By Margaret M. Treadwell

“Being a grandparent is the only condition on earth not overrated,” a newly minted grandfather declared. A decade later, he still acknowledges the mystical bond he shares with each grandchild, but muses that the condition isn’t always predictable and covers a wide breadth, as do other relationships. He tries not to take personally perceived slights and neglect now that his grandkids have grown older. What are the views of other grandparents who have gleaned their wisdom through trial and error?

One woman started a Grandmother’s Group where one member, a former head of school, mentors them through rough spots like inter-grandparental jealousies, the different ways not to give advice, how to strategize long distance grandparenting or just say “no” to grandchildren living nearby.

On a recent trip to care for her three grandsons, a friend reported that she experimented with four simple concepts during her time with them:
• Be present
• Never rush your grandchild
• Play
• See what grandchildren can teach you rather than vice versa

She is the eldest child in her family and has found that her oldest grandson has a harder time than the other little ones. “He gives me an opportunity to do things better than I did as a parent. When I’m with him, he teaches me about myself and my first-born son,” she says. She believes everyone suffers from attention deficit, so she gives each grandson one-on-one time doing exactly what they want to do (if it doesn’t cost money). “What’s the matter with ice cream every day after school or golf in the snow?” she chuckles.

When I asked a step-grandmother how her stepdaughters and their children became so fond of her, she explained, “It was mostly their father who involved his daughters in the death of their mother. They heard her say to him, ‘Make sure in choosing a new companion that our daughters have a say.’ What helped most with the grandchildren was their mothers’ decisions to incorporate me into their lives early on; it didn’t matter by the time they were born whether I was a ‘step.’ ” She acknowledges the situation would be more difficult – but not impossible – with a divorce.

A social worker said, “If you’ve loved your children and they’ve grown into healthy, well-adjusted adults, you can’t make many mistakes as a grandparent. It comes from multigenerational models of good parenting. Our children watched me include my parents in their upbringing, and my mother used to say, ‘don’t just talk about it; set a good example!’ I’ve tried to pass that along in my work to less fortunate families.”

How best for grandparents to function when there’s a crisis in the family? One set of grandparents who raised their grandson while his mother struggled with substance abuse told the story of falling in love with the baby at their first meeting and how they had worked to be an oasis of calm. Their key as he has grown up is never to assume primacy in his life or say anything against his parents.

What about the worst possible experience of losing a grandchild? Grandparents invited their pregnant daughter, son-in-law and 3-year-old granddaughter to live in their home upon their return to the Washington area. When the baby was born compromised genetically, mentally and physically, the family set about loving, supporting and simultaneously setting appropriate boundaries with each other as the parents grappled with the question of extraordinary measures to keep him alive. With the help of doctors, they decided that the baby would go home with hospice care, and the family invited the other set of grandparents to come and stay with them during the 10 days before he died so that everyone had a chance to say goodbye.

A close friend spoke about the baby’s death in the context of his entire family during the lovingly planned funeral. When she had finished and beautiful music filled the space, the small granddaughter spontaneously rose, walked to the front and began to dance, slowly at first and then with energy and purpose. How she comforted the congregation with her unconscious message, “Life is for the living and will carry on!” Multigenerational healing continues since her parents had the faith and courage to conceive another baby full of happy health and the family emerges stronger from their suffering.

One of the most fulfilled grandmothers revealed her secret mantra for her grandchildren: “Leave them alone.” Then she confessed to a careful balance between involvement and disengagement, keeping her own creative life thriving rather than letting her children or grandchildren become her sole focus.

Margaret M. (“Peggy”) Treadwell, LCSW -C, has been active in the fields of education and counseling for thirty-five years. Following a long association with Dr. Edwin H. Friedman, during which she served on his faculty, she co-edited and helped posthumously publish his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.

By Martin L. Smith

I was clearing out a drawer the other day and came across a stray slide from my travels to Russian and Ukraine in 1972. At this time the state was still relentlessly choking the churches to death with every kind of constraint and harassment and subjecting the entire population to atheist propaganda. Seeing the picture of myself as a rather nervous young man sporting his first moustache, I remembered my feelings of terror as I passed through customs in Leningrad with 20 copies of the New Testament in Russian concealed in my luggage, and my relief at getting away with my smuggling. It wasn’t until I reached Yalta that I finally passed them on, at the church where my grandparents had met. I suppose that impulse arose out of a grateful sense that I wouldn’t be here if my grandmother hadn’t left the family dacha to go to the service there one Sunday in 1914 and been noticed admiringly by my vacationing grandfather. But I could have left them in a church anywhere, since the state permitted so few Bibles to be printed that they were desperately sought after by spiritually parched Christians.

It’s hard for us to imagine the straits to which the church was reduced. Every kind of overt Christian activity was banned except the holding of church services. And what was most demoralizing were the consequences of the KGB policy of infiltrating its agents into the clergy at every level, from bishop to parish priest, in order to sap the church’s strength from within. Regular applicants to the few seminaries permitted to limp on were vetted to weed out the strong and bring forward the shaky, whose vulnerabilities could be exploited in due time. I remember comparing notes with an old mentor of mine, Dr. Nicholas Zernov, after he had returned from a visit. He told me he had visited a parish in Moscow and noticed after the service that everyone seemed to be very friendly to the young priest who had just been the chief celebrant, while coldly ignoring an elderly priest who had assisted. He asked one of the ladies of the congregation why this was so, and she replied that their new parish priest was an atheist KGB agent who had been planted on them, while the old priest was beloved, a man of God to his fingertips—but if they had appeared in any way to favor him, he would have been taken away.

