MEMO
To: Pres. Obama
From: Laura Jones - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: September 5, 2010 – 32nd anniversary of the Falling Asleep of Metropolitan Niikodim, Spiritual Forebear of Moscow Pat. Kirill, of his predecessor Pat. Aleksi – and of a goodly number of other Nikodimtsi now occupying responsible positions in the Moscow Patriarchate
Subject: My Proposal
I have been working on this proposal for several days – during which it has taken some twists and turns, given the holiday, plus the deluge of news reports and their kaleidoscopically changing character! If we strike while the iron is hot, we can definitely pull this thing off – and bigtime!!!
It all began with my agonizing over a problem which seemed to have some of my children and grandchildren in its grip. When I saw it described and analyzed in a NYTimes article! I was like, hey, now maybe “they” will believe me!
Here is the info:
What Is It About 20-Somethings?
By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?
August 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?src=me&ref=general
Specifically: “…what would it look like to extend some of the special status of adolescents to young people in their 20s? Our uncertainty about this question is reflected in our scattershot approach to markers of adulthood. People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21. They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21. They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges. If they are full-time students, the Internal Revenue Service considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26, or up to 30 in some states….”
In Russia, since the latter part of the 19th century already, there have been, and there are today, dormitory-like houses for girls in just such a situation, be they students or young girls coming to the city for work. (I don’t know about guys, but when I used to call a Russian 20-something I had known as a seminarian here after he went back home to St. Petersburg – his was obviously a very full house!!!)
There was a delightful Russian movie I saw about 1980, “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” about 3 such girls, all different backgrounds, and how they helped and supported each other. Very humorous - Russians are vastly beyond (most) Americans so far as connecting with God, other people, and the natural world around them (as versus the virtual world …) are concerned.
After putting out some feelers as to how we might get funding to organize something like this here, I concluded as follows: The most obvious already existing organization to work through would be the Church, and, actually, Catholics and Orthodox both keep talking about how they agree on moral issues, and there have even been noises made about doctrinal agreement - if you can believe that!!! So why not test the waters? (I hope my own efforts, some of which I have posted on my site http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com have contributed to this assessment, and that we can move on from this base.) Surely everybody will agree that the sanity and social well-being of our youth is an altogether critical issue for our society at this point.
I am perpetually astonished, and to be quite frank with you, Mr. President, more than a little unnerved, to see how few persons (of all ages) among those I see on a daily basis, recognize how critically shaky (on average - there’s always the rare exception, of course) our moral sanity in this country is. The latest shocker du jour is the pitiably apathetic response to the outrage perpetrated upon mere courteous respect for the minimal modicum of intelligence to be found in our culture (not to mention intellectual discernment of some higher order), by one Stephen Hawking.
More shocking yet, however, was the response from some in very high office within the Catholic Church! I had an appropriately scathing (as I thought) rebuke ….. I mean, retort …. I mean response drafted, but when I returned to the drawing board, I found that I had hedged a bit too much to protect the Catholic hierarchy from looking, well, let’s just say I didn’t want to show them up as beyond inept when they are still roiling from - uh you know what.
But I had hedged so much that, from what I had written, it was unclear what the prelate actually said, and, of course, I didn’t mention his name. So the time is now past noon, and I have spent all these hours since my workday began trying to chase down that information.
At least you have to admit, Mr. President, that it’s a sign of realism beginning to set in that the Catholics apparently did recognize total incompetence when they saw it staring at them from all the major media, and evidently hustled to so effectively obliterate their tracks that no smidge of the statement by the now anonymous prelate could I find anywhere!
Although – I mean, how much of an improvement is it when it took me 5 hours to find a more intelligent response to Hawking? And the Catholics seem to have made sure NO clerics in responsible office were quoted at all. At least, however, there was one very sound comment, even though I had to go through all of the first dozen sets of google results to sniff it out.
