Revolution: Evolving Love

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Armodoxy for Today: Evolving Love

When political systems do not work there is a call for revolution. The word itself comes from revolve – that is to turn around. In Christianity we use the word “repentance” which means to turn direction and aim toward God.

From early apostolic days, the term repent was used to imply a change in direction toward God. The Apostle Peter urged people to “repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2:38)

Repentance or repenting is a necessary part of the Christian life. What is often forgotten is that repentance takes place after self-evaluation. The necessity to repent is part of the human condition because we are not perfect.

One of the prayers offered by the priest in the Armenian Church is a prayer that you will never hear read over you, and if you do hear it read over you may want to check our surroundings. It is from the funeral service of the Church where the priest asks God, in His Mercy, to forgive the person of his sins, “because who is it that lives, and does not sin?” And in an explanation (if not to God then to all who hear this prayer) the priest confesses that “Only You (God) are sinless and to You belong the kingdom of all eternities.”

In fact, “sin” is merely an acknowledgement of our human condition. It means we are not perfect and we miss the mark of perfection. Think of a dart board, it is a target with a bull’s eye in the middle. Now imagine tossing darts at the board. For every dart that misses the center, that dart is said to be in sin. The dart that misses the bull’s eye by one ring and the dart that misses by three rings, as well as the dart that misses the entire board, have sinned; they have missed the mark.

Sometimes repentance is described with the phrase turning 180 degrees, that is, turning completely around. Not so. Sometime smaller adjustments are necessary, and the only judge of the degree of adjustment is you yourself. That is why self-evaluation is so important in the life of the Christian, and for this reason the Armenian Church gives opportunities, through days of prayer and fasting, for self-evaluation.

Each of us is in need of correcting our courses in various degrees. This is the revolution that is the beginning of living with heightened awareness. Inside of the word revolution is the word evolution and in reverse form the word love. The true call to Repentance is the call to turn around the LOVE that is missing from our lives so that we can evolve. All living forms evolve. Evolution is part of the living process. Things that are dead, decay. They do not evolve. And rightly so, they do not have the capacity to love.

The God-gift that is inside each of us is the capacity to love. Revolutions that do not accent the love within them are doomed to failure. Revolutions that have turned around the love within them are of the type that Jesus Christ ushered in with the Kingdom of Heaven. And so he instructs us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all else will fall into place. (Matthew 6:33)

We pray a prayer from the Book of Hours of the Armenian Church, “O God, Merciful, Compassionate and Patient, who pains for the sufferings of His creation. Console and grace us the reason for repentance so that we may enter Your Holy Church with spiritual enrichment, confession and repentance and along with your saints praise and glorify You, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirt. Amen.”

The Dream at 60

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Armodoxy for Today: The Dream at 60

Dreams are more than nighttime subconscious expressions. Dreams are inner desires and wishes finding form and forum. Many inventions, businesses, relationships, fantasies, impossible possibilities are found in dreams. Since man has looked up at the night sky and pondered the flashing lights and wondered the phases of the moons, there have been dreams of conquering space. Novelist Jules Verne wrote adventures of moon voyages in the 19th century, which became the inspiration for the many scientists and eventually astronauts who ventured to the moon in the 1960s.

Sixty years ago, on this day, August 28, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a speech in Washington DC, most famously referred to as the “I Have a Dream” speech. He articulated a dream which all men and women have had since the beginning of time, to be free, to be respected and thereby an opportunity to create one’s own destiny. It was a dream which was spelled out in the Declaration of Independence as the American colonies seceded from England in 1776, and a dream that President Abraham Lincoln brought closer to reality in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

But dreams of human desire, that eliminate hatred and prejudice, are not easily enacted and so 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, a March on Washington took place, August 26, 1963. More than 250,000 people participated in the march for jobs and freedom. At the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, Rev. King delivered one of the most powerful, and earth-shaking orations in history.

