...that the 'children's sermon' is an invention of the Antichrist...

    It's true, dear reader, it's all too true.  Oh, and I see that the guy over on Wordpress who started his own Endlessly Rocking has decided to call it quits.  [He will, though, generously allow anyone who wants it to use the title.  How special.]  As for this, the real Endlessly Rocking [accept no substitutes], I plan to keep it going, with regular longish breaks, for as long as there are a couple of folks out there who like to read it.
    

     Is anyone really surprised that Greece is bankrupt?  And Italy under the tender reign of Berlusconi - what were the odds that the clown car would stay on the road?

     Just so's you know, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Cyril are helping out around here.  Ignatius of Antioch watches over ‘em.
*****
     Now's the time of year when every building one enters is Saharan hot.  You see, it's hard upon Spring, which tells of mildness outdoors.  And yet, and yet, dear reader, everyone keeps the heat on.  Where I sit, writing these words for your delectation, a gas-inspired fire burns on the other side of the room.  All of us have spent the past hour stripping down to our T-shirts.  I fear for what we may do next...
*****
     ‘In Irenaeus, Athens and Jerusalem meet at Patmos,' Eric Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons.
*****
     Howsabout something else from Osborn:
     ‘No one has presented a more unified account of God, the world and history than has Irenaeus.  From the moment of his creation, Adam never left the hands of God.  The entire universe, visible and invisible, has been brought together in Christ.  "There is one God the Father . . . and one Christ our lord who comes through the whole economy to sum up the universe in himself . . . and as head of the church he draws all things to himself at the proper time" [3.16.6].  "There is nothing out of place" [3.16.7].  This unbroken unity embraces opposites, as prophets and psalms declare that the man without beauty, humble and humiliated is holy lord, wonderful counselor, beautiful, mighty, God and coming judge [3.19.2].  In contrast to this universal synthesis, the reader of Irenaeus is confronted by stark problems of incoherence, which provoked the conclusion by two great scholars that the thought of Irenaeus is a jungle . . . .  No careful reader of Irenaeus can avoid the sense of confusion.'
*****
     I'm swinging back ‘round in favor of Dostoevsky.  One just has to handle him with care, like most great artists.  You see, while I entirely agree with David Bentley Hart that Dostoevsky can be most bathetic and prone to bizarre Russophilic frenzies, still the voices in his best works, that seem to come out of nothing, make sense to me.  And I do in fact prefer the dramatic to the epic.  Whether this bespeaks a flaw in me or in Hart or in both is a question I leave for the reader with way too much time on his hands.
*****
     ‘Knowledge of religion and of the truth about the universe does not so much need instruction from men as it can be acquired by itself.  For well-nigh every day it has cried out in events, and reveals itself more clearly than the sun through the teaching of Christ.  None the less, since you desire to hear about it, then let us expound, my friend, as best we can, a little of the Christian faith; you could discover it from the words of Holy Scripture, yet are eager also to hear of it from others.'  Just so we find Athanasius opening his Contra Gentes, as translated by one Robert Thompson.  Well.  Don't much care for the construction ‘does not need instruction from men.'  It's accurate as it goes, but clunks and thuds, tangling the mental tongue of the reader.  And I'm not sure ‘religion' gets at ‘theosebeia', which at this point I'd render as ‘Godliness,' or that ‘the truth about the universe' captures ‘tes ton holon aletheias'.  Still, Thompson can serve as a guide.
*****
     I miss Mary.
*****
     Scott, I realized something only after sending that rather incoherent response to your straightforward and helpful question.  As applied to Jesus after his ascension, ‘illocal [or non-local] presence' is a category error.  So allow me to give a straightforward answer at the last - yes.
*****
     Upon reflection, I'm not really sure ‘finite' and ‘infinite' are at all helpful.  I'll give it a think and get back to you.
*****
     Endlessly Rocking turned six years old on March 14.  You've wondered about all the big earthquakes?  Well, now you know. 
*****
     I've said nothing of the Health Care Bill, which is up for a vote sometime in the next day or thirty.  There's a reason.
     I've noticed, you see, that when I talk about it with folks around here - that is, the town where I really do live - I get a strange reaction.  Seems that to folks who support the bill, many of whom wished for something with a stronger ‘public option' as it's called, I want those without insurance to die.  It's that simple.  To those who oppose the bill, many of whom seem to have attended LaRouche Live-Ins at some point in their lives, I'm not right enough, if you get my shift.  In fact, to them I'm a socialist in sheep's clothing hell-bent on making this the newest province of North Korea. 
     Here's the controversy:  I've long favored subsidies for those who can't afford insurance premiums, while opposing centralized National Health Care What'sit.  What's more, there's this thing called a HIPAA plan for those with such preexisting conditions that they just can't get any kind of coverage.  If you sell insurance, you cannot turn down an applicant for a HIPAA plan; to do so is illegal.  The rub is this - they're just so damned expensive, the premiums predicated quite reasonably on the assumption of enormous future claims. 
     Well, I reasoned, why not change the HIPAA plans to expand preventative care, provide coverage for dependents and the like, and subsidize the premiums on a state by state basis?  This would go a long way toward allowing those with illnesses like diabetes to get coverage they would never be able to get otherwise.  At the same time, we could also subsidize the premiums of regular plans for those who can't afford the premiums for one reason or another [those who can't get ‘em through a group policy at work, for example].  With these measures, folks who would otherwise end up in the emergency room for dire illnesses long developed could potentially get more preventative care, and thus enjoy better lives; or so I reason.  Once that's done, we could go to work on tort reform and other cost-control measures.  Finally, this needn't cost a trillion dollars we don't have.  In fact, I figured it would save us money over the long run.
     Now, my proposal surely ain't perfect.  It may in fact be fatally flawed.  Still, I never thought this notion, floated so tentatively about the office and narthex and place of tea and reading, would cause such a fire-storm of abuse.
     So I've said nothing about the Health Care Bill.
*****
     The pace at my job gets faster and faster.  The season has finally and fully come upon us all.  ‘Tis time to work long days; live out of my planner and I-Phone; climb ladders; scurry about rooftops; carry a million candle-watt light over my shoulder after dark; battle bees, hornets and wasps; and go door to door seeking new business; and so earn my living.  It's fun, my friends, it's fun, and it'll all come to an end in November.
*****
     Could somebody come by ER from time to time and water the plants?  That would be great.
*****
     God only closes a door so he can throw you out a window.
*****
     With that I close.  Peace out for now.