Imagine worshipping week by week in the calm certainty that your parish priest had made hypocrisy a career and was a cynical enemy of the church! Perhaps we wouldn’t have the kind of faith that believed that the mystery of the Eucharist so entirely depended on the living action of the Holy Spirit that the celebrant might actually be an atheist and it wouldn’t matter!

Few people, however hard they prayed back then in support of their suffering fellow Christians behind the Iron Curtain, who had endured decades of persecution, could have predicted the reversal that lay just ahead. Now the churches are in full spate of revival, and it is the vast machinery of atheist propaganda and materialist ideology that has come crashing down into ruins. Not all is rosy: Russian Orthodoxy is always in danger of trying to gain a spiritual monopoly and revert to old authoritarian ways. But the historic reversal is staggering in its irony and its scale.

I think about these things under the heading: The Astounding Resilience of the Christian Faith. And they feed my reflections on a noticeable recent phenomenon, an outburst of books furiously denouncing religion as a toxic relic of the past and extolling the saving power of atheism. We all have seen them piled up in the mass market bookstores. Even those whose writers have the most intellectual credentials display a remarkably similar tone to those that are more propagandistic. They are strikingly shrill and caustic. They vigorously repudiate any kind of empathy with the religious impulse.

The content of these books have much to say that Christians must both hear and answer. But the tone is also fascinating in itself. Perhaps it is one sign that secularists are in fact baffled and exasperated by the fertility and resilience of religion. Shrewd observers are already talking of our contemporary world as the scene for a “crisis of secularism.” Those who dreamed that enlightened reason and science would be winning the day by now have to face a great deal of evidence that they have been just dreaming. In reality, spiritual belief and practice is proving to be globally resilient. The scathing tone of this “new atheism” might be the symptom of insecurity and frustration, rather than the confidence of those who have victory in their sights.

Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He is the senior associate rector at St. Columba’s, D.C.

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By Frank Dunn

Church and society seem to be stuck on issues of human sexuality. Washington, DC, now faces a controversy regarding whether to sanction marriages for partners of the same sex.

Accustomed as they are to being the gatekeepers of marriage, Christians are likely either to favor or to oppose such marriages as a matter of morality. It is a moral issue, but not necessarily for the reasons that proponents or opponents frequently state.

Our ideas of what is moral have roots in large frameworks that include what we think is true and what we believe to be the consequences of human action. These “frameworks” are structures of consciousness. While the debate rages between the notion of eternal rightness of marriage between one man and one woman and the belief in the justice of extending civil benefits of marriage to partners of the same sex, we perhaps miss what is happening all around the debate. For in the bigger picture, the “framework” itself is changing. A new consciousness is clearly emerging.

This new consciousness is far deeper than any one issue. In general, a shift is happening in the direction from competition towards cooperation, from nationalism to global connectedness, from “scientific” rationalism to a re-appropriation of myth and symbol, from insistence on cultural conformity towards honoring dissidents, from exclusivity to a greater toleration, indeed appreciation, of differences. At the center of the new consciousness is a reassessment of the place of the individual in community, including the worth that societies assign to individuals and communities.

Shifts like the present one can sometimes be dated, such as 476 CE when the Roman Empire collapsed. Another shift came in 1492, when Columbus discovered the New World. Still another came on November 24, 1859, when Darwin published The Origin of Species. We can point to a cluster of developments that have ushered it in the present shift. One was the summer of 1989 when thousands of East Germans went on vacation and refused en masse to return home but flooded into Hungary, Austria, and West Germany, thus effectively beginning the fall of European communist domination. Another was the appearance of the internet as a popular means of connection and communication, in or about 1995.

Human beings evince a tremendous reluctance to become a conscious species. Whether we are going to participate in the shift, or wait it out, or spend our energies joining the forces of reaction (always an integral part of a shift) is a live question for the Church. Religious communities are among the best—maybe among the only—places where people can gather to look intently at the implications of deep cultural changes affecting the entire planet.

Some of the dimensions involved in the emerging consciousness are
 the transition from top-down leadership to dispersed leadership
 profound exploration into the nature and location of authority
 growing understanding of the interrelatedness of everything on the planet
 communication enabling immediate interpersonal and political connection
 limitations of free-market capitalism to solve world economic problems
 re-emergence of the Feminine and its effect on the exercise of power
 awareness that a finite supply of oil dictates re-thinking energy
 boundaries of power and the failure of coercion.

None of these things taken singly is new, with the possible exception of the revolution in communication. But together they are forcing us to confront the fact that some of our cherished narratives, such as the notion of the exclusive appropriateness of heterosexual marriage, are inadequate to address the multiformity of human experience in the 21st century.

