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Post by seraphim on Feb 12, 2009 12:35:44 GMT -5
I'm not sure what you mean by "millenials"? Do you mean one alive at the turn of the millenium or one who is of a millenialist/chillianist religious pursuasion vis a vis the second coming?
As for faith not being fun, that is actually a large part of what I've come to appreciate about it in its historical expression. That is to say faith did not truck with the trappings of entertainments and diversions...fun so to speak. The trivial is easy to dismiss as passing childish fancies or whims of fashion. This is the retro-attraction to older expressions of faith, I think. They are demanding, require blood, sweat, and tears...sacrifice. You take them as they are, as they have been presented or you don't take them at all. In these systems, making things up, novelties, pick and choose are just another name for anathema.
For example one of the things I like about my experience of the Orthodox Christian faith is that traditionally we don't have pews (we do have a few chairs or benches against the walls for the old and infirm). We stand for the whole service no matter how long just like it has always been done from time out of mind. And it can hurt. In long services feet ache, I've even had bruised ankles, and seen others pass out, fall over, then stagger back to their feet to soldier on. And you get no brownie points for the pain...unless you just like pain and want to congradulate yourself on suffering (which is itself frowned upon since self praise is deceitful). No, it is simply the way it is, and if it hurts it hurts and if it doesn't it doesn't. This is the way it was done, the way it is done, and the way that will be passed on till the Lord returns. It is a solidarity of experience with all who have come before us, and a legacy for all who will come after. In some ways it is like a military drill experience...just much more beautiful (drill sargents don't wear colorful robes, give blessings, nor cense their troops). As one well known female Orthodox writer once commented, "Its a guy thing." And I suppose it is at first, but the ladies do come around eventually
Then there are the rules of fasting, various bits of temple decorum like traditionally men on the right side and women on the left, crossing oneself at various times, kissing the cross and the priest's hand at the end of the service, asking blessings, confession, etc. All hard stuff to maintain for some, all stuff that cuts against the grain of individualism and self will, and all very attractive to those tired of bulldozed boundaries, indugence of every whim of taste, and tiresome treadmills of undifferented post modernist relativism and affirmation. Rather to discover that I'm not Okay and neither are you and both of us need some extensive disaplined therapy in order to be healed is refreshing....revitalizing. The joy it gives is not in being catered to but in having striven together...a kind of happy exaustion.
Not to detract from the experience of others...that is just what I and presumablly other's like me find attractive about more ancient and traditional expressions of the the faith. It resupplies much of what has been trampled down and all but forgotten about over the past 5 decades but is still very much needed in our culture.
SF and perhaps even Fantasy if handled correctly can reexplore those cultural ruins, and examine old ideas in new ways so that readers can gain a better perspective on what such things mean for humanity both in their retention and in their loss.
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Post by J Jack on Feb 12, 2009 18:06:55 GMT -5
Millenial is the new psychological name given to those born around 2000, oddly enough this includes the 90's, so I was thrown off. According to them, we are not GenX (I was born '90) but Millenials, there was a thorough debate on this from our side, seeing as we're unsure of what we are. We still don't know...
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Post by torainfor on Feb 12, 2009 19:47:23 GMT -5
sabre: Didn't they tell you? Millennials are supposed to save the world. You're supposed to be smart and optimistic and successful and care about everything. And then fix everything. You're not supposed to be self-indulgent like Baby Boomers or lost and cynical like us Gen-Xers.
Yeah, bit of a tall order seen' as how the oldest of you are 19.
seraphim: It seems to me that fantasy is custom-built to express the draw of Orthodoxy. I think the trick would be to express the ancient traditions without adding too much of a military element or getting too new-agey.
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 13, 2009 2:24:13 GMT -5
Is disillusionment necessarily bad? If we have illusions about who God is, about what He designed the church to be, and about how humanity — even saved humanity — behaves, isn't it better to rid ourselves of those illusions?
Or is the word disgruntled? God isn't behaving how we think He should. Why aren't we experiencing all the neat stuff we hear about in feel-good sermons? Where's the big blank check He's mailed so we can have all we ask for? Why won't He bail us out of our goof-ups, the thousand large and small ways we mess up our lives? He's supposed to be the great healer — why won't He fix our pain? How dare He disappoint us!
