1/6/25 – Forgive us if we don’t seem particularly sympathetic to the decline of Christianity in the west. Nobody is preventing westerners from practicing the faith. There are more churches than one could ask for: orthodox Christianity, various denominations and traditions, conservative, liberal, etc. You get the idea. It’s not a grocery store with two kinds of cereal. The choice is abundant. Westerners are choosing to worship themselves instead. In some cases, they are worshipping pagan, often Nordic gods, and of course, their white race. So, no, we don’t feel sorry for them, and we’re not going to expend a lot of energy trying to save them from themselves and their self-worship. There are millions of people around the world who are literally risking their lives for Jesus Christ. They are sometimes dying for him. They love him that much. They are being persecuted to death. They are our modern martyrs, and we love them. May their faithful souls rest in heaven with our Lord.
This worship of a false god in western societies began during the Enlightenment period, and this is its inevitable culmination. The Jewish people also had this problem. God had to remind them numerous times to worship him and not false gods. Unlike the Jewish people, whose history is unique, in the case of western Christians, Christianity quickly became the state religion of a large, dominant empire, the Roman Empire, and the people didn’t have to struggle to practice their faith openly and in peace, effectively, after Constantine’s conversion. Therefore, it’s more difficult to determine exactly how strong the faith of the vast majority of its European practitioners were. Obviously, there were many European Christians of deep faith, and some were canonized by the Catholic Church. However, given the past 400 years of history since the Enlightenment, it is an open question exactly how strong the vast majority of Europeans’ faith ever really was. And when you subtract the first 300 to 500 years of Christianity, it’s a little more than 1,000 years of “Christendom,” not the full 2,000 years of the religion’s existence and with several schisms during that 1,000-plus-year period. In any case, if they want to be practicing Christians, we know that they can quite easily do so. We are not going to cater to their egos. They need to work it out.
1/5/25 – Today, in the Catholic Church, we celebrate the Epiphany. A Greek word, which in its original meaning, means manifestation. The Word becomes flesh, the baby Jesus as human manifestation of God the Father. We want everyone, especially the persecuted church that is growing in areas of the world that are only now being truly introduced to the Word and to Jesus Christ, to know that Christianity belongs to them as fully as to anyone else.
In fact, before the Apostles decided to bring what was at the time a rather small and unaccepted Jewish sect to the Gentiles, the decision had already been made. It was made at the Epiphany. None of the three wise men, the Magi, also from Greek, “magoi,” were Jewish. They were also not white. They were from the east. Christianity was intended to be for everyone, the four corners of the earth, at least, from the birth of our savior.
Especially to recent African converts, the world might tell you that you are less than. Evolutionary theory can never escape its dark, unholy human hierarchy, but as Christians, the concept of superiority is antithetical to our religion. We believe all people, in all parts of the world, are made in the image of God and that all people are made equal. To the persecuted church, you are as fully human and as fully Christian as any of us can be. A religious ancestry is nothing but a genetic line. It is ultimately meaningless. All that matters is your soul.
More broadly, when the world discriminates against the persecuted church or anyone of genuine faith, when it inflicts violence and cruelty upon you or humiliates you, you remember our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ on the cross. You have a bond with our creator, and they cannot break it. We chose as a people to make the cross, the instrument of torture, death and humiliation, as the symbol of our faith. It was a pronouncement to the world that no matter how they treat us, we will continue to love our God. We will not be ashamed of him. In fact, we will raise him up in the most painful moment of his life as an act of our defiant and pure love. We are praying for you. Keep the faith, and peace be with you.
1/5/25 – The Christian creeds are not optional. You have to believe in our God, including the divinity of Jesus Christ, to be a Christian. If you believe in the Old Testament, but not the New Testament, we encourage you to explore Judaism. The Jewish people are good people. They have brought the world more than it ever deserved from them. Reach out to them to see what their conversion process is and their requirements are. It is fairly extensive and long, but a spiritual journey isn’t a race. It is a lifelong journey and a commitment to God. Of the Abrahamic religions, there is also Islam. They also have had great thinkers and beautiful places of worship. A popular Persian Islamic scholar and mystic is Rumi, who wrote lovely poetry. Islam is going through a particularly difficult period right now, but this hasn’t always been the case.
You can also learn about and possibly join other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. There are also many indigenous spiritual practices. They are often deeply connected with God’s creation, our planet, in ways that other religions have a harder time putting into practice, even if they share some of their understandings on a theological level. All of these religions and spiritual practices also have long, rich traditions and deep insights to offer, and like all religions, beautiful places of worship.
