Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Kh. Krista West

The latest Orthodox artist featured in Melinda Johnson's Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists series is Khouria Krista West, an ecclesiastical tailor.

I've been delighted at how Melinda finds such different examples of how art in the broadest sense is cultivated by Orthodox Christians. Ecclesiastical vestments are certainly beautiful, but I had never thought of them as an art form until I read Kh. West's essay detailing how she views this craft as carrying on a centuries old tradition analogous to iconography. She describes the lineage of people who have toiled in this area as a Community of Joy as they strive to create beauty from within the appropriate restrictions of the traditional forms.

And it is certainly true that anything that beautifies the house of God is a part of that larger sense of the Church, in all her images, music, and literature, as an art form.


Kh. West has a website, Krista West Vestments, where she offers vestments such as the gorgeous one to the right. She also has a podcast called "The Opinioned Tailor."

God bless Kh. West for her ministry to the Church through her unique talents in this often overlooked artform.




Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Nativity and the History of Science

We are members of a Moscow Patriarchal (Unrevised Julian Calendar) Church. But I was chrismated at an OCA parish, and subsequently met my wife, a Romanian. So we do sneak off to celebrate Revised Julian Calendar Christmas.

I was struck this morning that the Nativity Troparion implies knowledge that the sun is a star:
Your Nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shone to the world the Light of wisdom!
For by it, those who worshiped the stars,
Were taught by a Star to adore You,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know You, the Orient from on High.
O Lord, glory to You!
Having an undisciplined mind and a wandering spirit, I unfortunately spent a good deal of the next hour thinking about matters of the history of science. I wondered exactly when some person first proposed the concept that our sun is a star and, by implication, that stars are themselves suns with their own planets, etc.

It doesn't seem that such a belief is self-evident. After all, to a casual observer, stars and our sun behave quite differently. Our sun is big and bright and out only during the day and seems at least to travel around our planet. Stars are out at night and they're tiny and not bright enough to light up the night sky worth a damn. I mean, take the moon out of the equation and the night is dark!

So even though we now know that it's the Earth that revolves and that our sun is just a star really close to us, we shouldn't think the ancients to have been idiots for not automatically knowing these things.

But that brings us to the question, when was this idea first proposed? I was able to rally and turn my mind to matters spiritual in nature after I resolved to research the issue once I got home.

Now, the Nativity Troparion could have been in its present form as early as the 6th or 7th century AD. But it turns out that the idea of our sun as a close-up star was proposed long before that by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (ca. 500 BC - 400 BC). The idea was also included in the first known assertion of a heliocentric solar system, by Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (310 BC - 230 BC).

Interestingly, despite the fact that our sun as a star is implied by the Nativity Troparion, the idea was condemned by Ecclesiastical Authorities, and was listed alongside some actual heresies for which Giordano Bruno, a 16th century AD friar and astronomer, was burned at the stake. (The man apparently actually espoused pantheism, making it unlikely that his cosmological views would have been sufficient to lead to his execution.)

It is important to remember that not just the Roman Church condemned Bruno and Copernicus. Martin Luther also condemned the heliocentric view as anti-biblical.

At any rate, today we imitate those Wise Men from of old who followed a star to another star, this one very close up, the Sun of Righteousness. And if God's love ever seemed as distant and cold as a star, now in the Incarnate Christ it is as close and warm as the Sun.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

A Visit to Bethlehem

In this video I show the highlights of our trip to Bethlehem this Summer. Merry Christmas, everyone! Christ is Born! Glorify Him!


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

R. Leo Olson

You must read the laugh-out-loud reflection on being an Orthodox writer by R. Leo Olson in Melinda Johnson's ongoing Orthodox Readers, Writers, and Artists series.

He describes the nitty-gritty facts of working hard, interspersed with hilarious admissions such as daydreaming in Church and, gasp, eating meat on Wednesdays (I type this while sipping red wine, not really terribly concerned with whether the Advent fast strictly forbids this. *sigh* I'm trying my best, okay?).

I'm looking forward to reading his book, Sojourning with Angels: the Rise of Zazriel, just based on his description of it in the post.



Thursday, December 8, 2011

Heaven Help the Single Christian

That's the title of Thomas Ruthford's book, published by Regina Orthodox Press. It's a humorous "How-To" exploring the precarious perils of young people trying to find godly mates.

In Melinda Johnson's ongoing Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists series, Mr. Ruthford pens an insightful reflection on his life as a convert to the Orthodox faith and the task of figuring out how to successfully market a book.

His honesty in admitting to how frustrating it is to "break out of obscurity" is so refreshing. I'm trying to figure that out myself, Mr. Ruthford. You are in my prayers. And please pray for me.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel!

I've created a new version of the beautiful Western Advent hymn, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

This hymn was based on the "O Antiphons," which are sung liturgically in anticipation of Christmas. The traditional order of the verses, however, reverses the dramatic culmination just before Christmas of the verse "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." I've reordered the song to make this the climactic and dramatic point it was intended to be.


Thursday, December 1, 2011

Kristina Wenger: Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists Series

The latest in Melinda Johnson's series is a professional story-teller turned photographer, specializing in nature imagery. An amazing back story, as a child with missionary parents in Guatemala, and a recent conversion with her whole family to Orthodoxy.

Kristina Wenger also is merging all these gifts with a line of greeting cards, including a set focused on Guatemala.

Please read her thoughtful reflection on being an Orthodox writer and artist.

God bless her continued ministry to our Church.

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