The claims of tradition
Thursday May 31, 2007
So, if it's understandable when society evolves to discard myths that no longer serve its perceived interests (or at least desires), why shouldn't religion be subject to the same laws of evolution? The modernist says they absolutely should; the traditionalist...
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Going a step further...God has never been nor ever will be invented. He is neither a product of any sort of imagination nor does he obey trends. The trouble with deep belief is that is costs something; it carries responsibility.
If we actually believe things, we have to do something about them.
Question for you: How can we make sacred tradition relevant to culture and the human struggle - reaching the point where lives are changed as a result?
I honestly think Christianity is past its sell-by date as a way of understanding the world. It's done an amazing amount of good in the world, and for Western Civilization in particular, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore. Do people really think Jesus will come back in Clouds of Glory to judge the Living and the Dead? I know the surveys say about 50% of Americans do expect to see this happen in their lifetime, but I wonder if maybe that's just putting on a brave face?
I don't agree with fundamentalist Christians on much, but I do agree with them that if evolution is true, then Christianity is almost certainly false. Very simply, if there was no Garden, No Tree of Knowledge, No Talking Serpent, no Fall from Grace, and no Original Sin, then there's really not much need for a Incarnate Divine Saviour, is there? If the Story of the Fall is just an allegory or myth, then why can't the Gospel accounts be similary understood as allegory and myth? I know that Catholics and mainline denominations have supposedly made their peace with Evolution a long time ago, but I think they're just making the best of a bad situation. Rod has written before on this blog about the sudden collapse of Christianity across Europe following the Second World War. I think it will happen in the U.S. before I leave this life. Maybe Islam will replace it, like in Rod's worst fever-dream nightmare. Maybe something else will replace it, I don't know. But I do think its days are numbered.
Contrary to the claims of Creationists, the Earth has indeed been around for an almost inconceivably long time. It will be around for an equally inconceivably long time after the last human being has drawn his or her last breath. If current astronomy is correct, in about another 5 billion years, the Sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel and become a red giant: expanding until it encompasses the Earth and burns it to a cinder, before collapsing back on itself and turning into a white dwarf star. And the universe will continue on as if we were never here at all.
Make of that what you will. Just my 2 , your mileage may vary, etc.
really good stuff, jaybird... thanks... what I would add at this point in time: there is still some great spiritual value in Christianity... even though its Myths are mostly mismatches with Reality... the future of Christianity will depend largely on how its great spiritual value is embraced... we Christians should be able to find a path where most of the contents are agreed upon as mythological... but where there remains a spiritual value as the mythological contents point to the Reality of God... whatever that is... no one knows... faith hope love joy peace to all...
It's not who we say Jesus is. It's whether or not we follow Him.
"Do people really think Jesus will come back in Clouds of Glory to judge the Living and the Dead?" Yeah, why not? I believe in the resurrection. And if I can swallow that camel... As far as 'reality,' the 20th century guy who really advocated the idea that Christianity had to get rid of its myths to survive and adopt a late modern scientific worldview was Bultmann, believing that 'reality' was defined as such. He's really been passed by by theologians and philosophers. Don't assume that 'reality' must mean 'empirically-verifiable reality.' Reality is a term that is up for grabs.
One may call Mr Dreher's idea here "rootless American hubris". The statement, as issued, seems to imply that there are no such things as national memories and stories that exist outside of ourselves. Mr Dreher appears to lack any understanding of the concepts enfleshed in the German word "v lkische" or the Russian word "narodnye".
Americans often believe that groups have no existence apart from the indiviuals comprising them, that we shape the stories that make up a nation's soul. A traditional European would argue the opposite point. Indeed. Mr Dreher's statement is nonsenical except in the context of the American national dialogue, which he appears to denigrate here (he may not be, but that is what the present offering appears to be). This is illustrated vividly by the striking differences between "Greek" and "Russian" Orthodoxy. Yes, we worship the same God within the same faith, but the national dialogue and experience (which is profoundly "outside" us) gives a difference as profound as the one between Tolkien's Dwarves and Elves. In reference the citation regarding Tsar Nikolai Aleksandrovich, an Orthodox Christian would say that what we believe concerning him DOES capture some of our attitude towards God. Either he is a sainted holy passionbearer or a wicked autocrat. Having been on otpust to Ganina Yama, one can guess my attitude to this. Mr Dreher perhaps has distorted his point by extreme brevity. Our national and religious attitudes are inextricably mixed, and our "stories" reflect that fact. Do not mistake me. God exists outside of all national distinctions. Our attitude to the theistic question is probably the most important one in our lives. Nevertheless, to relegate our national lives to complete insignificance, as Mr Dreher appears to do here, is without foundation. May God bless. Vo imya Gospodne blagoslovi.
