here is a sample paragraph from an article now appearing at The Onion Dome:
Istanbul, Turkey — In a move which has His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch PATRIARCHUS the Nth drumming his fingers in disappointment, government officials in Ankara recently nixed plans by the Patriarch to turn the Phanar, the tiny little enclave in Istanbul which houses the Patriarchate, a score of bishops, maybe two or three priests, and the cleaning lady, into a sleek, modern amusement park. ...
Read the rest of this article here
31 July 2003
iCame, iSaw, iConquered, iGot Addicted!
P.S. There may not be blog entries tomorrow or this weekend due to a trip to Washington D.C. that I am making.
30 July 2003
What Saith the Chinese Fortune Cookie?
Being that it is a Wednesday and Orthodox fasting requires me to avoid meat and dairy, I had Chinese for lunch. Specifically vegetable lo mein. Anyway, after my meal I eat my fortune cookie and read it. What did it say? I am glad you asked. LOL!
I am so keeping this one! :-D The last fortune that I saved from a Chinese cookie was the following.
It's time you asked that
special someone out on a date.
special someone out on a date.
I am so keeping this one! :-D The last fortune that I saved from a Chinese cookie was the following.
Many a false step
is made by standing still.
is made by standing still.
Insane Ramblings & Orthodox Ecclesiology
The name of this blog is Insane Ramblings & Orthodox Ecclesiology and while I seem to have mastered that whole Insane Ramblings part, I have seemingly ignored the Orthodoxy Ecclesiology* part. Oops! Do not worry though, the Orthodoxy Ecclesiology blog entries will be coming soon, just not today.
*And no this was not just another way for search engines to associate Orthodoxy Ecclesiology with this site.
*And no this was not just another way for search engines to associate Orthodoxy Ecclesiology with this site.
More Lyrics ...
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
What if I stumble?
What if I fall?
Is this one for the people?
Is this one for the Lord?
Or do I simply serenade for things I must afford?
You can jumble them together, my conflict still remains
Holiness is calling, in the midst of courting fame
Cause I see the trust in their eyes
Though the sky is falling
They need Your love in their lives
Compromise is calling
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You never turn in the heat of it all
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
Father please forgive me for I can not compose
The fear that lives within me
Or the rate at which it grows
If struggle has a purpose
On the narrow road you've carved
Why do I dread my trespasses will leave a deadly scar
Do they see the fear in my eyes?
Are they so revealing?
This time I cannot disguise
All the doubt I'm feeling
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?
What if I stumble?
Everyone's got to crawl when you know that
You're up against a wall, it's about to fall
Everyone's got to crawl when you know that
Everyone's got to crawl when you know that
You're up against a wall, it's about to fall
Everyone's got to crawl when you know that
I hear You whispering my name You say
My love for You will never change never change
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I ...
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You never turn in the heat of it all
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You are my comfort, and my God
Is this one for the people, is this one for the Lord?
28 July 2003
Of Couplings and Marriages ...
Over at the Euphrosynos Café forum people were asked to post their stories on how they met the person they married and how they ended up engaged. So far, not a "normal" story among them. But all of the stories are from the heart and you can just feel the love that exists in these married couples. Very inspiring. Here is a link to the stories.
27 July 2003
Church Talk!
Last night as I was leaving church after Vigil I was invited over for dinner by my priest. Matushka always makes great dinners, and everyone always stay up talking so that I end up leaving around midnight. :-o
It makes waking up for Divine Liturgy a little harder the next day, but even so, I still enjoy doing this. If you would like to see my church's web site* you can see it here. People seem to really like the FAQs section.
Yes, I am the webmaster* of that site as well.
*According to the AP style guide "web site" should be written "Web site" and "webmaster" as "Webmaster", but I think that is just dumb! Also if "Webmaster" is one word, why should "Web site" be two?
It makes waking up for Divine Liturgy a little harder the next day, but even so, I still enjoy doing this. If you would like to see my church's web site* you can see it here. People seem to really like the FAQs section.
