For this Post and the next one, you’ll see a whole bunch of subjects I’ve been saving up, none of which is long enough to require a Post of its own. Some are “editorials” from me. Others are from other sources.
1) Editorial: School Shootings
Really, I didn’t intend to put this first. I didn’t even intend write about it. But as I’m preparing this Post (a week ahead of time), I have the television on (I know I shouldn’t), and they are covering yet another school shooting. They’re interviewing a boy maybe eleven years old with a full head of blond curly hair – just like our grandson at that age – who said “I thought I was going to die”, and I “lost it”. I’m upset.
This is a moral issue: Why the hell do we let this keep happening to our kids – death, injury, trauma – and the fear of it in every school in this country? If a bunch of adults want to shoot it out among themselves, that’s bad enough. But these are our children!
Then, as always, we heard: “Our thoughts and prayers are with you… …”, seven words signifying less than nothing.
The USA is in so many ways a brilliant culture, but in this way we’re barbaric. A notable politician recently suggested that school shootings are just “a fact of life”. Yes they are – but only in the United States. We are the only nation in the world that puts up with this. Just north of us, our friends in Canada do not tolerate school shootings.
Some years back Australia had a couple of mass shootings, one in a school. Here is how they handled the problem: See: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-06/draft_of_trends_issues_paper_mass_shootings_and_firearm_control_comparing_australia_and_the_united_states_submitted_to_peer_review.pdf
Here alone school shootings go on and on.
Do you know the statistics? See: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html
School Shootings: total incidents January 2009 – May 2018:
This includes many “lesser” ones which received little publicity.
United States — 288
Mexico — 8
South Africa — 6
Nigeria & Pakistan — 4
Afghanistan — 3
Brazil, Canada, France — 2
Azerbaijan, China, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kenya, Russia, & Turkey — 1
To sum up, during the above period, the US had 57 times as many school shootings as all other industrialized nations combined.
Here is an analysis of our mass shootings from an outside source, the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
Why do these continue? I see only three possibilities:
1) It’s because the United States has vastly more guns in circulation than any other country in the world. This is true. Look up the stats for yourself, if you wish. They’re readily available
2) Or because the United States has vastly more people with mental illness than other countries. I can’t believe this is true – for the most part, the statistics don’t bear it out – but I’m beginning to wonder.
3) Or it’s a lack of morality – on the part of the shooters, those personally responsible for them, and those in authority in this country.
Or it’s a combination of all three. When I studied meteorology, they explained that the great storms are caused by a conjunction of factors.
If you have other guesses about the causes, please share them in the Comments below.
Also, I wonder: Why are virtually all shootings done by men? or in last week’s case a 14 year old boy? See: https://www.statista.com/statistics/476445/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-gender/
What has gone wrong with American males? Has anyone done a serious study of this?
Now, from the dreadful to the beautiful. I think Metropolitan Saba explains so gracefully…
2) Why we desire God.
This is the beginning of His Eminence Metropolitan Saba’s September 4, 2024, teaching to our Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America. (He sends out these teachings weekly.)
Saint Sophrony, a disciple and spiritual son of Saint Silouan of Athos, is considered one of the most important theologians of the Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. Following a lecture and discussion at the University of Oxford, the moderator asked the audience: Is there a final question? One of the attendees asked Saint Sophrony: “Who is God?” He answered, “Tell me first: Who is man?”
The connection between God and man is, in fact, much deeper than one might imagine. God is not sitting far away in His heaven, watching man and what he does, like someone watching a movie on television. When God created man, He created, at the core of his being, an essential connection with him. There is nothing more evident than the constant longing for absolute fullness that transcends all limits, and ignorance of it often causes a person’s constant tension and anxiety. Thinkers ponder: Why does the mortal human being, who exists in a world where everything is fleeting, possess this unlimited longing and this dream of immortality? They consider this human aspiration towards absoluteness and perfection, in a limited and corrupt world, a sign of the existence of the Supreme Absolute, that is, God.
Imprinted on man is the continuous aspiration for perfection with his Creator, because he is the only creature imprinted in the image of his God. Thus, you find man inherently drawn to horizons that are endless, across all fields. You see him searching and striving, tirelessly, toward completion, perfection, and infinity. The wonderful saying of the blessed Augustine rings true in it: ‘You created us to turn to You, O Lord, and our hearts will not find rest unless they rest in You.”