There is gospel in all of this. While many narratives, including those believed by some Christians (e. g., “marriage has always been between one man and one woman”), are headed for the dust bin, the core of our faith is that God can never be contained in any cultural or creedal formulation. And at the heart of our Story are the words to shepherds, to disciples, and to grieving women: “Fear not.” As a people, we keep celebrating Easter and Pentecost, affirming not only a Risen Lord who does not abandon us to muddle through on our own, but a Holy Spirit—God present among us here and now—guiding us into all Truth.

That message is one that might not only comfort us but inspire us to help shape the conversation around a rapidly changing earth, beginning in our own assemblies of faith.

The Rev. Frank Dunn is senior priest at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington, D. C.

By Jim Naughton

The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church is likely to pick up where the 75th General Convention left off, with attention focused squarely on one particular piece of legislation—Resolution B033. That bill, pushed through on the final day of the 2006 convention under unusual parliamentary circumstances, was meant to ensure the Episcopal Church retained its place within the Anglican Communion, and has been widely interpreted as a de facto moratorium on the consecration of bishops in same sex relationships.

When the legislative committees of the House of Deputies and House of Bishops convene in Anaheim on July 7, they also will consider numerous resolutions on the blessing of same sex relationships and the development of rites for same sex marriage.

Together, these issues are likely to be the most closely watched – and most passionately argued – of the convention, though they constitute a small part of a legislative agenda that includes the church’s 2010-2012 budget, a new initiative on domestic poverty, a possible revision of the church’s disciplinary canons, steps toward full communion with the Moravian Church and conversation about the proposed Anglican Covenant, which has yet to be released in its final form.

Resolution B033 urges diocesan bishops and standing committees not to consent to the election of a bishop “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The phrase “manner of life” was widely interpreted to include gay and lesbian clergy who lived with a partner of the same sex.

The legislation was written on the night before the convention was to close, amidst rumors of trans-Atlantic arm-twisting by the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Williams was considering whether to invite the bishops of the Episcopal Church to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Previous attempts to pass similar legislation had failed, but on the final day of the convention, the newly-elected Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, took the unusual step of addressing the House of Deputies. Her popularity, coupled with fears that Williams would recognize parishes and dioceses threatening to break away from the Episcopal Church as the authorized Anglican presence in the United States, led the Deputies to pass legislation that had seemed all but dead the day before.

The bishops of the Episcopal Church, with the notable exception of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the church’s first openly gay bishop, were invited to the Lambeth Conference. Williams has not recognized the new church founded last month in Texas by members of the parishes and dioceses that broke away from the Episcopal Church and allied themselves with more theologically conservative Anglican churches in Africa and South America. Jefferts Schori and the Rev. Ian T. Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., serve on the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council, perhaps the most influential body in the Communion. And the church has deepened its relationships with many dioceses in provinces not sympathetic to its acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy and couples.

At the same time, however, the passage of B033 has been interpreted by Williams and other leaders in the Communion as an “agreed upon” moratorium—a phrase used in the report of the Windsor Continuation Group, which was endorsed at the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in May. Williams has argued that B033 should remain in place until the Communion reaches a “new consensus” on same sex relationships, a consensus few see on the horizon. In the meantime, the number of gay candidates being considered for episcopal elections has dwindled. The Diocese of Western New York recently cited B033 in instructing the committee screening candidates to become its next bishop not to interview partnered gay or lesbian candidates.

Three years after its passage, B033 is unpopular, yet many believe it remains necessary. No fewer than a dozen resolutions to repeal, clarify or supersede the legislation have been submitted to the House of Deputies’ and House of Bishops’ Committee on World Mission. The two houses’ cognate (i.e. similarly named) committees typically meet as one at General Convention, but are not bound to do so. The deputies, many of whom are still smarting from the unusual procedures employed to pass B033, have expressed far more interest in revisiting the legislation than the bishops, who know that Williams does not want the legislation repealed. (The archbishop will be able to reinforce that message in person. He will be attending the General Convention July 8-9 to speak at a forum on the global recession and to give a Bible study.)

Legislation from the World Mission Committee is sent first to the House of Deputies. How the bishops will respond to attempts to repeal or soften B033 may depend on how narrowly the legislation is written. Jefferts Schori has said she does not want to repeal B033, preferring to make a statement about where the church stands now.

One approach that has won pre-Convention support is embodied in legislation from the Diocese of Rochester that “affirms that standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction are not bound by any extra-canonical restraints – including but not limited to the restraints set forth in Resolution B033 passed by the 75th General Convention – when considering consents to the ordination of any candidate to the episcopate.”

If such legislation passes, the questions of whether an openly gay bishop-elect would be approved by a majority of diocesan bishops and standing committees, and whether any diocese would be willing to put its future on hold long enough to find out, will remain open.

The convention also will consider a variety of proposals to move the church toward authorizing either the blessing of same sex relationships or the authorization of a rite for same sex marriage. At its 2003 General Convention, the church passed a resolution recognizing “that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same sex unions.”

