N.B. There are no critical measures in this thing.

1/4 to 1/3 onion, chopped fairly fine

Couple tablespoons of chopped bell pepper

1/2 Teaspoon of chopped jalapeño or Serrano (this is hotter) pepper

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic

1/4 cup or so of chopped tomato

(And anything else that you want in the middle – i.e. mushrooms, etc.)

Cup of grated cheddar cheese (can use Oaxacan {in Mexico} or Monterrey Jack

Grate one large or two small Idaho/Russet potatoes

Mix the grated potatoes with salt and pepper (coarse ground if possible) with a tablespoon of oil. Divide into two portions.

Sauté the onion a little, then add the bell pepper, a minute or two latter add the chopped jalapeño, then the garlic and a minute latter the tomato. (Timing is not that critical but each really has its own cooking time. Don’t sweat it.) Set the mixture aside.

In an 8 or 9 inch non-stick skillet melt a pat of butter (it will give the potato a golden brown color – the side that goes in first will eventually be the top side.)

When butter is melted add 1/2 of the grated potatoes, spread in the skillet to form a solid patty about 1/4 to 3/8 thick. Brown for 3 to 4 minutes then turn the fire down so that the top of the mixture starts to cook. When the color of the potatoes on top turn from transparent to white, check the bottom (i.e. peek) to see if the bottom is a nice golden brown, if not turn up the heat a little to brown. When brown add the veggie mix on top, then the cheese (the cheese will act to bind the two layers together.)

Now in the remaining potatoes beat in one or two eggs (to taste. The eggs in this level will be a thicker mixture when cooked sort of like a Spanish tortilla.) Add the eggs/potato mixture on top of the veggie mixture. Now for the skill… Take a baking sheet, preferable without any edge and place on top of the skillet. Hold the baking sheet with one hand and the handle of the skillet with the other and flip the mixture out onto the baking sheet. Now slide the mixture (which is now brown side up) back into the skillet. (you can add a pat of butter to the skillet before you do this if you want but that side of the potato will not be showing so it doesn’t really have to be brown, only done.) Cook on a low to medium heat until the bottom level of the potatoes are done (use your judgment or peek). Turn up the heat at the end to crisp up the bottom a little, slide upon a plate cut and enjoy. This will serve one hungry marine or two people eating sensibly.

Use your imagination on what goes in the middle, I have used cooked diced ham, bacon torn in small pieces, carne a seca (dried beef), mushrooms, etc.

Enjoy

Oh yes, I was going to add a picture of the one I made today but seems Pam couldn’t wait.

Address by Patriarch ALEXY II of Moscou and all Russia

(Strasbourg, 2 October 2007)

Dear Mr. President,
Dear Members of the Parliamentary Assembly,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this high assembly as I have been invited by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe René van der Linden on behalf of you all. I am glad to communicate our vision of the past, present and future of our common home, the European Continent, to the members of parliaments of the Council of Europe constituent countries.

Recently, the Council of Europe has made some new, unprecedented steps towards bridging with religious communities. In our sight it is the long-awaited response to many calls of religious leaders.

Understanding of human person could become an important theme for such a dialogue since it is around anthropology that many problems and sometimes (all the time or at least often) even conflicts arise between faith traditions and secular humanism. (Isn’t this, at least in the U.S. the source of most of our political conflicts?)

The European Continent has been influenced by many cultures that are present here until now. Yet it was within Christian system that the vision of human person’s high dignity and of the conditions necessary for its realization were shaped. (I would like someone to refute or rebut this, please. And if there is no rebuttal what are the present day ramifications of humanization of the individual? What non-European or non-north America countries have developed, independently a cultural value system that holds a person’s high dignity in such respect?) The Christian faith taught all nations that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Christianity has always stressed that if human being lives a moral live he or she may become God’s friend (cf. John 15.15) and achieve freedom (cf. John 8.32).

Every honest specialist in European history may witness that the Christian attitude to human person destroyed and condemned slavery (yes there was a period of time that parts of the Christian community attempted to rationalize slavery, especially in the western Church), formed means of fair judgment, created high social and political standards of life, shaped ethical relations between persons, and developed science and culture. The very conception of human rights, Europe’s main political idea, has developed not without some (and I would add, great) influence of Christian teaching of dignity, freedom, and moral character of human being. From the very beginning human rights developed in the context of Christian morality forming with it a kind of tandem.