While acknowledging history, he laid out the dream, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

And went on to personalize it, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. was 26 years old when he received his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University. He was 34 years old when he gave the speech at the March on Washington. A year later, at age 35 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. With all of his accolades, degrees, accomplishments and the honors, he was emphasized that about everything else, he was a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was committed to this Gospel and knew that true liberation and salvation, yes, in this world, came through Jesus Christ. In his words, “By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.”

The world has much to learn from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when it comes to bringing about change. He understood and implemented Jesus’ teachings in his and his community’s life. He said, “He (Jesus) knew that the old eye-for-eye philosophy would leave everyone blind. He did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good. Although crucified by hate, he responded with aggressive love.”

Today, as people struggle and protest for rights and freedoms, as wars escalate and hateful talk takes form in evil actions, the words of Christ speak an answer that is undeniable and Rev. King attests to it not only by words but by his actions.

In the text of today’s message, you will find links to the “I have a dream speech” in both written form and in speech form. I highly recommend that you watch or listen to the speech, to feel the impact of this minister of the Gospel.

Read & Listen to the “I Have a Dream Speech”
Watch the video of the “I Have a Dream Speech”

Sixty years have passed. The dream is not fulfilled, but the call to us is to keep dreaming and working for the realization of that dream.

Today, I share with you a prayer written by Rev. King, from a book of his prayers called, “Thou, Dear God.” God grant that the resources that you have will be used to do that, the great resources of education, the resources of wealth, and that we will be able to move into this new world, a world in which men will live together as brothers; a world in which men will no longer take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. A world in which men will throw down the sword and live by the higher principle of love. … That there will be the time we will be able to stand before the universe and say with joy – The kingdom of our Lord and our Christ! And he shall reign forever and ever! Hallelujah!

Opium

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Armodoxy for Today: Opium

The words of Karl Marx are often quoted by people trying to discredit religion. “Religion is the opium of the masses (or people),” wrote Marx.

The first time I read this statement, I was a student in college, and, honestly, I was not offended. I was somewhat sympathetic to what Marx was saying because so many people lean upon religion to deal with their pain and suffering. But I also saw the power of a turn-to-God in the life of people. The opium is not in religion, as much as the false security that is granted by religion.

We each have different tolerance levels for pain. For some that pain can be alleviated by a couple of aspirin, Tylenol or Motrin, as their preference may be. These are temporary fixes, as the instruction label tells you on the pill bottles that if the pain persists beyond a time limit of (usually) two weeks, then consult with a physician. Of course, greater pain levels require more potent solutions and under the care of a physician, we have laws and rules as a society that allow for those drugs. Again, these are temporary fixes. Opium adds another dimension to pain relief in that it is habit-forming. Drug dependency no longer recognizes the drug for its medicinal value.

I believe this is why I was not upset or offended by Marx’s statement. In context, his entire statement reads, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” There are people who become religion-dependent and the religion is no long recognized for its redeeming value.

Our journey through Armodoxy these few last weeks has taken us through a maze of mystery and supernatural phenomena, to making and understanding that within us, the supernatural can become natural and normal. Religion should not discount personal responsibility. Just the opposite, by demanding personal accountability for actions, it empowers the individual to take control of his/her life. The original gospel, that is the good news, was heralded at the Nativity and Revelation of Jesus Christ: Peace on Earth, Goodwill among all people. Pure and simple. Everything beyond this earthly life is in the domain of the Divine. The goal of religion, and most especially Christianity, is to make this life – the one we have been graced and gifted with – a better place, by teaching us to love, respect and forgive one another. This is why we pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that God give us the strength, patience and tools in this world. When religion loses its focus and pushes us to be consumed with end times, and qualifications for entering the afterlife, then it has lost its main direction, just as a drug which loses its function and becomes the substance of addiction.

The second time I came across Marx’s statement about religion was when I was a student in the seminary at Holy Etchmiadzin. The country of Armenia was occupied by communists and Marx, Engels, and Lenin were quoted on billboards and posterboards throughout the country. The communists tried to dissuade the Armenians from their religion. To the degree they succeeded, it was not on philosophical grounds, rather it was because of the number of churches they closed, their anti-church propaganda and the destruction of the priesthood.

