fredag 31 juli 2009

Varför män gillar ortodoxa kyrkan bäst

Hittade en intressant och smårolig artikel, som även jag som kvinna delvis kan känna igen mig i. Inget puttinutt och gulligull, tack! Och inte denna tröttsamma människocentrering som finns i alla andra kyrkor!

Här några utdrag ur artikeln där ett antal män svarar på varför de tilltalas av det ortodoxa - men läs hela, det är den värd!

***

"The term most commonly cited by these men was “challenging.” Orthodoxy is “active and not passive.” “It’s the only church where you are required to adapt to it, rather than it adapting to you.” “The longer you are in it, the more you realize it demands of you.”

The “sheer physicality of Orthodox worship” is part of the appeal. Regular days of fasting from meat and dairy, “standing for hours on end, performing prostrations, going without food and water [before communion] … When you get to the end you feel that you’ve faced down a challenge.” “Orthodoxy appeals to a man’s desire for self-mastery through discipline.”

“In Orthodoxy, the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous; saints, including female saints, are warriors. Warfare requires courage, fortitude, and heroism. We are called to be ‘strugglers’ against sin, to be ‘athletes’ as St. Paul says. And the prize is given to the victor. The fact that you must ‘struggle’ during worship by standing up throughout long services is itself a challenge men are willing to take up.”

A recent convert summed up, “Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it’s also about overcoming oneself. I am challenged in a deep way, not to ‘feel good about myself’ but to become holy. It is rigorous, and in that rigor I find liberation. And you know, so does my wife.”

/.../

“Noetic reality,” the reality of God’s presence and of the entire spiritual realm, “had become completely distorted in the Christianity I knew. Either it was submitted into the harsh rigidity of legalism, or confused with emotions and sentimentality, or diluted by religious concepts being used in a vacuous, platitudinous way. All three — uptight legalism, effusive sentimentality, and vapid empty talk — are repugnant to men.” The discovery of the ancient Christian concept of the nous means that he can now “encounter (really encounter, not just pick up as an emotional infection) the invisible realities that form the genuine substance of the Christian lexicon. It is not just empty talk after all!” This unpredictable, lifechanging, immediate encounter with God is “inherently dangerous, a new adventure, and a consummate challenge.”

/.../

In contrast to some other churches, “Orthodoxy offers a robust Jesus” (and even a robust Virgin Mary, for that matter, hailed in one hymn as “our Captain, Queen of War”). Several used the term “martial” or referred to Orthodoxy as the “Marine Corps” of Christianity. (The warfare is against self-destructive sin and the unseen spiritual powers, not other people, of course.)

One contrasted this “robust” quality with “the feminized pictures of Jesus I grew up with … I’ve never had a male friend who would not have expended serious effort to avoid meeting someone who looked like that.” Though drawn to Jesus Christ as a teen, “I felt ashamed of this attraction, as if it were something a red-blooded American boy shouldn’t take that seriously, almost akin to playing with dolls.”

A priest writes: “Christ in Orthodoxy is a militant, butt-kicking Jesus who takes Hell captive. Orthodox Jesus came to cast fire on the earth. (Males can relate to butt-kicking and fire-casting.) In Holy Baptism we pray for the newly-enlisted warriors of Christ, male and female, that they may “be kept ever warriors invincible.’”

/.../

Many intellectually-inclined men began by reading Church history and the early Christian writers, and found it increasingly compelling. Eventually they faced the question of which of the two most ancient churches, the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox, makes the most convincing claim of being the original Church of the Apostles.

A life-long Orthodox says that what men like is “stability: men find they can trust the Orthodox Church because of the consistent and continuous tradition of faith it has maintained over the centuries.” A convert says, “The Orthodox Church offers what others do not: continuity with the first followers of Christ.” This is continuity, not archeology; the early Church still exists, and you can join it.

/.../

A life-long Orthodox priest writes, “Orthodoxy is full of testosterone! We sing, we yell ‘Christ is Risen!’, we shove even adults under water in baptism, we smear them with oil. Two or three things are always going on at once. Unlike what I saw in a Western church, it doesn’t take a huddle of people several minutes of fussing to light a censer. You light it and off we go, swinging it with gusto and confidence!”

