Last week my office was re-decorated. It was about time too. I’d never changed the colour of the walls which as you can see were a nausiating “Crayola Sunshine Yellow”. Preparing for the arrival of the decorator I had to empty the room in which I spend so much of my time. The bird had to come out, my books, my table, cushions, laptop – everything. At the end I paused to reflect on the emptiness of my room in the morning sun.

We often think of emptiness as a negative space – a lack, an absence of something important. It was interesting, even energising however, to take a moment and enjoy the moment of emptiness not as a “lack” of something but as “potential”, a joyful leap into the unknown.

Six months ago my garden stopped. Or so it seemed. Leaves turned brown and dropped off. Flowers vanished. Vines ceased producing fruit, withered, and crumbled. Newts, butterflies, moths, dragonflies; even the neighbour’s cat – disappeared. For five months or so I stood on the patio looking out over a brown, crumpled, lifeless trapezoid (our garden is not quite rectangular).

It was empty.

It was spent.

I sometimes wondered if this vine, or that fruit tree would ever spring back to life – would it survive the “down time”.

The “visual” of my garden in that down time, was deceptive, for underneath the surface things were happening. Trees were resting, and preparing for the spring. Newts were hibernating (at least I think they hybernate), eggs were maturing, the ground was renewing its richness. Things were happening in the quiet of “down time” that were not immediately apparent.

Here we are some six months later and the fruit trees have blossomed, and are covered in little fruits and leaves. Lettuce, beans, and melons are sprouting reaching ever higher preparing to put on their annual show. Newts have returned to the pond in droves, and are in full mating show. The fish have lifted themselves from the bottom, shaken off their winder slumber and are zipping around demanding food and looking to mate in a few weeks time. Bamboo shoots are popping up left and right, mint is spreading, bay is flowering, irises have produced long stalks with promising buds. The active life has returned to the garden.

And so it is with one’s spiritual life. We go through periods of intense activity, engagement, interest. Then something throws a switch and shuts it all down – or so we think. We become emotionally detached, even a bit depressed, wondering, “where did it all go?” But it comes back.

Perhaps the trick is to learn to cultivate a less enthusiastic, more consistent “sense” of spirituality, so that the “garden” produces year round and not just in the few months of spring and summer. A skill which I think is much more difficult than it appears – on the surface at least.

This is interesting no only for its comedic value – you just had to laugh. But also for the side thoughts that emerge while reading the story. A man in Liverpool has been found guilty of “causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress”, sentenced to 100 hours of community service, and given an ASBO forbidding him to carry religiously offensive material in public.

He left pornographic material, and cartoons of Christian and Muslim religious figures in the prayer room at Liverpool airport in an effort to convert people to atheism.

Okaaay . . . .

If you’re done gasping (or in my case giggling hysterically) lets play with this one for a moment. Does this judement now mean that I can change the sign on my front door from: “No Evangelists”; to “Evangelists Will Be Prosecuted”?

This man’s actions are curious in another – more serious way – in that it moves to pose questions about identifying belief in the first place. In a very real sense his choice of pornography was . . . . wisely chosen. A significant number of Christians, at least, place a strong emphasis on the relationship between sex, and God. Is this all our tradition can speak to? Of course not – but it is very much a part of the popular reception of what Christianity is all about.

Why? Because too many Christians at least, link their faith in God, their “belief” with sex, and sexuality, thereby narrowing the range of areas of life where they might readily percieve “blessings seen and unseen”.

The Irish politician Feargal Quinn has written in the Irish Times (27 March) that the EU must set a fixed date for Pascha. His argument runs that the movable date is inconvenient to parents and schools organising vacations, and time off. That it negatively affects the tourist industry, and causes inefficiency in other businesses attempting to market their Easter related products. The current system, asserts the Senator, is considered by many to be a hassle and needs to be fixed. The EU he points out is great at unifying and systematising things – so why not the date of Easter? Afterall, it would, he believes, be enormously popular since we all find the movable date of Easter so irritating.

First lets deal with the most obvious issue. As part of Quinn’s argument he attacks the Orthodox for, as he says, being the ones preventing the adoption of the WCC proposed unified date of Easter (never mind the fact that it would still be a moveable feast!). If the EU were to undertake the project, it is unlikely that the rest of the world will follow suit. Think about this for a minute, we need only look at developments in the Anglican communion over the past ten years to see that Nigeria and her sister churches would see this as yet another decadent, heterodox intrusion by the liberal homosexuals in Brussels. Now – we have three, no, four dates of Easter. I can imagine any number of churches in the US that would follow suit.