Vara Drezhlo
I think we teach our children the national myths for two reasons: one, because the stories unite us as a nation, and two, because the children need heroes. A childhood spent among the debunkers and the practitioners of ironic detachment is an impoverished childhood indeed; children start separating the world into 'good' and 'evil' almost before they can say the words.
And, as Chesterton puts it, "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." But for the dragon to be killed you need a hero; and children, in their wonderfully complex simplicity, demand that their heroes be the "good guys." Later, when they are older, they learn, sometimes with quiet acceptance, sometimes with bitter revulsion, that their heroes weren't always good. Some of them, if they have learned wisdom, will come to understand that the men of history whom they were taught to revere were still men, a mixture of good and bad, nobility and baseness, bravery and fear, self-sacrifice and selfishness, just as they themselves, even at their best, are. Others, less wise, will join the chorus of those who believe that the old myths have served their turn, and it's much better never to teach children to look up to anybody than to run the risk of eventual disillusionment. Those who are wise will not remain disillusioned, though. They will find themselves once again admiring those men of the past, not because they were flawless, but despite their flaws; for, being flawed, they yet managed to do great things and earn for themselves the mantle of the hero--larger than life, symbolic in some way of the good that men may do. Should religious myths be exempt from this process? The ones that are mere myth, no. It isn't necessary to believe, as an adult, in a St. Nicholas who climbs down chimneys, after all--there is plenty to admire in the saint without that. And if St. Patrick never caused the snakes to flee Ireland, what of it? He caused a far more dangerous Enemy to lose his grip on the Emerald Isle. But when we come to the Person of Jesus Christ, we're presented with a difference. For, if Christianity is true, here is the one Hero who will cause no disillusionment, the one Victor whose victory contains no asterisks. Even His detractors can't find anything to slander Him with, though that doesn't stop the Dan Browns and James Camerons from trying. This is not the case of setting a tarnished man on a pedestal, exaggerating his virtues for schoolchildren to copy; His pedestal was the Cross, and to attempt even in our small pathetic way to copy His virtue is to set our feet on the one sure path to salvation. For those who believe Christianity is false, the tenacity with which its followers cling to their 'myth' is inexplicable. A priest I know gave a homily in which he'd mention some of the great kings and emperors and Communist dictators throughout history who've shared the belief in the inevitability of the end of the Church: they all are gone, their kingdoms crumbled, their empires shattered, their legacies broken and trampled underfoot like the fragments of the Berlin Wall; yet Christianity remains, and will remain, when the shrill imperatives of modernism have split themselves to pieces in the leaden air like a dud firecracker on the fourth of July.
"The question facing Christians now is whether or not the Christian faith should adapt itself to modern sexual mores." Rod What are you referring to by use of the word "now", Rod?
This question probably was asked soon after Christ's death, and every year since. Except for the few years involving the contraception dust up in the late sixties, your question has no particular significance for Catholics. For fringe Christians, it has some relevance, but it always did for that group, not only today. Do you have something specific in mind?
The Christian churches are breaking up over the question of sex. It's going to split the Anglican communion, for one, and all the mainline denominations are cracking up over it. The Catholic church is not going through this only because of its doctrinal structure (and thank God for it). But at the practical level, Catholics have not been spared. Priests just don't touch the subject of sexual ethics, for the most part, though there is a desperate need to explain and defend the Church's liberating teaching. I've been advised before in the confessional that my wife and I ought to use contraception. I think we all know how disinterested the Catholic clergy, in the main, is in confronting the challenge from the gay rights movement. I argue from time to time with a Catholic colleague who says the Church has no right to tell him how to live his sex life, and that I have no right to insinuate that there's anything un-Catholic about his flagrant rejection of Church teaching and authority (we had this argument over and over when I was Catholic, and we had it the other day, even though I'm Orthodox; in other words, I, the Orthodox, am defending Catholicism to a Catholic). And though I don't have enough experience to say, I'd be shocked if this question "had no particular significance" for Orthodox believers in this country. It has to do with living in modernity. At least for Catholics and Orthodox, the doctrine is safe from the innovators. But at the level of life as ordinary Americans live it, the battle rages.