     So, it's been a long time, eh?  What has happened to make me stay away for so long?  Well, I'll tells ya - I got an I-Phone.  That's right; I knuckled under to the cult of Jobs and picked up a stylish black I-Phone thingy with 3GS whatchamacallit and enough computing power and connectivity to launch the space shuttle.  With it I can get online anytime and anywhere, more or less, without the Wi-Fi connection required for my laptop.  You know, the connection that doesn't work anymore for some reason no one can fathom.  Anyway, the little gizmo takes all my time, what with the feedings, the crying, and whathaveyou.  Yes, between work, marriage, reading reading reading, and my new Magic Phone That Knows All [Provided It's Allowed Under Apple's Proprietary Software Legalities], I've had no time for ER.  But no more.  Stupid me, I forgot that I can write up all the posts I want, and at the opportune time take my clip to the library and transfer all the goodness to the interthingy.  So, I'll do that from now on, tending the nearly six year old Endlessly Rocking with more care.  Besides, as with my beloved Augustine I can only make progress by writing, and at the moment I have much to think and pray through with the help of nothing more than this here language.  To that end, here we begin as though from the beginning. 
     Still, all is not well with my gizmos.  Right now, as I type this on my laptop, my I-Phone sits, forlorn, knowing that I'm spending time with another, highly inferior, computer.  In the world of portable computing, I'm a philandering bastard.  That's just how it goes.
     Anyway, here I try something new.  I've a couple of posts, and rather than publish 'em sequentially, I thought to put them in one larger post that will account for the first half of March.  Without any ado, here they are.


