The Mission of Fatherhood

 

We have a priest!

Well, we've always "had a priest."  We had Fr. Gabe as our priest-in-charge from the inception of this mission, up until last month.  He served honorably and loved us and guided us well.

And we also had Fr. Tom, from this past June until last month, serving as our visiting priest, ensuring we were able to have Sunday communion services and confession without having to go to two different places to get all of that.  He also served honorably and loved us and guided us well.

This is different, though more in scope than in kind.  Fr. Seth Earl is now our priest-in-charge and is formally attached to our little mission.  He is serving honorably and loving us and guiding us well.  But he is ours.  We are his.  That was all true with Fr. Gabe and Fr. Tom as well, and both of those fine priests always treated us as their own, and we loved them as our own.  But neither of them was called to devote their full attention to us, and not because they did not want to.  Fr. Gabe is the rector of a very busy parish in Atlanta.  Fr. Tom is retired.  St. Patrick could not be first priority for either of them.  They were our fathers, and they were fatherly, but they also had their own flock and their own lives.

That, in itself, is good in its own way.  It teaches us that we are not so very important.  It teaches us to defer to our brethren, whether those at St. John the Wonderworker who shared a father with us, or those in Fr. Gabe's or Fr. Tom's respective families who would like to see them on occasion, or simply to one another. It teaches us to be patient and wait for the Lord to act.  I am certainly not complaining about not having a full service life or priests who look after our every concern.  It is good for us, and it is good that the Church sends us shepherds as she has the ability to do so.  The alternative would be sending shepherds who are not ready, or who cannot keep up with the demands of too many sheep.  We have been blessed beyond measure by the shepherds she has sent us. 

But now she has sent us our very own shepherd.  And he is another blessing.

I have heard many people speak of how missions sort of spin their wheels and mark time up until they get a priest, and then things begin to really move.  There are reasons for that involving practicality -- a parish seems "real" when there is a clergyman there who can do everything any other parish can do, and it seems somehow "less than" if it cannot do everything any other parish can do.  That's normal.  You might give a new dentist a chance if he has a meager and modest office, but probably not if he starts pulling drills and picks and scalers from the trunk of his car and asks you to sit down on the curb and tilt your head back.  There is a "marketing" aspect to having a full liturgical life and a priest of your own.  There is a worldly sense of authenticity and competence.

But beyond practicality, I am convinced that there is a spiritual component to it. There is a concreteness to having the diocese send you a priest, put him on the church's website and say "this man is attached to this mission" for the world to see.  There is no confusion, and no overlapping magisteria.  There is no division of priorities and no overwhelming the pastor with the responsibilities of shepherding dual parishes.  We have one priest who is in charge of the entire mission, entrusted by our Archdiocese to be our pastor.  This binds us all together as a parish family, with a spiritual father.  And fathers are important, in the parish as much as in the home.  We think of a parish having a "head," not in terms of worldly responsibility, but in the sense of binding it all together, as the Father binds the Holy Trinity in Himself, and is its fount and source.  Fathers are not merely deciders.  Fathers are the glue that holds the family together as one.

Fr. Seth's first services with us as our pastor came this past weekend.  With them, there was a sense that this is finally real.  Someone is now in place to care for us, to protect us, and to ensure that the Church flourishes in our little corner of West Georgia.  We are his sole priority in terms of shepherding.  And while in the world, some of those things are administrative functions, in the Church (as in the family and in the home), they are also spiritual and ontological.  Fr. Seth isn't just our leader, or our boss.  He is our father in Christ.  Like most priests, he is fatherly in his approach. Which is to say, he leads gently, but firmly.  He loves.  He is kind and patient.  When we err he forgives us.  When he eventually errs, we will forgive him. We learn to become spiritual children, not in the sense that we've all done it before, but in a day-to-day sense.  We learn to submit, and to honor, and to return the love Fr. Seth shows forth to us, because it is the love of Christ Himself, Who through His Church sent Fr. Seth to us.  In turn, good fathers show forth Christ by seeing Christ in their children, and in everyone else around them.  A good father teaches us to do the same, to him and to everyone around us as well.