Yet today there occurs a break between human rights and morality, and this break threatens the European civilization. (A major part of his thesis. Comments?) We can see it in a new generation of rights that contradict morality, and in how human rights are used to justify immoral behavior. (Examples: abortion, homo-sexual ‘rights,’ certain bio-genetic experiments) In this connection, I may note that morality, with which any human right advocacy has to count, is mentioned in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. I am convinced that the makers of the European Convention on Human Rights included therein morality not as something ambiguous but rather as an integral element of the whole human rights system. (I wish he had developed this thought more.)

If we ignore moral norms, we ultimately ignore freedom too. (Again, I think the preceding follows from his argument but I wish he had developed this.) Morality is freedom in action. (A succinct way of defining morality, maybe a little simplistic but fairly accurate.) It is a freedom brought into reality as a result of responsible choice, in which human person restricts his or her self for the good of that very person and broader society. Moral principles secure societal vitality and growth, as well as unity of society, which is one of primary objectives of the European Convention on Human Rights. (It might be noted here that pre-rise of the modern nation state it was common for the older nation states to define and enforce their own code of morality; which invariably favored the state over the individual. We still see the state defining morality, in totalitarian systems, e.g. Iran, Singapore, North Korea. Now we, in non-totalitarian systems, seem to have gone to the other extreme of favoring the individual ‘rights’ over the state.) And whenever moral norms are trespassed and declared to be relative, it may (I would have used a stronger word than may) undermine the whole worldview of the Europeans. They may draw nigh to a disastrous moment when European nations risk losing their spiritual and cultural identity and ultimately their own place in history.

However I believe that no state power may interfere into human being’s personal life. After all, being moral or immoral is a matter of free personal choice. But in public sphere, both state and society should encourage and support moral principles acceptable for the majority of citizens. Therefore they should use mass media, social institutions, and education system to pursue the moral ideals that are linked with spiritual and cultural tradition of the European nations. (Question: how does one define or delineate ‘personal’ life from the public sphere? Is the answer the same if one’s personal life influences the public sphere? What degree of influence must the private have over the public before it is a legitimate public policy to ‘interfere’ with the personal life? I am writing this as the TV news programs are talking about the student shooting in Cleveland today. Were his ‘rights’ violated and did this cause his actions? I know that is more than a little facetious and probably a little sacrilegious but I do think that many of these incidents are attributable to a lack of morality, not some psychobabble and not some violation of some new ‘rights’. Oh, come on, I can get some comments for this. )

I believe that it is very important to preserve the moral dimension that inspires and ennobles the European people’s lives in order to safeguard the European cultural identity, especially in the context of its contacts with other cultural and civilizational standards. At least, no state power should be used to propagate or encourage things that may weaken or destroy the society’s moral pillars.

Many societal problems have no solution unless human person, state power, and nation as a whole are subject to moral evaluation. For example, in Russia and many other European countries – both Eastern and Western – the gap between the rich and the poor is growing while any idea of social justice is blurring. In Russia, our church has many times called to discuss the miserable condition of millions of honest workers whose very few compatriots are extremely rich and glaringly extravagant. We are glad to see this initiative supported by many societal and political forces today. We can see that preconditions for proper economical and political decisions are already there.

However, even the most efficient legal and social system is unable to completely restrict some people’s lust to gain wealth at expense of many others. Charity never arises whenever people do not feel responsible for their fellow citizens. Charity is a result of upbringing in the spirit of traditional moral principles, including Christian ones.

Traditional moral principles are also a basis for integration within a multicultural society, which today’s Europe actually is. It was well demonstrated, for example, by the World Religious Summit held in Moscow in June last year. The forum participants were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto, and Hindu. They came from forty-nine countries to express their common concern for the humanity’s moral degradation.

It was upon this basis of traditional morality and respect for each other’s social models and lifestyle that various religious traditions coexisted in Russia, where no wars of religion were ever known. Now too, our church keeps strengthening peace between the faiths through developing an efficient dialogue and cooperation with other traditional religious communities in Russian and other CIS countries.

As we all know, Europe and the whole world are today threatened with the extremists and terrorists many of whom wear religious disguises. These destructive forces grow on the soil of religious ignorance and moral scarcity. Therefore I strongly believe that younger generations should have access, if they will, to in-depth study their religious tradition in school. They also need basic knowledge of other faiths since it lays foundation for living together peacefully. (Oh, but if we could only have instruction in some of the tenets of some of the major cultures and religions. But, heaven forbid, isn’t that a violation of some people’s view of the first amendment?)