Learn to love the Capax, March 12, 2010
     How to say it, how to say it...well, I'll just say it.  For some, the finite, all that is, seen and unseen, which by definition is circumscribed in space-time, cannot bear the infinite.  That is to say, especially with regard to this frail flesh we carry about, there is a fundamental incompatibility between it and the infinite God.  This is, to be short about it, the Non Capax* - the humanity of Jesus couldn't bear the infinite Son in his aseity, or self-sufficient, replete deity.  One possible consequence of this fundamental reality of created being could be that while the Person of the Son really did assume a human nature and walk about as a Jewish guy and get himself killed by the Romans at the behest of a rigged Sanhedrin; while, let it be said, all of that is indubitably true, somehow the Son continues to dwell in excess of that humanity.  This is called, rather unfairly, the extra-Calvinisticum, as though invented by Calvin as he wandered late one night dreaming up new ways to annoy Luther.  No, dear readers, as David Willis demonstrates in a fine study entitled Calvin's Catholic Christology, this line of thought was ingredient in the mainstream tradition in the west. 
     As you might expect, the Non Non Capax is simply the Capax - the finite can bear the infinite.  As I write that, it seems to me that there are two forms of the Capax.  According to the first, the finite can bear the infinite, while according to the second the finite was and is made for the sake of bearing the infinite.  I suggest that these are subtly different.
     Consider - according to the first, or weak, form of the Capax, the finite may be able to bear the infinite - we'll get more specific about that in a moment - but to have the infinite God take up some finite creaturely thing and use it to communicate something to another creature would be accidental to the being of that finite creaturely thing.  So, the human nature assumed by the Son, frail wisp of a thing though it might be on its own, might so bear the infinite Son in his aseity that he no longer somehow dwells in excess of that humanity, but such a dwelling of the fullness of Godhead in that frail flesh might be a matter of expediency, an act necessitated by something else, like the sin of man for instance. 
     In the second form of the Capax, the Son would assume that human nature, dwelling without excess in such a frail wisp of a thing, because that is precisely why that frail wisp of a thing existed in the first place.  In this second, stronger form of the Capax, the peculiar shape of the life thus lived as human - in this case, a life of toil and deprivation and obedience leading to death on a cross - is accidental to the life itself.  Now, this needn't drain that life of soteriological significance for us and the world inasmuch as, yes, the fallen, sinful, broken state of humanity and the resulting violence of the world would imply that such a life lived in obedience and love toward God would result in such a death.  [To go further would get into questions of atonement and the like, and I don't want to take those up just now.]  Still, it would remain true that for this strong form of the Capax, the dwelling of the fullness of the Son's Godhead in the humanity thus assumed would be logically prior to any soteriological purpose necessitated by the accident of humanity's fall into sin and death. 
     Of course, one could also take up the strong form of the Capax and not assert that the fall into sin and death was accidental to the human life thus taken up by the Son.  Thus, union with humanity would still be logically prior, but that union would be precisely for the purpose of saving the human creatures thus threatened with complete dissolution and decay.  A shorthand way of saying this could be that man was created so that God could save him.  This may put you in mind of St Irenaeus, who wrote, ‘Since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain.' 
          The Non Capax and the Capax carry with ‘em implications in every area of Christian doctrine and practice, from the sacraments to the nature of the pastoral ministry to the place of art and music in the life of the church.  Let's consider the Eucharist, also known as the Lord's Supper.  We must be blunt - the bread and wine there on the table at the front of the room, just what are they, and why? 
     If the Son dwells somehow in excess of his assumed humanity, then there is some reason to suspect that the bread and wine there on the table at the front of the room may be simply bread and wine on a table.  The flesh and blood of Jesus himself may be something rather distant in time and/or space, and the bread and wine may by virtue of divine fiat come to represent ‘em.  Indeed, one may come to feed on the bread and somehow also ‘consume' or ‘feed on' or ‘receive' the Son in one's heart through the Holy Spirit.  The bread and wine may thus be construed as representing an otherwise absent reality.
     Why absent?  Because the finite cannot bear the infinite; because frail flesh cannot bear the fullness of the Son in his aseity, and is therefore fixed on one side of an ontological chasm from the Son in his Godness, there can be no real communication of attributes between the divinity of the Son and the humanity he has assumed.  Perhaps ‘real' isn't the best word - but it seems to me at least that within the Non Capax there can be only a notional communication of attributes between those two natures.  Thus, given that the Son has left our time zone in the Ascension, which all of us can take as given, inasmuch as he's present and fills all things, he does so in his divinity, and inasmuch as we are given by the Holy Spirit to feed on him in our hearts, we somehow can commune in his flesh and blood, but in ‘a spiritual manner'.  Indeed, it becomes difficult to say what effect the immaterial can have on the material...but, even if we pay that no mind, we certainly can't say of the bread and wine there on the table in the front of the room that they simply are at once bread and wine and the flesh and blood of Jesus.  [I assume that the consecration has taken place you know.  This raises other questions I'll leave aside like so many others.]
     If, on the other hand, the fullness of the Son's self-sufficient and replete deity dwells without excess in Jesus, and he has left our time zone in the Ascension, and yet is present and fills all things, then somehow he does so in his humanity.  For, you see, if the finite humanity of Jesus can so bear the aseity of the Son who has assumed that humanity, then a true communication of attributes is at least possible.  Now, this kind of presence is obviously rather different from having the man standing before you of a Monday morning, but present he is, and, again, if he dwells in his fullness in the humanity of Jesus, then where you find the Son, you find him in that very same humanity.  That is, you simply find Jesus. 
     From here it gets complicated, but I'll try to sort it out as simply as possible. 
     One possible result of this is that the answer to our blunt question is that the bread and wine on the table at the front of the room is at once bread and wine as you see, and the body and blood of Jesus, period.  What's more, assuming for a moment the strong form of the Capax, that bread and wine are among the frail and finite things created for the purpose of bearing the infinite.  That is to say, God, the almighty infinite creator of all that is seen and unseen, made all that frail and finite seen and unseen stuff for the purpose of consecrating, first, human nature for himself in the concrete, historical person of a particular and peculiar Jew living in a first-century Roman backwater, and then using water, bread, wine, and the like, to bring the life of that God-man to those who would belong to him.  In short, the use of such frail and finite stuff is not a necessity wrought by the fall; it's just how he works.
     To be sure, one may still want to affirm most of that last paragraph, and still, still assume that the finite cannot bear the infinite; that the Son dwells in excess of his assumed humanity; and so on.  One may still want all that at once, but the result would be incoherent.  While they are each coherent positions, whether true or false, The Capax and the Non-Capax are strictly incompatible one with another.  For me and my house, after a few weeks of unprecedented wavering, once more we must affirm the Capax in its strong form.  This has certain specific, and for us, rather difficult consequences, but that's how it goes.
     Oh, and yes, this question is intertwined with that of the analogy of being, but leave that for another day...
   