We are under no delusion that our new priest is perfect.  We have all been fortunate to serve under some extraordinary priests.  Stephanie and I have had the great fortune, most recently, of being shepherded by Fr. Paul, who is an outstanding priest.  For a brief time since, we have served under Fr. Gabe, and of course our first priest was Fr. Andrew, both of whom are outstanding priests.  We have had Fr. Tom serve as our spiritual father and confessor for the past several months, and Fr. Tom is another outstanding priest.  We know what it means to have great priests, and we know that the greatest of those priests is not infallible.  Priests are men.  Like biological or adoptive fathers, our spiritual fathers are sure to fail us at times.  When that inevitably happens, I must remember my own failings as a father, and forgive as I would hope my children forgive me.

We also know that Fr. Seth is aware that none of us is infallible.  We will mess up.  We will disappoint him, fail him, perhaps hurt him.  When we do, he will forgive us.  Not because he is legalistically bound to forgive.  Not even because he wants to forgive deep down in his heart (though he surely does).  He will forgive because that is what fathers do.  Not in a legalistic sense, but simply because we are his children.

Those bonds of love in the Church are not always easy, and they do not always result in warm and fuzzy feelings.  Sometimes loving and forgiving other people is hard and messy.  Sometimes it leaves us feeling hypocritical, or perhaps taken advantage of.  But through the Church, those bonds lead us to salvation.  And that begins with the Church giving us a father.  Thanks be to God!

Graceless People

It seems the more we move into the future, the more we, as a society, lack grace.  Our leaders are, for good or ill, a reflection of us.

The President of the United States, in the last few days, sent out what can only be described as an ugly screed against Rob Reiner, who along with his wife was murdered by their apparently mentally ill son.  I refuse to give that message more attention than it deserves, but the part I want to focus on is the apparent motivation for this terrible take on things:  President Trump's continued exercise of grievance politics.  He said:

Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.

He became like a deranged person. Trump derangement syndrome. So, I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.

Well, first of all -- so what?  Are we really at a place in our country where if I just don't like someone, I can say anything, at any time, and have no remorse?  We used to be able to give people space to grieve and mourn.  Now, the President could not even bring himself to say one nice thing about a dead man, who was murdered viciously by his own child.  If such a judgment were warranted, it would be bad enough to say it right after the man was murdered, while his family is grieving.  The fact that Rob Reiner is not someone about whom nothing good could be said makes it worse.

Rob Reiner certainly was an activist, and he had a political worldview.  His first major role on "All in the Family" should put everyone on notice of that (though most actors are capable of separating politics from their art, the politics were part and parcel of the art on "All in the Family").  More to the point, that is his right.  Holding a differing viewpoint is a Constitutional right in America.  It is among our most cherished civil liberties.  We used to respect that, and respect those with whom we disagreed.  I'd like to think those days aren't over, if only by observing the number of Republican and right-leaning personalities who heavily criticized the President over his remarks.  

But Rob Reiner was also a beloved actor and director, and by all accounts a really good person.  He directed "Stand by Me," "When Harry Met Sally," "A Few Good Men," and "The Princess Bride."  He starred in the aforementioned "All in the Family," as well as having a notable (and brilliant) role in "Sleepless in Seattle." 

I haven't even mentioned the utter brilliance of "This is Spinal Tap."

He also advocated for early childhood education, and fought to ensure access to preschool for California children.  He was a father and a husband and a well respected member of his community who used his wealth and influence to try to do good.  And even if we might disagree in the particulars about which of his activist work was good and which was not, we used to be able to honor the intentions while disagreeing with the policy.

He wasn't perfect -- nobody is.  Mere disagreement, though, shouldn't lead us to pretend the man did no good.  That he was no good.  That he should be derided and mocked after his murder.  The ugly soul that desires to denigrate a man after he has suffered the most horrific tragedy, and put his family through the indignity of having to see it, is a soul in need of healing.

Especially in light of the fact that the President has done this before (when John McCain died), what are we to do with this?  The sad truth is, there isn't a lot we can do in the big scheme of things.  We can vote differently, but that usually takes the form of "vote for the other side," and the other side has its own lack of grace (for example, when Charlie Kirk was murdered recently).  Fortunately, I'm seeing a difference lately.  Many, many prominent politicians and figures on the left expressed horror at Kirk's murder and disappointment with those who praised it.  People lost their jobs for saying awful things about him, his wife, and his murder.  Likewise, there is pushback against the President now, from his own side. That is good.  We need more of it.