So, what do we do with scripture that tells us His grace is sufficient, that tells us to rejoice in the trials and persecutions we will endure? We read the wonderful blessings that were bestowed on the faithful — great works of righteousness, victory in battle, conquest of kingdoms, deliverance, restoration — and, yes, oh, yes, that's what we want. But now read on. What happens to our own faith when scripture says that the faithful were also thrown in prison, stoned, sawn in two, put to death by the sword, persecuted, mistreated, destitute?
Here on the North American continent, persecution has not yet reached that level. There are places in the world where it has. If our faith is not enough to withstand the physical pains, the dissatisfactions, and the frustrations inherent in our culture, how will we trust in God's grace and sovereignty when we face worse?
And how does clinging to the generational labels further the Great Commandment or the Great Commission? What does it accomplish for God's kingdom? These categories that society stamps on us are little more than another way our culture invades the church. When we allow our culture to box us like that, we allow them to nail shut a coffin in our heads that hinders God's work in us and in the world where we are supposed to be salt and light. I don't think any generation can lay claim to more disillusionment/disgruntlement than another. I think the difference is that technology has made it more visible and everyone, including the church, is more willing to air dirty laundry in public.
SF and Fantasy gives us the vehicles to explore questions like these in ways no other genre can. We don't have to be bound by the idea that SF does this and Fantasy does that. We can go forwards, backwards, sidewards; we can go intergalactic or interdimensional hopping. We write for other believers searching for the encouragement and fellowship outside of the reality our culture decrees for us. We write for the lost wandering out there who can't be touched by stories about this same reality; and we hope something we write resonates enough with them to prompt them to seek salvation. Remember, we ventured off the map. There are no longitude or latitude lines. Recon satellites and GPS don't work here; but we have true positioning. God is our infallible, inerrant compass.
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Post by J Jack on Feb 13, 2009 10:08:27 GMT -5
Inaction is our biggest issue methinks, simply standing by allows the situation to continue a downward spiral. Millenials are supposed to save the world eh? Well in my opinion, having lived among them for a long time...WE ARE DONE FOR. Maybe we are the end of the world, cause it sure seems like it.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 13, 2009 12:44:19 GMT -5
Dear Torainfor, Believe it or not there is plenty real world stuff about Orthodoxy that sounds incredible enough without making stuff up. For example: Every Great and Holy Saturday for the last 1500 years of recorded history and who knows for how long before that the Holy Fire falls at the Holy Sepulchre when the Patriarch of Jerusalem emerges from it after a time of prayer. It often lights candles and lampadas spontaneously. It begins bluish and then turns into regular red fire. While blue and/or within the first 15 to 20 min. or so the fire will not burn. People run their hands trough it, their cloths, the beards...without ill effect...afterwards it will. Then there is St. Alexander of Svir. He died 500 years ago, but his body still looks like he passed away a few minutes ago. His flesh is still pink and subple. If you go to Mt. Athos, an Orthodox monastic republic, one of the monasteries there has the heelbone of St. Mary Magdelene. It is still as warm as a living human body to the touch. Elder Porphyrios, who reposed only a few years ago had some very interesting stories associated with him, most of the witnesses of which still live. For instance he once seriously bent space and time. A group of nuns who had been at a conference wanted to stop and get a quick blessing from him on thier way back home which was a 5 hour journey from where the elder lived. They stopped to get his blessing, but he kept them engaged in conversation for at least 2 hours or more. The abbess had only wanted to spare 15 minutes, and every time she got ansy, he would redirect the conversation, but eventually he blessed her and the rest and told her not to worry that they would be home in time. They finally managed to leave him at 8:00pm and they drove the 5 hours home and were very surprised to find anyone waiting up for them. When they got inside the nuns who had remained behind were very excited they wanted to know abou the conference and they wanted to know if they got the elder's blessing. The abbess said yes they had, but she was very tired and wanted to go to bed. She would tell them in the morning, but right now it was just too late. One of the sisters who did not make the trip pointed to the clock and asked, "Is that late, Mother?" The clock read "8:15 pm". Then there was the time when the elder was very old and blind when some friends and spiritual children were driving with him along a coastal road in Greece one beautiful moonlit night. After a little bit the elder commented on its beauty, and they aske how he was able to see it. He said he had just borrowed the eyes of one of them for a little bit. Finally, and most bizarely about a month after he reposed on of his spiritual children who live far away and who did not know he had reposed tried to call his home on the phone. It rang a few times, then the elder picked up and answered and told