God and Chess pie cookies at Steve's Deli
This past Thursday something new happened in Jackson, MS. Two Orthodox priests, Fr. Paul Yerger, and Fr. John Henderson took time to talk about God and man at Steve's Downtown Deli. Oh yes, and there were chess pie cookies too, and fountain drinks. The combination of all the above contributed to a profitable time body and soul for all who attended...and it was well attended, only a very few uninhabited seats in this bright little blue and burnt orange shoebox of an eatery.
The standout moment for me was when Fr. John read a quote of St. Sophrony from "His Life is Mine" on the nature of man as he was created to be. The archemandrite said, "The Creator of the universe rejoiced more over man than over the glorious choir of heavenly bodies. Man is more precious than all the rest of the cosmos. Man, completed and perfected, is wondrous, even as God is wondrous. He is immortal and supra-cosmic. He is more than a microcosm - he is a microtheos. For the eternal Logos of the Father to be made flesh 'in the likeness of man' (Phil. 2:7) means that, with the gift of His love, man in turn may become like God."
It made me rethink some comments I've made recently regarding the tragedy of abortion. I had presented a short argument on a Christian forum against abortion grounded on things like the potential good, even greatness lost directly or indirectly from descendants of those untimely taken, the late Ethyl Waters, a child concieved when her own mother as a child not yet 13 years of age was raped, being my example. And while those considerations are certainly valid to the broader argument they miss by a hair something far more central. To argue from the good that may be lost in the life of the one aborted is arguing about utilitarianism. A person should live on the chance that they or one of their descendants might do great good...or even a little more good than average for that matter. But this is not right. Human life is not precious because it may produce some social utility down the road. It is precious for the reasons Archemandrite Sophrony gave in the quote above. Human life matters intrinsicly because we are made in the image of God.
The standout moment for me was when Fr. John read a quote of St. Sophrony from "His Life is Mine" on the nature of man as he was created to be. The archemandrite said, "The Creator of the universe rejoiced more over man than over the glorious choir of heavenly bodies. Man is more precious than all the rest of the cosmos. Man, completed and perfected, is wondrous, even as God is wondrous. He is immortal and supra-cosmic. He is more than a microcosm - he is a microtheos. For the eternal Logos of the Father to be made flesh 'in the likeness of man' (Phil. 2:7) means that, with the gift of His love, man in turn may become like God."
It made me rethink some comments I've made recently regarding the tragedy of abortion. I had presented a short argument on a Christian forum against abortion grounded on things like the potential good, even greatness lost directly or indirectly from descendants of those untimely taken, the late Ethyl Waters, a child concieved when her own mother as a child not yet 13 years of age was raped, being my example. And while those considerations are certainly valid to the broader argument they miss by a hair something far more central. To argue from the good that may be lost in the life of the one aborted is arguing about utilitarianism. A person should live on the chance that they or one of their descendants might do great good...or even a little more good than average for that matter. But this is not right. Human life is not precious because it may produce some social utility down the road. It is precious for the reasons Archemandrite Sophrony gave in the quote above. Human life matters intrinsicly because we are made in the image of God.
posted by Seraphim | 12:03 PM
1 Comments:
Gourds? You must have been fishing about in the the "about me" section.
What to say. they are great for all kinds of utilitarian and artistic crafting. So I suppose one could talk about the different things of use and beauty that can be made from them...or one could talk about issues of horticulture, how to grow them...that sort of thing.
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