Läs hela artikeln här.

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Buss-ig kissemiss

En katt i Plymouth har tagit som vana att åka buss varje dag. Hittills har det blivit fyra års gratisresor.

Matte fick till slut reda på vart katten tog vägen under dagarna.

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tisdag 28 juli 2009

Medjugorje-präst avkragad

Jag orkar inte ens längre höja på ögonbrynen över sånt här.

"Father Tomislav Vlasic, the former ‘‘spiritual director’’ to six visionaries who claim that the Virgin Mary visited them nearly 40,000 times over 28 years, has been defrocked by Pope Benedict XVI.

Last year he was investigated over claims that he exaggerated the visions and had sexual relations with a nun."

Läs mer här.

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måndag 27 juli 2009

Oas-möte med katolska mässor upprör

Läser om detta i en utländsk (?) antikatolsk blogg, där det framställs som att Ulf Ekman går i bräschen för detta för att be katoliker om ursäkt för sin tidigare syn på vår kyrka.

Och det är ju i så fall bra. Dagen nämner dock inget om det i den artikel jag hittat.

Men Oas-mötena är ju så mycket mer - har inte fokus hamnat lite fel här? Har man inte förstorat upp en detalj hundra gånger - minst?

Är det inte också intressant att man väljer att ha en bloggheader med påven och en katolsk präst (bara prästkragen syns) i en blogg som är så emot "djävulens barn", som katoliker kallas?

Intressant syn på ordet och eukaristin också. Väldigt obiblisk.

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söndag 26 juli 2009

Remaining in mystery - a poem


I maybe shouldn't attend Church
to not disturb
those who like things
as they are.

Those who aren't bothered
by the massive, repetitive
flow of words,
and who can stand
the liturgy.

I maybe shouldn't go there
to not upset
those who think they have
the whole truth
in a little box.

Those who have systematical
explanations
also of the inexplicable.

I maybe should stay away
to stay at peace.

I seldom meet God there
anyway...

We both seem to prefere
to dwell in mystery.



Charlotte Thérèse, © 2009. All rights reserved.

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onsdag 22 juli 2009

Nära döden - nära Livet?

En vän skickade följande länk som leder till en sida av en man som var nära döden - eller rentav kliniskt död - under 90 minuter.

Han hade cancer på slutstadiet och fick en typisk nära-döden-upplevelse som avbröts av att han frågade vad det var som pågick. Och fick svar.

"As I began to move toward the Light, I knew intuitively that if I went to the Light, I would be dead. So as I was moving toward the Light I said, “Please wait a minute, just hold on a second here. I want to think about this; I would like to talk to you before I go.” To my surprise, the entire experience halted at that point. You are in control of your life after death experience. You are not on a roller coaster ride.

So my request was honored and I had some conversations with the Light. The Light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked the Light, “What is going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me. I really want to know the reality of the situation.” I cannot really say the exact words, because it was sort of telepathy.

The Light responded. The information transferred to me was that during your life after death experience your beliefs shape the kind of feedback you are getting before the Light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not. As the Light revealed itself to me, I became aware that whatI was really seeing was our higher Self matrix.

/.../

I was in pre-creation, before the Big Bang. I had crossed over the beginning of time/the First Word/the First vibration. I was in the Eye of Creation. I felt as if I was touching the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. Simply I was at one with Absolute Life and Consciousness.

/.../

The biblical “I am” really has a question mark after it. “I am—What am I?” So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an on¬going, infinite exploration through every one of us. I began to see during my near-death experience that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the Void.

/.../

From what I have seen, I would be happy to be an atom in this universe. An atom. So to be the human part of God... this is the most fantastic blessing. It is a blessing beyond our wildest estimation of what blessing can be. For each and every one of us to be the human part of this experience is awesome, and magnificent. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are, screwed up or not, is a blessing to the planet, right where we are.