The language of the legislation, while not precise, was interpreted in most quarters as granting diocesan bishops the right to exercise a “local option” on blessing same sex relationships. However, Williams, the majority of the primates in the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council have endorsed a moratorium on “public rites” for the blessing of same sex relationships. This language, even less precise, has been interpreted variously as calling for an outright ban on same sex blessings, an acknowledgment that pastoral necessity might permit low profile private blessings, and as permitting same sex blessings as long as a ritual authorized by a church or a bishop is not used.

Williams has not definitively dispelled this controversy, however, at a press conference at the end of the Lambeth Conference, he said that “ as soon as there is a liturgical form it gives the impression that this has the church’s stamp on it,” and that he was “not very happy” about American attempts to develop rites.

In May, the Anglican Consultative Council affirmed the report of the Windsor Continuation Group, a panel appointed by Williams whose five members were previously on record opposing the blessing of gay relationships. The report calls for as yet unspecified consequences against bishops, dioceses and churches that authorize rite for same sex blessings.

Resolutions on same sex relationships include: an affirmation that there are no restrictions on a diocesan bishop's authorization of same sex blessings, a request that rites for both same sex blessings and same sex marriage be presented to the next convention in 2012, the authorization of a church-wide study of marriage rites, and a proposal to allow bishops in the six states that permit same sex marriage to adopt the church’s existing rite of marriage for use with gay and lesbian couples.

These resolutions will be considered by the Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music, whose legislation is considered first by the House of Bishops.

The church has repeatedly sought to play for time in managing the conflict between its desire to bless same sex relationships and its desire to remain within the Anglican Communion. Legislation that would immediately change existing policy, therefore, may not fare as well as a resolution requiring final action at a future convention – even if that resolution is more ambitious in its ultimate effect.

(For coverage of the B033 saga as it unfolded, see these 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 items from Daily Episcopalian, and this wrap-up on pages 1 and 4 of the July/August 2006 Washington Window. In reading these dispatches, it helps to be aware that a special commission appointed before the General Convention had proposed a resolution advising the Church to exercise "very considerable caution" before consecrating another gay bishop. This language is weaker than the language of B033, which appeals for a denial of consent.)

Jim Naughton is editor in chief of Episcopal Cafe This article appears in the July-August issue of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

This is the second of a two-part article. Read Part One. Our next new essay will appear on Tuesday.

By Luiz Coelho

Symbolism emerges in the use of light. In the Sinai Pantocrator, the light moves from left to right creating a sense of mystery on the right side of the image. In fact, although the figure is pretty much centered in the picture frame, there is a very noticeable asymmetry between the left and right sides of Jesus' face. The left side, bright and shiny, shows relaxed eyebrows and lips. On the right side, Jesus' face is contracted and shadows make it even more mysterious. This duality of a serene and compassionate Jesus, and a dark and severe one are very appropriate at a time when the concept of the dual nature of Jesus Christ was being discussed by the Church. The use of light, and also of different facial expressions, reinforce the human and divine natures orthodox Christians believe exist in Jesus Christ. He is simultaneously Mercy and Judge.

There is also another very interesting feature related to the use of light in this image. Jesus' eyes do not show any kind of reflection, unlike previous Egyptian encaustic paintings. It is feasible to suggest that the painter behind this Pantocrator had enough knowledge of light and shadow in order to know it is necessary to depict the way eyes behave when light is cast on them. One possible explanation for the absence of any reflection is the belief that Jesus is the source of light, and since light comes from him, his eyes are clear of reflections. This became the general practice in later icons, and also came to be applied to a saint, since they were reflecting the light of Christ that emerged from them.

Color was also used in order to reinforce the idea of unearthly lights and heavenly environments. Tones are warm and follow a palette that ranges from ocre to brown, centered in golden tones. A circular halo, made of gold leaf, and which possibly had some incrustations, shows very vividly that the one who is represented is “not of this world”. In fact one can link halos to older polytheistic traditions of Sun-god worship. In this case, Jesus is seen as the one who replaced those gods as the new “Sun of Righteousness”.

Graphic elements were also added to the painting in order to emphasize even more that it is not a portrait of a human being. One can see three axes of what could be a cross painted on the halo, with star-like designs in each one of them. Those star-like designs also appear in ochre on the top-right and top-left corners of the image. They would later symbolize purity, and would be a key element in depictions of the Virgin Mary. This is probably their meaning in this case as well, but later icons of the Pantocrator substitute inscriptions in Greek, as an evolution of this style.

It is also important to take further notice of the symbolism behind the pose and gestures of Jesus Christ in this scene. His body takes full control of the scene, showing that it is all about him. The Gospel book in his left hand symbolizes his authority over the Cosmos and also remionds the viewer of his ministry on Earth. His right hand blesses the faithful, but is also raised as a sign of teaching and/or authority – a common feature of Greco-Roman portraits and sculptures. His fingers are tied together in groups of two and three, which is usually interpreted as further reiteration of the belief in the dual natures of Jesus Christ and also in the Holy Trinity. Both doctrines found their formation and articulation in the midst of much debate during the first centuries of Christianity. Representing Christ himself endorsing these new dogmas was a clever way of teaching the faithful about the orthodox Christian faith.