his spiritual child not to call him there anymore since he now lived in heaven. Then there is Mother Gavriella, also recently reposed. She lived her whole life refusing to have more on her than $5.00 at any given time. She owned little more than the cloths on her back She also liked flowers but not cut ones since they died and she had to bury them and that made her sad. Sometimes though a sister or spiritual child would see her whisper to a vase of wilted flowers and they would come back to life all refreshed. It is said that in years past in Romania when there were many more holy aesetics living as hermits than today the monasteries that tended to their material needs would send them provisions at set times. However there was no way to tell where they might be found, and it was impossible to find one who did not want to be found. So what the novices would do at the appointed times was wait for nightfall then they would look out over the mountainsides to see where there stood pillars of light, and go there to leave their packages of food. And speaking of not being seen, there are said to be 7 'invisable/unseen' monks on Mt. Athos. One can stand right next to them and not know it unless they wish to be seen. They are naked but for their beards and are clothed by God. When it is time for one to repose, that one of the 7 appears to the next athonite who is called to take his place. Then there is this little blessed oddity. About 300 years ago a nun's monastery on the small island of Kefalonia, Greece was threatened by pirates. The nuns prayed fervently and they asked the blessed Theotokos to help them...here the story gets a little muddled. One version says the Theotokos changed the nuns into snakes and they drove off the invaders. The other says the snakes of the island, an ill tempered type of viper, came out and drove them off. As interesting as that it is, it's not the end of the story because every year since then the snakes of the island come to that's convent's church and venerate the icon of the Theotokos at the feast of her dormintion. During that day the normally solitary aggressive little vipers come together en masse and go to church. People will stop and pick them up out of the road lest they get run over and bring them up, and they will even pick up the injured and dead ones who did get run over to church to join those who made it on their own. Some of them even have little crosses on their foreheads. They are quite docile, children pet them, and then the snakes all go back to the woods and behave like one would expect. It is passing strange, but you may see it here. There is no good "natural" explanation for it...either the change in temperment or their swarming which is not a mating swarm. There are even stranger things I've read, but am not confident in as yet to be sure of. But as you can see there is gracious plenty real world things that are as fantastic if not more than any invented fantasy. But then again vampire stories have their origin in Orthodox lands so who knows. There is a Russian dark fantasy which has an almost Potteresque following there about people with powers either of light or dark...but light or dark doesn't always translate into good guys and bad guys...the politicians among them are the "bad guys" as best I understand it.
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Post by morganlbusse on Feb 13, 2009 13:58:40 GMT -5
Lots of good reading here. As far as generational labels, I use genx because that is the audience I write for (I know some authors have pictures of those who they write for on their computer: some people write for young adults so they have pictures of teenagers up to remind them, I have specific pictures of people who I write for, it reminds me to pray for them and brings my heart into my work when I think of them). We are to reach all people as you pointed out Metalihkan, but sometimes we are able to reach some groups better than others because of where we are in life. Since genx are the people I am around and minister to with my mother's groups and fantasy related interests, these are the people I can most minister to right now. And they are the people God has put a passion for in my heart.
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 14, 2009 2:52:50 GMT -5
I've got to say you SF and Fantasy folks are way quicker at grasping concepts.
Anyway, the thing that disturbs me is how often I've heard others in a similar discussion who don't see how confining categorization can be in regard to the working of the Holy Spirit. God may give us the heart and talents to reach a particular generation, a particular nationality, a particular social stratum; but my question is do we allow ourselves to be boxed in, limited by those labels society would put on us?
I read a book a long time ago that was mostly forgettable but one character made a peculiarly memorable statement — that she was a Christian and a woman but first and foremost she was Japanese. Place any other descriptor in that final spot. I am first and foremost a genx-er, I am first and foremost American, I am first and foremost a lawyer or fry-cook. I'm certain you see the problem with such statements. The label has defined the Christianity rather than the other way around. Our statement should be "I am first and foremost a child of God through Christ; anything else (generation, nationality, occupation, health condition, social standing, gender) is secondary."
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Post by J Jack on Feb 14, 2009 10:13:30 GMT -5
Well said.
Are we allowing our labels to overtake our possibilities?
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