30 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
30 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
Father Tom, I'm following up on what we discussed after Liturgy on Sunday. There are many groanings from my friends in their parishes or in-between states; let me attempt to summarize them somewhat coherently.
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> “I came so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly”
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> John (10:10)
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1. There is a great desire to live in community that will form us.
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1. We want to work, play, and rest with people who see the same truth as us and will provide us with the feedback and fraternal correction we need to grow in sanctity.
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2. We desire the Church to play a part in our daily lives, not just on Sunday.
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3. We are called to be "in the world but not of the world", yes - but every second of our lives is formative. Dwelling wrongly in the world will turn us to being of the world.
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2. There is a socio-economic desire.
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1. To 'live off the land' - to have a relationship with where the things of our daily life come from.
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2. For more of our daily lives to be driven by relationship rather than pricetag - to prize helping our neighbor over getting a bargain.
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3. To be able to easily get to a central gathering place; to be able to walk to church (and have reason to daily/frequently).
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4. To not be rushed into this sense of community; that we may **integrate** it into the aspects of our day which we must already do, and to spend less time commuting or otherwise upkeeping infrastructure.
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5. For the parish to be the primary (not sole) basis by which we build (not necessarially create) relationships.
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6. To live simpler lives; to feel less pulled every which way.
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7. To admit that it takes a village - and have it be easy to share with others the burdens of our daily lives. Part of this is diaspora as we have uprooted from families (for economic, religious, or other reasons).
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3. It's worth mentioning that there are a great many things about modern society that trouble us and we do not wish to expose our children to until they are sufficiently formed. We cannot expect our children to be missionaries - we can expect adults to. Send orthodox teachers to the public schools so the schools may become orthodox - don't feed children to Moloch. We recognize our inability to do this healthily alone and don't wish isolationism.
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1. School systems; most of us wish to homeschool in a supportive co-op or send children to a private school.
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2. I would be amiss if I didn't recognize a fear of apocalyptic societal collapse in which material life would be threatened - we need economic interdependence.
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4. As a response, a desire to live out in some sort of 'compound' is frequently expressed. But most of us recognize this as a faulty ideal from a few perspectives. Firstly, we are called still to have a missionary aspect in our lives. Secondly, our children should have proper exposure to the reality of the world around us. Thirdly, we need connection to tradition and organic structures - isolationism is not a benefit.
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Those are abstract desires. I think we definitely need to do things 'organically', but that still requires watering these seed desires so that they may bloom. Here are some practical first steps and ideas:
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1. We want to renovate our parish? We should do the work, not a contractor. Okay, sure, maybe we need to hire a master - but the gruntwork? We should do that.
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2. We want to produce good food? There's open space at the parish. Let's use that. Maybe we can do this across multiple parishes (St Francis is working towards this... can it become a full-blown parishoner-only CSA even?)
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3. We want to educate our children in the faith, and a lot of people want to homeschool. Run a co-op out of Cedars.
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4. We want to preserve the Byzantine heritage and cherish it? Dinner and a talk. Doesn't have to be sophisticated. Get the lectio crew in on this and we'll do it all and leave a cleaner kitchen when we're done.
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5. All of these activities build upon each other if we allow them to.
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https://byzantinela.com/cappadocian-house-proposal/ |