Going to Work

We are a bleeding people in a bleeding time.

Crime is up jobs are down and the faith is dying.

How does the Church react in these times? By standing firm in her tradition and Holiness, by being the foundation of the faith and giving us something to fall back on when we are standing alone. Christ is with us, the Saints surround us, help is in the Church and the faith she teaches.

just a thought

church unity

The longing for unity should not out weigh what is correct and righteous.

In modern church history we are constantly reminded that the church on earth is divided; but there are those that seek to unit the church under some common thread. The question is, should the ‘church’ be united? Many people caring the label of Christian from both protestant and catholic denominations have pushed for various types of unity; for example the Anglican prayer book for decades has prayed for total church unity.

Should there be unity with the earthly church and is it possible? For they’re to be any type of unity with the church here in earth it would cause many people to abandon their faith, all that they know to be true would be crumbled and moved. And it does not matter from what window you are looking from, meaning if you are a protestant you would look at the catholic’s and demand that they change to what you are comfortable with as the catholic denominations would look onto the protestants and demand the same. So can there be unity within the ‘Christian’ church on earth, I am afraid not.

In religion there is fear and hatred of what one does not understand; both of these emotions may be subtle and possibly even subconscious but they are there to some extent. What people do not understand they fear, people that come from protestant faiths have a great misunderstanding of the catholic denominations and therefore some have developed a hatred for the catholic faiths to even go as fare as to call them un-Christian. As many in the catholic faiths have grown to look at the protestants as people that unknowledgeable to there own faith. Myself growing up in the protestant world I have seen a great level or resentment on the protestant side toward the catholic’s that the other way around. I believe that this comes from the protestants that come from one of the catholic faiths.

There should only be one Church, that Church still exists today and have from the time of Christ; the Orthodox Church. There have been many splits and schisms over the last 2000 years most over the last 1000 years that have caused the church to grow further apart, We have seen in the last 20 or so years some gathering together but not in large enough volume to make a real impact on the overall ‘Christian’ church makeup.

I find myself still praying for Church unity, but in a much different way now, I pray for the conversion of my family and my friends to the Church that Christ and the Apostles left us all those years ago, and is still strong and alive today.

Something that has changed my life and my mind about church, ‘We go to Church for God not for ourselves’ I read that somewhere a while back wish I would have written down the authors name. Not that it is an extraordinary statement it just made me think how often was I going to church to try to make myself feel better, or to get the warm a fuzzy feeling. To often I went to church out of selfishness, I pray that now I go to focus of God, to seek forgiveness for my sin, and to worship the Lord. If I can do that my relationship with Christ and with others will be strengthened.

Being a Cop, not always how it looks

So misunderstood, that is how I feel most days, just misunderstood. Why, because everyone asks the same crazy questions; have you ever shot anyone, have you had to beat someone up, you ever seen a dead body, and so on. The stupid questions are not new to me; I was in the military for a while and got some dumb questions, but now I get them all the time. People that know a little about law enforcement are the worst; they know just enough to annoy me. What I really can't stand are the people that think this job is "easy". I will admit most days are not overwhelmingly hard but you get these days that are nightmares. The day that someone points a gun at you and you don't shoot him because there are children behind him, the day you are called to a criminal assault (a rape) and as bad as this may sound you are hoping that it is a 19 or 20 year old that is not to badly hurt, because that last one you had to go to was a three year old or a eighty year old and you still can't get the image out of your head. Yeah we get to drive fast and go through red lights, so much fun, but not when you are going ninety miles an hour swerving through traffic trying to get to the officer that is yelling for help in his microphone. Yeah it’s an easy job all right. And lets not forget how great it is on the family, your wife every night saying good-bye and please be safe because she is praying for at least one more day. My job is not safe and if I am doing my job right I am walking onto unsafe ground everyday. And every "bad guy" that goes to jail wants to sue me for what little money I have, because some how the idea has gotten out that cops make good money-we don't just ask my wife when she has to go buy groceries. And yet some dumb people out there will vote for the thug when he says his arm got hurt when he was being arrested, Let us not look at the fact that he just committed a crime, robbing, assaulting, or maybe even killing someone. So lets go to work, worry about getting hurt or killed and worry that if I do make it home today I might get the pants sued off of me.

