The need for a new, truly honest and Christlike 'counter-culture'

The Mueller Report.

Watching the "spin" and polarizing vitriol on both sides of the political spectrum -- while the rest of us (the "silent majority?") remains baffled and rudderless about whom or what to believe -- I muse about what happened to truth, and in our culture today, the Truth.

I look at the "progressive', fading Protestant denominations, scrambling to beat each other for dwindling numbers of parishioners by tossing out their scripture-based standards (however misinterpreted, but that's another blog topic some day) to adopt whatever new, more comfortable moral and behavioral "standard" is out there.

And, I sigh.

I look at the retrenching, fundamentalist Evangelical churches who choose to fight cultural, social and spiritual devolution by just shouting louder, condemning with increasingly desperate conviction, and turning even more to political power as the answer -- even if that means backing a man (yes, I do mean Mr. Trump) who courts their views on trigger issues (abortion, traditional families, nationalism), while his private life (often made public) mocks the very morality on which they stake their high ground.

And, I sigh again, and deeper.

Where is Christ is any of this? Where is the western Christian culture that, will all its flaws, did so much right in providing the spiritual and moral foundation for so many ideals we say we hold dear: public education, social welfare programs, community building, jurisprudence, to name a few.

Nicholas Kotar, a deacon at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, fantasy writer, and a fellow J.R.R. Tolkien aficionado, recently explored the need for a new Christian culture -- one based not on political but spiritual strength, not on imposing legislation but living by example, and ultimately, one truly based on Christ:

"There was a time when society itself was inspired by Christian principles. Art, government, society itself  emulated, as much as possible, the search for perfection dictated by the call to virtue. Christendom’s grand experiment had both peaks and troughs, of course, something beautifully explored in Fr. John Strickland’s forthcoming book Age of Paradise. Ultimately, however, the twentieth century’s many disasters and Christendom’s failure to stop revolution and world war, have discredited Christianity itself in the eyes of many.

"Nevertheless, I am convinced that only Christianity can revitalize a culture that has lost most of its connection with beauty and that glorifies banality, variety, and diversity as ends in themselves. In my opinion, this would not be a retread of historical Christendom, but a new vision, predicated on the new realities of an increasingly neo-pagan and transhumanist West. Only a revitalized and renewed Christian cultural vision of the world can attract people once again to the Light So Lovely."

*I highly recommend you read the entire blog by Kotar.  Just click on this link.

Happy 42nd anniversary, sweetheart

Faith, and marriage.

 For me, the former has remained strong at its ancient roots through my River of Life sojourn.

It has ebbed and flowed, trickled through droughts, sustained under a glaring sun, refreshed in torrents and lulled to peace in the rare, precious stretches reflection and, yes, blessings.

Ah, but the latter, too, has been my companion, my warm human touch, the sustainer of love in a touch, a smile, a kiss, a prolonged embrace.

My lover and friend, my life's diamond, my priceless gift from the author of Love, who is that friend who sticks closer than a brother.

When I look in Barbara's eyes, I glimpse eternity. Faith and Love come full circle.

Happy 42nd anniversary, sweetheart.

His Love Wins. Always.

"Love Wins."

See a lot of that since the Supreme Court's decision to expand the constitutional definition of "marriage" to include same-sex couples.

I understand the honest sentiments of those expressing it. And, I will not judge the genuine-ness of their love for each other.

That, my friends, is not my job -- nor your's. There is but one judge, and I do no presume to know the mind of God.

But the truth is, more than 50 percent of people who marry, however they define it, will fall out of "love" and divorce,

But yes, Love Wins.

Greater love has no man, than he lay down his life for another.

Love won 2,000 years ago, it wins today, and it will win in eternal ages to come, because of a unique, selfless act of ultimate love.

Marital Sea Change: Same-sex, polygamous rulings death knell for dominance of 'traditional' secular marriages?

So, is the cultural and legal sea change toward same-sex marriage a portent for unraveling of traditional marriage as we have known it?

Of course it is. You must decide yourself, according to your own beliefs and conscience, whether that is a bad thing or some sort of societal leap forward.

I can hear the cries of "hater!" and "bigot!" now, but hear me out: my opening statement is rational and, to my mind, irrefutably logical.

In the past two weeks in the state of Utah, arguably the bastion of all things conservative and where voters overwhelmingly voted to limit marriage legally to one man and one woman, not less than TWO court decisions have turned the world on its head, marriage-wise.

Both came from the federal courts. First, a judge gutted Utah's long-time law banning polygamous marriages (a historical move that cleared the way for statehood more than a century ago, when the Mormon prophet gave up the doctrine of plural marriage).

Equal protection under the law, and the inability of the state to argue the harm to society, et al, were keys to that decision.

Ditto for another federal judge's decision late last week striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Monday morning, hundreds of gays and lesbians lined up at courthouses to get their licenses, where clerks were under orders to comply with the ruling.

