20120120 Theophany, Local News, and a Review of History

Podcast Notes:

Talk a little about Theophany.

Before the news...

A word from a sponsor (satire) - Guido-vich and Mak-mech-enko Revenue Consultants.
With the new immigration comes new opportunity.  The first immigration brought hard work and selfless dedication to building communities and parishes.  The second immigration brought a faith that had been forged by circumstances too difficult to imagine.  The third immigration brought their desire to share their economic success in the New World with the parishes that they attend.  Now there is a new generation with a whole new set of skills, honed in the back-alleys and bars of Moscow, Kyiv, Hoboken, and Hell's Kitchen.  A group that, while perhaps lacking in some of the traditional aspects of their ancestral faith, are more than willing to share their skills with the struggling parishes their grandparents built. 


As far as we can tell, the biggest problem facing today's parishes is money.  They already have their priests, their choirs, their buildings, but they can't pay the bills.  That's where we come in.  In times of economic trouble, certain industries flourish.  Our aim is to corner the market in these industries for the building up of the Kingdom of the world.  Our forefathers had the right idea when they threatened those who refused to pay dues with defacto excommunication and a cross-roads' burial, but they didn't go far enough.  We have the muscle to do extortion right!  Our forefathers had the right idea when they offered gambling to people with little to no discretionary income - but bingo doesn't go far enough!  We have the facilities to run things right, with all the addictive side-revenue streams that come with them!  Not to mention a hundred other revenue enhancers that our forefathers never even considered.  Sure, you can pin your hopes on fantasies like "evangelism and church growth" and "tithing and sacrificial giving", but why go with fantasy when you can have proven fact.  Our ways have worked in every place they have been tried - why not put them to work for you and your parish!?  Guido-vich and Mak-mech-enko Revenue Consultants are here to help.  


The news.

Here at home:
Things are well, thank God.  Sprouting?  Less nowadays, but rejuvelak has become a regular staple, as has homemade kefir.  Next up?  Kombucha!  I'm also deciding what to add to the garden this year.

Around the country:

Fr. Gabriel has been busy!  Gentle souls: Church bestows blessing on animals.  

As has Fr. Peter Preble!  ‘Weeping' statue coming to Southbridge church.

But what do theologians and mladasartsi do with this?  They use it as an excuse to bash Orthodox churches that they don't like - shame on you!

Talking MLK (and abortion) with New England theologians: emasculating MLK and the civil rights movement (and insisting conservatives do the same about abortion).

Prepping with Pawlo!

Bugging out or digging in?  What to do when TSHTF.  Proper preparation prevents [pretty] poor performance.  Basic ideas - KPECTь: Kommunity (communal sufficiency, autonomy), Redundancy, Excellency, Simplicity, and церковність.  And please, stop wasting water!

The Vol'ya Moment:  Telling history another way (Take II).

Homily - Repent... and change the world

The Sunday before Theophany; 2 Timothy 4:5-8, St. Mark 1:1-8

This is the Sunday before Theophany, when we remember St. John and his ministry, and how he prepared the world for the God-man Jesus Christ through his ministry of repentance.

History of Saint John.

Saint John the Baptist was the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth (the two saints who, along with Joachim and Anna, adorn the back walls of our nave). Zachariah was a Jewish priest; Elizabeth was the cousin of the Birthgiver of God, Mary. You will remember that when Mary, in her third month of pregnancy, visited Elizabeth, the child in her womb - John the Baptist - leapt in her womb. You may not remember what came next.

The Angel Gabriel had prophesied to Zachariah while he was serving in the temple that John would "... be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (St. Luke 1:13b-17)

But the road to the fulfillment of this prophecy would not be easy. Last week, we heard how, when John was still quite young, the wise men came and alerted Herod of the Messiah's birth. Since they refused to identify the Christ-child, Herod decided to kill all the boy children ages two or younger. This would have included John. As a result, Elizabeth took John and hid in the wilderness. When soldiers came to the temple to question Zachariah about his son, Zachariah refused to tell him and was martyred there between the temple and the altar (St. Luke 11:51). Tradition says that Elizabeth died soon thereafter and that John grew up in the wilderness and remained there until he began his ministry of repentance, "preparing the way of the Lord".