His Eminence’s full Teaching can be found here:
God and Man 1 EN
3) Editorial: “Manners Makyth Man” – Good Manners and Politics
At the Episcopalian seminary which I attended many moons ago, carved into the stonework above a fireplace was the saying “Manners Makyth Man”.
It’s an old piece of advice, coming from at least the late Middle Ages. At the time I was in seminary I thought that idea was kind of silly. However, those were the days when people, for the most part, still behaved themselves and were often courteous. Where we live most people still are -“Upper Midwest Nice”. However, over the years, I’ve watched the decline in good manners on the part of leading men in movies and on television, who have changed from well-mannered gentlemen into macho brutes. The same change has taken place among too many politicians. Some leading candidates are doing and saying things that not long ago would have got them laughed out of contention. The Family Research Council would have risen up in indignation because of the harmful example such politicians are setting for our innocent children. Today they never mention it.
So I’ve changed my mind. I think good manners are one of the most important foundations of civilized, decent functional society. They shape us, and anyone we come in contact with, for the better. They allow us to talk with and hear people we disagree with. Now, I know standards of what’s acceptable change over the years, whether I like it or not. But take, for example: Right now two of our neighbors have – hanging in their garages for all to see – political banners which would have made guys blush in our high school locker room. * I would not go near these people, let alone attempt to talk with them about anything. In fact, last summer we did disagree with the folks across the street about something, and Pow! a stream of angry obscenities.
- I definitely will not post the images here! However, both banners contain a certain verb, the first banner advising something which, taken literally, I most definitely would not like to do to a particular political candidate. The second uses the same obscene verb suggesting I do the same thing to my “feelings”. This was taken, believe it or not, from the name of a pop song! which is now a political slogan which makes no sense at all, so far as I can determine. I’ve observed this kind of garbage on the part of only one political party. However, I held my nose and shaded by eyes and searched internet images, and I’m sorry to say this incivility can be found in both political parties.
This leads directly to:
4) “Miss Manners” talks about rude manners and politics.
“Miss Manners” is an advice column that has run in newspapers for decades. * The author (Judith Martin, now 85) always writes in the third person singular, “she…”
- Just in passing, her advice week before last was: “Whatever the Reason, Keep Your Feet Off the Dashboard”!
The following advice was from her column of April 11, 2011:
“Miss Manners reminds you that every rude person in Congress was elected to that office. This is why she feels it urgent to point out the fallacy of voters who believe that candidates who refuse to deal politely with their opponents make effective leaders. By showing contempt for those who disagree with them and by declaring a refusal to compromise, such candidates clearly demonstrate their inability to cope with a system that requires respect and cooperation.
“Yet Miss Manners understands why those who are elected using that style of campaigning persist in behavior that has proved so successful at the polls. They must have pleased the voters, they figure, because they won. They cannot fail to be puzzled when the constituents who elected them start characterizing them as those rude politicians.
“Hence her warning is to the voters: If you don’t want badly behaved people in office, do not vote for badly behaved candidates.”
5) Editorial: What characteristics should we want in our political leaders?
This is simple. The same characteristics we should want in any Christian or anyone who claims to be Christian, the same characteristics we should want in ourselves. Take the person you might vote for and hold him/her up to these standards of behavior from Saint Paul, Galatians, chapter 5:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. …those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like…”
Moral character comes first. If a candidate at least seems to be trying to get that right, then we can talk about political policies.
And now for something completely different:
6) Two videos from a series: “An Atheist Reviews Churches”.
Here he visits two Orthodox Churches.
These videos are from Jared Smith – a former Pentecostal who finally couldn’t stand it anymore and bailed out completely, even on God. He calls himself an atheist. However, he’s still fascinated by religion. and he visits different churches on Sundays and reports his reactions. Some churches drive him up the wall. Occasionally one moves him deeply, which leaves him wondering why. (Deep down, is he really an atheist?)
Jared is funny, entertaining, often silly to a fault, and occasionally a naughty word slips in. Either you’ll like his style or you won’t. (I love it, but if you don’t, I won’t force you to watch.) Sometimes he gets his facts wrong, but he’s not chiefly concerned about that. He’s going with first impressions. Actually, considering he’s an atheist, he knows a whole lot about religion. I like the guy.
I think he is quite perceptive… but I would say that wouldn’t I? because he liked his visits to Orthodox churches – one Greek, one Coptic.
