Tonight We Enter Into The Church

Tonight Laura and I will be baptized at 6 PM at Saint George Orthodox Church of Prescott. For myself it will be the third time in my life I have taken the plunge. Typically one is only baptized once, however, the prior two times I was baptized, I was taught I was only doing something purely symbolic. "An outward expression of an inward faith." Tonight Laura and I will become members of the church Christ established in the Gospels, initiated by a baptism that is not purely symbolic, but effectual on our path of salvation. Baptism is the door leading into the Kingdom of God (John 3:3-5) and through which we are mystically born into spiritual life.

In the early church people entering the Christian faith, called catechumens, would go through a period of preparation called catechism, receiving instruction about the doctrine and life of the church, that could sometimes last up to three years. Catechism was taken very seriously by the early church. Persecution was rampant and days after you became a part of the church you may be killed for doing so. Catechumens would also choose sponsors or God parents. These sponsors would assist and guide the catachumen in his new life amongst the church. At baptism the sponsor would then stand as a witness to the sincere intentions and belief of the person to be baptized. Laura has chosen George and Lola Rizk. I have chosen Raymond and Jill Zogob. And we couldn't be happier with our choices.

Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38

The baptismal service will mirror the structure of this verse: first, repent; second, be baptized; and third, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Like the millions of faithful before us, we will do the same.

The Sacrament of Baptism is divided into two distinct services: The Service of the Catachumens (link to service)and the Service of Baptism(link to service). In this first section we are standing in the narthax, positioned so we are both in and out of church. We will then be asked if we renounce the Devil and align our selves to God. After saying yes, we will bow before God, recite the Nicene creed, and enter in to the Church proceeding towards the baptismal waters.

At the beginning of the Service of Baptism, our priest, Father John, will then bless the baptismal water and the oil. He will pray over us, anoint us with oil, and then we will be immersed three times in the water with the words, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We will plunge into the water - dying with Christ.  For a moment we will remain under the water - buried with Christ. Finally we will be raised out of the water - raised with Christ.

We will then go change into our baptismal clothes which have been blessed by Father John. Having put of the old and putting on the new, we will come back into the congregation. We will be annointed with chrism and sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, fullfilling in us and all the faithful, Joel 2:28, "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh".

We will then be tonsured which means our hair will be clipped in the form of a cross. We are then lead in a circular procession around the baptismal font, like a couple does in a Orthodox wedding service. While we do this the congregation will sing Galatians 3:27, "All those who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."

A section from Romans and the Gospel of Matthew will be read:

Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:3-11)

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Matthew 28:16-20)

This will be followed by a vesperal liturgy in which Laura and I will be the first to partake of the Eucharist.

It has been a long journey through hills and valleys, trials and blessings, to get us to this moment. I think that once we have arrived, we will find we are just at the beginning.

The Incarnation as Exaltation

Laura likes to do impressions of Michael Garten, which are usually right on, and then giggle to herself. We have grown very fond of this man during the time we spent at Saint Barnabas. He is super intelligent, but has a way of explaining things that even Laura and I can understand them. Michael, along with many others gave up hours of their time to help guide us through, and to, Orthodoxy. We are eternally grateful to all of them. 

In many of our 4-hour, after church lunches, Andrew Harrah introduced us to Michael as literally the most intelligent person he knew. I wish to give the same introduction, the following article is from the legendary Michael Garten, quite literally, the most intelligent person I have ever known. And a good friend too.

The Incarnation as Exaltation by Michael Garten

The mystery of Christ’s incarnation is too great for me. Any attempt to write about it myself—especially any attempt to say something new about it—would leave me with a sense of unworthiness. So I will borrow the words of Saints; my own comments are merely meant to draw attention to their profound unity and depth, which we sometimes miss.

In the Church we sing this hymn of praise:

Christ is born! Glorify Him!Christ descends from the heavens, welcome Him!Christ is now on earth, O be jubilant!

The first three lines of this Nativity Canon speak of a descent from heaven. We are invited to see Christ’s incarnation as an expression of divine humility. The Father regards humanity as worthy to be entered by the Word of God. St. Paul says:

Although He was in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.

So He submits to the Father’s will and takes on the form of our lowly life as servants and creatures. What can compare to this humility?

What we are not always aware of is that Christ’s birth was an exaltation of him as well as a humiliation. The next three lines of the Nativity Canon say:

Sing to the Lord, the whole earth,And sing praises to Him with joy, O ye people,For He has been exalted!