It would seem, Mr. President, that there IS something there to work with!!! Here is the post:
Hawking’s ‘god’ Thursday, September 2, 2010, 10:50 AM David T. Koyzis
The eminent British physicist has issued this seemingly troubling pronouncement ex cathedra: Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe. Though some may find this disillusioning, others will easily (and gratefully) recognize the measure of truth in his conclusion:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. . . . It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
Hawking is right: the god he describes does not exist. The true God did not simply set the cosmos in motion. He does not merely inhabit the gaps in our explanatory theories. Rather he upholds his creation, including the laws of physics, at every conceivable moment. Without his doing so, it would cease immediately to exist. A god who is subsequent to the law of gravity is definitely not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Thank God there is no such god as Hawking conceives of him.
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/09/hawkings-go
I did a search on David T. Koyzis, thinking we might be able to recruit him, but such is the intellectual and moral climate we live in that I am not altogether sure he fully understands the full breadth of the practical ramifications of his understanding that God is the CONTEXT OF ALL THAT IS: “He does not merely inhabit the gaps in our explanatory theories. Rather he upholds his creation at every conceivable moment. Without his doing so, it would cease immediately to exist.” God is He “in Whom we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28. St. Paul continues impressing this upon the Athenians: “As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offsp ring.'” As His offspring, we live in him as the fish lives in the ocean, to use St. Catherine of Siena’s imagery, and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a marvelous poem entitled, “Mary compared to the air we breathe.” Paul exclaimed: “Now not I live, but Christ lives in me!” No one who lives that way is going to act the way – well, you know who is meant, I didn’t want to name the Catholic prelate I mentioned, and it would not help anything to name the others – those who do live their lives “hidden in God with Christ” (Col 3:3) will know who’s who in this regard.
But our young people, our 20-somethings -- how can they, in such an intellectual and moral environment, come to sober and responsible maturity? How can they grapple with the issues they need to address if our country whose very founding was in response to the debasement of God’s Truth, and the Godly morality which derives from it, is to halt its slide into the debauchery of selfish greed at home and the contempt for us which our attitudes and actions engender world wide? This is a major stumbling block to our efforts in Afghanistan at present. How can we hope to deal with Afghani corruption when we are the pot calling the kettle black?
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is the only ecclesial body in this entire hemisphere which since its inception has been and still remains The Church in America. The Roman Church remains precisely that and most other Christian bodies exist in protest to it.
Moreover, the Orthodox Church exists as the orthodox Christian presence and witness within the society while of set purpose eschewing any form of proselytism, in line with St Paul’s saying that he never preached where Christ had already been named. Furthermore, as we see in the late Byzantine tradition, Orthodoxy is able to thrive and flourish within a governmental framework which is not specifically Christian. In our own times, as the Russian Church has emerged from its time of troubles under the atheistic Soviet regime, its cooperation with non-Christian religions within its canonical territory, as also its aid to them when called for, is attested, and with enormous gratitude, by the confessional authorities of these religions. The Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem and the Chief Mufti in Moscow have both, to my personal knowledge, warmly expressed their appreciation to the Moscow Patriarch for such fraternal cooperation and support.
Now that the Catholics in Russia have prudently curtailed their efforts to “convert” Russia – which not only has been Christian for over 1,000 years, but which raised up more martyrs during the atheistic Soviet persecution than at any time since the early pagan persecutions in the first two centuries of Christianity – yet until quite recently the Catholics even sent missionaries to convert Russia to Roman Catholicism!!! At last, however, mutual respect has recently been making relations with the Catholics in Russia harmonious, cooperative, and mutually satisfying.
Here at home, the Orthodox regional Episcopal Assemblies in this hemisphere have been most effective in bringing about a will to cooperate and strive together among the administratively distinct Orthodox jurisdictions here.
As for the Catholics, “Pope Benedict, on 30 June 2010, appointed Archbishop Salvatore "Rino" Fisichella as the first President of the newly formed Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.
“Fisichella's task is to reawaken the faith in traditionally Christian parts of the world, particularly Europe and North America. The idea is that, while the countries within Christendom today were first ‘evangelised’, or converted to Christianity, many centuries ago, today it stands in need of a ‘new evangelisation’.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rino_Fisichella
I would say we have all we need to get started.
