In Memoriam - June 28

The following is copied from a blog at Chronicles Magazine a Paleo-conservative publication (with which I have some agreements and some disagreements, but always find food for thought); I believe we are still discovering just how catastrophic the First World War indeed was for Western Civilization:

By:Tom Piatak | June 28, 2014

 

One hundred years ago today, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek, the Duchess of Hohenberg, visited Sarajevo. Waiting for them was a band of would be assassins, who planned to use bombs to kill the heir to the Habsburg throne. The bombs failed. Unfortunately, the driver of the Imperial couple took a wrong turn, and one of the assassins, Gavrilo Princip, saw his chance and fired his pistol at the Imperial car. Both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were killed. The heir's last words are particularly poignant: "Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don't die! Stay alive for our children."

From this one small act of barbarism sprang a century of barbarism. World War I was, as a wise teacher commented long ago, when Europe decided to commit suicide. Direct results of World War I include Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and World War II. After tens of millions of corpses in both world wars, the supremely confident European civilization of the turn of the 20th century was replaced by the decadent and dying European civilization of today. We may never recover from the catastrophe that resulted when the statesmen of Europe proved incapable of stopping the march to war that began on June 28, 1914.

Jeremy Taylor on the Kingdom in our hearts

Here is a good reflection for us as we've recently celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sunday:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God...?
-2 Corinthians 6:19 (NRSV)

...for behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you
-Luke 17:21 (ESV)

...For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  Amen.
-Matthew 6:13 (KJV)

God is especially present in the hearts of his people, by his Holy Spirit: and indeed the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and, in type and shadow, they are heaven itself.  For God reigns in the hearts of his servants: there is his kingdom.  The power of grace has subdued all his enemies: there is his power.  They serve him night and day, and give him thanks and praise: that is his glory.  This is the religion and worship of God in the temple.  The temple itself is the heart of man; Christ is the High Priest, who from there sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to his own intercession, and presents all together to his Father; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling there, has also consecrated it into a temple; and God dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by his Spirit, and the Spirit by his purities; so that we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity; and what is this short of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and letters of words?  The same state of life it is, but not the same age.  It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but yet true, representing the beauties of the soul, and the graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory, by the reality of a special Presence.

-Jeremy Taylor (17th Century Anglican bishop and spiritual writer)

Methodists out there should note that Jeremy Taylor's work was much-admired by John Wesley who included Taylor in his essential Christian Library.

Don't have enough time?

In ministry, you hear - explicitly or implicitly - this complaint a lot from your parishoners.  You also say it a lot yourself: "I just don't have time."  I don't have time to attend/plan that additional church event.  I don't have time to read Scripture/pray/meditate like I know I should; I know God wants me to and I know I'll feel good if I do, I just don't seem to have time.

Of course, many of us feel like this when we work: we just don't seem to have enough time to get everything done that "needs doing" - and so we walk around (even when we are off work) with this monkey on our back, this unsettled feeling that things are "up in the air" (and out of control) somehow.

Here is an excellent article on productivity at work, but it bleeds over (as the article itself mentions) into issues of really relaxing in our "non-work" time and enjoying our volunteerism as well.  I originally got linked over to the following article from the Ministry Matters site - a great resource for pastors and church leaders.  So if you feel like your time is pressed, take a few moments to stop; breathe deeply; pray for inner peace; and then read this piece:

6 Subtle Things Highly Productive people do Every Day.