Many of these elements would endure in later depictions of the Christ Pantocrator. A later example of the same icon (link to: http://www.mit.edu:8001/afs/athena.mit.edu/activity/o/ocf/www/images/icnika_icon.gif ), shows a more stable style, which is still used by current iconographers. It is astonishing to notice that many of the features found in the Sinai Pantocrator were retained and consolidated in later icons: the frontal pose, the use of warm colors, dramatic light that “comes from the subject”, hand gestures and golden halo, among many others. Some others evolved from elements found in the Sinai Pantocrator: star-like shapes were substituted on the top of the painting by “IC XC” (which are the initials for the name Jesus Christ in Greek), and by other inscriptions around the halo, usually “I am who I am” in Greek. Strong outlines and background simplification were enhanced, and garments became more stylized with additional symbolism attached to them. For example, red (or purple) represented divinity, and blue represented humanity. Jesus was “God in man's clothes.” Some depictions of the Blessed Mother and saints have an opposite color scheme (red over blue), representing “men attaining union (theosis) with God.”

The Sinai Pantocrator marks a very important change in Western art. It shows visible signs of the end of an art more preoccupied with naturalism and illusion of reality, and the beginning of a style more concerned about symbols and the supernatural. Icons have also proven to be a valuable tool in communicating the teachings of the Christian Church to its members. The symbolism behind them often was a means of embedding doctrine in visual symbols. Its style was a merger of all Christianized regions of the empire, most notably the Eastern ones, and naturally incorporated Hellenistic philosophical and spiritual principles.

Therefore, this icon is a key work of art for the understanding of the ascendance of Byzantine art, which ran parallel to the advance of Christianity in the Roman Empire and the eventual theological disputes that happened within the Christian Church, such as the debates over the existence of God as Trinity, the natures of Christ, and even the iconoclastic controversy. While different from other artistic styles which were used for religious purposes, but not necessarily “as” religion, Byzantine iconography was definitely a key element in Eastern Christian faith, to the point that it has retained and distilled its main characteristics, and preserved its integrity into our own time, despite all sorts of realistic and naturalistic tendencies that affected Western European art at the end of the Middle Ages. The Sinai Pantocrator is one of the most meaningful Byzantine pieces to art gistorians because it gives many hints of how a civilization that for centuries embraced harmony and realism adopted stylized and simplified forms in order to make room for deep symbolism. Again, Christianity is the key for such a mystery, and iconography is the visible proof we have of all those changes.

Luiz Coelho, a seminarian from the Diocese of Rio de Janero, spends part of the year in the BFA program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His Web site includes his art and his blog, Wandering Christian.

This is the first of two articles. Part two will appear on Sunday.

By Luiz Coelho

Most churchgoers have probably seen this representation of Jesus Christ. The icon of Christ Pantocrator located at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, Egypt (the Sinai Pantocrator) is regarded as one of the earliest examples available of what would be later described as Byzantine Iconography (or painting). Earlier pieces probably existed. In fact some features of the Sinai Pantocrator already were stable enough to conclude that such an icon was developed in the midst of a transitional style of Eastern representations of Christ in Majesty. However, all other pieces either were lost due to lack of preservation, or more likely were destroyed during the iconoclastic controversy. Consequently, this example of the Pantocrator is one of the oldest extant examples of an emerging style, heavily influenced by early Christian spirituality and Hellenistic philosophical thought, that would replace older artistic traditions and become a reference not only to the Eastern Christian world, but also to the West, and to the fringes of the Christian world.

The style expressed in the Sinai Pantocrator is an example of a genre which emerges from the late Roman Empire and from what would be called the Byzantine Empire, or the Roman Empire of the West. This style would survive in most of Eastern Europe, and Christian areas in the Middle East, leading to regional and periodic variations, such as Early, Middle and Late Byzantine, Coptic, Russian, and Armenian. It also would provide important elements upon which later styles would be developed in Western Europe. In fact, some scholars would regard Romanesque and Early Gothic paintings as a “Western” iconographic tradition. The importance behind the Sinai Pantocrator lies in the innumerable sub-products which emerged later and which were continuously used for Christian worship, and remain important for us Christians in our own day.

The image found in St. Catherine's Monastery of Christ as the Pantocrator , which is Greek for “Ruler of all,” is a 33 X 18 cm encaustic painting on wood, probably done during the 6th century A.D. It shows a frontal portrait of Christ holding a Gospel book in one hand, and blessing the viewer with the other hand. Behind him, one can see what seems to be a city. Around his head a gold leaf halo indicates to the viewer that this painting is not the portrait of a mere man, but of a divine figure. In this case, the iconographer wishes to indicate that this is an image of God Incarnate.

This emerging iconographic style is characterized by several influences, so that it is impossible to determine with any certainty where it was painted. One influence is Roman portraiture, which flourished during most of the Roman Empire. Paintings were often commissioned by wealthy families and portrayed people in dignifying frontal poses with an austere look. Like them, the Sinai Christ also follows a frontal pose and has an air of nobility. Another visible influence is the Egyptian school of Fayum, Lower Egypt. It is understood that large encaustic paintings started to replace reliefs on sarcophagi lids during the Roman era, and are a clear example of the merger between the Roman and Egyptian portraiture traditions. In fact, the Sinai Pantocrator resembles these paintings in pose, aspect and materials much more than any other work of art from that period. Obviously, the link between depictions of people in the afterlife and the Risen Son of God was very evident, and the evolution of such portraiture is clearly understandable.