Barbara-Marie, I recognize that there is such a thing as "folk memory," and that for Americans, whose country was built by people who made a radical break with their Volk by emigrating here, the concept of folk memory is largely meaningless. Nevertheless, I think that it's dangerous to spiritualize one's tribe (unless, of course, your tribe is Israel, which we know from Scripture are a people God chose to bear Him to the world, in the teachings of the Prophets and, for Christians, through Christ). Spengler has written extensively about the failure of Christianity to overcome nationalistic paganism in many cultures. I understand, and indeed have experienced, the power of an ethnic group -- a "nation" -- entwining its own history as a distinct people with its encounter with Christianity. I was impressed by the depth to which this was true among the Lebanese Maronites, for example, with whom I used to worship. But at the same time, it runs the risk of making the universal religion of Christianity into a tribal religion. The Maronites in our old church could not have been more welcoming to us, and they became our friends ... but they couldn't understand why we, as non-Lebanese, would want to pray with them. Maronite Catholic Christianity, as they experienced it, was a Lebanese thing, and had no appeal to those outside the ethnos. I've heard from US Orthodox converts that Greeks and Russians who have welcomed them into their churches are puzzled by why any non-Greek or non-Russian would bother.
I am deeply suspicious of the idea of "Holy Russia," and suchlike. True, we don't have it in America in quite the same way, but we do have a very strong streak in our national consciousness, and have had from the founding, a belief that God has set America apart for a sacred mission among the nations. Maybe He has, I don't know, but the effect this has had is to conflate America's national interests with Almighty God's. And that is blasphemy, or very close to it.
I love Erin Manning's posts.
I know. She should have her own blog ... except that would result in her posting here less.
"As far as 'reality,' the 20th century guy who really advocated the idea that Christianity had to get rid of its myths to survive and adopt a late modern scientific worldview was Bultmann, believing that 'reality' was defined as such. He's really been passed by by theologians and philosophers. Don't assume that 'reality' must mean 'empirically-verifiable reality.'" Indeed. There are numerous theologians and philosophers who've gotten passed this, one of whom is the current pope.
above 'passed' s/b 'past'....
"But when we come to the Person of Jesus Christ, we're presented with a difference. For, if Christianity is true, here is the one Hero who will cause no disillusionment, the one Victor whose victory contains no asterisks. ... This is not the case of setting a tarnished man on a pedestal, exaggerating his virtues for schoolchildren to copy; His pedestal was the Cross, and to attempt even in our small pathetic way to copy His virtue is to set our feet on the one sure path to salvation." That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read in my life. Thank you, Erin.
Jaybird, you write: "If the Story of the Fall is just an allegory or myth, then why can't the Gospel accounts be similary understood as allegory and myth?" One word: eyewitnesses.
yet Christianity remains, and will remain, when the shrill imperatives of modernism have split themselves to pieces in the leaden air like a dud firecracker on the fourth of July.
This is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I wonder if Christians sren't just putting on a brave face, so to speak. I don't doubt that the outward trappings of Christianity will be around for a long time to come yet, but as an all-encompassing worldview, it is having serious trouble maintaining authority, even among its adherents. I think Rod admits as much with his recent hand-wringing posts about "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" and the rise of "instrumentalist" faith. As he points out in his original post for this thread, most American Catholics - clergy and lay people alike - just aren't overly bothered with official Church teaching on matters of sexuality like contraception, divorce, pre-marital sex and the like.
The Barna Group just released a survey of American Christians that would seem to back this up: " It is hard to miss Americans' comfort with and interest in spirituality. Most adults say that their religious faith is very important in their life. Two-thirds of the nation s adult population firmly embraces the idea that their most important purpose is to love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength. However, a deeper look at people s full array of spiritual beliefs and behavior calls into question the sincerity of their commitment.
... David Kinnaman, who directed the study, indicated that "most Americans do not have strong and clear beliefs, largely because they do not possess a coherent biblical worldview. That is, they lack a consistent and holistic understanding of their faith. Millions of Americans say they are personally committed to Jesus Christ, but they believe he sinned while on earth. Many believers claim to trust what the Bible teaches, but they reject the notion of a real spiritual adversary or they feel that faith-sharing activities are optional. Millions feel personally committed to God, but they are renegotiating the definition of that deity.