The Promise of Theophany

I have shared with you my love for Theophany. It is the realization of mankind's proper relationship with creation. From the time of the Fall until then, man had been unable and unwilling to live up to his high calling. Creation responded to him as God ordained, but because of the accumulation of sin, it responded as much to his sin as to his goodness. Christ had no sin, so He was a blessing to nature. His purity was so great that corruption and evil could not abide His presence. We see this in the hymnography of Theophany, most notably in the oft repeated Psalm verse; "the Jordan was driven back"(114:5). All the wickedness in the water fled from Jesus' presence and the water itself became holy. Through Christ, we are able to do the same. We are to join His holy body and to bring healing and blessings to this broken world.

The Need for Repentance

But first we have to listen to John. First we have to prepare. And the way to Christ begins with repentance.

Why? Because if we act in the world without shedding our sin, the blessings we bring to the world are always tainted. We are as much a curse as we are a balm. Why? Another story may help.

Disease Kills, Despite the Bearer's Intent

In 19th century Vienna, child mortality was high. Doctors did their best, but their actions were ofter ineffective. In fact, their help was so dubious that some claimed that babies died from fright at their approach. Ignaz Semmelweis did a study and found that doctors who washed their hands before delivering babies were more effective. Hand-washing was correlated with infant survival. That means that doctors who did not wash their hands were actually doing harm. It seems obvious to us now, but it wasn't then. Some were even offended by the suggestion that gentlemen doctors were somehow unclean and needed to wash their hands. But they were wrong. No matter how good their training was, no matter how good their intentions, if they did not wash their hands, they were going to do harm.

It is the same for us. We have tremendous power to change the world around us. With our money, with our time, with our love. But as long as we are tainted by the disease of sin, we are a danger even to those we seek to help.

This is why the message of St. John the Baptist continues to resonate today; "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" The Kingdom of God is within you. Repent. Wash your soul, and let God's healing mercy work through you.

20120113 Spirituality of Christmas and Theophany

In this (welcome back) edition, we go back to the old format; starting with a reflection, covering a few news stories and satirical advertisements and the like, then finishing with the Volya (Freedom) segment that treats a topic of interest in some detail.

But before we begin, I reckon that I owe you an explanation: why so long between podcasts?

Well, I told you that I was teaching Spirituality at seminary this past Fall, and that I looked forward to sharing some of that with the OrthoAnalytika audience.  And I did.  Unfortunately, hesychasm, the way of silence, does not work well in the podcasting world!  (sorry, a bit of Ortho-geek humor there).

Actually, It's been a sort of perfect storm of laziness, a growing family, busy parish life, teaching engagements, technical issues, and an attempt to take a few hours off every week.  But I recently talked to a wonderful mentor of mine about my frustration at not getting any podcasts out - and he told me that if I enjoyed it that I shouldn't hesitate to use my "free day" to do it.  And honestly, I enjoy this much more than what I did with my free day through much of the Spring and Summer (at least until Claire was born): play golf.  I was really grokking some Mark Twain - golf often threatens to spoil a good walk.

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, the Orthoanalytika team and I will get back into the routine and start pushing out more episodes.  There are still technical issues to overcome (I still have not recovered from switching servers over a year ago), but I think I have almost cracked the code on that.  A few more hours by our technical guy (he's the retired intell chief) and we'll be cooking with gas.

A bit more before we head into the meat of today's show.
For whatever reason, we've picked up a lot of new listeners over the last year.  Those who have been around for longer than that have seen the show change over time.  From basically a homily and some local music (often me on my old baritone) to a show that tackles issues - like prepping and the paranormal - that aren't really being covered in the high-profile podcasts.  Since we are an independent podcast, we're able to say some things that others might not want to mess with.  From the superficial, like when we made fun of people who are dogmatic about beards, to the more serious, as when we mocked hyper-ecuminicists by presenting a "metric of orthodoxness" (complete with numerical ratings and percentages).  We can get away with this because while we take the Truth (and our pursuit of it) seriously, the same cannot be said about ourselves.  We are, as one iTunes reviewer put it; "goofy".  We are also completely in love with God's people and the One who made and draws them all together.

Enough with the navel-gazing: let the podcast begin!

Homily:  God has been born in Bethlehem... and in our hearts.