I think it’s worthwhile seeing ourselves from the viewpoint of a complete outsider, who had no idea what he was getting into.
The first is a Greek Eastern Orthodox Church. He gave us four stars out of five. Please give the first image below a pass. He’s not gagging over the icon. He’s recalling churches he did hate.
Then he visited a Coptic Orthodox Church. Five stars out of five!
6) “Clash of the Patriarchs”
A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.
This is an article from the June 24, 2024 issue of The Atlantic Magazine, written by Robert F. Worth,
This is an outsider’s view of the present Orthodox chaos, well worth reading. I do not have permission to reprint the article. (I applied, but you would not believe how much money they wanted, so I gave up that idea.)
If you don’t subscribe, you can find it at your local library. You can access it yourself here:
To read it you can get a free one month subscription online, then cut it off if you wish. However, you may not want to, The Atlantic always is interesting.
7) Editorial: The Current Mess in the Orthodox Church
I think you should not believe anything I say here. Three years ago I wrote that the split between Moscow and Constantinople was just a “kerfuffle” which would be settled in no time. Wrong. Wrong. But if you want to continue reading…
While we Orthodox, by the grace of God, are completely united in the Faith, we make up for that by tying ourselves into knots about jurisdictional matters, turf wars: Which territory belongs to whom? Does Ukraine, to take a current example, properly fall under Moscow or Constantinople or both or neither? Who decides these things? Nobody knows.
Because of the dispute over Ukraine, the Orthodox world has now fallen into schism, is now divided between those who follow Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and those who follow Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow, with others trying, not very successfully, not to get involved. Actually it may be only a partial schism. As nearly as I can read it, Moscow is out of Communion with Constantinople, but Constantinople claims still to be in Communion with Moscow. No matter, the result is that here in Milwaukee our brethren in the Greek churches cannot now celebrate the Divine Liturgy with our brethren in the Serbian and Russian churches, even though their theology is identical. My own Antiochian Patriarchate is treading cautiously through all this. though our Patriarch, for ecclesiastical and political reasons, obviously favors the Russians. I, a priest of the Antiochian Arvhdiocese of North America, think I know who I’m in communion with, but have no idea who I’m not in communion with, if anyone – and at my age, I don’t much care.
However we should all care about the situation. Christ prayed “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:21 We Orthodox like to complain about the dreadful witness Protestants make to the world, divided into many denominations as they are. As now compared to…us? we Orthodox who are now divided right down the middle? Christ gave us and still gives us Orthodox complete unity in the Faith – but “the world” looking at us Orthodox today would never guess it.
I have my opinion about who’s most responsible for the situation, but that’s neither here nor there. What is not a matter of opinion is that the problem has become almost insoluble, for now at least, because of Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow’s immoral endorsement of Putin’s wicked invasion of Ukraine. How is it possible to desire unity with a Patriarch who supports this evil war?
8) Editorial: Russia’s Unholy War Against Ukraine
The American news media veer from one situation to another. Because most of them now cover – at last! – the horrific plight of the Palestinians, the war against Ukraine is almost being ignored.
Russia’s Ministry of Child Affairs openly admits that Russia abducted 700,000 Ukrainian children. A Helsinki Commission hearing revealed that Ukraine’s abducted children are systematically tortured and imprisoned. Russia has destroyed 4,000 schools in occupied Ukraine.” Kyiv Post August 26 24
As of January 23, 2024, “about 210,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine” New York Times
“During the full-scale invasion, Russian troops have damaged or wholly destroyed at least 630 churches, prayer houses, and other religious facilities in Ukraine.” KyivPost, April 14, 2024
These include Ukrainian Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic churches, Evangelical churches, and even Orthodox churches which are part of their own Moscow Patriarchate.
Two years ago, John Chryssavgis wrote that dealing with Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and All Russia is the defining issue for the Orthodox Church in the 21st Century, and we’re failing.
https://publicorthodoxy.org/2022/02/27/orthodox-christian-standing-with-ukraine/
https://publicorthodoxy.org/2022/05/11/have-we-hit-rock-bottom/
Next Week: More Miscellany – Abortion, Sexual Identity, Masculinity, Gay adoption, Idolatry, Al Jazeera, Is Orthodoxy liberal or conservative? and probably more.
Week after Next: No Post
Thank you, Fr for your efforts