Keep your mind, heart, and soul open to God. We want you to have a deep, genuine spiritual life, whether that’s in Christianity or elsewhere. As Christians, we do not force our faith on anyone. Every person on the planet is granted with God’s free will. It is your choice to make. As Christians, we do ask that you put in the time and the work. We want you to understand the faith, and if you choose to join us, to do so of our own free will and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
1/5/25 – As a preface to the following remarks, as a church, we always welcome anybody and everybody. As mentioned below, there are about 2.4 billion Christians in the world, and as a rough estimate, 60% to 70% of them are non-white. Africa has the most Christians, followed by Latin America. Christianity is oppressed in many countries in Asia and in the land of its birth, the Middle East. Nonetheless, it has millions of followers in Asia and throughout the persecuted church. It has many believers who have to practice in secret. They are true believers.
In contradiction to the popular western narrative, Christianity is not desperate for followers. In comparison to the rest of the world, it is in relative decline in the west. That’s its loss and its problem. The west routinely brings a lot of problems on itself and on others, such as colonialism. This is one of the risks of worshipping your race and yourselves instead of the one true God.
There are many holy and fine religious people and clergy, men and women. There are also many holy and fine laity, men and women. They are devout and live the faith. However, if we’re being fully accountable, we know that none of us follow Jesus Christ as we ought to. We routinely fail in living up to his example and the faith. Yet, the church grows. There is a simple reason for this – Jesus Christ. Testimony after testimony, conversion after conversion demonstrate the power of Jesus. It is an awesome power. It can transform someone. It is like a ray of light that pierces the nerve and electrifies the soul. One finally sees. Christians never have to worry about the state of Christianity. It is in good hands. It is in God’s hands.
1/4/25 – Even when I was a kid, albeit a little strange in some ways, I wanted a romantic life. By this, I don’t mean romance like dating or marriage, but with life. I would lie on the ground and stare up at the night sky and think this is so beautiful. It felt romantic. Or I would wake up early, grab a seasonal fruit that I loved, so that I could watch the sunrise. Another romantic moment. I have memories from my early twenties, when I fancied a bohemian aesthetic, on some random adventure with someone, nothing special yet romantic. My memory is filled with these romantic moments. Most of them are not captured or documented anywhere. This is a gift. If they had been documented, they likely would not seem romantic to me anymore. They would likely seem boring or maybe even unpleasant.
We make the assumption that by documenting everything, we’re capturing memories that we can later savor. However, what makes a memory is sometimes the things you’re leaving out of the picture or the video and the things you’re capturing in your selective memory and your subjective experience. The romanticism wasn’t in the thing itself. It was actually in my desire to live as if the world’s beauty and my own desire for it were a reciprocal relationship. I wanted my life to be filled with beauty and romance, and I approached the world wanting whatever it gave me to be material, possibly transformed by me, to satisfy this desire.
One can get beautiful still shots, and I still appreciate those images, often not so much for their memories, but for their aesthetics. However, videos often get too much information and yet not enough. Ever since the pandemic, many churches started recording some of their masses/services. Even though I go to church at least weekly, I watch the ones I can’t make but would have liked to have attended. These recordings are never the same as the real-time experience. The video experience is decidedly not romantic. We forget all kinds of valuable things all the time. We can view this as a loss, or we can view choosing to live in the romance of the moment as simply more valuable. What we end up forgetting might not have been worth remembering anyway.
Parents, Put Down Your Phone Cameras
1/4/25 – A different Marian story, American style. The first reference is to Exodus in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. If there are only two books that you read of Moses’s five, we encourage you to read the first two, Genesis and this. The second reference is to the death and the resurrection of Lazarus in the New Testament. You might wonder why choose these two. Well, you’re talking about a people that were freed from slavery, so the Exodus story would naturally have resonance. The second is reminding us that in the midst of our suffering, we might not understand God’s plan, but he does not abandon his people. This is how this first story overlaps with the second. We trust God. Emmanuel, God with us.
From the comments (lightly edited): “Who is listening in 2024?” “I will listen to this album until the day I die, Amen”
Mary Don’t You Weep
1/4/25 – Our Christian faith tradition is rich, long and diverse. We have been a global church since the birth of the faith. There are about 2.4 billion Christians in the world (1/3 of the total population). We started with a dozen. We are doing fine. We have many different churches. Anybody, no matter their race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, etc., can find a church that will accept them as they are. We also suggest that you explore other religions and spiritual traditions. Go to them with an open mind, heart and soul. The main thing is to figure out if you believe in God, and if you do, which god. This is your life and your journey. Take the time to make it fulfilling.
