St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral celebrating sesquicentennial in the heart of Salt Lake City

    Having an occasional freelance assignment now, in semi-retirement, from The Salt Lake Tribune has been a nice change. What is old is new again, kinda sorta. :)

This is my latest assignment for Religion Editor Dave Noyce (friend and former boss).

    "In the mid-19th-century Mormon theocracy ruled by pioneer-prophet Brigham Young, plans by smatterings of Episcopalians to carve out their own religious niche in the Utah Territory seemed audacious.

    But, in July 1867, two decades after Young had led Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, newly consecrated Episcopal Bishop Daniel Tuttle — having first paid a courtesy call to the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — presided over his church’s first services in Salt Lake City’s Independence Hall.

    These pioneering Episcopalians went on to establish one of the earliest organized, permanent Protestant presences in Utah.

    “You could characterize it as both a gamble and a miracle, but it’s also what love does — it spreads out and drenches every nook and cranny [of a community],” says the Rev. Tyler Doherty, dean and rector of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah’s Cathedral of St. Mark, which is celebrating its sesquicentennial in September. . . . 

Read rest of my story, with photos by clicking this web link: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/07/10/after-years-utahs-second/

A bright spring morning, an old dog, a wagon, and honoring the Walk of Life

 Part of my daily routine is a contemplative morning walk along riverside trails or in parks. I put on my earphones and log on to a podcast, or play portions of an audio prayer book, psalter, or if I'm in a more secular mood, an NPR, Axios or BBC newscast.

 Today, it was the prayer book on play as I did several circuits around a soccer fields complex above the Murray City Park. The air was invigorating, cool and crisp ahead of a warm spring day, a slight breeze in the trees where sunlight dappled a swaying canopy of leaves, while nesting birds chirped and fluttered through the branches.

 Then, as I got into stride and sipped my Starbucks French roast, I saw him -- an athletic man in his late 30s or early 40s towing his mixed-breed, gray-muzzled dog behind him. The canine lay nearly motionless on a small mattress and blanket aboard a wagon.

 Perhaps, in days and years passed, the man's four-legged friend had taken his human for long walks. Like so many other dog owners do with the wide open greenspace there, human and dog had played on the acres of green, tossing and chasing balls or frisbees. But now the years had taken their toll, replacing a puppy's boundless, energetic youth with the ragged, slow breaths and half-closed eyes of an ancient dog.

 Stamina had faded, aches in hips and shoulders grown, the runs becoming walks, the walks becoming shorter until this routine of quiet, simple companionship became what I saw today.

This day may have been the dog's last, or at least one of them. Yet, his human friend was honoring a life that had been -- and remained, even in its twilight -- precious and beloved.

 I remembered the many dogs I have had the privilege of knowing and sharing all-to-brief moments in time and unconditional love with over my life.

 I did not intrude on this moment of bonding and honor between the man and dog he dutifully towed behind him. Instead, I just stood still, quietly witnessed the pair as they went down a hill and disappeared.

 And, with a smile and wet eyes, I said a prayer for two souls on the Walk of Life.

 

"Practicing Prayer: A Daily Workbook" is a 28-day Orthodox Christian pilgrimmage of learning, revelation and devotional practice

 

At just 112 pages and a mere quarter-inch thick, "Practicing Prayer: A Daily Workbook," by Alexander Goussetis, might tempt you, at first blush, to underestimate its true spiritual weight.

Packed inside its pages, however, this is indeed a "workbook" for regular, daily prayer and devotion. Rev. Dr. Goussetis, a veteran parish priest and Ancient Faith Radio podcaster who currently serves as director of the Center for Family Care of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, guides the reader through a 28-day, step-by-step journey to a richer and deeper relationship with God.

From its first step of "Creating a Sacred Space," an area of the home featuring such spiritual aids as icons, candles, incense, a Bible and prayer books and a prayer rope, "Practicing Prayer" takes practitioners through an array of physical and spiritual lessons -- from making the sign of the cross, prayer postures, prostrations, and veneration of icons to the Orthodox Christian's treasured "Jesus Prayer."