To: Pres. Obama
From: Laura Jones - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: September 5, 2010 – 32nd anniversary of the Falling Asleep of Metropolitan Niikodim, Spiritual Forebear of Moscow Pat. Kirill, of his predecessor Pat. Aleksi – and of a goodly number of other Nikodimtsi now occupying responsible positions in the Moscow Patriarchate
Subject: My Proposal
I have been working on this proposal for several days – during which it has taken some twists and turns, given the holiday, plus the deluge of news reports and their kaleidoscopically changing character! If we strike while the iron is hot, we can definitely pull this thing off – and bigtime!!!
It all began with my agonizing over a problem which seemed to have some of my children and grandchildren in its grip. When I saw it described and analyzed in a NYTimes article! I was like, hey, now maybe “they” will believe me!
Here is the info:
What Is It About 20-Somethings?
By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?
August 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?src=me&ref=general
Specifically: “…what would it look like to extend some of the special status of adolescents to young people in their 20s? Our uncertainty about this question is reflected in our scattershot approach to markers of adulthood. People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21. They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21. They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges. If they are full-time students, the Internal Revenue Service considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26, or up to 30 in some states….”
In Russia, since the latter part of the 19th century already, there have been, and there are today, dormitory-like houses for girls in just such a situation, be they students or young girls coming to the city for work. (I don’t know about guys, but when I used to call a Russian 20-something I had known as a seminarian here after he went back home to St. Petersburg – his was obviously a very full house!!!)
There was a delightful Russian movie I saw about 1980, “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” about 3 such girls, all different backgrounds, and how they helped and supported each other. Very humorous - Russians are vastly beyond (most) Americans so far as connecting with God, other people, and the natural world around them (as versus the virtual world …) are concerned.
After putting out some feelers as to how we might get funding to organize something like this here, I concluded as follows: The most obvious already existing organization to work through would be the Church, and, actually, Catholics and Orthodox both keep talking about how they agree on moral issues, and there have even been noises made about doctrinal agreement - if you can believe that!!! So why not test the waters? (I hope my own efforts, some of which I have posted on my site http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com have contributed to this assessment, and that we can move on from this base.) Surely everybody will agree that the sanity and social well-being of our youth is an altogether critical issue for our society at this point.
I am perpetually astonished, and to be quite frank with you, Mr. President, more than a little unnerved, to see how few persons (of all ages) among those I see on a daily basis, recognize how critically shaky (on average - there’s always the rare exception, of course) our moral sanity in this country is. The latest shocker du jour is the pitiably apathetic response to the outrage perpetrated upon mere courteous respect for the minimal modicum of intelligence to be found in our culture (not to mention intellectual discernment of some higher order), by one Stephen Hawking.
More shocking yet, however, was the response from some in very high office within the Catholic Church! I had an appropriately scathing (as I thought) rebuke ….. I mean, retort …. I mean response drafted, but when I returned to the drawing board, I found that I had hedged a bit too much to protect the Catholic hierarchy from looking, well, let’s just say I didn’t want to show them up as beyond inept when they are still roiling from - uh you know what.
But I had hedged so much that, from what I had written, it was unclear what the prelate actually said, and, of course, I didn’t mention his name. So the time is now past noon, and I have spent all these hours since my workday began trying to chase down that information.
At least you have to admit, Mr. President, that it’s a sign of realism beginning to set in that the Catholics apparently did recognize total incompetence when they saw it staring at them from all the major media, and evidently hustled to so effectively obliterate their tracks that no smidge of the statement by the now anonymous prelate could I find anywhere!
Although – I mean, how much of an improvement is it when it took me 5 hours to find a more intelligent response to Hawking? And the Catholics seem to have made sure NO clerics in responsible office were quoted at all. At least, however, there was one very sound comment, even though I had to go through all of the first dozen sets of google results to sniff it out.