1/4/25 – If you’re looking for perfection, this is not the place for you. We can’t offer it even if we wanted to.
1/4/25 – Once one experiences a conversion experience, one risk, which we spoke about before is spiritual pride, and perhaps with it, another risk, is expecting perfection. You weren’t perfect before your conversion. You aren’t going to be perfect after. If you aim for perfection, you risk always feeling disappointed in yourself. You remain a human being like everyone else. Lean into being human. Put yourself out there as a human being: share the faith, the insights you’ve had because of the gift of grace you were given, and just be you as you are while still continuing to work on yourself, your spiritual life and your journey. Take yourself seriously, but that doesn’t mean expecting perfection. Expecting perfection will lead to spiritual exhaustion and burnout, and rather ironically, it is not a Christian approach to your own humanity. We view ourselves as sinners, always, because we are.
This is one of the main ways Christianity is different from the secular world. Look at social media. People are creating entire fictional accounts of themselves and their lives to create the illusion of perfection. Even when they are “bringing their whole selves,” there is an inescapable performative aspect to it. It feels like a display not for personal growth but for “professional growth.” They spend hours on this. They have damaged their bodies, minds, and souls to create a false self and/or to attract other people’s attention and often other people’s envy. This is a sad way to live a life. It is also antithetical to Christian beliefs and way of life. We return to the solitude of our contemplative practices as connection, cleansing and clarity. To be connected to God, we can’t create a false self. We are coming as we are, in our sinfulness, our imperfections, but also in our great love for God. That’s how we meet him because that’s the truest expression of where we are at. We go to God with an honest accounting and presence in our full humanity. Go to the world in the same way.
1/3/25 – A Greek Chant, Agni Parthene, sung by Malayali Christians (Nasrani, the word comes from Jesus of Nazareth, also known as Thomas Christians), an Indian ethno-religious group. (The script you see is the Greek script. The church, St. Mary’s Indian Orthodox Cathedral, is located in Bahrain.)
From the comments (lightly edited): “I am a Hindu. I always feel happy and blessed when I hear this song. It gives me a divine energy. I have heard the Russian and English versions of this song. But this is the first time I am hearing it in an Indian language. Very powerful song. I have subscribed to this channel too. Happy Easter to my brothers and sisters. God bless everyone.” One of the greatest joys we have as human beings is sharing in each other’s religious music and traditions. All are always welcome.
Agni Parthene
1/3/25 – So, another realization is that we assumed that people were just being lazy, which never goes over well…. Although there is an element of laziness, more precisely laziness as expressed as a lack of self-discipline, once the addiction has taken hold, it becomes a pathology. It’s like a self-inflicted disease. We are looking at a sick country – one of phone addicts, who have compromised the integrity of their bodies, minds and souls.
1/3/25 – Know this: As soon as you reach for your phone when you’re resting, as described below, you’ve stopped resting. You can say it’s relaxing, but you’ve stopped resting because you’re asking your brain to do things, likely when it is telling you it needs to stop doing things.
1/3/25 – Maybe to some people, you don’t need God. You can just worship yourself. You don’t need to think. The elites and others will tell you what to think. You don’t need rest. You need to be a slave. We don’t agree with this, and we don’t think that it’s the way to live a life.
1/3/25 – A few weeks ago, when we were explaining the basics of the God question, we said that our culture is retrograde, that we are moving backward instead of forward. Since then, there was the realization that people aren’t thinking for themselves or at all. They are just copying others. We had to emphasize that people actually have to do the work and think. Now, we’re explaining rest. God and rest would be intuitive to even the most uneducated indigenous person. Please tell us that this is progress. It’s not.
1/3/25 – As I’m processing this disconcerting information, I’m realizing something, and it’s scary. Many people have likely gotten so addicted to their phones that it has damaged their relationship with their own bodies. In other words, my body and my mind tell me when I need to rest. Sometimes, maybe often, I override it because I am working or I have a deadline, whatnot, but when I can, I give it what it needs. This is not the same as sleeping. It’s resting. I go idle. I’m still conscious. It’s not the deep, restorative rest that only sleep can give, but it’s still restorative. I’m letting my body and my brain relax. I’m not asking anything of it. I’m not trying to control it. I’m just letting it be, like letting a field lie fallow, but for short(er) periods of time. What this is telling me is that it’s not just that your phone is causing mental health problems and sedentary habits, it’s also inhibiting an appropriate response to the call your body is making for you to rest. Some people might not even be hearing the call because they have gotten so disconnected from their own bodies. You’re not actually giving your body and your mind what they are telling you they need and want. You’re giving them the opposite thing.