*Need I say that I use such Latin words as a kind of shorthand, and that no assertion is made concerning their supposed pedigree in hoary antiquity?  In other words, this ain't a variant of the spurious ‘Lex Orandi Lex Credendi' nonsense so prevalent in liturgical theology.   


Reflections on Jonah, March 13, 2010
     The word of the LORD comes to Jonah, and rather than obey one simple command, Jonah flees to Tarshish.  He thus repeats the fundamental pattern laid down by his first Father - Jonah is Adam.  As such, he is hammered by YHWH into a type of Jesus, the New Adam.  Therein lies the rub of the tale.
     You see, he flees by ship, a ship by the way which he hires and fits out at his own cost.  As you all know a storm breaks out and threatens to swamp the ship and kill all aboard.  The crew, don't you know, are gentiles - they each pray to their various gods for protection.  When the captain finds Jonah asleep, he asks, ‘What do you mean, you sleeper?'  I won't bother you with details you already know - they throw Jonah overboard at his urging, and the storm abates.  The result?  ‘Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.'
     Think on that for a moment.
     The elements rage and threaten these men.  Once Jonah is thrown into the sea, and thus buried beneath the waves, all is calm, and the gentiles glorify God.  Thus is figured forth the eschatological promise of the prophets, that YHWH will gather the gentiles to himself on Mt Zion, where they will glorify him and have newness of life in his name.  These promises find their fulfillment in Jesus, who clears the outer precinct of the Temple, where the gentile believers would gather, of those money changers and other thieves and robbers [see Jeremiah, chapter 7 I think] who would crowd ‘em out.  What's more, in Jonah's tale this is, at least with regard to the sailors, rather inadvertent.  Jonah thought only to spare their lives; he instead finds himself figuring forth in the shape of his life at that moment the death and resurrection of Jesus, that very eschatological event with which the gathering of the gentiles to YHWH will commence.
     Anyway, while in ‘the belly of the fish' Jonah prays for deliverance, and he is vomited out upon the shore.  From there he hastens to Nineveh, proclaims the word of God - ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown' - and the word finds purchase in the hearts of these rather nasty gentiles.  Recall that Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, one of the most efficiently brutal military operations in history, and an eternal enemy of Israel.  Yet they, of all people, hear the word, and repent.  Once again, Jonah has brought a gaggle of gentiles to repentance before the LORD, though this time he's not at all happy about it.
     Yes, that's right, Jonah is peeved, and complains that he tried to avoid the job for a very strange reason:  ‘That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.'  Seems this particular gaggle of gentiles was understandably beyond the pale for Jonah, but again he finds himself with nothing to do but bring them to account to the mercy of God.
     So, Jonah is Adam, taken up and given a life which figures forth that of Jesus, the New Adam, in whom the gentiles will draw near and be grafted into Israel.  This happens in our tale quite apart from any designs on Jonah's part.  He is made, in fact, to go to his people's most dangerous enemy, bring a word of mercy and love to ‘em, and watch as they repent and are spared.  Then, when he grows peevishly angry over this affront, YHWH asks him, ‘Do you do well to be angry?'  For you see, Nineveh is ‘that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle,' and YHWH will have mercy on ‘em because it pleases him to show such mercy.  Jonah himself has to reckon with this God who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.  Thus it is not only the burial at sea and the divine rescue after three days and nights that give Jonah/Adam's life the form of Christ's.  He must go to those who are yet enemies of God and Israel, and proclaim at great risk the mercy of YHWH. 
     So here we have a small, simple folk tale, which shows forth the mysterious ways of God, who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and who will take up the most unlikely people and fashion ‘em after the form of Jesus, making ‘em instruments of that mercy for the life of the world.  For Jonah, dear reader, is a tale of sanctification, the death of the Old Adam and his refashioning after the pattern of the New.
     Beyond that, I've got nothing.