There’s another problem here too and that is – if the EU, a secular authority is to set the calculations for one religious festival, then for the sake of consistency, and fairness – it must set them all. So, what do you think of the new European wide Pascha-Ramada-Pesach? It would be efficient – Muslims, Christians and Jews would celebrate their major feast on the same day, making it easier for the tourism industry, soccer mom, and oh, of course lets not forget the all important businessman trying to make a living by hawking tawdry holiday crap at a time convenient for him.

Yeah, there’s a reason why it’s a religious festival and not a secular one. Our calendar is messy – true. But it’s got character, and history, and it makes the liturgical year have a sense of organic rhythm that it would most surely lose if we started pegging our movable feasts down – not for reasons of discernment, and good praxis but for “convenience”.

I’m all for a unified date of Pascha – it is, interestingly enough, the only festival that that ancient canons specifically state must be celebrated by the whole church on the same day. Other feasts have regional variations even now. But, it also took over 300 years to arrive at the decision for a unified date of Easter.

My own community, until recently, struggled with the problem of the two Pascha’s for over a decade – because we had both Eastern and Western rite communities and missions. Every year we would raise the spectre of debating the date, and every year we had to set it aside because neither side was happy to abandon its “traditional” date – and it must be said for some very interesting, and very well thought out reasons.

I raise this point not only to place this firmly within an OC/IC context, but to make the point that it is not a theological, or even a traditional reason that we should be concerned about a unified date of Pascha – but an ekklesiological one: that on this one day the whole Christian world confess “with one heart and one mind” our trust in the risen Christ, and to celebrate together our liberation from the fear of the dark places through which we must sometimes walk alone. Every year in our community as Great Lent arrived the old divisions between the two sides of the community emerged, and one side tried to push forward its own date. Every year we were reminded of how fragile a union we shared, and how, dis-unified in some respects we truly were as a “community”. Pascha is about our union with Christ, as much as it ought to be about our reaffermation to be in union with one another as community – locally, within our individual parishes and synods. If we can do that – then I’d venture to guess that we could learn to become a stronger “community” across the OC/IC movement.

I’ve been waiting for this for some time now – I heard about it when it first started – and have remembered and forgotten about it off and on for two years since. But here it is – finally – the web site of the Codex Sinaiticus.

What!? Youd don’t know what it is? Ach Mein Lieber Gott! It’s only the oldest complete manuscript of the NT (fourth century)! Oh and its very pretty too.

So sit back, rev up your browser, and enjoy a piece of Christian history online! Oh, and if you like this – I can point you to some other really nifty papyriology/manuscript sites of similar vein.

This is the door full of love,

and within it is love.

Enter, sinner, pray [much] for love from your Lord,

full of love.

For centuries pilgrims (Pagan and Christian) have left their mark on shrines and holy places – grafitti is just one method. Today we think of it as a marring, a desecration – but to many, such as the author of the above inscription, it was an act of devotion.

This inscription is found just inside the entrance to the church of St. Antony in the Monastary of St. Antony in Egypt. It is the only known Syriac grafitti and very much reflects the style of Syriac spirituality.

It caught my eye – and made me take a moment and reflect on the cause of our relationship with Christ, and through him, one another.

If you’d like to read more of the grafitti at St. Antony’s, as well as the wall paintings, history, and conservation of the monastary, check out the book “Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (ISBN 0300092245).

Here in the UK I’ve been noticing more news items covering issues relating to assisted suicide and euthenasia. I sat down this morning and did a quick survey of the official positions of a number of denomonations to see if they differed, and what was characteristic about each posistion. It then struck me that I’ve not seen much comment in OC/IC forums on the topic. I know that when I lived in the states in the 80s and 90s assisted suicide and euthenasia were hot topics, looking back, I’m not sure I can remember it being discussed then (in OC/IC forums) either.

Why is that then?

Part of me wonders if it is due to the fact that our liberal/progressive attitudes don’t see this as an issue worth investigating in our communities. But then, there is a compelling argument to be made that suggests that on the contrary – this is a topic worthy of exploration – it affects a number of ethical issues, as well as issues surrounding the local community, relationships with others, and even a sense of our OC/IC identity.

On the other hand – I have noticed over the years that the issues that “matter” in OC/IC forums are frequently not issues considered relevant beyond the boundaries of a small group of OC/IC clergy. This inward looking positioning (conscious and unconscious) is I think detrimental to the community as a whole. In this light then it is not entirely surprising that – in a search of OC/IC sites this morning no mention is made of assisted suicide, euthenasia, or end of life issues.

But curiously enough – I’ve seen on more than one occasion mention of support for a woman’s right to choose. So it would appear that in addition to exploring (arguing) about matters that are only of interest to a small clique of clergy, making sure to hit those “hot button” issues that might attract bums on seats is important . . . . This leads to a rather uncomfortable thread of thinking though.