Yes, I am the webmaster* of that site as well.
*According to the AP style guide "web site" should be written "Web site" and "webmaster" as "Webmaster", but I think that is just dumb! Also if "Webmaster" is one word, why should "Web site" be two?
26 July 2003
Bill Gates: Yup, Windows is still inferior and bug-ridden!
In Microsoft's annual financial meeting, Bill Gates admitted that OVER 5% of all of Windows users (i.e. 30 million people!) experience a crash of Windows MORE than twice a day! :-o
I think we can all be glad that Microsoft does not make cars! Can you imagine your car crashing 3 times a day minimum?
But seriously, how and why do people put up with such horrible products? I run Mac OS X on my eMac by Apple and I simply do not have to deal with crashes daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or anything of the sort!
Speaking of Microsoft, if you are stuck in that Windows world, you really owe it to yourself to use Mozilla 1.4 or Netscape 7.1 rather than Internet Explorer.
I think we can all be glad that Microsoft does not make cars! Can you imagine your car crashing 3 times a day minimum?
But seriously, how and why do people put up with such horrible products? I run Mac OS X on my eMac by Apple and I simply do not have to deal with crashes daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or anything of the sort!
Speaking of Microsoft, if you are stuck in that Windows world, you really owe it to yourself to use Mozilla 1.4 or Netscape 7.1 rather than Internet Explorer.
24 July 2003
Another Song Post!
This one is called I Don't Think I Will. It was written by Doug Johnson and is performed by James Bonamy on his album, What I Live To Do. It is really a nice song, not disturbing like the other song I posted! :-D
Hold it right there
Don't say a word
I hear a voice I've never heard
Calling my name
Saying this is the one
Oh my goodness what have you done
I could turn around and walk away
Saying this is too good to be real
But oh no I don't think I will
Because I absolutely, positively know without a doubt
You're becoming someone I just could not live without
I was so afraid I'd spend my whole life not knowing how this feels
Oh no, I don't think I will
I could just do what I've done before
Blame it all on the moon
Say it's nothing more
Than the pull of the tide
And it's gonna pass
But something's telling me
This time it's gonna last
I could close my eyes and just pretend I don't feel the way I feel
But oh no, I don't think I will
Because I absolutely, positively know without a doubt
You're becoming someone I just could not live without
I was so afraid I'd spend my whole life not knowing how this feels
Oh no, I don't think I will
Oh no I don't think
Oh ya I don't think I
Oh no I don't think I will
Don't say a word
I hear a voice I've never heard
Calling my name
Saying this is the one
Oh my goodness what have you done
I could turn around and walk away
Saying this is too good to be real
But oh no I don't think I will
Because I absolutely, positively know without a doubt
You're becoming someone I just could not live without
I was so afraid I'd spend my whole life not knowing how this feels
Oh no, I don't think I will
I could just do what I've done before
Blame it all on the moon
Say it's nothing more
Than the pull of the tide
And it's gonna pass
But something's telling me
This time it's gonna last
I could close my eyes and just pretend I don't feel the way I feel
But oh no, I don't think I will
Because I absolutely, positively know without a doubt
You're becoming someone I just could not live without
I was so afraid I'd spend my whole life not knowing how this feels
Oh no, I don't think I will
Oh no I don't think
Oh ya I don't think I
Oh no I don't think I will
23 July 2003
Woman — Salvation of Man, or His Perdition?
I just read the most profound and awesome article in a thread about the so-called "New Woman" at the Euphrosynos Café. It is so dead on that it is scary!
Woman — Salvation of Man, or His Perdition?
Priest Andrew Phillips
How strange it is that often I go out into the streets and I never see a woman. Men I see. I also see pseudo-men, but not a single true woman.
Why is it that so many woman and girls today simply wish to be imitations of men? Why is it that the modern woman has adopted everything that is bad in men, from their jobs to their clothes? Why is it that woman, dressed as men, with men's hairstyles, think that they are attractive to men? All such women can attract are the base desires of the scoundrel.
