Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Three New Orthodox Works - Reviewed by Ron Dart

David J. Goa, A Regard for Creation: Collected Essays (Dewdney: Synaxis Press, 2008).

It often takes a few decades for an ancient tradition such as Orthodoxy to fully root, then bear the full foliage and fruit of such a deep rooting. There is little doubt that with the publication of A Regard for Creation: Collected Essays, by David Goa, the attentive reader cannot help but be held by the breadth, insights and grandeur of Orthodoxy as such a tradition speaks to our current questions.

Merton on the Wilderness (excerpt from Thoughts in Solitude)

The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit.

The desert was the region in which the Chosen People had wandered for forty years, cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had travelled directly to it. God's plan was that they should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back upon the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone.

Excerpts for meditation from T.S. Eliot's 'East Coker' (no. 2 of Four Quartets)

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

* * *

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

For the complete text online, click here.

The Empty Manger by Eden Jersak

As I went to sit down this morning to do my Advent reading and have some "still time", I had this amazing sense of this little space I'd made being like taking a few minutes to enter into the hallowed stable where the manger that held Jesus stood. I thought that perhaps this was my little pilgrimage to the sacred room, following in the footsteps of the wise men and shepherds. I went within and moved towards the trough stuffed with hay, but only found hay, no infant, no exhausted mom, no bewildered dad, no awed shepherds or weary travelers. I couldn't hear or even imagine any angels singing, so what was this moment for?

T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis: Discord and Concord by Ron Dart

But there are remnants left around me….very strange remnants…in this case the Anglican church which has in it some of the ancient truth and therefore I will live within it. -- George Grant (CBC interview between George Grant-Adrienne Clarkson: June 1966)

I

I began an MA in English Literature at University of British Columbia in the spring of 1979. The course was on ‘Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and the Tradition of Impressionism and Stream of Consiousness’. I was taken, in the course, by a letter Virginia Woolf wrote to a friend on February 11 1928.

I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic believer in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God.

NATIVITY OF CHRIST, 2008 by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

“Ye rich and ye poor...enter ye all into the joy of the Lord.”

This year, as we approach the Feast of the Incarnation of God, we might reflect on the beloved Paschal Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom. In it, he invites all, those at every level of society and in every spiritual condition, to “enter into the joy of the Lord.”

Let us recall that the proclamation of Christ’s birth came first to the poor, the disenfranchised and humble of this world. The shepherds in the fields often had no better place to take shelter and sleep than in the manger caves at the edge of the hill upon which Bethlehem stands. It was these lowly outcasts who came first to venerate the Christ, the creator of heaven and earth Who now took upon Himself their lowliness and humanity. Only afterward did the Magi come. They were among the elite and wealthy of this world, and Christ came for them also, yet their journey was longer and more arduous, for they had first to learn humility and patience in order to be able to recognise in the child in this poor manger the King of Glory.

Seeds Scattered and Sown (ed. Norman Knowles) - Review by Ron Dart

Seeds Scattered and Sown: Studies in the History of Canadian Anglicanism Edited by Norman Knowles (Toronto: ABC Publishing, 2008)

There has been a dearth of solid and sound books on the history of the Canadian Anglican way in the last 30-40 years. There have been ideological tellings of the tale and piecemeal pamphlets, but rare has been the book that takes the national drama and unfolds it well.

The publication of Seeds Scattered and Sown: Studies in the History of Canadian Anglicanism ends such a dire drought and brings fresh rain to the parched and cracked soil. Norman Knowles should be offered many an accolade for beginning the process of retelling the Canadian Anglican tale from its beginnings to the present time.

Rachel Weeping by Brian Zahnd

A voice was heard in Ramah

Weeping and loud lamentation

Rachel weeping for her children

She refused to be comforted

Because they are no more

–Matthew 2:18

When Jesus was born it was not a silent night. All was not calm and all was not bright, and the world did not sleep in heavenly peace. Jesus was born into a violent and dangerous world. Wars and rumors of war, revolutions and reprisals, conspiracies and bloody purges, despotic tyrants and violent insurgents were all part of the order and disorder of the day. And the birth of Jesus was the catalyst for one of the most infamous crimes in history: Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents. And why? Because whenever and wherever Jesus is heralded as king, he is a threat to the empires of the age. Christmas is a clash of kingdoms; the empire of heaven crashing into the empires of power. And along with angels singing, there is also Rachel Weeping.