1/3/25 – Wait, are people not resting? So, y’all are not resting and not thinking? I’m totally confused by what’s going on. Have you always been this way, or only after you developed your phone addiction? I never developed a phone addiction because I don’t like it that much, and I never put addictive apps on it.
1/3/25 – As I read this article, I found myself engaging in some metacognition, including thinking about what I hate the most. I hate tedious activities – with a passion. It requires a lot of discipline to get through them. I get quite irritable and pray to God to have enough patience to deal with them. Often, these are bureaucratic activities, like paying taxes, that are often required or semi-required. You have to do it. (Pay your taxes.) These kinds of activities require your brain to actually function, but they are repetitive, unsatisfying (meaning I’m not learning anything I would like to learn), and exceptionally tedious. If anyone asked me whether I would like to do nothing or one of these activities, there is no doubt, I would say nothing.
In fact, there is not a single day, when for at least some part of it, however brief, I don’t do anything. I just sit or lie there and think. I do nothing. I end up here either because I’m tired and need a break, or because I just feel like it. If I have the time, I can do this for a long time, hours. I do not find it boring at all. I find it relaxing. I’m resting, not sleeping or even daydreaming, just resting, thinking, not thinking, not doing anything. Walks, which I consider doing something, are especially good for relaxing and stimulating thought. I also get to be outside and get some exercise. I view prayer and meditation as doing something, the most valuable thing I can do, connecting with the divine. (And no, I almost never have a temptation to reach for my phone during any of these activities or resting. I routinely forget about it.)
I also routinely take breaks as I’m reading. I’ll pause, look away or even walk away from the text, process my thoughts, and then go back to reading the same text or writing as a reflection, during and/or at the end of the text. If I’m unable to write physically, I’ll write in my head and hope that I don’t forget too much, having a certain amount of confidence that enough of my original thoughts will come back to me when I am able to write them down. (I’m sure I forget stuff all the time, but who really cares.) In general, while I’m reading, I often need some time to think about not just what the author is saying but also my initial response to it. Unless I’m taking a test or something that’s timed, I can be a slower reader for this reason.
It was rather startling to read that other people don’t seem to like to do nothing. Frankly, it scares me a little. Apparently, this is because they are afraid of their own thoughts. I’m at a loss as to what to say about that. I mean, how can one be afraid of their own thoughts? It’s like they are afraid of themselves. They also categorize this as boredom. How can being alone with one’s thoughts be boring? I don’t understand this. So, apparently, I’m living in the modern world with a bunch of people who live in it with me but in a very different way, which probably explains a lot. I wish I had some advice to give, but I don’t because I don’t understand this way of being.
I Want Your Attention. I Need Your Attention. Here Is How I Mastered My Own
1/2/25 – You have to think. It’s one of the great joys of life: being your own, independent thinking person as God made you. You are nobody’s slave. Don’t make yourself into one.
The 73 Percent Solution
1/2/25 – We don’t do resolutions, but this is a good idea. You could break up the year into fourths, although not particularly spiritual, but as financial quarters, and assess how the resolutions are going, to possibly make modifications. You could also do so according to the suggestions here, such as monthly, “Rosh Hodesh, the celebration of the new month.”
This was a great insight: “To help the Israelites break out of their slave mentality, they had to take control over the way they marked time. To be truly free, they had to take time into their own hands.” Sometimes, people like to say that “we are corporate slaves.” Obviously, they don’t mean this literally. Maybe the best New Year’s resolution is simply to be more mindful of how you’re spending your time and not do so as if you’re a “slave.”
“If nothing else, we can commit to being moon watchers, gaining our inspiration from the cycles of the natural world, taking in the tides of time that have captured the imagination of our people through the ages. Together with an appreciation of the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, we can learn to trust in a process that allows us to continually assess our goals and keep ourselves on a path of growth and personal exploration throughout the year.”
The Jewish Way to Make a New Year’s Resolution
1/2/25 – “They need to think of Liturgy as a kind of school.” It’s a good description for the Liturgy of the Word. In the Catholic tradition, the mass is divided into two halves. The first half is called the Liturgy of the Word, and the second half is called the Liturgy of the Eucharist. If you think about Jesus’s Ministry as, first, his preaching and healing, and subsequently, his death and resurrection, the structure of the mass follows the structure of his ministry.
How Is Syriac Christian Thought Different from Greek and Latin Thought?