Technological progress calls us to look at human rights anew. The believers have their say in the issues of bioethics, electronic IDs, and other technologies that concern Christians. Human being should remain what he or she is without becoming a commodity or a fully controlled element in an electronic network or a subject for laboratory experiments or a cyborg. (I have been reasonable assured there will be no Christian cyborg!) That is why science and technology cannot be estranged from the moral evaluation of their goals and fruits.

The Russian Orthodox Church if fully aware that there are a range of religious world outlooks in Europe and world-widely. We are open for dialogue with them as well as with those who adhere to secularism. Yet we are convinced that no worldview, including secular one, must not claim monopoly in Europe or elsewhere. Therefore we think that casting religion out from public sphere is unacceptable. It is time to acknowledge that religious motivation has its right to exist everywhere including public sphere.

In order to avoid clashes between different worldviews we need a serious dialogue between the cultures, in which representatives of both traditional religions and the secular tradition should be most actively involved. I believe that the Council of Europe, which has potential and experience as a place of dialogue about European values, may become a good forum for such a dialogue.

(It is noted that his speech was not without some controversy. ” The remarks prompted British Liberal Democrat council member David Russell-Johnston to demand an explanation of the Russian Orthodox leader’s opposition to the Moscow “gay pride” march.

“When persistent attempts were made to hold a homosexual parade in Moscow, we believed that that meant propaganda and advertisement of sin,” Alexy replied before the Council. The Patriarch compared homosexual sex acts to kleptomania and asked, “Why then (does) no one advertise kleptomania while homosexuality gets advertised via gay parades?”

“It is advertisement that is being forced on people who are a very long way from it,” Alexy added.”

On its face the quote is very motivational, at least to me. How often have I dreaded the thought that someone close (and I will use my father as an example) will shortly before death have an epiphany that the life has been wasted or is far from complete? Many, many are the times that I wished for his death without him having this epiphany, without dying suffering from the thought his life was wasted or incomplete. (And, as far as I know, he never did have this epiphany.)

Or applying the same fear to my life is probably why the Robert Service Poem strikes such a cord in me.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

At least in my life I can say that in many, many ways I have lived. I have loved and been loved, I have been part of history (civil rights movement, etc.), wonderful children, I have experienced various mind states but most assuredly I have a very deep and strong believe in the reality of my relationship to God. Yet with all this there is still vibration of the chord that Mr. Service struck, the existential queasiness that wonders how I would answer William Wallace if he asked me if I had really lived.

So I stand between Mr. Service looking into my heart and saying ‘see you are really one of those people’ and Mr. Wallace looking me in the eye and asking ‘have you really, really lived’.

There will probably be more to this theme so feel free to comment and that will give me more to ramble about!

To Dan:

You were my classmate in the fourth and fifth grades; you were a safety patrol guard with me (does that make us patrolees?) We were in scouts together. You had black curly hair and abut the same build as I: let’s just call it solid but not fat. We played on the line for the Walnut Hill Elementary School football team. (What was the team? The little walnuts?) You and I competed in the relay race and the three legged race on field days.

Field day was just before school was out for the summer. As far as I have memory that is the last thing I remember us doing together. On the other side of the football field they had built a city swimming pool that year. You went swimming that summer and I heard later that you were found at the bottom of the pool.

Dan, I miss you.

First I will talk more of my relationship with the church and then of what I have searched for so many years. In addition to the encounters with the church described in the article there have been numerous others, it is pretty safe to say that whenever, in the first almost fifty years of my life, that I felt truly spiritually lost I probably always turned back to the Episcopal church. This was my ‘mother’ church (and my mother’s), this had a sense of being home. When I was in seminary and became dissatisfied with the conservative protestant churches it was because both of a perceived weakness in the theology and absence of any define liturgy. I mentioned that I then attended two Episcopal churches. The first being pastored by an evangelical nut case, I said that originally and now, lovingly. I was comfortable in that he was an evangelical and I being in the Baptist mindset (although trying to leave it) was not threatened. The priest was much more British Anglican than American Episcopal. The services were the old services that I knew and felt at home with. In my initial blog I wrote, “For life of me I can’t recall my thinking or my motives for this (i.e. seeking ordination).” Actually my motives were in large part because I did feel comfortable. Did I feel “called?” Not in some sense of having a vision or a strong and continuous heart felt inner tug that I should be a priest. But I was strongly seeking a place or an outlet for social service. (I have in my checkered life time done such things as to be an civil rights organizer in the sixties, run an inner city legal aid clinic, been a missionary to China, etc.) I will not claim that my attempt at ordination was completely thought out or would have provided the fulfillment that I needed in my life.