How is Christ exalted in his birth? One way is by making our common human nature glorious and deathless in his Incarnation. St. John the Theologian wrote in his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

The true light, which enlightens every man, was coming into the world.

There is a connection here between the life of God and the light of God. The life of God is deathlessness, or immortality; it is eternal and cannot be diminished. The light of God is the uncreated glory of God. This glory is God himself as he manifests his beauty and goodness. John says the life was the light of men. In other words, what makes us share in the glory of God is the immortality He has always offered us in Christ. In St. Irenaeus of Lyons’ magnificent words:

The glory of God is living humanity, and the life of the human being is the vision of God.

But humanity has been alienated from this immortal life of glory, and the human race has fallen into darkness. Human nature was passing out of existence, losing life. So Christ is sent. And what does He do? The eternal Word, who is the source of our life, enters into human nature. Now we receive life from within instead of from God externally. Christ imparts the Holy Spirit to humanity from within. Before, sunlight shone on a flower from afar. Now the light has been let in; the sun itself is inside the flower. All is made bright with the glory of God.

Why did Christ have to become incarnate? God is needless. God is gracious. And as St. Maximus says, He never ceases from doing good because He never started (He is eternal). In contrast, humanity is needy. Humanity is receptive, taking in God’s life that He offers. But humanity even before the fall was unstable and could lose its share in God’s life if human nature was misused and turned aside from God. After the fall it was corrupting, getting sicker and sicker, closer to annihilation. The only way to ensure that we don’t lose the gifts of light and life that God offers is if someone who never ceases from doing good receives these gifts into our common humanity. Athanasius says:

For though He had no need, nevertheless He is said to have received what He received humanly, that on the other hand, inasmuch as the Lord has received, and the grant is lodged with Him, the grace may remain sure. For while mere man receives, he is liable to lose again (as was shewn in the case of Adam, for he received and he lost), but that the grace may be irrevocable, and may be kept sure by men, therefore He Himself appropriates the gift; and He says that He has received power, as man, which He ever had as God, and He says, "Glorify Me," who glorifies others, to shew that He hath a flesh which has need of these things.

So Christ securely receives forever as man what He had always given as God: light and life in the Holy Spirit. Christ’s choice from within our shared human life changes its relation to God forever. Because He is the true light that enlightens every human, He is also the true life that enlivens all. His life is permanently given to human nature, kept sure by all men because Christ is sinless and never ceases from receiving God’s life into our shared humanity. And so human nature is glorified and immortalized in Christ.

But Christ is divinely exalted and glorified in the incarnation too. God is not glorified by receiving something from us that He lacks. But whenever creation moves towards God, it shines with God’s light more. God wills that we see his glory—the manifestation of his beauty and goodness. And so He is glorified when His glory is manifested in his creatures more, because his will that we see his glory is accomplished. When Christ makes humanity alive in the Incarnation by imparting the Holy Spirit, the Father's glory shines out from us all the more.

The God Bomb by Doug TenNapel

Doug TenNapel is my favorite comic book storyteller. I was introduced to his work a few years ago with "Earthboy Jacobus" and immediately became a fan. In my opinion, Earthboy is the best graphic novel of the last decade. This is evidenced by the fact that I have owned two copies and currently possess none. Friends don't give Earthboy back!


Doug TenNapel interweaves robots, giant praying mantises, space eels, dinosaurs, down-and-out mobsters, and video games with an underlying desire by his characters to restore parts of their broken humanity. That is where his storytelling shines, in stories of the lost being found, the prodigal returning, and dealing with death and the after life. He tells Christmas stories, God is with us stories. And he tells Easter stories, death has lost it's sting stories. His stories point to thee tory. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay him is when reading his stories, I am reminded that, "God is the world’s best story-teller."

The God Bomb by Doug TenNapel
originally posted at TenNapel's Weblog

I love Christmas. That said, the presents are a bit of a burden. Who to buy for? What to buy? And all of that waste. I get presents that I don’t particularly need or enjoy. But the spirit of the holiday still comes through and I love it.

God is a radical story teller. He’s odd, and he should be. Given we float down a culture of poo it only makes sense that something not-of-this-culture would come off as alien, unbelievable… weird.

