Spartan or ?

Several years, in commenting on the decor, our lack thereof, in my classroom, the principal at the school at which I was teaching, labeled me as "spartan" in my approach to decorating.  That didn't seem like a bad thing to me at the time, but now looking back I don't believe he was exactly accurate.
The idea of being Spartan is about non extravagance.  It's about living with only what is necessary.  It's about no frills.  While those types of things were true about me, the motivation is what was different.
One big aspect of Orthodoxy is that of focusing on the eternal and disregarding the temporal, worldly and trite.  As we continue in our sanctification, we fight against the desire of the flesh to rule over us.  We are striving to continually deepen our relationship with Christ, to the point of minimizing ourselves and becoming more like Christ.
This is one reason why the Eucharist is so important and central to our faith.  The Eucharist is communion with God.  The more we center our lives around the life of the Church, the closer we will draw into Christ.
Probably the most difficult aspect of trying to be "Spartan" is trying to figure what it means for you, and learning to see our own weaknesses.  It's easy to see the weaknesses in others, but much more difficult to see ourselves.

Missionaries?

In a recent conversation with a co-worker, he shared with me that he had recently spent two months in Romania doing missionary work.  I smiled politely and listened to his story.  After a short period, something very unusual occurred to me.  I have to wonder what Protestants (in this instance, Baptists) are thinking.  The country of Romania, before, during and after its overthrow by Soviet communism, remained an Eastern Orthodox country.  Being 92,000 sq miles, it contains over 300 monasteries.  That's one monastery for every 300 sq miles.  That is nothing short of amazing.
So I ask myself, what do the Protestants think they are doing?  Sending Protestant missionaries into Romania is like sending Mc Donalds into France.  Is it food? Kind of.  But what is the point?

A fundamental and foundational problem of epic and universal proportions

    I am going to argue that vanity is most likely the biggest problem within Christianity today. I am not arguing that it is the most serious problem, but it is universal and spares no one.
     The way the current problem stands looks something like this.  Visit any church and observe what the high school and college girls are wearing.  Then look at the young mothers, the middle age women and the older women.  What you are going to observe is that all of these women dress according to the standards of the world.  They are wearing what's cute, what's fashionable, what's attractive, and what draws the attention. The problem with this is that all of these things are immediately contrary to the Christian faith.  Show me in Scripture or the writings of the Church fathers or monasticism where this kind of thinking about appearance is encouraged.
     We cannot think like the world.  We must not think like the world.  As followers of Christ we must be different from the world.  If nothing else, this should at least be seen in our thinking.  We must be able to articulate why we do the things we do, in regards to our appearance, amongst other things.  This includes clothing, makeup, hairstyle, etc.
     I am not going to argue for any one particular standard or set appearance, but i am going to argue for the necessity of having a well thought out and supported position.  What has the Church historically said about clothing and appearance?  What do the church fathers say about this?  What do the monastics say about this?
     Some could argue that I need to mind my own business and not concern myself with things that others might not even see as sinful.  But we need to move beyond self- centeredness.  When I go to church, I may need to answer to my children as to why someone is dressed a certain way.  It's a shame that I cannot go to a church picnic without having to be concerned with seeing someone’s half naked body.  If someone has to continually be attentive to the way they sit or move, because someone may see up or down somewhere otherwise, that is a serious problem.
     Our children are our responsibility.  We must train them up to think like Christ.  If their concern is gaining the attention of some young man who is looking for a pretty wife, then we have failed to train them in choosing a godly spouse.  Our young men ought to be looking for a wife that is striving after godliness, humility, chastity and charity, not looking pretty.
     Vanity is vanity is ungodliness.  And if we are training our daughters to work towards being pretty, then we have failed them.