/.../

Physicists use these atomic colliders to smash atoms to see what they are made of. They have got it down to quarks and charm, and all that. Well, one day they are going to come down to the little thing that holds it all together, and they are going to have to call that ... God.

/.../

The body is the most magnificent Light being there is. The body is a universe of incredible Light. Spirit is not pushing us to dissolve this body. That is not what is happening. Stop trying to become God; God is becoming you. Here.

I asked God: “What is the best religion on the planet? Which one is right?” And Godhead said, with great love: “I don’t care.” "

Han blev helt botad efter sin upplevelse, läkarna sa att "sånt händer", men själv ser han det som ett mirakel - och hela hans syn på livet är förändrad. Tänk om han har rätt i det han berättar? Vad tror ni om det här?

Läs hela berättelsen här.

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Blake om att se Gud - eller bara sig själv

Mitt bloggpausande tycks få lov att ta en paus... ;-)

För läs det här!

Apropå en het diskussion...

***

"He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the Portions only, (Scriptures, Theology, Interpretive Explanations) sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.

Seeing the Infinite in all things - people and objects - is seeing God. However, limiting our insight to that of religious creeds, dogmas and interpretative meanings, and those words of men, literalizing their Scriptures as the "Inerrant Word of God," is to see our limited selves only, to reduce the Infinite within the compounds of human perception."

WILLIAM BLAKE - (1757-1827)

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tisdag 21 juli 2009

Sanningen är större

Fick ett citat som åter fick avbryta bloggsommarlovet... För det beskriver situationen i kyrkorna, särskilt den katolska, perfekt.

"The truth is much too large and inscrutable to be contained inside neat, tidy categorical concepts and ideas. Doctrine and theology are indispensable, but they are not enough. The Christian faith did not initially come to us as systematic theology. It came as story. The story faded and monumental doctrinal theses developed. In losing the story we have lost both the power and the glory. We have committed the unpardonable sin of transforming an exciting story into a dull system. We must recover the story if we are to recover a faith for our day. We must tell and retell the old story and in the telling of it discover and discern our own story."


Ur: "The Story of Carmel" by Tessa Bielecki and William McNamara.

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måndag 20 juli 2009

Kattmorgon

Den här videon gav mig starka déjà-vu-känslor...

Hysteriskt kul för den som har en katt eller nån gång har lånat en... Möjligen avskräckande för övriga... ;-)

Här går det också att läsa en intressant artikel om hur katter manipulerar människor genom att skrika och spinna samtidigt!

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fredag 17 juli 2009

Påven och jag semestrar

Visserligen inte tillsammans, men vi tycks ägna oss åt samma aktiviteter. Så det fick bli en anledning till ett litet blogginhopp.

Fick just nyheten om Påvens fall.

Själv trillade jag och slog mig rejält på perrongen i Göteborg i början av veckan när jag bytte tåg på hemväg från ikon-/konstutställningen och försökte få av en blytung väska. Landade rakt på de stora tavlorna och ett vasst metallspänne som borrade sig djupt in i höften. Vagnen jag hade tavlorna på blev totalkvaddad, går inte längre att fälla ihop, men själva tavlorna klarade sig hyfsat. Den krossade höften har sen dess en blålila apelsinstor bula, och det gör ont från illa åtgångna leder och muskler, är fortfarande svenskt gul och blå överallt. Först idag börjar jag så smått kunna vrida på huvudet utan intensiv smärta.

En fruktansvärd gräsallergi ruinerade andra utställningsveckan så jag inte kunde vara ute, var tvungen att ta medicin som gjorde att jag kände mig som en klubbad säl, så veckan tillbringades mest i framstupa sidoläge. Alternativet var att nysa och snyta sig oavbrutet, samt klia sönder ögonen. Snart kommer samma gräsblomning hit...

Går också på antibiotika efter en radda fästingbett och snart två veckors oförklarlig feber, och får därför inte vara i solen heller den kommande veckan.

Kul sommarlov... :-(

Hoppas ni har det trevligare än Påven och jag.

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