     I'm going home.  Say 'hi' to everyone for me...

     I've been to Denver, and Warren Zevon's the only songwriter who's done it justice...

     Forgot to mention that I'm back to work, at least a few hours a day.  We more or less shut down in the last week of November, and don't start up full time until Spring.  For now, I'm just collecting on outstanding accounts and planning the next season.  
     With that in mind, I'll spend a few hours at the home office in Chicago in mid-February, getting a bit of help from the Boss.  While there, I'll see some fine fellow bloggers - namely Tripp, Jennifer, and Clifton - for the first time, wander about the city a bit, and in the end, write off half my expenses...  Moving on...
     I need to hire someone at some point in the season, and don't know how to do that, at least, not how to work out their pay and taxes and what-not.  I've also set some ridiculous goals for this coming year, and need help in managing my time.  I can tell you that every eight weeks or so I plan to fly away somewhere and just sit for around four days, staring at an ocean, say, and reading and drinking... 
     Speaking of reading and drinking...well, at least drinking...I no longer like Maker's Mark bourbon.  It's not, well...let me think now...I've no technical vocabulary for this...I just don't think it's...you know...smooth...
     Oh, and have you yet paired creme brûlée with a bit of bourbon served neat?  Now that's a consolation on the way, my only friends...and, it's quite Lenten...
     Lessee, what else, what else?  I know...bought a chef's knife...a Shun eight inch with a granton edge to be precise...it and my enamelled dutch oven are among my Favorite Things.
     I need a nap.
     Peace out.
    

     Lent fast approaches.  It's a fine time of the year, my friends, a fine time of the year.  That's all I'll say about it.
     Oh, you want to know what I'll be reading?  You mean, by way of spiritual stuff?  Well, lessee...

     You know, I've been looking over some books on Reformation history I read many years ago...folks like Oberman and Muller and Kolb...damn fine scholars who'll hip you to what the hell's going on...I recommend 'em all...  Still, after a while I realized...I'm just not into it any more...I just don't care to go through any fuss and bother to repristinate or reform or renew or otherwise tilt at the reality that it's over, so over...

     Thanks for the comments.
     Had Wendell around for thirteen years, my friend, and all that time I've lived in three apartments on the same alley and walked a half-dozen streets countless thousands of times.  Rootedness can be overrated...
     The Praise Band Collective, by the bye, seems to follow me aboot.  Over the past few years I've taken us to a number of parishes, with different logos on the shingle out front, only for 'em to catch Praise Band Fever hard upon our arrival.  The latest was that little Anglican church I kind of liked for a few weeks.  Now, granted, they're not going All The Way, with Powerpoints and the like, but the thought of a so-called 'Contemporary Service' at this tiny church in the Anglican Continuum just sent me over the edge.
     I have only one real objection to membership in an Orthodox church at this point - it's likely that were I to join, the particular parish would become the first in Orthodox history to install a Powerpoint Machine and hire an Emo Guitarist for their New Informal Praise And Worship With A Bagel Eucharistical Fling... 

     I've made a decision that will annoy a lot of folks.  Some will laugh at me.  Some will be pissed off.  Most will just scratch their heads and stare in bemusement.
     I have no grand reason, no global point to make.  I don't care if anyone else would make the same decision.  It's the best I can do in my place and time - that's all.  Somewhere else, some other time and...who knows?  I might just go another way.  To be honest, it's like that Warren Zevon song - 'I appreciate the best/ But I'm settling for less/ I'm just looking for the next best thing'.
     That's all I'm going to say on the matter...

     Has it occured to anyone that it would have been far more scandalous had we discovered that Tiger Woods cheats at golf?  Think about it, dear reader, think about it...

     ...others say he shills for Bacardi in his spare time because he likes the way the happy water smells...
     All we know is, everything said about The Stig is untrue...unless it's true that is...
     By the bye, it pleases me to think that The Stig is a priest from near the border with Scotland...don't know why...