But in the long run, that does little good if it only exists moment to moment.  We as Christians have to raise children who recoil at such misbehavior.  We need to be people who speak out against it.  And we need to form communities where it is unheard of and deeply frowned upon.  We can't change the fact that the President won his election.  We can refuse to be a part of the uglier side of his politics.  We can choose to be better than that.  

As Christians, we are under a holy obligation to do so.  We are called to see Christ in our neighbor.  If we cannot do that, then Christ will not see us.  St. John Chrysostom said "If you do not find Christ in the beggar at the church door, neither will you find him in the chalice."  How much more is this true of anyone, in any setting?  If you can't find Christ in your political "enemies," how do you expect Him to find you?  

Father Thomas Hopko, in a quote prominently featured on our parish's website, said:

"Jesus didn't say, 'love the image of God in that person.' He didn't say 'love Me in that person.' He said: 'Love that person, and you will be loving Me. Because I have identified with every human being on the face of the earth.'"

"Love that person, and you will be loving Me.  Because I have identified with every human being on the face of the earth."  Even Charlie Kirk.  Even Rob Reiner.  Even those whom we choose to despise over stupid superficial disagreements on how we should govern ourselves.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but even Osama Bin Laden.

If Jesus loves that person, and I cannot, then I cannot and do not love Jesus.  That's a hard saying, but it really is that simple.  So as the deacon proclaims at the Divine Liturgy, "let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity One in essence, and undivided."

The Trinity is the model for all of mankind.  One of the Trinity became man so He could be "of one essence" with us, and that we might be "undivided."  Jesus said so in His High Priestly Prayer: "That they may be one, even as You and I are One."

Let us love one another, and put aside this petty childishness.  We can do better.

The Mission of Transformation

Transformation is a central theme in the Christian faith.  God takes our feeble and broken souls, and mends us into something better than what we were.  We, in turn, begin to learn to turn away from sin and live for God. In this, we see a constant transformation from death to life, culminating hopefully in our own resurrection and eternal life.

There is also the concept of sacred space, which is to say, space set aside for the things of God.  And along with that there is the concept of beauty, which reflects the beauty of God.  We beautify sacred space because of Who meets us there.

So it is that our little mission acquired space recently, and in order to set it apart, began to beautify it.

One member referred to this space as a "cement hole" when we first arrived.  Which is pretty well on the nose when it comes to describing what it was.  What it is now, is ....... more than that.  It isn't what we would design if we had unlimited funds, permission, talent and time.  But it is what we have.  So we transformed it.

The lessons should be self-evident.  We are still transforming it, too.  Just as God isn't quite finished with any of us yet.

Ideology is Death (Thoughts and Prayers, Part II)

 

For the second time in two weeks, a tragic shooting has taken place.  I do want to talk about my prior post on "Thoughts and Prayers," but I also want to discuss the thing that really killed Charlie Kirk -- ideology.

I don't mean "ideology" in the sense that we have opinions and express them, or even worldviews, and live them.  I mean "ideology" really as a replacement for theology.  Politics in place of God.  On our Mission's website, there is a quote from Father Alexander Schmemann:

"It seems to me that any ideology is bad because it is inevitably reductive and identifies other ideologies as evil, and itself with truth, whereas both truth and goodness are always transcendent."

This seems to me to be pretty well on the nose.  Though perhaps this quote is even more so:

"Principles are what people have instead of God."

Now, obviously, people can hold all sorts of ideologies and still not be murderers.  And some ideologies are infinitely better than others.  No one, I would like to think, would compare American traditional liberal values (by this, I mean the values of our Founders) on par with Naziism or Communism or any of the other various totalitarian "isms" that exist.   And certainly, even those who find sympathy with extremist ideologies might otherwise be peacable people in a generic sense.  One can say and believe awful things without desiring to hurt people.