The ancient prayer is both simple and short, but profound in its meaning, and beyond comprehension in its spiritual power. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," in partnership with a knotted prayer rope, is far more than a "Christian mantra," Goussetis writes, and it goes far beyond a "rhythmic incantation but implies a personal relationship . . . an expression of love between ourselves and God."

This book's value does not end with the 28th and final lesson. You will not master its lessons nor plumb the depths of its spiritual insights in a month, a year, or even a lifetime.

But like breathing itself, so is daily prayer to the soul of the Christian. "Practicing Prayer" will be invaluable to filling your spiritual lungs now, and preparing you for that life of the world to come.

Lent: The things we 'give up' willingly, and those we don't (or, that car was stolen, and 'lent')

 Eastern Orthodox Christians take Lent seriously.

"Boy howdy," as a childhood friend from central Washington's wheat and ranching region would exclaim, do they take Lent seriously.

Six weeks of vegan diet is just the beginning of this time of repentance, reflection, and learning about -- albeit by faltering baby steps -- that (especially for us spoiled, fat Americans) undiscovered country of humility. 

Most outsiders to this most ancient, predenominational of Christian faiths (2,000 years and counting) focus on the food part of all this. But there's so much more to it.

Fasting from the distractions of the world is a commitment just as big, indeed probably more needful these days. Cut back on the TV, popular/secular music, social media, etc., if not try to just do without it period -- replace that with quiet moments, prayer, reading spiritual works, and uplifting, thoughtful literature in the broader sense.

Then there's the concept of almsgiving. That's not just giving a buck to a beggar, but being open to the plethora of ways we can purposely be charitable and loving to our fellow humans. What you save on skipping that steak dinner could be donated to a food bank or shelter, for example. Or, anonymously picking up the tab at a restaurant for an elderly couple or young family; pay for the Starbucks coffee ordered by the person in the drive up line behind you.

Offer a smile to a passer-by, a greeting. You know, random acts of kindness can have value beyond one's understanding, whether you are Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, or none of the above. To a believer, it can be liberating, a grasp at the essence of God's love.

Even if you do not believe that way, you probably do suspect there is a sort of Law of Reciprocity that reveals itself just as observably as those of long-undisputed laws of gravity, magnetic fields, physics, etc.

A the very least, and in ways ultimately still beyond our comprehension, such acts make others feel better. And they make you feel better, too.

But, after that metaphysical if not cosmic detour of thought, I'm taking this blog back to Lent, Orthodox Christian style.

Last weekend I prepared to enter this Lenten season (my fourth) ready to do better, at least incrementally. I was prepared, as I say: meat and dairy replaced by fruit, nuts, and veggies, and striving to acquire a taste for (or at least grudging tolerance for) black coffee. My reading materials were chosen (spiritual and secular alike), I had familiarized myself with the church service schedules, and brushed up on my Lenten prayer rule.

Then, someone stole my car Saturday night. Sunday, they found it trashed in a vacant industrial park in South Salt Lake. Police and insurance reports (the latter worthless, as the policy covered nothing but liability), trying to decide when/if to replace the car . . . and all while wondering why, with a row of new or late-model vehicles to choose from parked in front of our condo complex, a thief would pick my 23-year-old, 137,000-mile, reclaimed-at-auction beater to jack.

My parish priest, hearing my (I thought) rather good excuse for being absent, was suitably consoling. But what he said at the end of our conversation made me consider what had happened in a new, or at least more revealing (?) light.

"Yes, horrible. . . But what can you say? It must be Lent!"

No, God didn't send a probationary angel to shimmy open my locked Honda and rip the steering column apart to jam a screwdriver into the ignition. Life happens. But how we react to Life, well, that's kind of the point, right?

So, here's me with an unexpected opportunity to stretch, to focus on what really matters in life. And what really matters in life is Life. There's love, and hardship, unheralded victories of spirit and charity, and tasting the air we breathe, seeing beyond both time and space, hearing the conversation of the natural world around us, and seeing both the Eternal, and the universe within the eyes of a loved one.

