Is it just me? I find this video strangely touching. How hard we try to find the things that are absolutely universal to people everywhere, and it turns out, all we want to do is dance a little bit. (Sorry about the h-word, folks. Obviously not titled by us good church-going types.)
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
This article (via Orthodox Today) is an interview with a French filmmaker about a documentary he made on the plight of Christians living in the Middle East.
There is much in the article to give us pause (”… They used priests, monks and nuns as human shields. They behaved like barbarians. But nobody reported the real facts. …”). But perhaps none is so succinctly sinister as the name of the movie:
FP: You have titled the film, “First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday.” What does it mean exactly?
Rehov: A phrase is very well known among Middle East Muslims: “First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday.” This means, first we take care of the “Saturday people” (the Jews), then we will take care of the “Sunday people” (the Christians). I decided to make this sentence the title of this film.
And by ‘take care of,’ I doubt very much that they mean bandaging up our wounds, pouring wine and oil on them and putting us up at an inn as this stranger did.
I think I’m a little late discovering this 2006 movie, but just in case there are any other Orthodox (or Orthodox-inclined) out there who haven’t done so already: rent the Russian film “The Island.” It’s a must-see type of thing, telling the story of a monk who became a ‘fool for Christ.’ It’s not based on a true story, but in many of the details, it reminds me of the hagiographies of other saints (including today’s saint of the day, St. Sisoes).
The saint of the day today is Venerable Sioes the Great, who once raised a man’s son from the dead without really meaning to(!)
One paragraph in the latest issue of Wired makes me think that maybe they have found a little bit of honest self-doubt. But we’re talking a very little bit. Still, it’s a start.
I sometimes wish that the Orthodox Church wasn’t against cremation. Then again …
Last fall, attendants watching the security monitors at Disneyland noticed a woman dumping a powdery substance from a boat going through the darkened “Pirates of the Caribbean” cavern. When the attendants confronted her, she told them it was only baby powder, but it later turned out to be the cremated remains of a human being. No one was much surprised. According to some reports, scattering ashes at Disneyland had already reached “epidemic proportions.”
The epidemic, if that’s what it is, probably is not limited to Disneyland. Cremation has become increasingly popular in America, especially in Western states, where more than 50 percent of the deceased are cremated.
(Via WaPo)
Erin Manning is filling in on Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con blog, and she has some very good answers to those who argue for gay marriage. She also brings up the fact that in terms of the long-term affects of this, no one has answers. But then those who are in favor of homosexual marriage are studiously avoiding asking the questions.
Two thoughts from a reading in “My Life in Christ.” There are probably many more than two thoughts to be had, but two may be all I have time for. Which is sort of the point, eventually.
“The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland.”
– St. Herman of Alaska
You know, it’s not always the readings of 3rd- and 4th-century saints’ lives and martyrdoms that stir my stony heart. Consider today’s reading from “Daily Lives” about Archbishop Andronicus of Perm, martyred under communism:
During the communist takeover of Russia, Andronicus publicly criticized both the separation of Church and state and the communist doctrine. When he instructed his archdeacon to anathematize the communists, Andronicus was arrested, shot , and buried by the roadside. His assistant Bishop Theophanes was arrested and drowned in the Kama River. When the Moscow church assembly heard of these executions, they sent a commission to investigate. When Bishop Basil and his group completed their findings, they boarded a return train to Moscow, but en route Red soldiers attached, killed them all, and threw the bodies from the train. They were buried by villagers, and pilgrims would go and venerate their graves. Hearing this, the communists dug up the bodies and burned them.
The suffering caused by the communists may never really be fully understood. I find it hard to comprehend how a regime could take aim against the Holy Russian Orthodox Church and be so merciless in its persecution.
But it did my heart good that in the course of my daily Bible readings, I happened to be reading the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel. Like Lazarus, the Russian Church rose up again. Destroyed churches and cathedrals have been rebuilt while those who ordered their demolition rot away. One day even these rebuilt structures will fade away, just as Lazarus was destined to die again. But the sacrifice of so many courageous saints like Archbishop Andronicus won’t be forgotten — their memory will be eternally with God.
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