Christmas is the event that changed everything. God provides this great gift that is so unbelievable that it even shakes the foundations of the faithful. I think of it as The God Bomb. It’s where supernature touches a starving mankind, dead in our skepticism, demanding a gift that we want but being denied that want to be given what we need. It hit the earth like a bomb, and cannot be reversed once set in motion.

The anti-Christmas crowd, the non believer and the pagan join in the celebration by acknowledging the threat of this gift. When people degrade the gift of Jesus my faith is only strengthened because it inadvertently testifies that something profound has happened. Kwanza is stupid, and you’ll never hear me tell someone they shouldn’t celebrate it. I say, “Kwanza all day and night! Do the Kwanza like there’s no tomorrow!” For God is the God of the pagans too.

You may love Christmas trees, or as they’re called among the Politically Correct “holiday trees”. God is a great octopus who reaches his tentacles out and steals the holiday of the pagans, then makes it holy with the One True Holiday. The gift is so great that everyone puts lights on their houses. Everyone is a little happier when I shop at Ralphs. There are more people saying “good morning”, more people buying gifts for people they don’t care for and receiving cards from long alienated family members.

The story of The One coming to the fallen people is everywhere in modern film making, classic lit and pagan societies that even predated The God Bomb. But a God who is above our physical-based time tells His story throughout mankind. It is entirely possible that God came up with the idea of babies because he knew that he would send his son in the form of a baby some day. On another note, I think he also could have invented sex and marriage because he knew that one day Christ would take the church as his bride.

Oh these skeptical times. When a man talks about the simple, ancient Gospel it is considered taboo. If you think I’m unaware of how I sound, I’m not. I am, after all, a member of our culture of poo also. I could say the F word and be championed as a hero of free speech. If I announced that I was homosexual, scores of people would line up to defend my true, good position of honesty. But say the J-word and you might as well take a dump on the dinner table.

My two favorite moments in cinema are from The Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. At the end of each movie you have a man running through the streets shouting, “MERRY CHRISTMAS”! This is only appropriate. Oh sure, there’s always the skeptic saying, “Look at that old fool! Scrooge has lost his mind.” Or when George Bailey shouts Merry Christmas to Mr. Potter he responds, “And a Happy New Year to you, too! …In jail!” I love shouting that quote from Mr. Potter because it’s so true. I have no reason to doubt that one day shouting Merry Christmas could very well put one in jail. It does offend the high law of multi-culturalism, and we really must do something about these intolerant outliers, shouting exclusivist, insensitive nonsense that is not unlike using plastic bags when shopping or smoking cigarettes instead of pot. GASP!

None of us have a completely orthodox response to God dropping the Christmas bomb on mankind. It’s tough stuff to chew. Man cannot save himself, so God wraps himself in the skin and culture of a man and does not come as a statesman, celebrity or academic. He comes as a baby. The ultimate being for all time showing up as the ultimate symbol of lowness born in a cave among filthy farm animals. His mother was likely mocked as a whore because, come on, you’re pregnant and didn’t have sex? That’s a good one. The people God called to testify were wise men from the east (aka: a bunch of pagan astrologers) and homeless shepherds whose testimony didn’t even hold up in a court of law. This strange God loves low things. At the very least, it makes for a better story, and God is the world’s best story-teller.

Structurally, we might be tempted to see Adam as the first act, the birth of Christ as Act two and the crucifixion as Act three. But I think of the birth of Christ as the end. The triumph was locked in place at birth. God wins, but so does man. Like any gift, we can’t earn it. It’s a freebie. It calls for shouting in the streets.

Every year at the San Diego Comic Convention, there is a black man with a bull horn preaching the gospel. Given the crowds, there are thousands of people in the streets, and they stand around the preacher to mock him. They come up with the most offensive things they can say about Jesus. These are my fellow comic creators. My sympathies aren’t with the mockers, because I don’t get my values from a culture of poo. My sympathies are with the bull-horn man, George Bailey and Scrooge.

Merry Christmas! (And a Happy New Year to you, too! ...In jail!)

For The Children’s Sake

Laura and I have become quick friends with Tara McNeeley and her husband Jonathan. Since we have moved here we have been able to spend quite a bit of time with them and their four children: Josiah, Grace, Autumn, and Andrew. This new friendship has made the transition to living in Prescott all the more easier. As the mother of four, Tara is well equipped to write on Orthodoxy and children.