[but first, another aside!] One of the guiding bits of folk wisdom that guides this show is that "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."  For the past few months, more than at any other time, I have been trying to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, and live hesychasm.  The idea that God lives within the center of our nous, and that through certain disciplines (most notably those that develop peace and self-less love) we can encounter Him... well, let's just say that it is a pretty big hammer.  Next semester, I am teaching comparative religion in America - that means that I have been reading a lot on American spirituality (think Emerson, Smith, Manley, and Bloom).   There are some real spiritual geniuses out there.  They take this very real idea of the Kingdom of God dwelling within us, and they run with it; engaging all their genius to develop new and beautiful theologies and approaches to perfection.  Unfortunately, as another such genius, Tolstoi, noted when commenting on Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon, such attempts end up being 20% inspired and 80% deceptive gobsmack (I am paraphrasing).  This is one of the great joys of Orthodoxy: it's a safe place to take this idea and see where it goes.  People who have done this before have published warnings about where inspiration ends and delusion begins.  Anyways, hesychasm is a wonderful hammer, and every homily for the past few months has been yet another nail (for instance, the men who made up excuses not to attend the Landowner's banquet became stand-in's for the many logismoi that distract us from spending time with the God-Emanuel within our hearts).  Here's what the hammer does in the hands of this unskilled laborer when it comes to the Nativity.

The Christ-child in the World and in our Hearts (the Sunday after Nativity)

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Before we get to the news, let's have a word from one of our sponsors (warning: satire coming).

From the makers of the "Tin-Foil Skufia" - the best defense (short of perfection) against all those logismic voices in your head - comes a new line of Chotki perfect for the prepper-priest in your life.  It is made from something no survivalist should ever be without: great cordage.  And not just any cordage, but the best cordage ever made, 550 pound para-cord, and actually improve it, adding a thin but strong fiber of hyper-magnetic conductive steel.  That's right, with this prayer rope not only gives you a total of 1000' of cordage in one 100 knot chotki; not only does it give you something you can use to pull your bug out vehicle out of the ditch... when you wear this chotki, you are always 100% grounded.  No Carrington solar flare or Iranian EMP is going to interrupt your prayer life when you wear this.  And if it can keep you safe from those kinds of attacks, then surely it will defend against all attacks by "the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places".  Keep yourself grounded  - order one now!
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Now on to the news.

World news:  I know y'all just love it when I talk about the Taliban, but I can't resist weighing in on the news about the Marines urinating on Taliban corpses.  I have to say something because I heard a local talk show personality defending the behavior of these Marines, and I just don't think that's right.  My point is not to judge them, but just to use this as yet another data point that shows that no nation, and especially not one that has allowed the morality of its culture to decline to the extent that ours has, (no nation) can make it through a war without causing spiritual damage to itself and others.  I love our servicemen and women.  I am a retired soldier.  But I don't walk around with my eyes closed.  How can we expect a culture like ours to prepare our men and women for the temptations war brings?  We have not even prepared them for the temptations civilian life brings!  If we are willing to put stickers on our Chevy pick-ups showing our disdain for Ford pick-ups the way we do (using urination to get the point across), why in the world should we be surprised that we are willing to show our disrespect in this manner when we run across something really despicable like the Taliban?   War may bring out the best in men, but it also brings their shortcomings, and the shortcomings of the cultures that nurtured them, into stark relief.  We really need to stay away from it as best we can.

Paranormal News:  If you've been listening for any time at all, you know I love playing with alternative history (speaking of which, if St. Brendan started a monastery here over a thousand years ago, doesn't the flag planting theory of Orthodoxy suggest that all American Orthodox should be under the Celtic Orthodox Church?  And given the early efforts of the Celtic missionaries among the Slavs, I think we can trump Patriarch Kirill's claim for a "Russkie Mir" with a no less preposterous Celtic Orthodox Commonwealth that covers all of Europe and North America!).  Anyways, our buddy Pawlo Amerikanchuk sent us this; "Ruin in Georgian Mountains Show evidence of Mayan Connection".  Some archeologists are trying to debunk this, arguing that it is simply an example of parallel development.  Pawlo argues that it may be the remains of the monastery that Prince Madoc's chaplain, Hieromonk Cadfan, established among the Cherokee of the southern Appalachians.