1/2/25 – Obviously, Jesus didn’t speak Latin. He spoke Aramaic (Galilean dialect, Aramaic script). (We speak English (various dialects, Latin script).) From this parent language, Aramaic, comes Hebrew (Jewish) and Syriac (Christian). They are both in the Semitic language family (as is Arabic (Muslim)). This is the Lord’s Prayer (also called the Our Father, Notre Père in French) in Syriac Aramaic. The translation is provided in the comments.
From the comments (lightly edited): “I have the heritage of both, the Chaldean (Syro-Malabar) and Antiochian (Syro-Malankara) Syrian Christians, and I am proud! God bless you all. Love from India!” She’s referring to the historical relationship between the Indian and the Middle Eastern churches, Syrian Christians. The Indian counterpart in terms of rite, hymns and language to the specific Middle Eastern church is in parentheses. (All Christians of this Syrian heritage need to remember that spiritual pride is also a sin.)
Abun d’bashmayo (Syriac Aramaic) The Lord’s prayer
Abun d’bashmayo — Notre Père en araméen syriaque — Syriac Aramaic Lord’s prayer
1/1/25 – A Gregorian chant as an initiation for the New Year. It is an over 1,000-year tradition in the Catholic Church to sing it on this day. Even if you don’t understand the words, try to sing along in the Latin. You just copy the sounds.
Veni Creator Spiritus / Come Holy Spirit
1/1/25 – Reporters need to adhere to journalistic standards and report what is happening in the country and what the American people think in an unbiased and objective manner. That is not what is happening, and the public has lost trust in the news media. Poll after poll has shown this. The American people don’t trust the news media because they are not trustworthy. They can continue to erode whatever remains of this trust or do their jobs correctly. The choice is theirs. We, however, will continue to try to find other sources of information that have more journalistic integrity and are of better quality.
1/1/25 – We have long had a dislike of the Washington Propaganda because it has been the worst abuser of the American people’s trust. It was the most deceptive newspaper regarding Biden’s infirmity. Its reporters and op-ed writers have used the platform to push their own or progressives’ agenda numerous times, in ways beyond what some other news organizations were doing. We will not tolerate even the slightest deception, condescension, manipulation, or insulting insinuation. And The New Yorker is simply completely detached from and out-of-touch with the American people. For a while now, we haven’t even bothered with it.
1/1/25 – On the tedious but necessary topic of the news media. The link, which was chosen in haste, to the article on MacKenzie Scott below was changed yesterday from the AP to ABC News. This change was made for the following reason. The AP’s coverage of religious news, which has been the main reason we read it, has fallen in quality, and lately, it is categorizing stories as religious news when are not. Sports, somehow tangentially tied to religion, is not religious news. It’s sports news. This happened at least twice. The trans politician profile article they recently published is also not religious news, even if it has some minor references to religion. It is political news. We read religious news to get away from politics and other fluffy things we don’t care about, like sports. The content needs to reflect the category.
1/1/25 – Note that we don’t talk about many issues, including anything related to sports or most entertainment (we do talk about some art), bathrooms and whatever else happens on social media since we’re not on it, etc. The Atlantic covers the trans topic from time to time and are a good source for public opinion on this and other topics since they try to present the American public’s views, not their own personal views, and have good writers. This was their latest article on this topic. We do bigger, broader issues: obviously, religion, the planet and the environment, and other life issues, such as housing, education, economics, etc. You get the idea: God, life, learning. Also note that we routinely correct minor errors, such as typos or minor rephrasings, without any notice. Unless the edit is fairly significant, we don’t mention it.
What the Left Refused to Understand About Women’s Sports
1/1/25 – This story is hard. We remember images of koalas being roasted alive in the Australian wildfires caused by climate change. Now, this. We must save the koalas! They need to push the vaccine through now and save them. We love the planet God gave us. We must save as much of it as we can. We owe it to God, the animals, and to ourselves.
Chlamydia could make koalas extinct. Can a vaccine save them in time?
1/1/25 – We cannot survive physically or spiritually without a healthy, thriving planet. The animals that we share this planet with are our friends. When I was young, I covered my walls with posters of wild animals and some pets (and the occasional cutie musician) with stickers of them in between the posters. A favorite was a poster of a baby seal. I would look into the baby seal’s eyes, and it looked back at me with such deep kindness and innocence. It comforted me better than any stuffed animal could. Nature and God’s creatures were my childhood friends, and they are still my friends. The mass extinction of their life on our planet hurts my soul. The natural decline in human populations cannot come soon enough.
1/1/25 – It is 2025. May God bless you and save all of us, our beautiful planet and its amazing creatures.