For the Children's Sake by Tara McNeeley

“Let the little children come to Me and do not forbid them; for such is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:14

It’s about 8:30 at night in our home and a book has been read, prayers have been said, and everyone is settling down to sleep. All of a sudden I hear a little voice singing in a bedroom. Now to many parents the thought may cross their mind (as it does mine many times), “it’s almost 9:00 and she is still awake!” However as I listen closer I realize she is singing the Trisagion hymn:

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, Have mercy on us.

In Liturgy this is sung three times, but to our little soprano Autumn, it is never-ending and she sings it until she is lulled to sleep by her prayer.

My husband and I and our little family of four children are Catechumens in the Orthodox Church. We attended our first service together about two years ago and began catechism last summer. We have many reasons for wanting to become Orthodox and one of the primary reasons focused on our children. We want our children to fully participate in and to enjoy their Faith.

I was raised in a traditional Protestant church and spent my college years in a more modern evangelical church. In my experience, children do not participate in the worship of the Church. Instead, they are whisked away to be baby-sat in the nursery or in children’s church so that the adults can enjoy a little “time off” and focus on the sermon. Depending on the denomination, children may or may not be baptized as infants (most evangelicals do not baptize infants). Children are not permitted to receive the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. Many churches have bare walls, which leaves the child’s eyes and mind to wander in imagination and boredom until they start to misbehave. All that is left in worship for the child’s senses is hearing.

It doesn’t take much for a parent to understand that children don’t hear very well. It may take me telling the children three times (very Orthodox ?) that their shoes belong in the shoe basket before they understand what to do with their footwear. For a child, going to a church where hearing is the only sense they can use in worship is flat out boring. Maybe they get their eardrums rattled by some loud music for the first twenty minutes (my children don’t like Evangelical praise music – they say it hurts their ears and gives them a headache), but then either they have to listen to a boring grown up drone for thirty minutes or maybe they get to go color pictures to pass the time in children’s church. In the Orthodox Church, there is no praise team dressed in the latest fashion and performing for an audience. We sing the entire Liturgy with no guitar, drums, piano, or organ. There is little variation in the hymns we sing. Most of our Liturgy is the same each week. Children need repetition-they thrive on it. They need and want to know what to expect because then they feel secure. Also, the Liturgy is packed with Scripture and what better thing is there to repeat every Sunday? A few years from now my children will know a lot of Scripture simply because we sing it in Church each week. Except for Lent, there are bells on the censer (which I will talk about in a bit) which is used quite frequently during Liturgy. Whenever the censer is used, its bells jingle and draw attention from adults and children alike back to the worship of the Church.

What does your church smell like? I never thought that a church could have a certain smell to it, that is, until I first visited an Orthodox Church. My oldest daughter Grace, age four, has a very keen sense of smell. After we had been visiting an Orthodox parish on a regular basis we bought some incense to use at home. The first time we lit it, Grace came into the room, put her nose in the air and took a big whiff. My husband asked her what it smelled like and her simple reply was “Jesus.” Orthodox worship uses incense which is placed in a censer that has bells on it and the incense symbolizes our prayers ascending to God as in Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-4. The altar, the holy gifts (communion), icons, Gospel book, and the worshippers themselves are censed by the priest. One of the reasons for doing this is to recognize and honor the icon of Christ in each person. When you smell your favorite food cooking what do you think of? Your stomach! What do you think of when you smell smoke? Fire! What does a child, or perhaps even a blind or deaf person think of when they enter an Orthodox Church and catch its inviting fragrance? They become aware that they have entered a holy place filled with sacred things.

Orthodox Churches are very beautiful to me. When I entered one for the first time I was astounded by all of the beautiful things that were held inside. A child could never get bored with so many wonderful things to look at. Beautiful icons adorn much of the wall space. The priest is wearing vestments which are beautifully sewn and decorated. There is a gold or silver Gospel book on the altar. And of course there are lots and lots of candles. There are so many things to see that a child could stand captivated by all of the beauty that he would forget about misbehaving. Children are very visual-especially boys! It saddens me when I visit other churches to see that they have stripped their walls bare, leaving children to find other things to do. Instead of bringing beauty back into their churches they sweep these precious souls away from where they most need to be: in church!

As a parent, I am responsible for the spiritual well-being of my children. As I said early on, one of the primary reasons for our wanting to enter the Orthodox Church is for the sake of our children. If you have children and are tired of them being pushed to the backburner in church, then take them to an Orthodox Church where children are full members. Watch them grow in Christ right along with you.

