Another Big Fat Coptic Wedding

I'm posting some photos of our wedding last Saturday Jan 20th. More to come (my uncle Andy is lightening some that are a bit too dark)

(I use the word "another" in deference to the first "Big fat Coptic Wedding" site)
http://www.ourbigfatcopticwedding.com/


Also we had a really nice honeymoon here (unfortately we didn't really get around to trying to snap shots till the end and they didn't turn out due to a low battery on Gina's camera), but through the magic of the internet you can get an idea of what Solvang looks like with sites like this one.

http://totalescape.com/destin/all_towns/solvang.html

Blog Plan's

We'll a few minutes ago I posted this

"I think I'm going to be disengaging from the online discussion world. I got other things I want to do and work on... Thanks all for visiting here!" But I've had some second thoughts.... (I'm actually really interested in doing Bible study and commentary and that is one of the things I really want to do with my time in the future).

So anyway I guess I'm going to try that. This is something that I did try before, but seemed to flop (almost no apparent interest). I was however encouraged by this post from "The Jolly Blogger"


Blog Posting Frequency Doesn't Matter Anymore
http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/jollyblogger/


Anyway I'm going to probably be reformating this blog in the future.

Blogos

Come visit Blogos, the Blog of our own multi-talented church deacon, Anthony Aboseif. This is probably the real SuperCoptofragelistic blog (Since he's a cradle and very, very active in the Church).

http://blog.aboseif.com/

"You are a Lutheran: 18 things you didn't know you believed"

I found this piece while looking at the internet and decided to file it away... Because I have Lutheran parents and just know they would describe some of these things as "Catholic" (in the bad sense of the word), especially if they saw me do or advocate them! Anyway its worth looking at if you have any Lutheran friends you discuss spiritual matters with in real or online life.

http://orrologion.blogspot.com/2006/02/you-are-lutheran-18-things-you-didnt.html

More

More pics

another of Gina and I, and one of Gina with roomate Eileen (hope I spelled that right)

Initial ring blessing pics


We had the blessing of the rings ceremony yesterday. So we are ceremonially official. Many of the pics didn't turn out, I'm having a friend work on some that are too dark, so will post more later

Micheal Jordan endorses Holy Chocolate!

I just got the word from Fr. Stan that Michael Jordan endorses our product, although I don't have a quote yet.

He had a funny joke to go with the news, "Here is a man who I can say I walked a mile in his shoes!" (Stan use to by the "Air Jordan" shoe)

(Christiainity today article)

Delighted by doctrine

Historian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006) thought theology was too important to be left to the theologians.

When Jaroslav Pelikan died at age 82 on May 13, 2006, the world of Christian scholarship lost its greatest living advocate and the best church historian America has ever produced. Words like "greatest" and "best" are frequently used in a loose manner simply to say something nice about someone—but in the case of Jary, as his friends called him, they are really true.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2006/003/2.43.html

Currently looking for these

but looking for something less expensive (this set which I like is over $500!, because it plated with real gold. I would like to get something like this that is however completely fake and for a small fraction of that cost..... So anyway if anyone has any good leads let me know!)

I Believe in Phlifterofftenopf!



"The Jolly Blogger" made me laugh this morning! It's stuff like this and some of his insightful and more serious articles that keep me coming back to that blog. This post should make those familar with the movement laugh (unless they are uber supporters that is), and will show some of the more cradle Orth viewers some of the bizarre logic that is present in contemporay Evangelicism.


David Fairchild from Kaleo Church San Diego and The Peregrine Pastor interviewed Dieter about the new "technoemergent rev." Apparently David asked a bunch of questions which Dieter answered through a combination of mime and sign language. These answers were then analyzed and interpreted and sent to David. Here is one section of Dieter's thoughts:

(Clickenzie Der Peregrine pastor Linken!) :)

Holy Chocolate shuts out the competition in Hot Chocolate shoot out, of "Cookie Magazine"

Don't think there's an online story (At least not yet). But we just received the news that we were reviewed by this magazine and won.


http://www.cookiemag.com/magazine

"A Well Spoken and ForthrightTestimony"

I read some Orthodox testimonies recently and ran acrossed this articulate bit of testimony.....


"Doubt Unspoken

In the heights of my faith there have been strong streaks of doubt and questioning. Is the Bible really the Word of God? Did Jesus really do the things claimed for him in the Gospels? Are we completely wrong? After all, we don't hesitate to declare everyone else wrong. Some Christians, in an effort to sustain their reputation in Church, simply show unflinching doubt towards the world. When confronted by a pained Christian conscience, they simply say, "Don't worry about it. God has a wonderful plan for your life! The answers will come later." Comfort. But, as with Job's helpers, there are underlying messages. Pity that your faith is so weak. One day it may be as strong as my own.

Honest searchers, still committed to their churches, smile and carry on, finding what they can in the diet of books on offer. Some questioners, rebuffed by other believers, lose faith altogether. It is no secret, for example, that a sizeable number of secular humanists in America were once committed Southern Baptists.

