Confiteor Deo
I just got back from the Commune and doing several weeks' worth of laundry there. While waiting for the dryer at the Keasters' to finish drying my clothes (which it never really did :-/ ) I read "One Flew Over the Onion Dome" by Fr. Joseph Honeycutt of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the South. For such a simply written, quick read it was remarkably good. It brought back into focus many of the temptations that distract me from daily living in Christ, in the Church (which is Christ).
Our struggles here are not grounded in us as individual persons, members of an ethnicity or nation, or residents of a particular state. They are common to us all - the passions that war against me are the same ones that war against my brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe, in Africa, in the Orient, and in Latin America. I lose myself trying to define myself, whether as an "American Orthodox Christian," a "Missionary Kid," or whatever else.
Perhaps if we focused on Christ Jesus first and our 'distinctives' second (or even third or fourth or fifth) we wouldn't be as divided as we are here in North America and around the world. (I put myself as the first in that "we" - I point the finger at myself first of all.) We are all in need of daily conversion, whether we are Jew or Greek, slave or free, "convert" or "cradle," Democrat or Republican (I include that last as we are in a big election year here in the USA :-) ).
"Now to Him Who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Saviour, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)
Our struggles here are not grounded in us as individual persons, members of an ethnicity or nation, or residents of a particular state. They are common to us all - the passions that war against me are the same ones that war against my brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe, in Africa, in the Orient, and in Latin America. I lose myself trying to define myself, whether as an "American Orthodox Christian," a "Missionary Kid," or whatever else.
Perhaps if we focused on Christ Jesus first and our 'distinctives' second (or even third or fourth or fifth) we wouldn't be as divided as we are here in North America and around the world. (I put myself as the first in that "we" - I point the finger at myself first of all.) We are all in need of daily conversion, whether we are Jew or Greek, slave or free, "convert" or "cradle," Democrat or Republican (I include that last as we are in a big election year here in the USA :-) ).
"Now to Him Who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Saviour, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)