missing his girlfriend and wishing he had more friends around then you should get the delicious irony of my statements, and laugh along with me. If you can't, well, go get a life.

To those of you who know me, I can probably read what you're thinking just about... now: Oh no, not ANOTHER rant from Nathan about something that he's talked himself hoarse about. I think I'll just tune him out. Naw, not quite. While I am infamous for linking God and sexuality in long-winded, sometimes scandalous speeches this is a bit different. Nate, the TITLE of your post says "Thoughts on God and Sexuality". How's that different? Time, my dear friends, time. It's been a long time since I've given my thoughts on this stuff, and even longer since I've last read anything Theology of the Body-related. The last year has given me a whole host of experiences, which I'm reflecting upon here in this blog. The last year hasn't changed anything, just given me a new way to look at it. In this little series I'm hoping to finally lock down thoughts of mine that have been racing through my mind for the past year. This is the first time the vast majority of you who know me have ever heard me say what I'm saying here, and possibly the first time any of my readers have thought about any of this stuff.

For the rest of you, who don't know me personally? Just sit back and relax, and be glad that you're only reading about my perspective on this stuff now. All you need to know now is that this is a series about God and His images, us, in the style of Theology of the Body. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Theology of the Body, it's a series of reflections authored by the late John Paul the Great, who linked the human body and sexuality to God. Theology of the Body taught that our very bodies and the way they operate is a sign of God, a visible sacrament. I was taught Theology of the Body at the tender (and not so innocent) age of 15 by Father Tom Loya, who learned directly from John Paul himself. To be honest, I believed what John Paul said from the moment I heard it. Something about it clicked in my soul and I knew that this was part of the answer that I'd been looking for. I'd been bullied a lot as a kid, and was taught Muay Thai at 12 to help me combat the people who were constantly attacking me. It was supposed to give me a backbone (I had never willingly hit or swore at anyone before) and discipline. It sorta worked. I wound up suppressing the first three months of actual training and walked out with the trademark mouth that most of my friends know me by now. Before Muay Thai I'd had a difficult time understanding intimacy and closeness, and being constantly forced to hit and be hit by people that cared for me did nothing to help my confusion. Theology of the Body felt like something that would teach me the reality and intimacy that I'd been needing so badly. This was my ticket out of my misery.

Well, sorta. You can lead a dog to the water but you can't get him to drink of it himself. I wound up only half absorbing the things I learned and came out with a strange vision of Theology of the Body not all that far from Christopher West's old views, which is not helpful to a teenaged boy. But time passes, and I'm 22 now. That means I've had 7 years of living, praying, arguing, quarreling, and sinning to reflect upon what I was taught. This is the philosophy that I've come synthesize from what I've heard. I can't guarantee to be correct, pure, or even sane, or even to have all the facts. I don't think anyone who has a blog or a collar can, it's not a luxury that can be afforded. But I can guarantee that this is truly what I think , and that if anything can be awarded to me it's my attempts to be sincere.

Now let's get started (Took ya long enough, didn't it???)

All things come from God, and therefore should be traced back to Him. Like any artist God has put reflections of Himself into His work. These reflections are not 100% accurate (like all artistic reflections) but they do exist. I'm thoroughly convinced that the sun's rising has something to do with the Father's begetting of the Son, for instance. How does that work? I have no idea, it's an intuitive sense that I have. Go ahead, call me nuts. But have the decency to call the crackpots known as author's historians, who seem to think that author's write their issues into their novels (like the people who seem to think that Dracula is about sensual evil in Victorian times. If these people had actually read the book they'd know this isn't true. But I digress) Suffice to say, if you don't have a monotheistic and Trinitarian view of the world then these essays are of no use to you. You won't find anything that will work, because you don't have the proper worldview to absorb my ideas. So, if that's the case, read on with that knowledge. Or go become Christian (that's probably the better of the options. But whatever).

What follows is my view of God, drawn as closely as possible from the Holy Fathers of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. If something in the Ecumenical Councils is stated it's held up as law in my worldview, and so what I say here is with that in mind. If I contradict

I apologize, it wasn't the intention. Without the following paragraphs none of my following posts will make much sense, and I heartily recommend referring back to the next few paragraphs while reading this series to keep the context fresh.

God is a community of three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. God is, Himself, a family. TheFather begets the Son and then makes the Spirit proceed through the Son. Thus saith The (Western) Creed and the Scriptures. To hopelessly steal from Scheed (Theology and Sanity) the Father, in self reflecting, begets the Son. The Father then loves the Son, Who returns this Love, which is the Holy Spirit. And thus the Holy Trinity has existed from whenever. Our most normal thing (a family) is a reflection of God Himself, and always has been.

God is holy. I think we've butchered that word, resurrected it, and then re-butchered it. When we hear the word holy these days we think of those stupid Puritans who thought that our bodies are evil and we should be in church all the time (to those people who are like that and married I respectfully tell them to go get drunk and have sex with their spouses more often, from what I hear it's a good deal of fun, regardless of whether you combine the activities or not). Actually, that's not really what the word means. The word holy means set apart, special. Unique. Something totally different and incomparable. When the seraphim sing "Holy! Holy! Holy!" I always think "Unique! Unique! Unique!"(and suppress the temptation to add "New York" in my head...) This is possibly the most important part that I think we've forgotten in these days that no one thinks are as good as the McCarthy era. God is unique.

We are like God, not the other way around. This one's pretty simple. Instead of saying that God is anthropomorphized (made in our image) we are divinized (made in God's image). Everything we do is in imitation of God somehow. This includes our sexual organs and desires, which are reflections of the Trinity. Remember that when I say reflection I mean it in the same way that an artist's personality and passions are reflected in his work. It's not necessarily direct, or even all the way intact, and in some cases it's not even rational. But it's there none-the-less, and we should pay attention to it. Our free will allows us to imitate these qualities of God, and since we are like Him, logically speaking it's a good idea to act as true to our nature as possible, and imitate God as closely as we can. For when God is glorified so are we.

Our purpose (on this earth and in the next world) is to glorify God with every thought, word, and deed that comes through us. We are God's creatures and should act in a manner that agrees with who God is and what God does. Otherwise it's just not a very nice painting, now is it? To do things out of line with God's will is to contradict your point of existence as a being.

Those are my four paragraphs. Short, sweet, and to the point (unlike the rest of my writing). In the following weeks I'm going to comment on the following topics with these three paragraphs in mind:

Pornography

Masturbation

Fornication

Homosexual Actions

You ready? Good. Get ready next week, for my thoughts on Pornography. Keep something in mind for next week: is nudity itself all that sinful? If so, then why's there a statue of two naked people kissing at the top of this post?