The All American Council
Earlier, I was listening to the pod-casts from the All American Council and, so far, they are pretty awe-inspiring.
Although I personally did not attend the AAC, from the reports I've heard, I think everything that happened this week has been very inspiring and moving for the OCA (that is, Orthodox Church in America).
As a student at a secular college, surrounded by a secular world, the election of Bishop Jonah to Metropolitan and everything else that occurred at this year's AAC is also inspiring.
I feel that it brings hope. Hope to America. I always feel so discouraged as I interact with the world, so cut off from all that is Holy and Sanctified. Everyone around me, I often feel, is so lost. The whole world seems so lost. Sometimes, I also feel lost in the world, drowned in its filth which saturates the University; it takes a strong swimmer to keep his head above the stormy waters.
Alone, I can not withstand the raging waters, I myself can not show the Light to those in darkness. In fact, we humans can never shine the Light, really. It is God who does that... But all the same, the Church in America has in the past been a sort of "sitting duck." We have been "the best kept secret in the United States;" we have hidden from the world which we should have faced.
In the world, although not of it. That does not mean we ignore the world. That doesn't mean we can just sit around on earth, yet not care about its condition. The condition of our fellows.
However, alone no more.
The Church is Alive; it has Awoken. The sleep and grog and alienation of the past has all been stripped away. We are here. We are the Orthodox Church in America. We are in this world; we are here to minister to it. God, Who has had much reason to be greatly saddened by us, has come and touched us, raising us from our living death.
It brings the Paschal hymns to mind:
"Let God Arise!" The whole Church Proclaims. "Let His Enemies Be Scattered! Let Those Who Hate Him Flee From Before His Face!"
"Pascha of Beauty; Pascha, the Pascha of the Lord! For Today from Life to Death and from Death to Life, Christ has shown forth from the Tomb... And so let us Sing: Chirst is Risen from the Dead, trampling down Death by Death, and Upon those in the Tombs Bestowing Life!"
"Christ is Risen!"
"Indeed He is Risen!"
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