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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 10/29/2002 2:54 AM (GMT -6) |   | Virginity, Chastity, Fasting, Monastic, Silence...
Something in the bones of every Midwestern Evangelical Protestant makes us want to rise in objection. Some of us remember when then Governor Wendy Anderson appointed himself Senator. Prairie Populism, with all its virtues. Even my old neighbor -- who was Republican (IR) and the Senate Majority Leader in Minnesota at the time, and a Bethel grad. -- would flush at the thought of someone being better than someone else.
And we are right in objecting to certain persons being better. Creation and the Gospel teach us otherwise. Its dualistic. But that is only half the story.
The other half, "the rest of the story" is that we are created with a destiny. And we are drawn to God with an objective.
When an old Catholic teacher of autistic kids is celebate, lets not look at "what she's missing." Lets not, as an old Dutch Reformed man I know, impulsively think that that is "against nature." Frankly, our "nature" right now-- and his soon enough -- is to die. But that is not our destiny, our objective.
Let us with the Cherubim surround the throne of Grace, and sing "Holy, holy, holy, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your Glory, Hosanah in the highest."
We need to come to grips with (and learn from): Virginity, Chastity, Fasting, Monastic, and Silence, and ... | | Back to Top | | |
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dust
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 10/29/2002 8:29 AM (GMT -6) | | I feel like I’m landing in the middle of a discussion that has been other places before now.
There were exchange students, from Romania, that stayed with my family 5 years ago. They were poor farmer’s children and had never watched TV or eaten pizza. We felt sorry for them in a compromising way. So, as soon as they got off the plane we took them to the grocery store and told them to pick anything they wanted. They picked turnips and yams. Then we took them to Pizza Hut. They ate one piece and got sick. Then like idiots, we rented 3 movies and watched them all that night. Wonder now if that made them sick too.
Perhaps I might see the value of silence, fasting, chastity, virginity in the non-Madonna way, if I would not see sex or food plastered across every magazine as I stand at the checkout counter, if I would not see it in every movie and on every television show and if I wouldn’t get hit on and leered at every day. At first the leers were an insult but then a girlfriend took me aside and informed me it was a compliment. This is my every day life, good is best in abundance (sex and food) and evils and vices are good (cigarettes and diet coke). So I look over the fence at the virgin Mary and chaste Joseph and say dude I feel sorry for them. And they look back at me over that fence and say the same.
But it is not all a loss. Because there are still people doing pilgrimages and fasts and silences. What makes me giggle is when I see a person who meets everyone’s criteria of beauty and serenity in the Godliest sense and they are doing the silence fasting and chastity out of pure devotion. Then you watch and see who is attracted to them like a magnet. Everyone. Yes even the guy that’s into S and M.
quote:
We need to come to grips with (and learn from): Virginity, Chastity, Fasting, Monastic, and Silence, and ...
How do you propse to help anyone come to grips with and learn from virginity chastity fasting and silence? (and this is a genuine question--I'm truely intrested because it involves a great deal of cross cultural reaching)
Psalm 103:13,14
Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 10/29/2002 10:47 AM (GMT -6) | | That's a good question.
quote:
How do you propose to help anyone come to grips with and learn from virginity chastity fasting and silence? (and this is a genuine question--I'm truly interested because it involves a great deal of cross cultural reaching)
January of 1998, while in college, Dr. Healy from the English department led a course called "Christian Devotional Literature." (I read lots of Bonhoeffer.) One day, all day, just one snowy day, we were led in a retreat at Silver Lake Camp (New Brighton, MN) Dr. Healy pointed out that solitude and silence can be scary. As I remember it, single-ness can be too. But perhaps ANYTHING requires some leading or else it itself can become the vehicle to wandering astray.
What I've read of the Eastern Dessert Monks, while they were some of them in solitude, as Christians they were also ALWAYS in communion. There is no such thing as a single Christian. ("Where two or three of you are gathered in my name, ...") ANY discipline, as in athletics, takes warming up, and conditioning. I've read wise words that silence, even the "Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.") can lead to insanity if that is all. A vacuum can be filled by demons. Singleness can lead to temptation, and selfishness. We are created to be in community.
So community it is.
There are private prayers. But the stalwart prayers are in the congregation. The private prayers build on them. Singleness grows out of and gives back to the community. The freedom and confidence of chastity is nurtured by community, and it blossoms into unconfined giving.