Today, the words of Marx seem to be echoed beyond communists in various fields and environments. We spoke earlier about the prejudice, the pre-judgement of people toward Christianity. And so it is important to study and learn the early understanding of Christ’s message. This is Armenian Orthodoxy connected to today, or what we call Armodoxy. The more we learn about the ancient traditions as expressed through the Armenian Church, the easier we can debunk myths and understand Christianity not as an opium, but as salvific, a means of surviving and living in the world God has given us.

Let us pray, Psalm 27, The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.

Cover photo: EnvatoElements

Fasting as a Tool

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Armodoxy for Today: Fasting

In the Gospel of Matthew (17:13-21) we read,

A man came to Jesus, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

Then Jesus said, “Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”

So Jesus said to them, “… This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

In this short story from the life of our Lord, he mentions fasting, perhaps only as an addendum to prayer, but we understand that it is a powerful tool for the Christian.

Yesterday, His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, the Primate of the Western Diocese announced a 24 hour fast for solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Artsakh. For the last year, the Azerbaijan government and people have blocked food and medical supplies from reaching the Armenian population of Artsakh. They have targeted the Armenians for annihilation, in other words, they are in the process of committing the second Armenian Genocide.

Like prayer, fasting is one more necessary element in the life of the Christian. In Matthew 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks about the necessity of fasting. Not only did he teach it, he practiced fasting, most notably during his 40 day period of seclusion in the wilderness following his baptism and prior to beginning his ministry.

Fasting strengthens the will and resolve of an individual. During a fast, an individual feels hunger, sometimes accompanied by pain. It is at those moments of physical yearning that we understand the words of Jesus during his 40 day fast, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

A call to fast and prayer is a call to learn about your strengths and limits. It is necessary to prepare and strengthen your inner self for spiritual warfare. Behind all the physical wars out there, there are even bigger spiritual wars that cannot be escaped. Often, people look outside of themselves for the solutions to their fears and problems. Let us not forget that the Christian is called to personal responsibility. We may look at the current situation, whether in Armenia, in the Ukraine or in Sudan, and look for answers from others, especially large governments but that excludes us from the solution. Each of us have it within ourselves to rebel and be a part of the solution. Fasting aligns in the proper modality, and in the case of a nationwide fast, as the one called for by the archbishop, we align with others of similar goals. We begin to form a block in the spiritual warfare we wage.

Today’s meditation is a reading of Jesus’ temptations while fasting for 40 days and nights,

When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Goals

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Armodoxy for Today: Goals

The entrepreneurial spirit was defined yesterday by risk. The parable of the talents, offered by Jesus (Matthew 25), illustrated the importance of risking talents and resources with which God has entrusted you. We ended yesterday by pointing to the prize, which was the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not enough to work or labor unless the goal is worthy of that toil and effort.  The goal of our efforts must always be in our focus.

Goals may be devious. In the parable of the talents, it is easy to assume that the monetary riches are the goal of their managerial skills, but on closer inspection, it is obvious that the monetary amount is the reward, and not the goal itself.

With the world in turmoil and with fighting close to home, it is imperative that we zoom in on the goal that sits before us. Jesus sets it as the “Kingdom of Heaven.” This is not a place or a time to come, but in Orthodox understanding, it was enacted with Jesus. It is a state of mind. It is, within and without us. It is, as Jesus says, “…Like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46)

When our efforts and actions have purpose beyond the temporal plane, meaning comes to our life.

Today, there is a blockade of food and medical supplies to the Armenian population of Artsakh. The government of Azerbaijan has targeted the Armenians for annihilation, in other words, they are in the  process of committing the second Armenian Genocide. Like the expressive monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – the world has closed its eyes, ears and mouth to the plight of the Armenians.

So, what now?

Today, His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, the Primate of the Western Diocese will announce a 24 hour fast for solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Artsakh. This is a simple effort by which a huge goal can be accomplished by a small group of people. It is an effort in which everyone can participate. Most importantly, the goal of the effort benefits others. Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13) It is in sacrifice that love is revealed and the Cross as the symbol of suffering transforms to the symbol of Love. Make the connection with the Parable of the Talents and now we understand that if the end goal is the Kingdom of Heaven, then it is expressed by the love we have for one another.