Here's the url for that Barna study: http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=271
One wonders if "heretic" has a set of stock phrases programmed as hotkeys. "Mismatch with reality" is one that never fails to escape being included and which I really have to question. What reality is that, if I can ask? Fr. Seraphim Rose (previously discussed elsewhere in these comboxes) was fond of pointing out that for the Christian, truth is not an ideology but a person, and everything follows from that, which for me tie together "who we say Jesus is" AND "whether or not we follow Him", making them two sides of the same coin. Re: "in other words, I, the Orthodox, am defending Catholicism to a Catholic" Been there, done that. What's also fun is when you have to defend Orthodoxy to an Orthodox who want Catholicism and Orthodoxy to be more different than they are in certain areas. Richard
Rod Dreher: "So, if it's understandable when society evolves to discard myths that no longer serve its perceived interests (or at least desires), why shouldn't religion be subject to the same laws of evolution? The modernist says they absolutely should; the traditionalist says they should not." And the anthropologist, looking at the broad scope of human culture and history says they have in the past.
ScurvyOaks:Jaybird, you write: "If the Story of the Fall is just an allegory or myth, then why can't the Gospel accounts be similary understood as allegory and myth?" One word: eyewitnesses. But we don't have eyewitness accounts. At the very best, we have second-hand (and third, and fourth, and fifth-hand, etc.) accounts of eyewitness testimony. Nearly every credible (i.e. non-fundamentalist) biblical scholar agrees that that the Gospel accounts were not written by eyewitnesses to the events they describe, and were written anywhere from 30 years at the earliest (The Gospel of Mark)to 70 years (The Gospel of John) after the life of Christ. These are widely-accepted conclusions of mainstream Biblical scholarship, across many denominations, and have been for at least a century. But for the sake of argument, let's say you're right, and say the Gospels do record eyewitness accounts. So what? That doesn't neccessarily mean that they can't contain mythological elements, or that they're infallible, or even remotely true or credible. A cursory googling returns literally thousands of eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Elvis, faith healings, miracles and all other sorts of amazing signs, wonders and supernatural occurances. I'm guessing that you find such accounts similarly underwhelming.
I don't think the Gospels are on the same level as a Bigfoot sighting, but just because they purport to relate "eyewitness" accounts does not necessarily make the accounts literally true.
I'd like to discuss Rod's comments on sexual mores. The NT teaching on sexual mores were prudish, even by ancient standards. After all, they were living in the swinging Roman Empire, but came up with this ultra tough sexual code. Even monogamous marital sex was considered somewhat corrupting (the elite 144,000 mentioned in Revelation were all virgins.) So why is the Bible so tough in dealing with sexuality? It could be that the dangers of sexuality have not been fully discussed in modern circles. There are, it must be admitted, some bad aspects to sexuality. These include: the pain of infidelity, rape, pedophilia, STD's, family disintegration, etc. Sexuality,if fully pursued, may lead to obsessive/ compulsive rumination that takes the person to places no one thought they would ever go. The To Catch A Predator show filmed a segment about ten miles from my house, and they rounded up 50 pedophiles in one quick sting. Where did all this corruption come from? From excessive pursuit of fundamentalist Christianity or from the pursuit of pornography and sexual obsession?
It seems in the modern era, we've ruled out rather completely the wisdom of biblical sexual restraint. To even suggest such a compliance to the standards of the ancient book is considered laughable. The Bible would have us subdue our sexuality to liberate our spirituality, but the postmodern era has little affinity for such an approach.
Regarding one's eternal soul, what do you think will happen if technology successfully reverse engineers the human brain and is able to explain complex activities like consciousness? Note I wrote 'IF', because this is not certain to happen. Would this not cause a re-evaluation of religious faith? The reason I mention this is that it is indeed the kind of challenge that religion faces as we learn more and more about the cosmos and, especially, about ourselves: e.g. is the 'will' an embodied mechanism that can be explained by science. The larger question is: must 'life' be biologically based, or can it be technologically based? (Sorry, no definitive answer today!)
A great post, Rod.
I think that it is important to note that many Christian denominations have already moved on several issues of tradition in the past. For example, most Protestant denominations allow for divorse, and even have divorced priests and Bishops. And well into the 17th Century, it was clear Catholic teaching that earning interest on a loan is sinful. this tradition has been abandoned by all but a handful of Christian denominations. So, how do we approach tradition in modernity? It seems to me that the answer you give will depend on your view of the scriptures. If the Bible is inerrant, there is not much to discuss (except why Christians who accept this view get divorced and have mortgages despite clear scriptural prohibition against both). If, however, you accept the Bible as the inspired word of God, but also accept that it was written by fallible humans who reflected the common cultural norms of the time, the question becomes this: it this traditional teaching one that comes from fallable human beings or from God? In doing so, it seems approrpiate to use all the tools we can use--bibical scholarship, science, and yes, our modern experience.