I do not know what I feel more strongly when I see modern woman - is it astonishment or pity? Worst of all is the "career-woman", a term which describes one who has abandoned womanhood for pseudo-manhood. She has betrayed everything that is noble and beautiful in the woman's soul -she has rejected herself. Their faces are harassed, tired before their time, faces whence all womanly beauty has long since fled away and has had to be replaced with artificial "beauty", make-up. Why follow the ugliness of men's clothing styles? Trousers, called in Greek "frankopantaloni", the pantaloons of the Franks, the enemies of Orthodoxy, are a recent innovation of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed most men in the world still wear the traditional dress or robe, be it in Asia, Africa, Scotland, Greece or among Orthodox clergy. Why does modern woman have to follow the foolishness of modern man? When Adam and Eve fell, Adam's punishment (the result of his sin) was to have to work for a living. And now modern woman thirsts for ths punishment. Why take on the extra - is not giving birth in pain enough? Is not being man's "helpmeet" enough?
In rejecting her traditional role of Christian wife and mother, woman has lost all her power over man. In previous times (and still today in some places, thank Heaven) the house, or rather the home, was a kingdom where woman reigned. Her husband was just that - bound to the house - and duly handed over his wages to his wife at the end of the week for the housekeeping, which the wife was in charge of. O woman, what have you lost! The Christian wife and mother, following nearly two millennia of tradition, free from the bondage of woman's servile position in the heathen world (many examples of this servility can be seen in Hindu, Muslim and the neo-pagan society of today), brought up Christian children. She influenced her husband in all things and the world was balanced by man and woman together. She inspired her husband to acts of noble self-sacrifice, made him to surpass his egoism in the name of greater entity of family or even nation, she tamed his wild passions, in a word, she civilized him and brought him to salvation.
And modern woman? An imitation of what is worst in modern man, she has lost her matriarchal authority in the family, punished herself by working outside the family home, encouraged weak men to divorce - having rejected her inner self, she fights against her own wifely and maternal soul and instinct, which lie buried beneath the idiotic conditioning which men have imposed on her in recent times simply because they wanted cheap labour in the factories they had invented. And that slavery was then disguised under the name of "equality". And that is how, dear friends, woman lost her superiority to man, the proof of this is that the greatest 'man' on the Kingdom of Heaven is the Mother of God.
And modern man? Without the guidance of his helpmeet, without a true mother for their children, without the bright and inspiring example of womanhood before him, without her perspicacious intuitions to direct him through the web of male reasoning, he has lost his way. The words husband and wife are no longer used, they have become so despiritualized that they now talk about "partners", the word used for animals. All that is left is meaningless, empty, irrelevant animal brutishness.
Where is love? Where are the smiles and laughter of happy children? Where is society? Where is the world?
O woman, come back to your senses, come back to your self, and in so doing you may save man from the horror into which he has plunged the world, you may yet save man, who depends on you for good sense and intuitive judgement, and thus save the world.
Woman — Salvation of Man, or His Perdition?
Priest Andrew Phillips
How strange it is that often I go out into the streets and I never see a woman. Men I see. I also see pseudo-men, but not a single true woman.
Why is it that so many woman and girls today simply wish to be imitations of men? Why is it that the modern woman has adopted everything that is bad in men, from their jobs to their clothes? Why is it that woman, dressed as men, with men's hairstyles, think that they are attractive to men? All such women can attract are the base desires of the scoundrel.