The problem enters when the ideology becomes what Fr. Alexander says in the first quote above -- reductive and oppositional to other ideologies, especially in an existential sense.  If I think those who are on the "other side" are my enemies, and that they will destroy my freedom and well being, it's much easier to justify harming them.  But even absent such justification, when a Christian is captured by ideology, that Christian has ceased to be of Christ, and has instead joined himself to the world.  In that sense, I suppose this is also Part II of a previous post, Outrage Pornography.  If, as Fr. Alexander says, truth and goodness are always transcendent (and I believe they are), that means truth and goodness are things of God, not things we can possess of ourselves.  And that, in turn, means that, even for non-Christians, but especially for Christians, any truth or goodness we find will be located in Christ.  The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats makes this clear.  The pagan who feeds his neighbor feeds Christ.  The Christian who wishes his neighbor dead murders Christ. We, as Christians, should always act accordingly.

And this brings me to the murder of Charlie Kirk.  I am not a particular fan of Charlie's work.  I am also not a particular detractor of his work.  I know of him mainly through online reels, some heavily edited and sometimes grossly out of context, others more long form and instructive of his beliefs.  So I am aware of him, and Turning Point, USA.  But I was not his target audience, and I never spent much time delving into his material.  But I do think there are a couple of defining things about him and his life's work that are interesting in light of his becoming a target of an assassin.  The first is he is a Christian, unapologetic and outspoken in his faith.  The second is he believed deeply in free speech.  He invited those who disagree to go to the front of the line.  He loved debate.  He believed that the way to confront bad ideas is not with violence, imprisonment, or public shaming, but with good ideas.  And even if you think his ideas were bad ideas, it would be nice if we could all follow his example and confront them with better ideas instead of a rifle.

Charlie Kirk was not a soldier.  He was not violent.  He literally talked for a living.  He talked to young people and he talked about issues he cared about.  He did not exclude others, and was complimentary of others when they made what he considered to be good points.  He found value in public discourse, in the public square, and the robust exchange of ideas, all things that when I went to college in the 1990s were hallmarks of education.  Sadly, this seems to be less the case now.  I hope his murder, if nothing else good comes of it, will strengthen our national resolve to return to the days when we could disagree without being enemies.  I question sometimes whether we can all inhabit the same country given the level of venom in our public discourse.  This is not a partisan issue.  We are the problem.  We are truly getting the government we deserve.

To be clear, we do not know why Charlie was targeted.  It is entirely possible it was just another deranged lunatic with no partisan or political purpose.  It is equally possible it was someone with an ideological proclivity towards or against his views.  We don't know, and until we do, I won't speculate.  What we can deduce, however, is that this person had an ideology.  It is unlikely that someone would target Charlie Kirk in particular for assassination, and go to the extraordinary trouble of scouting the site, smuggling a hunting rifle into the site, going to the top of the building, shooting him, and then making an escape, without being motivated by some ideology.  We will find out shortly what that was.  But I think it's fair to deduce that ideology of some sort was at the core of this act.

Obviously, we do not even know the identity of the murderer yet, so we don't know if this person was a Christian or something else.  That's not important, because I am speaking to fellow Christians here.  It is also important to note, we can succomb to ideology in different ways.  The temptation to find joy in Charlie Kirk's death isn't materially different to me from the temptation to find a few examples of monstrous people rejoicing in his death and using them to paint political opposition as thinking likewise.  Thankfully, most of what I have seen in the wake of his murder has been appropriate.  Certainly from my friends. I am grateful for that -- it shows I have good friends.  But the lunatics and the opportunists who use them to tar political opposition are out there.  This is no less an embrace of ideology than any other.  We should avoid it.

For some reason, we also haven't seen the snarky version of the "thoughts and prayers" objection I mentioned in my previous post.  I'm not sure why, but I'm grateful for that too.  Because Charlie Kirk, and his family and friends, need our prayers now.  And we ought to pray for each other, to be delivered from ideology and restored to our Creator.  It is the one good thing we can do in the wake of such an act.  God grant him rest where the just repose and make his memory eternal.

Thoughts and Prayers (and why they aren't the same thing)

 

There was yet another school shooting this week, this time in Minnesota.  It has become reflexive lately for certain portions of our society to mock the concept of offering prayer at this time, usually in the form of the now-cliche "thoughts and prayers" phrase.  Without naming names (because the who doesn't matter, only the what), one such person said:

Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.

Another said, less politely:

These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school. Don't give us your f------ thoughts and prayers.

