“The project is successful, but I have nothing to be proud of.”

You may have seen my parish in the Dallas Morning News.  They’re featuring an article and a video about the wonderful subdeacon who came to Dallas from the Ukraine to paint the walls of St. Seraphim’s Orthodox Cathedral.  Eight years later, he’s almost done.  I don’t know Vladimir well, but I am impressed with his humility, some of which comes out in the article.

An atheist, he ventured into secular landscapes and abstracts before finding a calling in iconography – the painting of religious images in what he has called the revelation of “the ultimate truth about God and man.”

“Trying to find the universal or real art, I came to church art,” Mr. Grigorenko says. “And the icons brought me to the church and to Christ.”

Eight years after he came to Dallas, Mr. Grigorenko, 43, is nearing the final strokes on a job that has drawn rave reviews.

[snip]

“It was a wonderful opportunity to finish the whole church with my own hands,” he says.

A critique?

“I feel good about the work. The project is successful,” he says point-blank. “But I have nothing to be proud of.

“The project is a work of God and me. He chose me, and I fulfilled his wish.”

Few Orthodox parishes are blessed with this wealth of artistic and theological blessings.  It is healing just to walk into St. Seraphim; healing and conducive to prayer.  The last time that I was at confession the priest pointed to an icon on the wall and offerred a couple homiletic words, words that have stuck with me.

There has been a great deal of talk about what an American Orthodoxy will look like.  Vladimir has given something tangible to the discussion.

Let God Arise!

Let God arise!

Let His enemies be scattered,

Let those who hate Him flee from before His face.

As smoke vanishes so let them vanish,

As wax melts away before the fire.

This is the day that the Lord has made,

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Christ has risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death!

Great and Holy Saturday

On Great and Holy Saturday Jesus keeps the Sabbath by resting in the tomb.

Great and Holy Friday

Today “We behold as a corpse the source of life.”

“How will I wrap my God in a winding sheet?”

A bit of poetry…

From Wendell Berry’s “How to be a Poet (to remind myself)”

…

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly.  Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obsucres the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

…

The Service of the University?

I spoke to a professor at UD about the recent article in the Dallas Morning News that drew attention to two warring parties within the University.  The Professor said that he saw the longstanding debate between the old president and the faculty not in terms of liberal or conservative, but about the role of the University in the church community.  One vision – the one that to this day has won out – is that UD should aim to be of academic excellence at the national level; appealing to thoughtful liberal arts minded folk who have some dislike the modern research University.  The other vision is one where the University is at the service of the local community; serving the needs of the lay people, many of whom are immigrants. 

I joked that the bumper sticker should read: “UD – Not for your average RCC layperson”. 

University of Dallas: A City on a Hill?

When I first arrived in Dallas and told parishoners at the cathedral that I was attending UD, the responses I got was very favorable.  One friend told me that he has been “breathing second-hand smoke from UD for decades; and it is all been good.”  Thus far my experience has been quite good; both academically and as a Christian who is concerned for the work of the Kingdom.  There are few places that let you think rigorously about you field and talk about serving God with you life and obeying the Bible.  UD is one of those places.  In my short time here I can see that it is a great blessing to the Dallas area.

But then there is this.  Even in this school, one of the few bastions of conservative Christian thinking, an internal war is raging.  At the same time I am reading this article I am being told of another true Universtiy whose students’ behavior is suddenly taking an ugly turn for the worse, and whose faculty are unsure about possible changes in direction.

Pray for our Christian Universities, especially since they function as a beacon light to the world that burns brighter and more true than most churches and parishes.  But that’s a conversation for another day…

2 girls 1 Cup, C.S. Lewis, and Education

 Today was perhaps the best day I’ve had at the private high school I teach at, and I have “2 Girls and 1Cup” to thank.

Before you google “2 Girls and One Cup” let me explain for your safety.  I first heard about the horrid phenomenal internet video from an interesting Crunchy Con blog – and after reading the Wikipedia entry I knew I didn’t want to watch it.  The concept of the video is so disgusting and vile I regret just hearing about what it depicts, and I will not describe it here.  For your sakes just imagine that it is a video of a maggot infested possum carcas lying on you pillow.

So here is a video that goes light years beyond the pale, and I found out that 99% of the kids at the school I teach have seen this video. More than once. One 14 year old boy proudly told me that he made it the homepage on his other friends computer at home. Funny.

I found this out the same week that my wife walks into her classroom (the same once I teach in) to find one of her students showing the others a video a video of a man castrating himself. No joke.

There’s only one sane response to this: Nausea. The world has gone off its axis and has turned up-side down, and we are sanely nauseas.

Dr. Clyde Cook passes away

One of the world’s truly good men, Clyde Cook, passed away last night in the study of his home in Fullerton, CA.  Dr. Cook was the president of Biola University from 1982 to 2007, during which time he led the school through serious challenges and into a position of national academic respect; all while maintaining a steadfast commitment to Biblical Christian beliefs and an atmosphere of Christian charity. 

While Dr. Cook was up front about not being able to please everybody – I never heard of him engaging in political flattery or false praise – he was universally liked and cherished.  He was a tall man who turned down a full ride to play basketball at USC to come to Biola, yet his stature only engendered respect, not indimidation.  He had a knack for taking himself lightly, frequently appearing in student films in some comic facility. 

It is a rare thing in this world for a man to take so seriously the responsibility entrusted to him while being able to take himself lightly.

Clyde Cook was man with a remarkable story.  His parents were missionaries in China, and when WWII broke out young Clyde spent time in three concentration camps, seperated from his family.  Years later they would be reunited.

At every luncheon and dinner I ever saw Clyde attend at Biola, he always greeted and thanked the servers and catering staff.  He saw them as another Biola employee, just like he was.

Those who met Clyde don’t remember the resume, the natrual giftedness, or his incredible background.  They remember a kind man with an calm and deep inner passion to do God’s work on earth as it is in heaven. 

May God grant Clyde Cook a rich entrance into His heavently kingdom.

Updated:  Scriptorium Daily is running a serious about Dr. Cook and his legacy.

American Idol and Christianity: reprise

Some great thoughts from my God-brother Peter, who lists a negative and positive side of the “Idol Gives Back”/ “Shout to the Lord” fiasco.

When evangelical worship songs are SO inoffensive to American culture at large that a group of pop icons can sing them on national television without anyone noticing that something particularly religious was going on, then you really have to start wondering if the evangelical church is doing its job. The focus of the evening was certainly not “the wonder and majesty of God” or that “nothing compares to the promise we have in [Jesus Christ]“

snip…

I wanted to shout “hey people, you can’t sing that… or even clap when other people sing that! It’s making exclusive claims on your life! It’s demanding that your sole object of adoration be the Lord and His glory! Believe me, I’ve been listening to you and you don’t want that!”

Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that one of the most tragic shifts in the history of Ethics is when liturgical and therefore sacred music and art were ripped out of the Church and considered as “artistic”.