Another source of influence for Byzantine iconography was a style of Syrian paintings that emerged during the Roman Empire as a merger of Asian and Hellenistic traditions. This style was essentially symbolic with outlines, isocephaly (all heads on a level), bodies without weight or substance, and space reduced to a minimum. Many of those characteristics are found in the Sinai Pantocrator too, and its further descendants would take them to the edge. The portrait of Christ takes control of the scene, practically hiding the landscape behind him, which still has some elements of the illusionistic decorative Roman tradition of painting. It sends a clear message that the subject of the portrait, and not an elaborate architectural landscape, is what matters in this new style.

Luiz Coelho, a seminarian from the Diocese of Rio de Janero, spends part of the year in the BFA program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His Web site includes his art and his blog, Wandering Christian, on which he examines "Christianity in the third millennium, from a progressive, Latin American and Anglican point of view."

By Leo Campos

My stepfather was one of those larger than life individuals. It was just the way he was. He would walk into a room and commandeer it. I am not sure he would do it on purpose; I used to think it was a natural outgrowth of being used to having his orders obeyed. He was born in Argentina of English parents. In his late teens or early twenties (sometime after World War II) he jumped on a Triumph bike and drove the 1,000 miles from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo in search of fame and fortune. Argentina at that time had the highest GDP in the world, while Brazil was barely waking up. On paper this seemed like an unwise move and he told me how often his friends in Argentina laughed at his decision, asking if he was going to Brazil to help the “banana bending” industry. Just think of how Brazil was portrayed in Carmen Miranda movies and you will see that such stereotypes were widespread.

The trip itself would probably make a good movie – there were no reliable roads between Brazil and Argentina in those days. He had to rough it for the 1,000 mile trip. He risked it to reach a country with a language he did not speak and very foreign culture. How different were the countries? Well, he tells me that he was shocked the first time he saw a black person – Argentina simply never had the levels of slavery associated with the rest of the New World.

My stepfather by that time had already developed a level of certainty which enabled him to trust his instincts. This is a man who, while working on the railroad as a young teen (no child labor laws back then!), would risk his earnings in dice games - and frequently double his income. Every successful decision, in turn, gave him greater self-confidence to take further chances. The more success he accumulated the more he developed what I call an expectation of certainty. It was a tangible force. This force enabled him to find the strength to work against pretty phenomenal odds to accomplish what he set his mind to. Certainly the success came with much hard work and many sacrifices, but the hard work almost seemed inconsequential - it was simply inferior to his will.

How much of this commanding presence was really presence and how much of it was self-image? Self-image is how we perceive ourselves as objects of others' attention. For me to be aware of how you see me, requires that I create a fantasy, an abstraction - I have to engineer an artificial “me” so I can become an object to myself – taken to its logical extremes you get the frivolities of high fashion. Presence, on the other hand, is indefensible and independent of external factors. It is a purely, or almost purely, subjective state. “I am this.” I am what I am.

These two poles of self-awareness are not mutually exclusive. A strong presence will probably create a strong self-image. A strong self-image will most likely create a strong presence. But the approach to it is different. If you develop a strong sense of presence, then you will not be too concerned with protecting self-image, but the reverse is not necessarily true.

It is instructive here to look at the encounter between Jesus and the centurion (Luke 7). The centurion is used to authority, and he recognizes it in Jesus. On paper this seems like an unwise move, much like my stepfather’s. Why would a centurion come seeking the help of a Jewish peasant, when he could undoubtedly have chosen some more qualified medical doctor? Just say a word and it will be so. The centurion must have been an excellent leader, for he could see the potential beneath the external appearances. He came to Jesus because, using whatever methods of decision he used, he simply expected to be right.
So here’s the catch: what are you seeing in the world today? Where are you looking? What does this say about you? What potential are you seeing? Do you see potential for good or for ill? Are you expecting to be right, or expecting to be wrong? Most importantly are you leaning more on your presence or your image? What 1,000 mile trip are you embarking on? What will you find at the end?

Brother Leo Campos is the co-founder of the Community of Solitude , a non-canonical, ecumenical contemplative community. He worked as the "tech guy" for the Diocese of Virginia for 6 years before going to the dark side (for-profit world).

By Donald Schell

Irenaeus and standards of ‘orthodoxy’ have figured significantly in recent public discussion of the bishop elect of Northern Michigan, Kevin Thew Forrester. It now appears (unless some standing committees and perhaps some bishops reconsider their votes) that the public work of a faithful pastor will be used and quoted against him to prevent his consecration as bishop by the people of his diocese who chose him and bishops and clergy of our church who worked closely with them through an extended discernment process. In this process ‘orthodoxy’ has emerged as a line in the sand and Irenaeus has been invoked as a vigilant enforcer of it. I don’t recognize the spirit of Irenaeus in this effort.