And later today, I'll be looking at a 2012 Ford sub-compact. Manual transmission. A less-attractive model, I'm told, to thieves who have Hondas (however old) and Toyotas at the top of their "to-steal" lists.

Have your own, blessed Lent!

 

Soul Searching: On Confusing the Duties of Faith with the Lure of Political Power

    Hopefully, this will truly be a time of soul searching for Evangelical Christians (as for us all) over confusing faith with political power, and thus a bitter harvest -- often borne of willful ignorance of moral compromise in leadership.

    And of course it is not just Evangelicals who detoured into this dead end path; still this uniquely American Protestant community seemed to fall hardest for a false secular gospel that clothed itself in fear -- and ultimately looked little different than the violence and hate that likewise betrayed and usurped other, initially peaceful protests over legitimate racial and justice concerns this past year.

   My friend, and a mentor in my Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, Fr. Steven Clark, put it this way in a comment:

"The evil one showed the world and said: 'This I will give you, if you bow down and worship me.'

And. . . well.. . . . you know."

Please read, and consider: 89.3 KPCC | 'How Did We Get Here?' A Call For An Evangelical Reckoning On Trump (scpr.org)

So, what is the opposite of the Midas Touch?

What would be the opposite of the "Midas Touch" of Greek mythology?

Given the devolution of modern public education, it is unlikely the current generation, and probably not the former generation either, knows about the story. So, a refresher courtesy Encyclopedia Britannia:

"Midas found the wandering Silenus, the satyr and companion of the god Dionysus. For his kind treatment of Silenus Midas was rewarded by Dionysus with a wish. The king wished that all he touched might turn to gold, but when his food became gold and he nearly starved to death as a result, he realized his error. Dionysus then granted him release by having him bathe in the Pactolus River (near Sardis in modern Turkey), an action to which the presence of alluvial gold in that stream is attributed."

Well, I've not met a satyr in my past journalistic wanderings, but I did know a decidedly randy alternative press editor in my early days . . . but that, and his reputation with the ladies, is another story -- and on consideration, not mine to share.

Hey, I am not a member of the White House staff, after all, all primed to spill secrets at the drop of a hat, or bribe, or political hubris. A confidence is a secret wrapped inside a . . . forget it, you'd never believe the story, anyway.

I digress. What I'm saying is if Midas' touch turned the mundane into gold, these past few days I seem to have to developed the ability to transform the ordinary items and tasks into something decidedly more brown in color, and disgustingly fetid.

Crap, in other words.

Go to New Year's Eve Vespers service, park the car right out front, and come out to be greeted by a $38 ticket for what amounted to an hour parked on an all-but-empty downtown Salt Lake City street. Thirty-eight bucks? Really?

Bake a loaf of bread, usually an easy task (I mean, we have a breadmaking machine, after all). Follow the instructions and ingredient measures to the letter, and when the nifty little automated oven gizmo beeps its "done" notes, I approach the smell of fresh, hot bread in anticipation . . . only to find a mound of steaming, mushy wheat flour with a bubble in its innards.

Oddly enough, that reminds me of Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

In other words, there's a whole (hole) world under the surface of the crust. Well, not really. Just a yeasty cavity. Slicing this bread was educational, though . . . I suspect I know now how the "Egg in a hole" breakfast recipe may have been discovered.

But we were out of eggs, so just a sorry looking hunk of bread. Like I said, the opposite of the Midas Touch.

Ah, well. An apple, then. Is there such a thing as fruit lividity? You know, like on the TV crime scene people who point out the bruising on a corpse due to where the blood settled due to gravity? 

Whatever. The apple, a glowing red on the top, disintegrates as my fingers go knuckles deep into its unseen bottom half of grayish pulp.

Perhaps the Fecal Touch, then? Because that seems apropos to what comes next. 

Take a walk outdoors, I say to myself, cold crisp air, get the blood pumping, that's what I need. Shoes rustling through the wet leaves, freezing weather but still sunny, a raw sort of beauty to it all . . . then the right heel slips on a partially covered coil of what had to be Great Dane spore.