Health News.  In a flash of counter-counter-intuitive insight, scientists have found that "Extra calories,  less protein are culprits in weight gain." They varied the proportion of proteins and carbs across different groups while giving them all 1,000 more calories than recommended.   The low protein group gained less than the others, but they lost muscle and gained fat, whereas the high protein group gained more weight, but if was lean muscle mass.  How cool is that?  Yet another reason to cut WAAAAAY back on sugars and grains and move towards a high protein diet.

Crunchy News.  I had asked Pawlo Amerikanchuk to send in a voice report in hopes of renewing the "Thinking Green with Pawlo" feature.  He did, but Theophany has him thinking about the sacredness of water, why it was wasteful (if not blasphemous) to use water to flush and carry waste, and how composting humanure was a sacred allegory for God's desire to make good blossom out of even the worst things.  It was a bit much, so we are going to try again next podcast.

[Church News.  In November of 2011, Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyivan Patriarchate, visited his parishes in the United States.  During this time, he ordained a deacon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA to the priesthood without canonical release from his bishop, His Grace Daniel.  This newly minted priest showed his humility and devotion to Christian unity by publishing a letter on the internet attacking his former bishops for not being devoted enough to Holy Ukrainianity.  As he wrote in his letter, by joining the UOC-KP, he will better be able to "to honor [his Ukrainian] ancestors and to be faithful to and serve [his] ancestral motherland and its people."]

In other news, Oliver Smith divorced his wife in favor of divorce' Jezebel Doe.  He said that his old wife was no longer up to snuff and that his love of the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony forced him to marry a woman who could better meet his needs.  When asked about the unexpected move"She [his former wife] didn't do everything I expected her to do, and she was far too nice to ugly people.  Jezebel is beautiful like I am and is a more fitting recipient of my great love for marriage and unity."  Jezebel herself has quite a history.  Several years ago, she divorced her own husband of many, many years in hopes of marrying a man that she had previously adamantly and unequivocally claimed did not even exist.  May God grant Oliver and Jezebel many blessed years together - they certainly deserve one another! 

And before we go on to our Vol'ya moment on the spirituality of Theophany, let's hear another word from our sponsor!  Warning - Satire Alert!

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New from Fourth Rome Press:  Reclaiming Their True Faith: how and why many 11th Century Ukrainians forsook Orthodoxy for their heart's true home.  Learn how some nationalist Rusyn's of the 11th century rejected the spiritual patronage of Constantinople in favor of the true faith of their fathers, paganism.  "Prince Volodymyr and his delegates to Hagia Sophia were duped by Greek sophistry", claimed one disenchanted clergyman, who left the Orthodox "Church of the Tithes" in Kyiv to become a priest at the "Temple of Saint Perun, guardian of Ukrainianity, a temple of the True and Independent Pagan Church of Kyivan Rus'".  He wrote this and other things in an open letter alleged to have been posted on every crossroad signpost in Greater Rus'.  "The Greek religion is for Greeks - paganism is the faith of our fathers and should be our faith, as well!", his letter continued, just before attacking all the Ukrainian bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for being "turncoats" and "Helenophiles".  This book is sure to be of interest to all those who study the sociology of conversion and reconversion and the interplay of nationalist xenophobia with salvation history.

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Editorial Note:  Before we go on, let me just say that the clergymen and parishes that forsake their own bishops in favor of ones who better strike their fancy and then try to claim the Orthodox moral high ground are like the man who leaves his wife in favor of his secretary and claims to have done it to preserve the sanctity of marriage.  And the bishop that actually encourages such things puts himself in the role of homewrecker.  Enough said.

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Vol'ya Segment

On Theophany and the Economy of Our Salvation.
(I gave this talk to the RI Council of Churches "Faith and Order Commission").
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Thanks for listening, and thanks for all your e-mails encouraging me to get back on the stick!

Homily for the Sunday after Nativity - the child Christ in the world (and in our hearts)

Gospel (Sunday after Nativity): St. Matthew 2:13-23
Epistle: Colossians 3:12-16
Epistle (Sunday after Nativity): Galatians 1:11-19


Summary of today's Gospel:
God humbles Himself to save mankind, leaving His rightful inheritance as God and becoming man; being born as a baby in Bethlehem.  And how does the world He has come to save greet Him?  Is He born in a temple?  In a palace?  These would have been seemed more fitting than what it gave Him: a manger in a stable.  Worse yet, when the leaders of the day learned of His birth from the wise men - what was their reaction?  Did they submit to the Ruler of All Ages?  Did they nurture, serve, and protect Him so that He could grow into manhood as their prophet, priest, and king?  No.  In today's Gospel, we hear how the Holy Family had to flee the Holy Land into Egypt in order to avoid assassination.  The Holy One, the Savior, had come into the world and it tried to kill Him, with the murder of "Rachel's children" as the sacrifice on the altar of their own selfish rage.  It is a shameful tale, and it serves as a warning to us all.  As always, it is less useful for us to see ourselves in the place of the angels, or the wise men, or the shepherds in this bit of history - not when we are so often the very people who humble Christ, persecute Him, and drive Him out of our lives.