What I’m interested in at the moment, however, is not necessarily the why’s and why nots of this being discussed in OC/IC forums – but what people within the community think about assisted suicide and euthenasia: how do OC/IC folk resopnd to them, how does it fit within our theology, our tradition?

I was working on my thesis this morning and while considering aspects’ of Nestorius’ warning about the possible excesses of the title Theotokos – found myself thinking about the Roman Catholic idea of Mary as Mediatrix. I wondered to myself if it was not a bit prophetic on Nestorius’ part to raise issue with the title Theotokos, and went in search of some clarity on the use and meaning of Mediatrix. I found this, among others.

One element of this that surprised me was the heavy emphasis of Mary’s suffering at the cross during Christ’s crucifixion – and that it was in this moment that she truly becomes “mediatrix” and dispensor of grace.

My reading of the patristic sources suggests a . . . . counter argument . . . (perhaps not the best term). Mary’s importance as the subject of devotion emerges in the Late Antique period and is not focussed on her suffering, but instead on her becoming the Theotokos – the one who bore the one who is God – it is in this moment, according to the patristic sources, that Mary becomes the source of “super-abundant grace” (St. Proklos Hom. 1.1).

Patristic writers variously pointed to John’s account of Mary at the foot of the cross, as a demonstration of her post-natal virginity (because in vs. 19.26-7 Jesus – her only son, hands her into the care of John, and not for example James); or a fulfilment of Simeon’s prophecy (Lk. 2.35) that her heart would be pierced by a sword.

From an OC/IC perspective I wonder if the use of Mediatrix and it’s complimentary title Co-Redemptrix are actually helpful titles – after all, Nestorius held that the term too readily lent itself to excessive Marian devotion, distorting the true image of Mary as a woman, participating in the economy, and thus her real value in the tradition.

. . . Well almost. I’m a few day’s late I know, but the sentiment is there all the same. The liturgical new year began on Monday and, at the time, I did not have immediate access to the net.

New year, new ideas, new experiences . . . renewal generally. Hey, I like it. Regular visitors will know that over the past two weeks we’ve been moving to a new system in an effort to better integrate the various GC web projects including the Indie Voices Archive. Things are progressing nicely, and this might very well be the last post here in Blogger (we’re moving to WordPress). The other, non-blog related web projects will take a bit more time to finalise but there will be some temporary placeholders up shortly.

Switching gears just a bit – I recently revisited one of my favourite little books “Tales of the Magic Monastary”. In it, the monks recieve Bhudda has a guest and in the morning discover that he has unexpectedly left, and scrawled the word “TRIVIA” all over the walls of his cell. The monks are at first incensed at this act of vandalism and rudeness but then they calm down and begin to reflect. They realise that while unorthodox in his method, the Bhudda’s message was spot on – much of what we say and do, and invest with “importance” is trivia. Even more is “filler” – you know the stuff often used in food manufacture that on its own is useless, even tasteless or of little substance, but blend it in with other things and it makes a paltry product look great, taste appealing, and have the effect of filling you up. To use another example – one that in our contemporary age driven by a desire for information and instant access – consider a 24 hour news service like BBC24, or CNN – reflect on what happens during an incident that is in some way newsworthy. After the first 30 seconds when the incident is announced, they then spend a further 5 minutes in the studio struggling to fill in time, they display the film footage on a loop, and wait for a reporter to get on the scene, and repeat everything all over again – it becomes comedy really – two anchors, and a field reporter reflecting “filler” to one another for 5 or ten minutes when that time could have been used for something else – something truly useful, or informative.

Trivia. I’ve been reflecting alot lately on how various monastic communities strive to minimise trivia using various methods (a rule of silence, for example). Trivia interrupts, and distracts. Trivia gives a false sense of enrichment and satisfaction. Then I spent the other day – Monday in fact – thinking about the amount of trivia I generate in a day! It was . . . . embarrassing!

My new years resolution then is to be more conscious of trivia in my own life, and to explore new ways of reducing it, and to see what (if any) positive effects are generated by this experiment.

Wow! Ok, so I’m busy typing away at the last two chapters of the Thesis From Hell (a.k.a – Das Elefant). At the moment I’m working on the chapter dealing with Nestorius’ views of the Theotokos and the emerging cult & devotion to her; and it hits me . . . . this week is the week in 431 when the Council of Ephesus happened. Hmmmmm . . . . Ok that’s a fun coincidence but then . . . . is it not odd too that both my MA and my PhD are on the Theotokos? Well not really there IS a reasonable explanation – I got interested in the emergence of Marian cult & devotion while finishing my BA. . . . OK . . . this is fine . . . . but. . . .erm. . . . this week is also my consecration anniversary . . . Oh. Hmmm . . . .

Funny how things fall into place unexpectedly.