For Midas, the cure was to swim in a river. He lost his touch, and the river ended up chock full of gold.

But the only river nearby me is the Jordan River. And as we all know, it is already liberally laced with sewage from the overflow pipes of water treatment plants downstream.

Sigh.

 

Grace in the Time of Covid: On a cold winter's morning, a lesson from Michael

 It was a bone-chilling cold, pre-dawn Tuesday morning. The 5 a.m. alarm on my phone sounded, and for several minutes -- nestled in my warm bed -- and debated with just turning it off and drifting back to sleep.

But I got up, with a moan. It was the day for early-morning liturgy and communion at Sts. Peter & Paul Orthodox Church in downtown Salt Lake City. I knew I needed it, and needed to be there. 

After the service, the guys would meet for coffee and scriptural study with Fr. Paul downstairs -- a time that has become especially precious to me during this season of prolonged Covid-19 related isolation.

Showered and dressed, I donned a heavy coat, scarf and gloves and bundled myself into the car, first scraping a sheet of ice from the windshield. My decades-old Honda Civic coughed to life, I turned on the heater full blast, and drove down the road.

It's a 15-minute trip to the church, and to my usual morning prayers and added not a few laments about life as we have come to know it in the age of pandemic. Finally, as I drove on near-empty, slippery streets, I passed the homeless camps of shopping carts draped with makeshift tents that regularly pop up along the curbs of the Salt Lake County-City Government Complex.

Deseret News photo

But I was so self-absorbed, irritated that the old Honda's heater was just beginning to warm the car's interior, that I hardly noticed the desperation and poverty of wrecked lives that have become part of the urban landscape.

Pulling into a dark side street and then the small parking lot behind my parish church, I sat for a time behind the wheel, relishing a belated moment of warmth. Then with a grunt I got out, put on my mask, shivered, and began walking down the alley to the entrance of Sts. Peter & Paul.

The homeless, I'm ashamed to say, have too often become the faceless, nameless backdrops of our lives today. If not ignored, then they only elicit a brief thought or an occasional a few bucks quickly handed over to appease the inconvenience of guilt.

But there is one denizen of the street many in the parish have come to know, and some befriend.

"Michael," also the name of his patron saint, adorns the sleeves of his arms and coat with iconic images of saints and angels, secured with transparent plastic and duct tape. Slight and gaunt, his beard and graying hair often seeming as wild and surreal as his thoughts, Michael has good days and bad.

Some days, he holds forth on the warfare of angels and demons in the skies above, where clouds may swirl, punctuated by thunder and lightning. "See? There they are, fighting over the souls of the dead? Right there," he once told me on a summer day, pointing and nodding.

On other days, he seems to have the simple clarity of a saint. That is the case on this particular frigid December morning, as he steps out from behind a plastic tarp draped over his nest of blankets and sleeping bags near a building's steam vent.

He won't do the shelters. He has horror stories of sickness, bed bug-infested cots, drug use and violence inside them. He's often been robbed of his few possessions. Over the years, our priest and parish have tried to arrange other housing and psychiatric care, without success.

So, one does what one can, meeting this brother where he is, and with what he needs -- warm clothing, food, a few dollars for coffee or a snack, and friendship, to the extent this gentle and enigmatic man allows that.

So, on this morning, I just want to get inside to the warmth, comfort and spiritual refuge of the church. Michael recognizes my voice, this time, and hurries to my side. I'm grumpy; he is ebullient, and our pace toward the open iron gates of the entrance slows.

"It's a good day," he rasped. "It's a cold day," I grumbled back.

He either didn't hear me, or ignored my reply. "God is so great! He provides what you need. Even a hot shower!" Michael pointed to the steam coming out of a head-high pipe. "They shut down the showers where I was going," he explained, vaguely waving toward an undefined downtown Salt Lake City location, "But then God provided this!"