I left that church when there were internal problems that split the church for several years (problems that were not of a doctrinal nature.) The second Episcopal church can be described as the archtypical late 20th century ‘gee I wish Spong was our bishop’ church complete with cherubs dancing in the aisle. This was in the mid-eighties. Before jumping out of this church I did take the time to delve more fully, in both an intellectual and spiritual sense, into my angst. This lead me seek after that which I had decided to trace after several years earlier: the church that Jesus had planted, the church which he said, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18”

In this second part of the blog, “what I have searched for” I will state that by this time in my life I was not even considering a non-Christian alternative. I had tried alternative paths and found them lacking plus the fact that in April of 1980 I had had a very real and profound ‘Christ’ encounter that since then has left me with no doubt that only the Christian alternative was valid. I started from an intellectual perceptive. That is I went to the library and started reading the patristics, actually I even attempted to read through them chronologically (that didn’t last that long as I don’t have a lot of intellectual discipline.) Through God’s providence I was also led to attend a Orthodox service. It wasn’t long before I came to understand (believe) that one’s relationship with God is more than an intellectual ‘knowing’ or an emotional ‘feeling’ but transcends knowing and feeling: it is the soul reaching out to a God that is reaching out to you, no it is soul reaching out to a God that is already embracing you. I don’t know if I can define Orthodox any more precisely than that last sentence.

I am not going to bad mouth the Episcopal church as a denomination it is what is and for many it may be what God wants for them. It was a comfort for me and a springboard, praise be to God.

It was a nice place to be baptized in. While I certainly don’t remember mine (infant baptism) I do have a vague recollection of Lura’s, my younger sister. The church, in Longview, was not large and seemed to me to be a little dark and/or gloomy. The service was at the back of the church and the font was carved and made of wood. My parents were there as were her godparents, the Bennets. My mother was holding her through the part of the service that I remember. I think that my maternal grandmother was also there.

Speaking of my maternal grandmother it was she that made sure that I went to Sunday school when I was staying with her in the summers (I could write about that church in Navasota or describe how I would walk the last block to the church balancing on a stone wall – and driving my grandmother crazy, but that is for another time, maybe) and it was she that taught me to prayer before going to bed.

Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. God Bless, mother, father, etc. (cf Psalm 3:5 “I laid me down and slept…KJV”

By the fifth grade I was going to church on Sundays with my mother and became an acolyte. Father Westerford insisted that we have practice every Saturday was followed by some games, usually tag or the like. I was there every Saturday and Sunday although frequently my mother would drop me off and come back after the services to pick me up. For one Christmas eve service I remember fainting during the service (I had been standing with my knees locked) and having to be helped out of the sanctuary. Learning to stand without locking one’s knees stood me in good standing when I was in the Marine Corp. Anyway it was during this time that I learned some of the basic teachings of protestant Christianity. I was too young to question the Rector about his theology (and the young didn’t question their elders at that time.) In the late eighties I call Father Westerford out of the blue and he still remembered me and remembered my father as the pretty good golfer!

Fast forward about thirty years. While in seminary I became disillusioned with Baptist (and fundamental Christian) theology and was searching. For a while we attended a couple Episcopal churches, one pastored by a nut case of an evangelical Episcopal priest. It was while attending that church that I made application to be ordained a priest. (For life of me I can’t recall my thinking or my motives for this. ) Anyway after submitting the application I (along with Pam) had to under go an interview. For this we drove to Colorado Springs (from Denver) one Saturday morning and met with a woman priest. It became obvious fairly fast in the interview that since I wasn’t a transsexual or at least a homosexual or a woman and because I had gone to a conservative Baptist seminary I wasn’t going to make it. In my rejection I was told that “I didn’t fit into the broad Episcopal milieu.”

Now, in part because of this experience, no one can convince me that God ever gives us more than we can handle.

Thanks to Trellmore

If one thinks that Pátzcuaro is hot and dry they should check out the weather at Yahoo using this weather link. Right now at 1:00 p.m. in the first part of July it is 72 degrees.

So I guess what I am saying is that it is not at all like my critics think it is here. So I will end with a simple request don’t tell any travel agents about this place or they might over run it.

From this it is clear both of his books are autobiographical and he has actually written an article on the metaphysics of quality. I’ll continue the book with a new outlook