Of course, the state of Utah is appealing both decisions. But the historical course is inevitable. Both decisions, sooner or later, will be upheld. 

This fight may not be over, but it is decided.  

The next battleground could, and likely will be whether, and to what extent, business owners and churches can exercise their faith-based resistance to the morphing definition of marriage.

Talking whether a bakery or caterer can legally bow out of a same-sex event, or whether a church can keep its tax-exempt status, or ability to perform "legal" marriages, if it does not conform to the politically correct tides.

Same-sex marriage/rights advocates argue that will never happen . . . just as they did that approving same-sex marriage rights would not have a slippery slope effect where polygamy would benefit from the same arguments.

What IS marriage, legally? It IS, regardless the apologists' who insist the LGBT Pandora's Box has not been toppled, a definition that is now wide open . . . if not in actuality now, inevitably later.

If same-sex marriage is legal, and if polygamy is legal, where are the restrictions for anyone, other than minors, engaging in this particular legal contract, etc.? 

 

Why not, then, a bisexual/polygamous marriage or any other variation of genders and numbers of partners? 

Any attempt to place limits on marriage, by any definition, will be mortally wounded by the same arguments that got us to this point.

Decades ago, I read a science fiction series where in marriages varied by gender, number and even the definition of what was "human."

One "family" consisted of a man who had cloned himself multiple times, at various ages, and married him-selves as well as other men and women and artificial intelligences.

Then, I thought: What an imagination!

Now? Not so much.

I don't have the answers to this whole thing. And I refuse to be the judge of others. Not my job.

But as an historian, and a believer, I have to observe that when spiritually informed morality is removed from the societal equation, as we seem to have done with our secular society, the very fabric of its institutions can become, certainly, unrecognizable, and perhaps unraveled . . . if not in present fact, then possibly in future reality.

Anniversaries: The rare jewel of marital commitment is a generational gift

Today, my son Rob and daughter-in-law Rachel celebrate 16 years of marriage. 

In a time when people struggle with commitment, I'm proud of their devotion to, and love for each other.

Also this week, my daughter Brenda and son-in-law Idal mark their first year of marriage, their lives now busy with my newborn grandson. May they also find the depth of love and commitment Rob and Rachel have.

Recently, Barbara and I marked our 40th. In January, my Dad and Mom, ages 91 and 86, will be married 65 years.

Dad will remember, Mom probably will not. But even as Alzheimer's disease continues to take her memories, she continues to be devoted to "Daddy."

 It seems, after all, that Love endures.

St. Paul was right, when he declared (1 Cor. 13, NIV): 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

"For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

 

A journey of awe, love and faith: Forty years with my best friend, lover and mother of our children

Musings on 40 years of marriage.

It really isn't that time flies. Rather, it is that SO much living can be crammed into a mere four decades; that so much of the beautiful and wonderful and exhilarating could come, seemingly just when needed, to wash away the pain and disappointments that are part of all our destinies, our Fate, and yes, our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

How the power of Love, between a girl of 18 and a boy weeks removed from 19, could endure so much, empower so much, and takes us so far -- despite not-always-conquered temptations of self-obsession and selfishness.

Faith we have shared, in God and each other, even as we were exasperated and awe-struck by trials and blessings, mountain peaks and valley pits, sweet sunshine and flower-scented breezes and thunderstorms, lightning and deluge.

It has always been, even if not always realized, not the destination we set out upon on Sept. 1, 1973, in Spokane, Wash., but the journey -- and that we have taken it together, hand in hand, comforted by each other and that occasional warm Hand on our shoulders.

I do not know what lies ahead, but I know that children we remain, despite the years, the gray, the aches that may make us slower (just a little!), and for all of it, only a bit wiser.

I think back to the summer of 1972, when I went on a three-week backpacking trip into the wilderness of the Kaniksu National Forest, trekking with the friend who would later be my best man. It was an intentional break, from everything, to be sure that when I asked Barbara to marry me, I was indeed ready to be committed to her in all things, for all time.

The journey, then, was imagined, both exciting and terrifying, but unknown.

Today, I call back to the youth, building the extra-large campfire to dry out clothing soaked by a mountaintop storm that shook a small pup tent with the crack of sheet lightning. The flames crackle, the heat comes in waves from coals glowing red and white.

Listen to the breeze in the pines, kid. She will be your lover, your best and truest friend on earth. She will be the mother of your children. She will surprise you with her strength, move you with her tenderness and compassion, and being the perfect receptacle of that torrent of Love you sense within yourself.

Years later, you will still marvel at her deep, green eyes, that still undiscovered country that beckon, assure, calm and inspire, always there, even at the end of life's squalls of madness and the pain.

Young man, you have no idea of what is ahead. But God has indeed brought you your soul mate. Laugh at the night, breathe deep the scents of fresh rain, sodden pine needles and feel the warmth of the fire spreading inside.

Don't be afraid to take her hand. It's going to be one wonderful, crazy, breathtaking ride.