Tomorrow we will look at the power of fasting to overcome the worst evil. For today, accept the challenge to fast. (*The fast will be announced at 5PM PDT, at the Azerbaijan consulate in West Los Angeles.) Obstain from eating for 24 hours. It’s hopeful to expect that the Azeris will have a change of heart because of your fasting, but have no worries, because something remarkable will happen as a result of your fasting. You will have a change of heart. You will understand the power that is within you to bring about change. You will not need to look elsewhere for solutions that are within you. The Kingdom has been enacted!

We pray the prayer that the Lord Jesus taught us,

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen.

Entrepeneurs

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Armodoxy for Today: Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs. They are risk takers. They are one, to a few, steps ahead of everyone else. Much more than a good business person, they are looking for the prize at the end of the game. The rewards are great but so are the losses if they fail. There are formulas for risk assessment and a good business person will weigh out the pros and cons of his or her actions. Though, arguably, an entrepreneur might we heavier on the risk side of the equation.

Jesus shares a parable, often referred to as the “Parable of the Talents,” in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. As I read through it, think of yourself in the position of each of the employees.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called three of his employees and gave them various amounts of money. And to one he gave $500,000 to another $200,000, and to another $100,000, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the $500,000 went and traded with the money and made another $500,000.  And likewise he who had received $200,000 gained $200,000 more also. But he who had received $100,000 went and dug in the ground and hid his employer’s money. After a long time, the employer came and settled accounts with them.

“So he who had received $500,000 came and brought $500,000 more, saying, ‘You gave me $500,000; look, I have gained $500,000 more.’ The boss said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful employee; you have proven yourself over a few things, I will make you in charge of other things. Receive this promotion with added compensation and a huge benefit package. He also who had received $200,000 came and said, ‘Boss, you gave to me $200,000; look, I have gained $200,000 more.’ His boss said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful employee; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you in charge of much more. Receive this promotion with added compensation and a huge benefit package.’

“Then he who had received $100,000 came and said, ‘Boss, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not labored.  And I was afraid and went and hid your money in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’

“But the employer answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy employee, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not labored. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the money from him, and give it to him who has the most of the three.

“For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.  And cast the unprofitable employee out of our organization…’

And this is how Jesus ends the parable. Three amounts to three different people. We are all different, and there is a basic inequality in life. The amount of money is different to graphically illustrate the possessions we are all born with, namely our talents. Some have more, some have less, but from each an accounting is demanded. The accounting is based on how we have used our talents, and what did they yield. The only one who was unexcused was the one who was too afraid to use his money, or talents.

The parable may have sounded like a page from the entrepreneur’s manual, but it’s not. It is Jesus telling us that the gifts granted us God are meant to be used, not kept hidden. There are risks in all actions, but God asks us to evaluate the pros and cons of our actions and if necessary, lean on the side of the risk, keeping the prize in mind. That prize, Jesus mentions at the beginning of the parable, namely, “The Kingdom of Heaven.”

Some editorial liberty was taken in the parable to accommodate for relevance and adjust for inflation.

Personal Responsibility

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Armodoxy for Today: Personal Responsibility

Late one night, as I was getting ready to turn in, the phone rang. It was early-on in my ministry. Later on I learned that there’s something about the inconvenient hours that seem to coincide with these types of calls. It was one of my parishioners, asking if I come down to the hospital to offer a prayer for her husband, Marty, who was taken in by ambulance.

I got in my car and drove cross-town to a San Jose hospital, not knowing what to expect. The call was a quick one, not enough time to ask for details.

At the hospital’s reception area, I asked for the patient by name and they directed me to the intensive care unit. I made my way through the hallways and found the doors to the ICU. Just next to it was the waiting room for the family members. The patient’s wife, Rose, stood up and came running over to me. She gave me a big bear hug and between the tears she scratched out a few words, “Why did God take him away?”