Re-summarizing the Gospel 
Yes, just as Christ humbled Himself to become a child in Bethlehem so that He could transform the world; so to has He humbled Himself to into our midst - the temple of our hearts - in order to transform us.  And unfortunately the parallel between these two stories continues: how is the heart into which He comes?  Is it a place befitting the Ruler of the Ages?  Or is it more like an animal's trough in a forgotten section of our lives, our own equivalent of the stable manger?

And having learned that God is within us, how do we react?  Do we center our lives on this reality, or do we persecute Him and drive Him our of our minds, out of our thoughts, out of our plans, and out of our lives?

Gnosticism - we need no king but (our divine) ego!
In American, scholars have noted that the dominant religion is not and has never been Christianity - it is instead a form of Gnosticism.  A belief that we are in union with the divine, that the divine light of immortal wisdom burns within us and is at the core of who we are.  They note that, to the extent we look Christian, it is because we use Christian words to describe this belief.  So when we hear - as we have today - that Christ has come to dwell within our hearts, we hear a validation of what we already believe to be true: that we are divine.

The problem is that it isn't true.  God is God and we are not.  And while it is His desire to transform us into something more (this is the whole point of the Nativity, after all), when we claim divinity we are doing the same thing Herod did: setting ourselves up on the throne and driving Christ into the margins of our lives.  Think about it: why did Herod seek to kill the Christ child?  He was following His instinct for self-preservation.  Christ was a threat so He had to be dealt with in the same way all rivals must be dealt with.  If we are not careful, we will do the same.  And in the reality we construct around our selfishness, we will be the good guy (the good god!).  God will be working through us.  He will be our guiding light.   Our powers of self-delusion (prelest) will be so strong that we will claim to have created the greatest temple to God within the best part of our hearts - when all we have done is ratify the continuing worship of our own pride.

The danger of delusion
Christ really has been born within us.  He lives in the center of our souls.  But our souls are so clouded by our thoughts and by our feelings that we do not even notice.  If we are not very careful, if we do not work against our fallen natures, instead of nurturing the Christ within us, we will nurture our own pride and call it "God".  But the god we create is a pale shadow of the true god - enough to delude us, but not enough to save us.

Ego or Christ; Pride or Agape - how do we know? 
This has all been a bit abstract, so let me put it in terms that are easy to understand; let me give you a means of evaluation to determine who really sits in the temple of your life.  As our bishops reminded us the their Nativity Epistle, the Messiah did not live for Himself - every action, everything He did (His very life!), was in sacrificial service to others.  And not just to others, but to others who were not like Him, who rarely understood or appreciated what He was doing.  And He did it not out of fear of damnation or hope of a reward (eternal or otherwise), but because He was truly devoted to others - He was love incarnate.  If your life really is characterized by this kind of selfless action - then there is no doubt that Christ is growing within your heart.  But let me warn you: the god of our pride is the master of illusions.  It will attempt to convince us that we are more generous with ourselves than we really are.  The practical test is this: are we willing to live outside our comfort zones, deny yourselves (take up the cross, St. Matthew 16:24), and do things for others without the slightest concern about receiving something in return(St. Matthew 5:43-48)?  Because this is love of Christ, and it is this kind of attitude that is the sign of the real Christian (St. John 13:34-35).

Perhaps I am still being too obtuse.  Let me get specific.  What is our attitude towards sacrificial giving and tithing?  To secretly giving more than people around us (so that they may give less)?  How much time are we willing to give up each day to get down on our knees and pray for the healing of those in need?   What does our prayer rule look like?  Did we say our communion prayers before coming to church?  How much effort are we willing to spend building healing connections with the broken people in our families, our parish, and our communities?