He went on to list a few other things he attributed to Providence. A place to fill his water jug. People cared enough to check on him, feed him, take him to the free clinic, even just talk for a few moments.

Then, Michael grinned, pointed at the church where he, like me, received baptism a few years back, and said, "And we get to go inside His house and have communion! Hey, it's the Breakfast of Champions!"

And we did that. We climbed the steps inside to the candle-lit darkness, venerate the icons of the saints and stood for the ancient prayers of the liturgy, culminating with the Eucharist.

I watched Michael approach the chalice, a look of awe on his smudged face as he received the mystical Body and Blood of Christ.

As he made his cross and silently walked away, I sighed, ashamed at first, then humbled, and then grateful for the lesson.

For Michael.

Lord have mercy, indeed.

 

Well, assuming Trump's lawsuits and recounts don't provide what would truly be a dramatic shift . . . I muse, as a History grad, on one truth that seems to be understated (at the least):

Never before in American history has a president presiding over what had been a booming economy, record employment, and some rather impressive diplomatic and trade successes (pre-Covid, albeit) -- LOST a second term.

Other than the virus, what is the one factor that might have made the difference Tuesday? While the GOP platform's n pro-life and economic policies, secure borders, etc., likely found resonance with most or at least many Americans, Trump's character -- so crudely displayed, even while being the epitome of narcissistic (if inarticulate "bigly" as Donald would say) hyperbole and outright lies -- ultimately made HIM, not his administration's policies and accomplishments, the primary issue for too many Americans.

I realize that's a rather harsh assessment to some of my friends on the right, and not harsh enough to acquaintances on the left. Of course, we certainly saw widespread corruption, dishonesty, and cynical (tacit and intentional) use of the to-often-destructive mobs usurped by the extreme left over the summer.

But in the end, no one individual -- in particular not Joe Biden and Kamala Harris -- could fit into the spotlight of disgust Trump largely, if not completely, earned.

Was there unfair, biased reporting about the campaign, even unfettered open support by the news media for one party over another? Oh, yes. Was there voting fraud? Certainly, there always is, but was 2020's fraud any more widespread than that in past elections? That remains to be seen, and recounts and litigation may yet show the truth of that, or put the fears largely to rest.

But in the end, Trump's character, IMHO, will be seen as the tipping point. Historians likely will someday conclude that a vote for Biden and Harris in 2020 was, perhaps more often than not, a vote against Trump's public persona.

And be sure that persona was built at least as much by Trump's own actions/Tweets as a news media that, undoubtedly, lost its collective mind and shredded what was left of its journalistic integrity.

A 16th-century Irish proverb warns that it is, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." The idea is that as bad as it might be with the present person or situation, what comes along to replace him, or it, might be even worse.

We'll see.

Book review: “Healing Your Wounded Soul: Growing from Pain to Peace"

 

    In his new book, “Healing Your Wounded Soul: Growing from Pain to Peace,” Fr. Joshua Makoul masterfully blends Eastern Orthodox Christianity’s ancient ascetical wisdom with complementary insights from modern psychotherapy to offer hope to those emotionally – and spiritually -- crippled by painful memories of abuse, rejection, and shame.

      It is a mission for which Makoul, dean of the St. George Cathedral in Pittsburgh and veteran certified counselor with academic degrees in Psychology, is well-qualified. His straightforward, crisp, and thought-provoking writing style builds a solid foundation of understanding such therapeutic concepts such as “relationship trauma,” “transference” of past pain to present experiences, and “projection” of our own faults onto others.

     None of those psychological frameworks are left to stand alone, however. Fr. Makoul consistently illuminates them with the light of faith. Introspection, for example – so stressed by secular therapists as key to unearthing the origins of debilitating behaviors – has been key to the Eastern Orthodox path to theosis (the eternal goal of the faithful “to become by grace what God is by nature,” as Fr. Makoul explains).

     This holy introspection, a core teaching of the Desert Fathers’ “science of the soul,” is the key to spiritual—and arguably emotional – healing echoed in the teachings of the saints for millennia. As St. Isaac of Syria – one of numerous Desert Fathers mined by Fr. Makoul – put it, “Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and you will see things that are in heaven – for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within your soul.”