Irenaeus comes into the discussion because Fr. Thew Forrester regularly quotes this important early theologian. I’ve enjoyed that in Thew Forrester’s work beginning with I Have Called you Friends: an Invitation to Ministry, which I first read eighteen months or so ago, before the election prompted this controversy. I recognized immediately that this book with its strong, vibrant picture of shared ministry and mission and its vision of our growing into maturity in Christ counted on sources like my old friend Irenaeus and as I read recalled with pleasure my first encounter with Irenaeus’ arguments for Christian orthodoxy against the ‘false Gnostics.’ Irenaeus appealed to the church’s public teaching and the lineage of teacher-bishops who carried that teaching back to Christ. Irenaeus claims apostolic succession in an unbroken lineage of public teaching, in other words, Irenaeus’ generous and inclusive definition of Christian orthodoxy rests on his appeal to the church’s public teaching.

Sometimes people take ‘orthodoxy’ to mean ‘holding the line.’ Irenaeus’ adversaries were teaching (to initiates) that there was a firm line and clear definition of what belonged to God and what did not. Responding to that impulse, Irenaeus boldly claimed that everything that had breath lived by the Spirit of God. For Irenaeus the theological line was incarnational, defending his broadly inclusive understanding of reconciliation (or atonement) through recapitulation - ‘what he [Christ] did not assume, he did not save.’ From Irenaeus it’s a short step to Gregory Nazianzen, ‘He became what we are that we might become what he is.’ Like the major theologians of the several centuries that followed him, Irenaeus was working to keep Christian faith grounded in human experience and open to God’s embrace of all people.

Following St. Paul, and echoing the Gospel of John (in a passage Desmond Tutu quotes enthusiastically) Irenaeus readily insisted that Christ lifted up on the cross drew all people to himself as he had taken all of human life to himself, moment by moment throughout Jesus’ life among us. Irenaeus takes on elitism, secret knowledge. The orthodoxy Irenaeus defends so fiercely proclaims God’s longing to embrace us all. Orthodoxy, in Irenaeus use, holds an opening for universal salvation, union, and knowledge of God. It is quite explicitly a celebration of the Divine Embrace of all of human existence and all of life. The rarefied ‘knowledge’ of the false Gnostics privileged the immutable perfection of God and the limited means of regaining access to knowledge or vision of God. Heresy in Irenaeus’ thinking was this teaching of a partial, exclusivist salvation – only the noetic/spiritual part of who we are and that only for a few, highly select people.

Irenaeus’ theology makes the Spirit very active wherever there is life. John’s Gospel warns us the Spirit, blowing where it will, may take us to some unexpected places. The argument against accepting Northern Michigan’s election has drawn on passages from Kevin Thew Forrester’s sermons. I’ve disagreed with some of the diagnosis and interpretation of possible theological problems critics have found in statements Thew Forrester has made, but more to the point, as a preacher, I believe that we keep an ear open to those outside of church, listen to their longing and questions, weigh the best in our common culture and discourse, and take some risks formulating Good News of God’s work among us. Even Episcopalians who attend church most frequently spend most of their time living outside church working with people who think out-of-church thoughts. Good preachers, faithful preachers DO make mistakes. Lively engaged preachers must make mistakes sometimes. The theological risks we take in public become part of the church’s great conversation. The discovery (or blunder) any one of us happens on (or into) preaching has far more power as it is appropriated, corrected, reshaped, and blessed (or rejected) by the community to which we’re preaching. Our faithful task is to tell the great story of God’s love for us in Jesus and include and bless as much of our people’s experience in it as we can.

From Irenaeus on through the first seven ecumenical councils, the steady impetus of the original definition of orthodoxy was to celebrate how completely and how intimately God has joined God’s self to us, our humanity, and our world and how our genuine knowledge of God is experience of being drawn into God in Christ. Not just in Irenaeus, but throughout the great Christological controversies of the first eight centuries, orthodoxy consistently rejected enlightened, high-minded efforts to narrow, refine, protect, and make wholly consistent the church’s faith and practice. Sometimes (as in the third council designating Mary as Theotokos, bearer or birth-giver of God) they dignified unauthorized local liturgical innovations by allowing the new words to carry the doctrinal weight of demonstrating how completely God had taken on our life and experience.

I DO want to be held accountable for my preaching by Irenaeus’ underlying standard of orthodoxy, one I strive to live into. I ask myself: Am I as a preacher consistently looking for the words, stories, and interpretation of Biblical and other inspired texts that make God’s action among us clearer and more evident to even the most ordinary listener? Am I committed enough to being a guide and catalyst in that search to risk making some serious mistakes? Do I (and the congregation over time) have an unfolding discovery that in our preaching conversation (including its missteps and blunders) ‘we have the mind of Christ’? I’m grateful for the dead-ends that I’ve explored as a preacher, and even for the blunders I’ve made. I’m profoundly grateful that it’s been a real conversation challenged by the real experience and faith of people I’ve had the privilege of preaching with. I’m glad that after thirty-seven years, I can tell a congregation that I and we are still learning, still trying to find words that are sharp enough or evocative enough to point compellingly toward the mystery of perfect Love. I’ve argued elsewhere that such risk-taking is exactly the orthodoxy that the church of the first eight centuries was struggling to protect.