If we are like most men, when challenged to actually do something selfless, our egos will stand up on their thrones and begin making excuses.  Christ never made an excuse a day in His life.  He rolled up His sleeves and did what needed to be done - and He did it.

Christ is Born!  And He has made His home within the manger of our souls.  The rest is up to us.  [Through Him, we can do well.]

Homily: New Year's Resolution - Sunday before the Nativity

Sunday before the Nativity
Hebrews 11:9-10,17-23,32-40
St. Matthew 1:1-25

On this first day of the year, we look backwards and forwards; taking stock of what has gone before and and deciding what to do in the year to come.  It is the same with today's Epistle and Gospel readings.

Looking backwards
The first thing we notice when reading today's scriptures is all those names.  We are looking backwards through time to remember and evaluate what has happened up to this point in history.  There are so many things that we can learn from this genealogical history - today I want to focus on what it says about charity.  Those of us who have studied the Hebrew Bible are familiar with the deeds of many of those described in today's readings.  What stands out when we reflect on their lives is that the were very real people.  I don't just mean that they had flesh and blood and walked the earth at such and such time, but that they sometimes did things that don't look so good.  Some people use this as an excuse to dismiss the scriptures.  We know better.  We know that it is not their mistakes that are being held up for us to emulate, but their faith.  We find it immensely reassuring that God accomplished such wondrous things through His fallen people [more on this later].  

The references to the "ancestors of God" in today's readings serve as a model how we categorize, value, and interact with all the people in our lives.  Charity sees the good in others, despite their shortcomings.  "The strong must bear the burdens of the weak" (Romans 15:1) is a good gateway verse as it engages and begins to train our pride (it is spiritual milk/ice cream); but the stronger approach is that we are in need of such charity ourselves, even more powerfully, that everyone is made in God's image and has His breath animating their lives.  Everyone really is worthy of love no matter how they have tarnished the image of God within them.  The point of naming all these lives is to show how God works through His fallen people to accomplish truly great things.  Rather than dismissing the ancestors of God for their sins, we are called to recognize celebrate their faith and their role in salvation history; and in so doing, we are called to recognize and celebrate the way God is working through all His people (no matter how fallen).

... and seeing the present
The second part of today's Gospel takes us right up to the birth of Christ.  All of history led up to this single point - a radical singularity of cosmic significance.  God became incarnate as a man in Bethlehem of Judea.  The one who is outside of time and matter joined Himself to it to redeem it; the one who is undefinable and incomprehensible translated Himself into something we could see and touch.  [hymnography of the Church captures this the best, riffing on these themes over and over again]  But this happened two thousand years ago - what is the point of celebrating it again and again?  Are we historians?  No.  We are realists.  The singularity is here - Christ is born within each of us.  Just as He condescended to leave the glory of His rightful abode to be born in Bethlehem of Judea, so now has condescended to incarnate Himself within your heart and within this church.  This is the living miracle of Christmas - that Christ has come into our hearts to bring us His peace, love, and salvation - and through us (His Church) brings His peace, love, and salvation to the world.  Which brings us to my final point: what do we do with this blessing?

A resolution to love God (and neighbor)
New Year Resolution - nurture your soul.  Allow the Christ "child" within you to grow; allow His power and grace to transform your life.  You have accepted Him as your savior; now renew your love for Him and nurture that love every day.  Resolve to live a life in Christ - not because you should, but because you love Him, desire to live in His peace and joy, and desire to share His love with His people.  When we say profess to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; when we say that we love our neighbors as ourselves, we mean something very real.  We do love ideas or platonic concepts, but a living God and living persons.   And because they are real, our love for them requires real charitable and sacrificial action.  It would be strange if a man confessed love for his wife, but did nothing to help, nourish, and serve her; if he sacrificed nothing for her well being.  We would doubt the sincerity of his confession.  Similarly, it would be strange if we confessed our love for God and mankind and sacrificed nothing on their behalf.  Real love requires real action.

Let's resolve in this new year to live lives more consistent with our confessions than ever before; to pray more consistently and sincerely, to be more steadfast in our worship, to be more sacrificial in our giving, to be more charitable in our evaluation of others, and to allow the grace of God to transform our hearts, our lives, and relations with others.  If we do this, then we are sure to enjoy a prosperous and peaceful new year, no matter what challenges it may bring.