     What Fr. Makoul’s book is not, is a self-help tome with specific quick fixes for those memories and errant coping habits that may cripple the reader’s present. Rather, it helps the reader acquire clearer perspective and understanding of self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors – and with those insights, to be ready for true healing.

     Start with a visit to your parish priest and/or spiritual father; he may, in addition to his grounding in the Faith, have also been trained in counseling – or be able to refer you to a network of “faith-friendly” therapists.

     For anyone struggling with painful memories, and the negative behaviors spawned by them that can damage present relationships with God and others – or those who have loved ones suffering such emotional injuries and their aftermath – I strongly recommend  “Healing Your Wounded Soul: Growing from Pain to Peace.”

"Big In Heaven" review: At St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish Orthodox Church, saints have dirty faces

 

Growing up poor in a Protestant Evangelical Pentecostal preacher's family, I learned at an early age the meaning of "hypocrisy" long before I knew how to spell the word itself. 

 I found it in the hard eyes of those self-styled super spiritual guides populating the church board, who would weekly dissect the doctrinal nuances of Dad's sermons, and Dad himself if they could, even as they insisted his paltry salary should be enough to live on. 

 That he drove a school bus part-time while Mom worked as a waitress or in sales at J.C. Penney was a scandal! After all, the drafty old parsonage with a coal furnace that tended to cough up black smoke through the vents in the heart of winter may not be perfect, but it was free. 

 The nerve! After all, with a crippled and retarded daughter in his family, the pastor was indeed blessed to get the pulpit in any church teaching faith healing! Girl's not healed, after all. Pastor's faith must be lacking.

 So, I was surprised to find some painful, yet oddly inspiring similarities in the short stories penned by Fr. Stephen Sinari in his book "Big In Heaven." The tales of Fr. Naum and the all-too-human, sometimes saintly diamonds in the rough who comprise St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish Orthodox Church and the ethnic Philadelphia neighborhood it serves, are fictional. They are also true.

 In the four years since I was baptized into the Eastern Orthodox faith, I've learned our Truth is not limited to history and dogma but shines forth in parables, allegories and the stylized stories that buoy the holiness and sacrifices of our those saints and martyrs populating our icon walls and temples. The same is true for the characters Fr. Stephen shares.

 Still, I suspect that much in "Big In Heaven" borders on the autobiographical. After all, the author is an OCA priest whose nearly 40 years of ministry have spanned inner-city parish pastoral callings as well as extensive work on the streets serving the homeless, and at-risk and trafficked teens.

 "Big In Heaven" makes anyone with faith, and particularly those raised in or converted into Orthodoxy, consider anew the unfathomable depths of God's mercy and grace to his soiled children, staggering toward personal Golgothas and the hope of salvation and theosis.

 It was early in the book, where Fr. Stephen introduces Curtis, "an altar server who new the Liturgy in a way not even [Fr.] Naum could understand." Curtis "knew when to have the censer ready, how to cut the bread for the nafora, when to light the candles, how to ready the boys for the processions, when to boil the water for the chalice, even the best way to hold the cloth at Communion time."

 Curtis, Naum's bishop had once remarked, was the best server he had ever seen. This same Curtis, a 35-year-old born with Down syndrome deemed unworthy of believer's baptism at a local Protestant church due to his handicaps, but welcomed into Orthodoxy.

 Fr. Stephen's writes of a parishioner, seeing Curtis donning a hand-me-down cassock to enter the altar and serve, declaring: "Curtis is a genius over there, in heaven."

 That declaration brought tears to my eyes, and I remembered the childlike, halting voice of my now 70-year-old sister, rocking and holding a doll while singing "Jesus loves me, this I know . . . ."

 I highly recommend this book with one minor caveat: In future reprintings, how about some additiional parenthetical or by footnote definitions or context for the "inside Orthodoxy" and liturgical terms used from Greek or Slavonic languages?