It would seem, Mr. President, that there IS something there to work with!!! Here is the post:
Hawking’s ‘god’ Thursday, September 2, 2010, 10:50 AM David T. Koyzis
The eminent British physicist has issued this seemingly troubling pronouncement ex cathedra: Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe. Though some may find this disillusioning, others will easily (and gratefully) recognize the measure of truth in his conclusion:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. . . . It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
Hawking is right: the god he describes does not exist. The true God did not simply set the cosmos in motion. He does not merely inhabit the gaps in our explanatory theories. Rather he upholds his creation, including the laws of physics, at every conceivable moment. Without his doing so, it would cease immediately to exist. A god who is subsequent to the law of gravity is definitely not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Thank God there is no such god as Hawking conceives of him.
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/09/hawkings-go
I did a search on David T. Koyzis, thinking we might be able to recruit him, but such is the intellectual and moral climate we live in that I am not altogether sure he fully understands the full breadth of the practical ramifications of his understanding that God is the CONTEXT OF ALL THAT IS: “He does not merely inhabit the gaps in our explanatory theories. Rather he upholds his creation at every conceivable moment. Without his doing so, it would cease immediately to exist.” God is He “in Whom we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28. St. Paul continues impressing this upon the Athenians: “As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offsp ring.'” As His offspring, we live in him as the fish lives in the ocean, to use St. Catherine of Siena’s imagery, and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a marvelous poem entitled, “Mary compared to the air we breathe.” Paul exclaimed: “Now not I live, but Christ lives in me!” No one who lives that way is going to act the way – well, you know who is meant, I didn’t want to name the Catholic prelate I mentioned, and it would not help anything to name the others – those who do live their lives “hidden in God with Christ” (Col 3:3) will know who’s who in this regard.
But our young people, our 20-somethings -- how can they, in such an intellectual and moral environment, come to sober and responsible maturity? How can they grapple with the issues they need to address if our country whose very founding was in response to the debasement of God’s Truth, and the Godly morality which derives from it, is to halt its slide into the debauchery of selfish greed at home and the contempt for us which our attitudes and actions engender world wide? This is a major stumbling block to our efforts in Afghanistan at present. How can we hope to deal with Afghani corruption when we are the pot calling the kettle black?
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is the only ecclesial body in this entire hemisphere which since its inception has been and still remains The Church in America. The Roman Church remains precisely that and most other Christian bodies exist in protest to it.
Moreover, the Orthodox Church exists as the orthodox Christian presence and witness within the society while of set purpose eschewing any form of proselytism, in line with St Paul’s saying that he never preached where Christ had already been named. Furthermore, as we see in the late Byzantine tradition, Orthodoxy is able to thrive and flourish within a governmental framework which is not specifically Christian. In our own times, as the Russian Church has emerged from its time of troubles under the atheistic Soviet regime, its cooperation with non-Christian religions within its canonical territory, as also its aid to them when called for, is attested, and with enormous gratitude, by the confessional authorities of these religions. The Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem and the Chief Mufti in Moscow have both, to my personal knowledge, warmly expressed their appreciation to the Moscow Patriarch for such fraternal cooperation and support.
Now that the Catholics in Russia have prudently curtailed their efforts to “convert” Russia – which not only has been Christian for over 1,000 years, but which raised up more martyrs during the atheistic Soviet persecution than at any time since the early pagan persecutions in the first two centuries of Christianity – yet until quite recently the Catholics even sent missionaries to convert Russia to Roman Catholicism!!! At last, however, mutual respect has recently been making relations with the Catholics in Russia harmonious, cooperative, and mutually satisfying.
Here at home, the Orthodox regional Episcopal Assemblies in this hemisphere have been most effective in bringing about a will to cooperate and strive together among the administratively distinct Orthodox jurisdictions here.
As for the Catholics, “Pope Benedict, on 30 June 2010, appointed Archbishop Salvatore "Rino" Fisichella as the first President of the newly formed Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.
“Fisichella's task is to reawaken the faith in traditionally Christian parts of the world, particularly Europe and North America. The idea is that, while the countries within Christendom today were first ‘evangelised’, or converted to Christianity, many centuries ago, today it stands in need of a ‘new evangelisation’.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rino_Fisichella
I would say we have all we need to get started.