Wow, that was negative. Just had to vent some steam and this is my blog so I will do what I want.

Protestants and Saints

I think it is a funny thought when protestants look up to Saints and Elders of the Orthodox or Catholic Churches. Why would they look up to any figures from the catholic faiths when much of protestants time is spent undermining The Church. Recently a protestant that I know (he is a good person) quoted some saying from Mother Theresa ; not big deal, but they weren't some great words (I mean they are great words), if any one else had said them (and I am sure other people before and after her have) than no one would have quoted them.

Private Police

Private Police, don't we call them security? Not any more, I was watching the news last night and saw a story about firemen in France striking because the country is going to privatize the emergency services (fire and police and such), so the country ordered its (still government) police to arrest the firemen that where protesting. And from what I could gather from the news story France is not the first (nor to be the last) European country to do this.

Now for my thoughts: What the hell! How can you have a private police force enforcing laws in your own country. This is (as my protestant friends would say) the beginning of the end times. Well probably not but it is really stupid on all sorts of levels. Okay so we don't trust big business not to poison us with led paint on child toys; but we will trust them to guard our homes and protect us from criminals, I think not! I at first let my mind slip saying will thats Europe for ya, but then I started to think, wait we have a private militants I mean military (it once was called BlackWater) so how fare of a stretch would it be for us to privatize our police and fire departments? All just to save a buck or two.

The question to be asked here is what kind of loyalty a person working for a corporation can have to a community, how much will they really care about crime or saving lives? After all they don't work for the people anymore they work for the empire of commerce.

Questions, Just Questions

I am coming into Orthodoxy because through study and beliefI have found that the Orthodox Church is honesty the Church that Christ established on earth. With that said I am wrestling with my past and what it has meant to me. I spent some years at a private Christian school that was very charismatic (to include speaking in tongues, and healings); I also was raised in a Baptism home with somewhat Baptism ideas and then went on to attend a several Roman Catholic churches over a spain of six years. And (if you have ever looked at this blog before) have spent the last two years in the Anglican church until my eyes and faith was opened. Was the combined experience of all those churches, Gods will to prepare my mind and heart for the change that would have to take place in order for me andmy family to find Orthodoxy? Was there real spiritual growth in the non-denomination and main line churches? How do I approach my family thats is not Orthodox, how do I go through fast times that for my non-Orthodox family is a normal time of large and frequent meals? How do I enter into the faith with out rushing and learning all that I can when I long to come into full communion with the Church?

These questions are how my mind works, if I am not asking questions than I am probably dead. Questions are the key to answers.

The following if from Glory to God for All Things.

Christian theology also uses the word “nature,” but in a far more precise sense. The word was borrowed from Greek Philosophy and given a different meaning – one which eventually did double service – becoming part of the carefully worded doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as well as the equally nuanced doctrine of the incarnation of Christ (Christology). Later Protestant theology would take the same word and push it into further use – or offer varying takes on its meaning. Thus it is not unusual in some strands of Protestant theology to discuss precisely what is meant by the statement “fallen nature.”

Maximus (and the Orthodox Church) teaches that the nature of something (or someone) is not fallen. Everything and everyone created by God was created good, and in its nature remains unchanged – else it would be something other than what it is. Nature is an answer to the question: what is it? If it has a human nature – it is a human. Were its nature changed – it would be something else.

Without the work of grace, the fathers taught, our confusion would leave us in rebellion against God (and our own nature). The Christian life, our growth in grace, is a movement from glory to glory, returning to the truth of our being, returning to union with God in whose image we were created.

What a miss understnading I held for so many years. I am thankful for God leading me and my family into His Church, Orthodoxy. There is much for me to learn still.