Consideration of President Putin

     I just came across this photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin venerating (kissing) an icon of the Theotokos (Mary the Mother of God) in the presence of the Patriarch of Russia.  This photo alone should give us some pause and consider just what kind of man he is.  For the Orthodox Christian, to see the President of Russia offering such veneration to the Mother of God is extremely moving.  At least for me it is.
     When is the last time we have seen Obama doing anything even remotely religious?

Creating worlds

Recently I read about the motivating factors behind the roots of Christian monasticism.  Christians who were very serious about their faith couldn't or didn't want to be in a fallen world any longer.  To put it more precisely, these Christians saw how when Christianity became legal, it became very easy to be a believer and the faith was becoming watered down and polluted, so they left the world and went into the desert to work out their salvation, praying for the world and fighting against sin.  In a very real sense, they re-created their world according to what they thought should be.
In our current day, and in many times throughout the past, those who were very wealthy would set up their worlds according to the standards they desired.
The rest of us, all throughout time and even today, do our very best to create our world in the fashion we desire but are much more limited in our available time and money.
What does this all mean?  Success or failure in this endeavor doesn't ensure right or wrong.  We must use the direction of the Christian faith as seen in Scripture and the Church to create our world the best we can.  And we must work at it, hard, as an effort of faithfulness. We must not follow the easy or comfortable path.

Practical

The practical implications of culture.  The culture in which we live is formed by the faith we actually practice.  Thus the world currently around us is Protestantism run out to its end.
With that thought in mind, we can ask and answer the following question.  Why has every culture since the formation of the Christian faith, failed? Every single culture: Protestant, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox has failed and degenerated.  Why?
I want to start with the idea of consistentsy.  None of us are perfectly consistent in the living out of our faith.  We make mistakes, we make bad choices, bad decisions and bad things often result from our sin.  This is true in the individual and true on a large scale in a culture.
But the thing to realize is the fruit, the end result of any system of thought or religious belief. We can see the end result of a consistent practice of Protestantism is standing before us, the United States of America.  That which makes up the core foundation of Protestant thought, that is, self as final authority, is fleshed out to a logical end in America.  America is Protestantism.
The failures we see in Roman Catholic countries and cultures is truly of the same form, just simply with a different emphasis.  The Roman Catholic Church declared itself superior to and independent of the other patriarchates of the historic church.  In doing so, in setting up a single individual as the final authority, the Roman church rebelled against the Church as a whole.  In essence, they were setting themselves up as the final authority. Thus the countries and cultures that grew from that way of thinking would eventually become like the parent, self identifying as authoritative.  And in doing so, would deviate from the historic faith, having no legitimate authority over them to protect them.
But what about those Eastern Orthodox countries and cultures that have fallen?  I would argue that these cultures have fallen or declined either through inconsistent faith (i.e., thinking and acting like Protestants), or are being treated and tried to further strengthen their faith. 
The last one may sound like a begging of the question, but we do see this explanation given in Scripture as an explanation for hardship.  God has never promised us an easy life.  To the contrary, the path of faithfulness is extremely difficult.
So practically speaking, the culture in which we find ourselves is going to either be faithful to the faith or not.  Either way, we are responsible to live our lives as ones denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Christ.  This means constantly repenting, constantly examining ourselves and dealing with all our weaknesses, finding and getting up each time we fall.  Ours is a life of perpetual salvation.

Hearing the critique

It seems that most people don't like conflict or confrontation.  Don't rock the boat, don't get into anyone's face, don't talk about religion or politics, seem to be the standing rules, unless you are a talk show host or a musician. 
But in the case that someone fails to follow these unspoken conventions, our best response is to hear them.  We don't have to believe them, but we should take their words at face value and consider what they say.  A critique, given from any perspective, with whatever intent, can be helpful to our sanctification.  It very well could be that others see things in us that we don't see.  A different perspective may reveal our blindspots.
In the case that the critique is unfounded and not legitimate, we can disregard it and love the person anyway.  Their words give us an opportunity to love the unlovely.
Let's make the most of any situation, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be.  We might learn something from it.