I was late, at least that’s how I understood this scene. Did I mention it was early on in my ministry? I went into the ICU where Marty’s breathless body lay on a hospital bed. With Rose and the family around, we offered a prayer for his soul and covered the body with the bed sheet.

Why did God take him away? Her question haunted me at that moment and for years to come. At the moment I almost crumbled under the weight of the question. I felt as if I needed to give an answer. She was asking me to defend God! Why did God take him away?

We spent some time in the ICU – an environment that is very conducive for pastoral counselling, and yes, people look at the priest as one who can and will answer for God. It was sometime later that I understood that God doesn’t need defending. He can take care of Himself quite well. Thank you very much. But even that night, on my way back home I came to realize the God factor is merely a comfort for the family. God is a catch-all, a way of passing along the pain off of yourself. The reality was that Marty was quite a large man, up in age, struggling with diabetes, and had a three-pack-a-day smoking habit. Perhaps God did “take him away” but the circumstances around his death point to something more earthly and more personally controllable.

One of the many criticisms of religion is that it eschews personal responsibility from the practitioner. It is a problem that becomes even more accented with personal saviors and the deities that control our actions as if we were pieces in a cosmic chess game.

We believe that each of us is endowed with Free Will, and as such, we create our own lives, our own destinies, so to speak. We eschew the term destiny because as long as you – we – have the ability to do otherwise, responsibility for our lives is not destined, whether by God or by the stars, or cards, or anything outside of our selves.

And it follows that on the basis of personal responsibility, judgement takes place. Through the Gospels, Jesus invites us to take responsibility for our lives. He points to the beauty of life in his parables, a beauty that is manifest in our willingness to engage with life.

In this season of the Asdvadzadzin, let us continue with the John 15 discourse about the vine and branches. The operative word to listen for is “if” – that “if” is defined by our free will,

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit… By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:5-13)

Natural Solutions with Supernatural Consequences

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Super Solutions that are Natural

Next Step #780 – August 18, 2023 – Looking for solutions to the supersized crises from the blockade in Artsakh to the wildfire in Hawaii, Fr. Vazken points to natural solutions with supernatural consequences. Empathy comes alive, lip-service ends, children learn, and so do we. Begging others –  America, Russia or France – ends. Weapon and resources we’ve always had and echoed by Khirimian Hayrig himself. A call to donated to Hawaiian Wildfire Relief. Effective protest- to the point and ones which get answers – tried and proven. Religious prejudice and Carlos Santana’s Supernatural. Jesus’ natural supernatural abilities.

Links from today’s podcast:
Blockade in Artsakh
Open Wounds and you’d never know
Los Angeles Freeways Blocked
Carlos Santana gets away with Supernatural talk
Hawaiian Wildfire Tragedy
In His Shoes – Hawaiian Wildfire Relief
Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
Cover Photo – Finger & statue at Cascade 2014
Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for http://Epostle.net
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The Psalm 24 Q&A

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Deacon: He is the King of glory!

With a war that cost thousands of lives and the loss of land, another question surfaces: Who is this King, so mighty in battle, that we lost the war? Perhaps not as audible as the chants of the deacon in church, but in the solitude of the mind, many ask this question and for some, it becomes the tipping point to abandoning hopes in a Divine Protector, or just plainly, a disbelief in God.

The Q&A of Psalm 24 is about relevance. What is the relevance of our church service and our Faith to the events shaping the world today? It is an echo of Jesus’ condemnation, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” recorded in Matthew 23. What is the connection between our actions on Sunday mornings and our response to the tragedies that take place during the week? There is an existential crisis brewing in Armenia, in Artsakh, and ultimately, we have to ask, what does it mean to proclaim God as almighty – mighty in battle – in the face of horrific tragedies – rape, mayhem, and executions?

I began the week sharing with you my frustration at a Church which provided the Blessed Mother and grapes, without making the connection to their relevance and significance. We journeyed together along a path that looked at the faith we profess and its application in real terms, that is, to understand miracles as part of our daily life. We spoke of the transformation of the supernatural to the natural. Religion, and especially our religion, Christianity as practiced by the Armenian Church, is about accepting the truth of our belief, without compromise. In the case of Psalm 24 Q&A, Yes, He is the King of Glory, mighty in battle. Accepting this, now the burden is upon us – you and me – to believe it to the point where we stop looking for worldly and political solutions and trust the Faith that has brought us here against the odds.