The most scary "silence" I ever heard was when I went for the first time to that little Prayer Chapel under the Academic Center building at Bethel -- before the "end" was finished. 1974. Five or eight people. A few songs. Then just pure, simple, unadorned prayer. In thunderous silence I both waited and continued praying to God as the span between vocalizations stretched towards infinity. God filled the space; but it was like having ligaments drawn on and on. I felt more than naked before God. I felt small. But I felt that I mattered. I was dependent, and vulnerable. And "there" -- in His presence. I felt much less that He was in my presence. I, along with 'these of His' had come to Him, on His terms.
I still remember that.
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might-be-don
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830
| Posted 11/1/2002 3:13 AM (GMT -6) | | I recently stopped attending our weekly Sunday night "prayer" service when it became clear that the prayer was always going to be led. NEVER a moment of silence. ALWAYS music in the background. They wanted us to fill out slips of paper with our prayer "requests" .
Seems folks always want to provide "structure" by supplying us rules and regulations. You know, let everything be done decently and in order. I can't stand it. Seems we're led by our rules, rather than the Spirit of the Lord. These rules allow us to stay children, and never grow up.
I like to be silent in a group. He leads me beside the still waters.
peace and love, don
"It's time to wipe the tears from our eyes time to stop questioning why, 'cos every clipped birds gonna fly the Healing has begun" T.S Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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dust
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 11/1/2002 4:08 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
dust?
Who me!?
I thought this was your soap box. 
No really I don't allow myself to wander the internet every day anymore--its part of that silence thing.
How do I promote virginity, chastity, silence, and fasting. I gave up verbally promoting the first two--people simply didnt get it. They either ended up thinking I was judging them, promoting my better than youness or they ended up talking about how sorry they feel for Joseph or Mary or something. No conprendo written all over. Heck why are you and I the only ones engaged here along with don. This topic is not particularly hot for me but I do know of what you speak of.
I promote fasting and silence in my own small realm of influence. First by actually doing it in meaningful life changing ways. Then talking about it. People can see the difference it makes in my every day life. A while ago I was getting my hair done in uptown. I ended up talking to my hairdresser about silence and finding yourself in alone places. And this guy was like carma, inner Mother, language the whole way through. We talked about the fear of it--silence, being alone etc. He related an experience where he went up to this fairly small Minnesota town "alone" to visit a friend. He went nuts--ended up in a panic going in to the local emergency room demanding a ride back to the T. C. (What made that a medical emergency I'm not sure) Of course they thought he was from mars. Made me wonder what would happen if he landed in the middle of the Sahara. Yet he connected with the initial fear of real silence and then the peace and acceptance that follows.
One person at a time--
Hopefully christians find their roots of silence before it becomes a widespread associatian with the Pagan thing to do. My peers tend to be drawn to the silence and to ritual which doesn't happen in many churches today so we don't go--like don.
blessings
ps Al: If you get a chance address my sin and tolerance post.
Psalm 103:13,14
Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
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Mephi2K
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 11/1/2002 4:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Y'all forgot "Waiting". The forgotten art of contently, patiently waiting for something...anything. Completely anti-21st century Western "one-minute-or-less", open 24 hrs, fax it, email it, nownowNOW, society.
Hell, I can't even stand a slow dial-up connection to the Internet. Woe is me, right? 
More later,
Edited by - Mephi2K on 11/01/2002 09:16:51 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 11/11/2002 6:34 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Y'all forgot "Waiting". The forgotten art of contently, patiently waiting for something...anything. Completely anti-21st century Western "one-minute-or-less", open 24 hrs, fax it, email it, nownowNOW, society.
Hell, I can't even stand a slow dial-up connection to the Internet. Woe is me, right?
More later,
Edited by - Mephi2K on 11/01/2002 09:16:51 AM
Still waiting....
Modes
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/11/2002 11:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph's GEM!:
Y'all forgot "Waiting".
The forgotten art of contently,
patiently waiting
for something...anything.
Case in point:
quote:
Luke 2:28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29 "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/11/2002 11:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's another verse, froim Luke 2 also.
Many of these Protestant Bones in my body, and Evangelical Gray Hairs in my beard feel mighty skeptical that Mary the daughter of Joakim and Anna could have been brought to the temple (as in the ProtoEvangel of St. James) to spend the rest of her growing up years. I mean: "Just how pious can a person be, and still be normal?" (Those bones and beard talking!)
UNTIL...
I read this:
quote:
LUKE 2:
36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
Do the math! (16, or 17 plus 7 equals 23 or 24 when Anna entered the temple...to spend the next sixty years where "she never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying") Just how culturally out of place would this have been. And if the ProtoEvangel of St. James is correct, Anna and Mary would be well acquainted!
Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 11/11/2002 4:10:45 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/20/2002 1:25 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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