Now, there is certainly a case to be made that more should be done, legislatively, or societally, or within institutions such as schools, to help reduce school shootings.  There is an equally valid case to be made that hard problems do not find easy solutions and using tragedy as a hobby horse for your policy preferences is dishonest (usually stated by people with opposing policy preferences).  I tend to think this is a cultural sickness, and the way out of it is to begin to cleanse the culture of the sickness, but I'm in the vast minority -- most folks seem to favor some or another policy preference.  And if we can stop mocking one another, we can sort all of that out in civil dialogue and civic engagement.  Policy isn't what I came here to discuss.  What I would like to address is this clearly faulty view of what prayer is, why we do it, and the false equivalence of "prayer" with "thoughts."

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, prayer is not merely asking for things so that God will give us what we want.  Prayer is not, that is, the same as asking mommy for a crayon or daddy for a new bike.  Additionally, prayer is not only efficacious if we receive that for which we pray.  Christians know this, because often we do not have our prayers answered in the way we would like.  We are not toddlers, and God is not a doting parent looking to spoil us by granting our every wish.

Most simply, prayer is baring our soul before God, standing in His presence and being known by Him.  In this way, as God interacts with us, we can begin to know Him.  Fr. Thomas Hopko famously said "you cannot know God, but you have to know Him to know that."  Prayer, then, is our feeble attempt, as created beings, to encounter the living God, our creator, to be known by Him, and to be loved by Him.  In that light, and only in that light, prayer then becomes the requesting of things from God in alignment with His will. That is why Our Lord taught us to pray "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."  Often, we ask God for things He knows will not benefit us. Those prayers are still answered, only not in the way we would like.  As I have told many a catechumen over the years, "no is still an answer."

The quotes above reveal both a worldview and a conclusion.  The worldview is that prayer is designed to get us what we ask for.  The conclusion is it is incapable of doing that.  "Prayers does (sic) not end school shootings."  It's a very direct line.  1) We pray for God to end school shootings.  2) God does not end school shootings.  Ergo, 3) prayer is not effective.

But here is the thing -- it matters who prays, and who does not.  If the shooter had prayed, perhaps he would not have felt compelled to carry out this cowardly act. If others had prayed for the shooter, perhaps his heart would have been softened.  My mother likes to say "you can't stay mad at someone if you're praying for them."  You also won't wish to bully them or try to psychologically abuse or harm them.  More prayer -- not merely in the aftermath of a tragedy, but among society in general -- would do more to stop school shootings than any law on the planet or any policy you can think of.  Standing before God, baring your soul and asking Him to heal you, is a very different posture than baring your soul to the world online, "dunking" on people and "pwning" them.  It is obviously different than baring your soul in an act of violence and hatred that changes the lives of others forever.  Prayer softens the very hearts we tend to harden. And since prayer causes me to treat you better, it doesn't just soften my heart, it has the power to soften yours too, even if you don't pray.

Prayer is effective and efficacious and good for the soul, and that is why there is no such thing as "thoughts and prayers."  The phrase began as sort of a nod to civic pluralism.  Not everyone is a religious believer, so you can still send good thoughts or good vibes or whatever to someone who is suffering.  True enough, but that does not make "prayer" the equivalent of "thoughts."  Especially now that "thoughts and prayers" is basically a phrase used to mock people who disfavor certain policy positions.  

But it's obvious there is a difference.  Good thoughts ARE empty and inefficacious.  They are impotent.  They cannot accomplish anything other than making the other person feel better knowing you are thinking about them.  And that is enough in times of trouble -- by all means continue communicating good thoughts.  They are kind and helpful and loving.  But they are impotent, and the inclusion of them together with "prayers," in a pluralistic catchphrase, doesn't mean prayer is equally impotent.  

Part of the problem with people misunderstanding prayer is society has long since mainstreamed some popular, but faulty, views of religion in general and Christianity in particular.  The problem of evil is one example.  God being more like Santa Claus than -- God -- is another.  Prayer being something fools do in order to make themselves feel better about things is yet another.  Equating Christianity writ large with pop-American psych-Christianity is another.  We believe God is Santa Claus and a real God wouldn't allow such things to occur.  We believe that because that's how the dominant culture treats God.  He is a fiction, a nice thought, your invisible buddy to lean on when people are mean or times are hard.  We have mainstreamed the New Atheist version of God.