I do not know what I feel more strongly when I see modern woman - is it astonishment or pity? Worst of all is the "career-woman", a term which describes one who has abandoned womanhood for pseudo-manhood. She has betrayed everything that is noble and beautiful in the woman's soul -she has rejected herself. Their faces are harassed, tired before their time, faces whence all womanly beauty has long since fled away and has had to be replaced with artificial "beauty", make-up. Why follow the ugliness of men's clothing styles? Trousers, called in Greek "frankopantaloni", the pantaloons of the Franks, the enemies of Orthodoxy, are a recent innovation of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed most men in the world still wear the traditional dress or robe, be it in Asia, Africa, Scotland, Greece or among Orthodox clergy. Why does modern woman have to follow the foolishness of modern man? When Adam and Eve fell, Adam's punishment (the result of his sin) was to have to work for a living. And now modern woman thirsts for ths punishment. Why take on the extra - is not giving birth in pain enough? Is not being man's "helpmeet" enough?
In rejecting her traditional role of Christian wife and mother, woman has lost all her power over man. In previous times (and still today in some places, thank Heaven) the house, or rather the home, was a kingdom where woman reigned. Her husband was just that - bound to the house - and duly handed over his wages to his wife at the end of the week for the housekeeping, which the wife was in charge of. O woman, what have you lost! The Christian wife and mother, following nearly two millennia of tradition, free from the bondage of woman's servile position in the heathen world (many examples of this servility can be seen in Hindu, Muslim and the neo-pagan society of today), brought up Christian children. She influenced her husband in all things and the world was balanced by man and woman together. She inspired her husband to acts of noble self-sacrifice, made him to surpass his egoism in the name of greater entity of family or even nation, she tamed his wild passions, in a word, she civilized him and brought him to salvation.
And modern woman? An imitation of what is worst in modern man, she has lost her matriarchal authority in the family, punished herself by working outside the family home, encouraged weak men to divorce - having rejected her inner self, she fights against her own wifely and maternal soul and instinct, which lie buried beneath the idiotic conditioning which men have imposed on her in recent times simply because they wanted cheap labour in the factories they had invented. And that slavery was then disguised under the name of "equality". And that is how, dear friends, woman lost her superiority to man, the proof of this is that the greatest 'man' on the Kingdom of Heaven is the Mother of God.
And modern man? Without the guidance of his helpmeet, without a true mother for their children, without the bright and inspiring example of womanhood before him, without her perspicacious intuitions to direct him through the web of male reasoning, he has lost his way. The words husband and wife are no longer used, they have become so despiritualized that they now talk about "partners", the word used for animals. All that is left is meaningless, empty, irrelevant animal brutishness.
Where is love? Where are the smiles and laughter of happy children? Where is society? Where is the world?
O woman, come back to your senses, come back to your self, and in so doing you may save man from the horror into which he has plunged the world, you may yet save man, who depends on you for good sense and intuitive judgement, and thus save the world.
Greek Chant
I much prefer Russian style chant to the Greek style chant, but I actually found some Greek style chant by Archimandrate George of Dormition Skete that I really like. Here is a small clip for your enjoyment.
22 July 2003
Random Music
So I am listening to iTunes and my Romeo + Juliet (Yes, the 1996 version, although I prefer the 1968 version myself) movie soundrack comes on. I actually listened to the words to #1 Crush by Garbage, and while I always knew the thing was oddly romantic, it is also pretty stalker-like in its lyrics. Here are the words to the song for your consumption.
I would die for you
I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine
I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear
I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you
See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time I am talkin'
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored
I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart
I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me
Violate all the love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored
I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I'd do time for you
I will wait for you
I'd make room for you
I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be a part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you.
I would die for you
I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine
I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear
I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you
See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time I am talkin'
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored
I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart
I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me
Violate all the love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored
I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I'd do time for you
I will wait for you
I'd make room for you
I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be a part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you.
21 July 2003
Euphrosynos Cafe & Stano's Heck!
This would not be a blog without self-serving links to web sites! So without further adieu, here is the linkage!
What is Blogging?
Haha! I finally got a stupid blog! Blog is short for web log for the blogger uninitiated. Blogs tend to be ego vomit by the super ego, id. This will probably contain more pointless insane rantings than Orthodox Ecclesiology. Sorry for any confusion!
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