Today’s lesson is a proclamation that has been repeated in our Liturgy for two millennia. If He was not mighty in battle, if He was not the King of Glory, we certainly would have written it out of the text of the Liturgy. There is a reason why it is repeated and repeated often, because it a profession of reality. We come to find this one profession is at the Center of our Divine Liturgy, which is celebrated throughout the world. In that profession, we are called to engage with the King of Glory. And so, today, we take one step closer, where we understand the answers and solutions to our dilemmas, difficulties, wars and evil, are not in the hands of others, but the invitation has come to us. We understand that the supernatural, is the natural, and it is in us – you and me. Now enters responsibility, our personal responsibility.

We will take a break here to continue next time. Until then, let us pray, “Lord our God, you have called each of us to serve within the Kingdom. Give me the strength and courage to overcome the difficulties of the day and bring my talents to the quest for Peace. Amen”

The Supernatural Within

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Armodoxy for Today: The Supernatural Within

Continuing our journey through Armodoxy, we bring the supernatural home today. If we put away our prejudices, and keep the ego in check, we find it easier to see the supernatural in daily occurrences, whether in the pollination of a flower, the amazing structure a duckling’s tail feather, or the supernatural occurrence healing of the physical.

When we look at the metaphor of the Vine and the branches which Jesus articulates, “I am the vine and you are the branches… you cannot bear fruit without being connected to the vine,” we find a natural progression of events. A branch cannot bear fruit if it is not connected to the vine! Yes, obviously. It’s so natural that it is a given, not even necessary to mention. But our “dull faculties” (Einstein’s words) have become conditioned to the point that we doubt the obvious, and so we must repeat it for clarity. Jesus should not have had to give this lesson in agricultural botany to a group of people who cultivated the land for their livelihood, but he did. Now imagine how much more we need to, and must, reiterate matters with which we are not familiar.

In the last century (and those of you following this series will know why I place the time as such), in my first parish I had a young lady named Leslie, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The diagnosis was devastating enough, without learning of the many horrible and frightening treatments she would endure to fight this disease and with no certainty of winning that battle. Within our parish community the word spread quickly, and we were all in various degrees of anguish. She was a mother of a beautiful daughter who was too young to realize what lurked ahead for mom. Her husband, stoic at the news, but ever so supportive and determined to overcome the cancer. We braced for the worst with members of our church even discussing how to take care of the little child in her mother’s absence.

That Sunday, as all Sundays, we celebrated the Divine Liturgy and distributed the Holy Eucharist. After church services, Leslie approached me. She told me – not asked me – “I received Holy Communion today. It is the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ.” I nodded my head, yes, you did. She continued, “Well, if Jesus Christ is within me, what cancer can survive inside of me? There is no place for that cancer!”

She said this with such conviction and strength. I picture her face saying this to me to this day and my eyes water as I swell up with emotion thinking about it. If Jesus Christ is inside of me, what business does cancer have within me? Yes! That’s exactly what she said.

Leslie went on to live. She and her husband brought two more beautiful daughters to this world and through the years, we stay in touch, even if only for a Christmas card, with pictures of the family growing and flowering. Even more, she is forever connected to me through the “Vine” that connects us all. Her story has helped me through some of my worst days, and I share it with others, not only to offer hope, but to change our perception of the supernatural to natural.

What we call Supernatural is natural, normal, for those who exist in a different plane of understanding. That plane is not that far away. It is no different than perceiving heaven here on earth. The exercise of losing ego and the dropping of the prejudices we harbor against the miracles of life bring us closer to that reality.

We pray today from St. Nersess Shnorhali’s prayer of the evening hours, “Gracious Lord, commit me to a good angel, who may guide my soul in peace, and carry it undisturbed through the wickedness of evil to heavenly places. Amen.”