You don't have to do a survey to figure this out.  Just look at modern architecture.  Beauty is subordinated to utilitarianism.  Where might you find beautiful things?  Not at the Soviet-style courthouse with its concrete walls and very modern appointments.  Not at the government building with its austere brown walls and cheap metal furniture.  Certainly not at Wal-Mart or Home Depot.  Even Taco Bell and Pizza Hut have gone to the hyper-modern "shipping container" model of architecture for their new stores.  

But you will find beauty in a church.  You will find it on most things in the Church -- the lampstands, the icons -- even the books are ornate.  Why do we do this?  Because beauty is a recognition of the Creator.  Beauty exists because He desires it.  Beauty is a reflection of Him.  We beautify things because we wish to act as the crown of God's creation that He has appointed us to be.

You cannot recognize the full magnitude of this simply by walking into an Orthodox Church, or a Catholic Church, or even one of the old Baptist or Methodist or Episcopalian churches with their wood floors and stained glass.  You can begin to, simply by drawing a contrast between what you see in church versus what you see in the world.  But in order to appreciate true beauty, you have to pray.  Not mockingly.  Not sardonically.  You have to pray as one with a desire to know Him, and by extension to know those He has created in His image.  In Him, we are all one.  As Fr. Thomas Hopko also, less famously, said:  

Jesus didn't say, "love the image of God in that person." He didn't say "love Me in that person." He said: "Love that person, and you will be loving Me. Because I have identified with every human being on the face of the earth."

So yes, you cannot know God, but you have to know Him to know that. And one of the ways we know God is through prayer.  By opening our hearts and souls to Him in the simple acts of asking, speaking, trusting, relating.  It is not that God is impotent to help you if you don't pray. He already knows our every need.  Prayer, like most things of God, is important because of what it does for us.  It connects us to Him, and thus to each other, in a way that cannot be replicated by good thoughts or good intentions.  Prayer is not the same as well-wishes.  Prayer is an encounter with the living God.

To reduce prayer to the ineffective and vain level of "thoughts" is a failure to recognize that basic truth.  To mock it is to mock everything it stands for, including the idea that we are all one in Him.  That basic recognition, that the little children praying in Catholic school are the same as me, that we are of the same "stuff" and God loves us all equally, tempers anger, diffuses prejudice, and opens the heart to love others. 

I understand the reasoning behind the mocking.  I don't mean to demean anyone who has engaged in it -- I recognize your sincerity. But do understand that your policy preferences do not dictate our spiritual lives.  We will pray.  Those of us who share your policy preferences and those of us who have other ideas.  We will all pray, and we will always pray.  Because as Christians, there is nothing better we can do.  

What is love (baby don't hurt me)?

A discussion on an internet forum got me thinking about this topic.  The discussion on the internet forum is between Lutherans, mostly.  It began when one of them, a pastor, began bemoaning some issues they've had with homeless people.  This pastor believes that the homeless were being maliciously sent by people in his church body to mess with him, sort of a gaslighting exercise that he refers to as "mobbing."

In any event, I commented that I thought it was a shame that he let others cause him to treat the homeless poorly (he was asking them to leave the property and then throwing away their property when they were gone).  The responses surprised me.  They started along familiar lines.  Left-leaning people, politically speaking, spoke of the need for more government programs and assistance.  Right-leaning people, politically speaking, took another tack, and one I still haven't quite wrapped my head around.

What the more right-leaning people were arguing is 1) you do not need more public assistance for the homeless, because 2) private charity is sufficient to meet the need, and (here's the interesting part) 3) they shouldn't be expected to cater to the immediate material needs of the homeless because it "creates dependency" and makes them worse off instead of better off.

So if you're keeping score:

1) the government should not help the homeless

2) private charity is sufficient to help the homeless

3) private charity to help the homeless is bad because it creates dependency

This is not intended in any way to be a political post.  Mostly, I want to focus on the discordant views espoused above, not as a partisan statement, but on the merits of the claims themselves. Maybe another day we can discuss how isolated public charity is a Utopian and Pollyanaish panacea floated by people who want to claim they are helping but don't want to get their hands dirty.