Watching our church, hearing bishops and standing committees across the whole Episcopal Church report that they’ve been poring over the preaching of a missionary theologian, checking the ‘orthodoxy’ of every word and phrase, because this pastor is now bishop-elect of Northern Michigan troubles me. My experience of thirty-seven years of priesthood is that our Episcopal churches preachers have gotten steadily better. We’re trying to preach honestly, to speak to human experience, to read Scripture with love and passion, and to take risks. Why would we subject any preacher who is actively engaged in pastoral and missionary theology to a line by line scrutiny of sermons-once-preached to see if phrases drawn from ancient Christian and contemporary cultural sources might be taken to imply something that deviates from a central ‘core of orthodoxy.’ Irenaeus’ insistent definition of the central core of orthodoxy would have us bend the opposite direction. Christ has taken all things on or into himself.

Are we giving orthodoxy a bad name? Or is it that others - our own schismatics and some Anglicans in the Global South - have already made orthodoxy problematic for us, except that now we know no way to reclaim the word but on their terms? Irenaeus’ orthodoxy isn’t a tight, closed fellowship, but a broad, moving river. He boldly innovates and embellishes to make clear his conviction that the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ is, in Christ, embracing the whole world, that every moment and aspect of Jesus’ living and dying is saturated with God’s presence and has its own power to unite us to God, and that the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

The Rev. Donald Schell, founder of St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, is President of All Saints Company.

By R. William Carroll

Brothers and sisters, we are likely too close to the history unfolding before our eyes in Iran to understand it in all its complexity. I for one do not assume that Moussavi will live up to the high hopes many have for him. Of course, he may not live at all. But, even if he does live, he may well disappoint. Perhaps Moussavi will not turn out to be the leader the Iranians in the streets long for him to be—at least not in every respect. At the same time, the first person testimony of the protestors who have taken to the streets is undeniable. Listen to these urgent and heartfelt words from an anonymous college student, blogging in Farsi:

I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too...All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelor’s degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them…This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…

Add to this the following comments from President Obama, which are at once grave and inspiring:

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

We live in a moment filled with possibilities yet fraught with risk. In such moments, the actions of small people and big people alike have the chance to make a difference for tomorrow’s children. Much depends on our faithfulness in such an “hour of decision.” It would be overwhelming if everything depended on us. Fortunately, it does not. Ultimately, our future lies in God’s hands. We shape that future and mould it by our free decisions. But God directs and perfects it, bringing our history to fulfillment in the Kingdom of God.

Despite our failures of nerve—despite many refusals and denials—God is patiently working out God’s purpose for us. As followers of Christ, we know that more than the world is watching. GOD is watching. And God will not be mocked. It may not seem like it for a time. Evil may indeed triumph for a season. But in the end, all things will be brought to their perfection in Christ. In his remarks, Obama goes on to quote Martin Luther King: “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Last Saturday, I participated in the ordination of four new priests, including Fr. Steve Domienik, who will begin serving alongside me and the people of our parish this summer. In the ordination liturgy, the bishop prays a powerful prayer that speaks both to the events unfolding in Iran and to the very real challenges we ourselves face in this country today. We offer the same prayer in the liturgy of Good Friday. In it, we pray:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Now maybe providence, which concerns God’s guidance of the world, its history, and everyone in it, is an idea that’s hard to grasp. Some Christians think about it in ways that are magical and superstitious and fail to give sufficient weight to the role of human freedom.

And yet, trust in God instills quiet confidence when all around us swirls in chaos. As we struggle along on the ground, things may seem hopeless. But with God, we can face the future calmly, because the whole of history is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ—who is both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. In Christ, God has already brought life from death. And so, God is able to overcome; no matter what obstacles we present to the Kingdom.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we do so trusting that God’s Kingdom will come. For we know that, in Jesus, the Kingdom has already drawn near. In Jesus, God has drawn near in mercy, judgment and love. In his ministry, we see God’s Kingdom breaking out among us with sovereign power. And so, no matter how far the arc of the universe bends—no matter how far tyranny distorts it—no matter how far our ways may be from God’s, we keep on trusting in God’s grace—right here and right now—and we know God will prevail.

In Sunday's Epistle, Paul reminds the Corinthians of his sufferings as an apostle. They are for him means of participating in Christ’s resurrection victory. In Paul, we see an icon of our own journeys of faith. The closer we draw to Christ, the nearer we come to the little ones. The closer we draw to Christ, the more we find rejection and defeat in the sight of the world. And yet, we do not lose heart. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

The Christian life is about the kind of trust that lays it all on the line. In light of the Gospel, the values that so often drive us become matters of indifference. We set aside reputation, honor, riches, happiness, and even life itself in order to gain the great pearl of the Kingdom.

As Christians, we believe the last days have come upon us in the Lord Jesus. Behold, says Paul, “Now is the acceptable time; now is the hour of salvation.” Even now, things that are cast down are being raised up. Even now, things that have grown old are being made new.

My brothers and sisters, I ask you: Given the nearness, newness, and now-ness of God’s Kingdom, how will we let it change our lives?

The Rev. Dr. R. William Carroll is rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Christian theology from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His sermons appear on his parish blog. He also blogs at Living the Gospel. He is a member of the Third Order of the Society of Saint Francis.