This tension is also seen in our forms of church worship. Whether we realise it or not, our attitude and assumptions are lived out when we assemble. Sitting from a piano stool, leading worship, I have tried to understand what is going on. Although there is a great variety and style within Evangelical worship, whether it be Lutheran hymns or Charismatic choruses, common assumptions run throughout most of it.

In the worship of the hymn, our faith is found cerebral, celebrating the systematic theology of the Reformers in well measured stanzas, expressions that approach a reflection of the natural order of the world. The exposition of the Word of God as sung, regardless if comprehended, offers an assurance that we are squarely in the realm of Romans and thoroughly understand the mechanics of justification and sanctification.

In the worship of the chorus, the passion of our relationship with God is expressed in full rawness as we encounter the Divine. Through a liberation of the emotions we enter beyond the veil, us and God, face to face and soul to soul.

And, of course, there are mixes of these two styles which criss-cross our churches. Many examples go beyond these admitted stereotypes.

What undergirds both of these styles of worship is an assumption that we personally approach God and His Truth without veils. For the hymnodist, we sing the words of the Bible and its message, directly participating in Words of God. For the Charismatic, we directly touch and feel the presence of God through a worship of heightened emotion. Both of these forms of worship are incredibly beautiful and creative. Yet the way we do it commonly assumes, not always, but most times, an approach to God that has gone beyond the barrier experienced by other less fortunate souls. Instead of the ritual and tradition of Catholics, we know God personally. Our worship is different than anyone else because we have gone beyond the veil.

For those of us in an intense Evangelical community, to question whether our worship really is a direct connection to God or His Truth is to question the relation of the entire community to God. Rightfully so, for if an Israelite had dared challenge aspects of the liturgy surrounding the Temple, he too would have been seen as questioning the position of Israel as the people of God.
Our worshipful insistence on our personal relationship with God makes it difficult to admit we really don't know God on the level we claim. Most of us grope in the dark yet are compelled to talk about a daily walk with God that is as familiar as that with our best friends. For all our effort to know God, we often have a closer and more personal relationship with each other. But we are part of a community who confess direct access to Truth. If a person would simply be objective and honest enough with the Bible, they would see things the same way is one of our implied attitudes."

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/kalvesm1.aspx

The Benbow Inn

Stan turned me on to this place, as a potential honeymoon spot. He thinks they might carry our chocolate, and if so might "give me a good deal" (In the hospitality and food industry merchants tend to give freebies and discounts to other merchants and professionals that they do business with).

Anyway this place seems like it pretty highly rated if you read reviews from some Northern California papers and critics (like San Francisco Examiner).

http://www.benbowinn.com/benbow_inn.html

(So good it's worth quoting the whole section of this chapter) "The Composition and Structure of the Eucharistic Community as Reflections of Catholicity", John D. Zizioulas

"With such a view of the eucharistic community in the background it would have been impossible for the composition and the structure of this community to be different from what it actually was in the first two centuries. A different composition and structure would mean a different ecclesiology. It is, therefore, important for us in order to understand this ecclesiology, especially as it concerns the aspect of "catholicity" to bear in mind this composition and structure.

As a combination of the existing fragmentary liturgical evidence of the first few centuries allows us to know, the "whole Church", "dwelling in a certain city" would "come together" mainly on a Sunday to "break bread". This synaxis would be the only one in that particular place in the sense that it would include the "whole Church". This fact, which is not usually noted by historians, is of paramount ecclesiological significance, for it immediately draws the line of demarcation between the Christian and non Christian pattern of unity at the time of the early Church.

Coming together in brotherly love was certainly not a Christian innovation. In the Roman empire it was so common to form associations that there was need to form special laws concerning such associations signified under under the name of collegia. The brotherly love which prevailed among the members of them of the collegia was so strong and organized that each one of them would contribute monthly to a common fund and would address the others members by the title "brethren" (fratres, sodales. socii). Apart from the pagans, the Jews who lived in the Roman Empire were also organized into special communities with an athnarch and their brotherly love was so strong that in special groups like the Essenes, it was based on principles of common property. To speak, therefore, of the unity of the early Christians in termsof brotherly love would be to miss the unique point of this unity and perhaps even to expose the comparison from which it would certainly not gain much especially in light of such evidence as that provided by texts like Gal. 5:5, 1 Cor. 11:21, etc. !

Zizioulous nuggets 2) The "Catholic" nature of the Church (meaning both the overall "Universal" Church and simultaneous a local body of believers)


"Already in the book of the Didache in the later first or early second century the idea was clearly expressed that in the celebration of the eucharist the Church experiences that which is promised for the Parousia, namely the eschatalogical unity of all in Christ: "Just as this loaf was scattered all over the mountains and having been made one, so let the Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth in your Kingdom." This conviction was not irrelevant in the application of the term "catholic Church" to the local community. It was a clear indication that, although the catholicity of the Church is ultimately an eschatological reality, it's nature is revealed and realistically apprehended here and now in the eucharist. The eucharist understood primarily not as a thing and an objectified means of grace but as an act and a synaxis of the local Church, a "catholic" act of a "catholic" Church, can, therefore, be of importance in any attempt to understand the catholicity of the Church.