Some of the homeless in Grant Park, Atlanta,
at the food barrel collected by
St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church

Anyway, my family and I have never been members at St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church in
Atlanta, but we have spent quite a lot of time there.  We have friends who were members and clergy there.  Through our attendance at the mission, we got to know their priest, Fr. Gabe, very well.  He is the rector at St. John and the priest-in-charge of our mission.  It is downtown Atlanta, right across from the Atlanta Zoo. It has been, for years, somewhat of a transitional neighborhood.  Homeless people are a constant presence there.

I had visited St. John ages ago, around 2011 or so, when Fr. Jacob Myers was the priest there.  Fr. Jacob was the sort of man who didn't follow conventions, and so he neither waited for government charity nor made excuses for not helping.  Fr. Jacob saw homeless people, so he fed them, invited them to come to liturgy, and prayed for them and asked them to pray for him.  This began by simply going to the local food bank and bringing food back to the parish to distribute.  But this could only be done once a month, so the parish began purchasing food, and the program eventually expanded to a pan-Orthodox effort, and eventually, in 2024, to one administered by a local charity organization.  From the smallest of beginnings, many have been blessed, just because Fr. Jacob and his people wanted to help.  Because they looked at the homeless and instead of seeing vagrants, or dangerous people, or people who had made mistakes and therefore brought it on themselves, they saw Jesus.  The Loaves and Fishes program feeds, clothes and assists countless members of our community today.

I happened to be at St. John the day the comments I reference above were made.  The occasion of my being there was a Mission Council meeting with the Council and Fr. Gabe, to discuss a lot of important details about our mission.  When I arrived, the doors to the parish were locked and there were several homeless men outside.  I spoke to them, asked how they were doing.  They tended to be reserved, not making eye contact, not saying much.  I would assume that long and painful experience taught them that avoidance is the safest path.  But one gentleman looked up at me briefly and said "you gotta knock," and then walked over and banged on the church door until someone came to let me inside.  That's not an isolated experience.  In probably 8 or 10 visits to St. John over the past couple of years, we usually stay for lunch, and we eat with these folks too.  They're damaged.  They're often mentally ill.  They are often drug addicted.  But they are people.  They are beloved of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.  They are our brethren.

When Fr. Jacob passed away, and Fr. Tom took over for him, he did not stop the Loaves and Fishes program.  He did not stop them from attending services or sharing meals.  When Fr. Tom retired, Fr. Gabe did not stop those things either.  If anything, both of them leaned into the homeless ministry.  Here, people were doing good.  They ensured that continued, and Fr. Gabe continues it to the present day.

During the time where we were visiting St. John pretty frequently, my family and I were members at St. Basil Orthodox Mission in Marietta.  St. Basil helped St. John with the Loaves and Fishes ministry, and we created mercy bags for our people to put in their cars and give to the homeless and destitute.  St. Basil did not have homeless people camped out on the church steps.  Marietta is a suburb, and while she has her own homeless and destitute, the problem is not as dire as it is in the big city.  But her people nonetheless felt the need to minister to them.  Some of that starts with the priest.  Fr. Paul supported these efforts and encouraged them, telling us why it is important to help others who are in need.  Some of it starts before that, because St. Basil is a mission of St. John, and thus her people were formed also under Fr. Jacob.  And surely some of it starts at the diocesan and Archdiocesan levels.  But it isn't just that.

This duty to care for the poor is properly basic Christianity.  It has deep roots in Patristics and Scripture.  It was St. John Chrysostom who said "if you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice."  St. Basil the Great said this:

He who strips a man of his clothes is to be called a thief. Is not he who, when he is able, fails to clothe the naked, worthy of no other title? The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.

We do not care for the poor because we are ordered to, or because God punishes us if we do not. We care for the poor because, as St. Basil said in this same breath:

Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all-this is what the rich do. They first take possession of the common property, and then they keep it as their own because they were the first to take it. But if every man took only what sufficed for his own need, and left the rest to the needy, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.

St. Basil is not some wild-eyed radical, out of touch with the rest of the Church.  St. Basil is on the exact same page as St. John Chrysostom.  So while the folks at our old parish were certainly following the loving lead of their priest, and the loving lead of their former priest, they were also following their patron.  We don't care for the poor out of obligation or duty, much less to seek reward.  We care for the poor because they are our poor.  These are our people.  Which is to say, they are Jesus's people.