Forrest Fallows' Journey to Orthodoxy

Forrest Fallows introduced us to Orthodoxy almost three years ago. He had just come completed a trip through Latin America and back. Besides the crazy stories that came from that adventure, we learned that he was baptized and had become Orthodox in less than two months! While visiting him in Tucson, he invited us to attend Liturgy with him. This would become the start of our journey to Orthodoxy and our baptism (which is just a few days away)!

Over the years our separate journeys have had very similar paths regarding Christianity, and ultimately Orthodoxy, which I believe, has led to a connection that makes us closer than brothers. It is with great joy, that I am able to present the story of Forrest's own journey to Orthodoxy.

Forrest's Patron Saint Joachim
(he was baptized during the feast of Joachim and Anna)

It’s been a while since I’ve considered my time at the monastery. When I found the monastery in Mexico, San Antonio El Grande outside of Mexico City, I ended up staying there on two different occasions for a combined time of just over two months. Thinking about my time there now makes me miss it intensely. My whole experience at the monastery was seated in the middle of a Latin American trip that ended up lasting a year. The trip as a whole didn’t have any real specific goals except to fulfill some deep personal longing for something as cliché as adventure itself. I wasn’t looking for something like Orthodoxy, not actively, but now, looking back I can see how I was looking for Orthodoxy all along and didn’t know how to look.

Monasterio de San Antonio el Grande

My draw to Orthodoxy began when I met Fr. Abuna Serafín in el zòcalo of Mexico City. I was a tourist. I was wandering around the plaza and the ruins and the street vendors, I remember when I learned how cheep street food was there. The two weeks prior to me being in Mexico City I was eating food out of my van and fruit I could find growing on the beach. I bought and consumed about five hot dogs, enough to make me feel a little sick. I walked into the beautiful cathedral there in the zòcalo. I mostly remember looking at the art and being impressed by the paintings. While walking through the church I saw a priest unlike any I had seen in Mexico or anywhere else, he had a beard and a byzantine style hat. I nodded and said “buenas tardes padre,” he acknowledged my presence and continued walking by. About ten minutes later the same priest approached me and asked me if I spoke English. According to Father Abuna, which is what I would soon call him, he passed by me the first time and knew that we where meant to meet. We began talking. The conversation wasn’t life changing or even memorable, but I remember knowing that I wanted to learn something from this man. I stayed in Mexico City for a while longer but eventually followed him to the monastery.

Before I go on, I should probably introduce myself a little: I was raised in a Christian home, a protestant, contemporary, American, Christian home, and I thank God for that. I studied theology for two years at a non-denominational protestant bible school and graduated. I’ve served in churches as a youth leader and a worship leader. At one point I was convinced that I was called to pastor a church… Following that inner prodding, I started a home church in my living room with the help of some friends. This experience gave way to some interesting events that I couldn’t have foreseen, first of all, I was rebuked and was barred from leadership at the church where I was serving (I’m not saying they were wrong). The house church was very alive in many ways but also very cynical and, many times, we chose to focus on what we were not rather than what we could be. Our guidance became shaky and in the end I wondered if the house church did more harm than good. Many people that we considered leaders in the house church have since walked away from church and Christianity and God.

In the waning years of the house church I began to consider monasticism. I started reading Thomas Merton, a Catholic monk, and I started visiting a Benedictine monastery in Sothern Arizona. I would stay two or three days, or I would just visit for an afternoon. I was attracted by the surface simplicity while attempting, with the help of God and the brethren, to conquer the complex labyrinth of the inner self. I began to seriously consider my vocation, and wondered if I could join the order. However, the raft of confusing theological dogmas of the Catholic Church held me back, and through conversation with the leadership, I learned that I couldn’t view the abbot as someone who would teach me. In the end I abandoned monasticism as an option, seeing as monasticism is unheard of in the theological community where I grew up and felt comfortable.

The monastery in Mexico was very different. I remember thinking that the lives of the monks were actually the lives Christ intended us to live. For every one of my questions I received a very profound answer. I felt like those who heard Jesus speak must have felt, I was amazed by the knowledge of the Orthodox Church. And then Fr. Abuna proposed that I be baptized. I didn’t even understand what I was doing, or the meaning of many traditions and practices. But, as I told someone at the time, I can learn more about the Orthodox Faith from inside the church than from outside. My heart already knew enough, and I made the decision to be baptized and become Orthodox.