On the website of our mission parish, we have this quote from Fr. Tom Hopko:

Jesus didn't say, "love the image of God in that person." He didn't say "love Me in that person." He said: "Love that person, and you will be loving Me. Because I have identified with every human being on the face of the earth."

This is our calling -- to love every person, because Christ loves every person. This is the lesson of the Sheep and the Goats.  It is the lesson of the Prodigal Son.  It is the lesson of the Rich Ruler.  It is the lesson that litters the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.  Each and every homeless person you meet is an icon of the Lord.  Treat them as such. 

The Mission of Compromise

One of the interesting things we've all learned in this Mission is the frequency of compromises we are called to make.  I don't mean compromise between varying factions or positions, though we do that too.  I mean compromise between the way things are and the way they ought to be -- compromise between what we know an Orthodox Church to be, look like, and act like, and, well, reality.

Most of the photos I'm using here are taken from other OCA missions.  They show the varying ways in which missions have to make do with inadequate space, beautify space that otherwise is drab and dull, and basically work with what we can acquire in order to lead to something more beautiful down the road.  Some are better "starting points" than others, but the burden we all have in common is taking a space that was not meant to invite Christ to come into our midst, and turn it into one that is.

We've been very fortunate.  We started in the nave at St. Margaret Episcopal Church, and they were so kind to us.  We were allowed early on to pay what we could rather than having a set rent amount.  They were always gracious and kind to us. But when we got the availability of a priest, using the nave at St. Margaret became a real problem.  Turns out, they'd like to continue using it on Sunday mornings, and it belongs to them.  We explored the option of doing later services, but eventually decided we needed something we could use Sunday mornings.

St. Patrick Orthodox Mission in the nave of 
St. Margaret Episcopal Church, Father Gabe presiding

So we ended up renting space just across the street from St. Margaret, at a wellness center.  That has its own set of compromises, in that we have to basically set up and take down an entire church assembly, including icons, the altar table, all the stuff on the altar table, etc.  At St. Margaret, we could "borrow" some of the decor.  At the new location, it's 100% up to us.  St. Margaret had a fully stocked kitchen, and another at a neighboring house they owned.  Now it's crockpots and cold food.  It was always imperative that we return everything the way we found it before -- St. Margaret still uses their space, as noted above.  Now it is more essential, since this is a place of business during the week.

Fr. Deacon Stephen peering through the "deacon's doors" behind our "iconostasis"
St. Patrick Orthodox Mission, Carrollton, Georgia

As you might imagine, the building isn't exactly set up as a church.  If we owned it, we could easily modify it to suit us, but it doesn't work that way naturally.  We have been looking for our own space since before we decided to move, so that is the next logical step for us -- though we are happy where we are, we will eventually need to find our own location that is ours to do with pretty much as we please.

Though, it still really isn't, is it?  We are still hampered by space, where the builder decided to put things, and where we would like things to go.  Do we have the bathrooms up front or right behind the altar?  Can we live with that door right in that specific location?  Because it's set into a cinder block wall with metal headers and framing.  Will all our people fit here?  Can all of them park nearby?  When we have a feast that requires a procession, is there a good place to do that?

Where do we eat?  Is there a place to prepare food?  To wash dishes?  Can we cook or is it just crockpots and cold cuts?  Is there a place for kids to go play after?  Can we hold a parish council meeting while parishioners are eating or is that all the same space?  What about choir practice, catechism, committee meetings?  How long is the lease?  Will we get it just right only to have to move out in a couple of years?

What about the neighboring businesses?  Will they be a nuisance? Will we?  What are the floors made of (and what are the odds a priest, deacon or acolyte drops something flammable onto them)?  Is there a sprinkler system?  Who signs for this stuff on behalf of the Mission anyway?  What are we going to do when we need a full time priest?

One day we will have a beautiful building, on beautiful land, with beautiful adornments and beautiful people being served by a beautiful priest and his beautiful family.  Or maybe we won't.  Until we do or don't, we will simply continue to beautify the space we are able to use.  It is a compromise, but one we are blessed to be a part of.  It humbles, and humility teaches.  Glory to God.