While sexuality is important, it is a symptom of a deeper division within Christianity about revelation. What is the Bible, who authored it, and how does it apply to our lives? If you believes that the Bible contains eyewitness accounts (e.g., I Corinthians 15:6, Luke 1:1-4, John 21:24), is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and speaks authoritatively to humanity throughout the generations, you arrive at a different worldview than if you believe that the Bible is largely a human document containing the words of people striving to express their understanding of God. Who wrote the Gospels, the Epistles, etc.? A discussion about the whether and how the Bible is the inspired Word of God takes the current debate to its foundational level.
Sorry Chuck, think I was composing my post when yours went up. I would add that we should use all the modern tools at our disposal (scholarship, etc.) but to do so with humility. For example, some modern scholarship will rely on the grammatical patterns and word usage to deny authorship which is attested within early manuscripts and historical citations. Use the tools, but don't overestimate our modern capabilities.
cs, I agree one can go overboard, but discovery takes us where it takes us. The technologies of discovery I'm thinking of are: nanotechnology, biotechnology, neuroscience, computing, AI and physiology. As they reach higher levels of sophistication, they begin to feed off one another accelerating what we are able to measure and learn. Far too fast for culture to keep up!
Chuck Blanchard & "cs" seem to be getting down to it. How does Scriptural truth balance it with scientific truth? This has been an ongoing problem ever since Copernicus (the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, so our world isn't the physical center of God's creation after all. The problems of poor Galileo were only part of the scandal as its implications began to sink in).
For the past 35 years or so the hot spots have been scientific findings on sex roles and sexual orientation, working with findings by psychologists and sociologists dating back 40 years or more.
The first big challenge, the challenge I had to work with 31 years ago but still argued over today: do tests and other findings show that women are capable of acting as agents, not confined to passive receptivity, no matter what Scripture and Tradition say? Or, what ought their roles to be in modern society? Are these roles immutable? If the personhood or roles of women are built into the structure of the universe, or else not built in, can women function as priests? Today we have the controversy over the sinfulness of gay/lesbian Christians, which is like the first: how do we evaluate and weigh the "assured findings" of modern science against Scripture and Tradition?
Thus: are their conditions freely chosen, or are they inborn orientations? If inborn, since the necesssary precondition of sin is choice, are such orientations sinful in the first place? It follows, then: ought we to differentiate between gays who choose out of a gay orientatin, that is, out of the orientation God gave them, and "straights" who choose to act out in a gay fashion out of a straight orientation, that is, against the orientation God gave them? Or, as the Roman Catholics teach, might persons with gay or lesbian orientation be "objectively disordered," not sinning until they act on what their birth has conferred on them?
We aren't teaching "don't worry about obeying the teachings of God" here. Instead, we're asking, how do we obey God, given some indisputable new data?
And finally: how does the onlooker, or the Church, decide in individual instances, for instance about Bishop Robinson? And to what extent should we try to leave off judging individual gay neighbors, because there's so much we don't know about their secret hearts, but only God knows? Yes, we're talking again about the dear old Anglican three-legged stool. How do we balance our weight? Surely we need to pray about balancing, instead of yelling about it. Anglican history is full of different kinds of balance. We have hived off varieties of emphasis from the Anglican Church Catholic ever since the Calvinists left in the reign of King James and set up a variety of pure churches of their own. Please let's not do that any more.
I'm with ChuckDFW regarding future advances in some areas of science. I think that as we peer deeper into brain biology we're going to be in for quite a few shocking surprises about how we actually think and make decisions.
Perhaps, Mr Dreher, your reply is disstorted by its brevity. You do not believe in the concept of "Holy Russia"? In what way? That there was sanctity in Rus' is beyond question. Are you saying that Russian Orthodoxy is tainted by nationalism? Are you arguing that the Maronite and Russian situatons are completely analagous? There are many historical differences. Perhaps, you are making your decison based upon your experience in Orthodox parishes here in the US. If you were to go to Russia, you would see a Church that is concerned with spreading the truth of Christianity to all. To give an instance, a recent Interfax report quoted the prominent Islamocist Roman Silantyev. He states hat out of the 14.5 million people of traditional Muslim nationalities have converted to Orthodoxy (some 14% of the total). This appears to unseat your submission, sir. Besides, the lack of a national conversation in the US may only be apparent. I agree with Samuel Huntington that there is a distinctive American culture, and this culture is being put at crisis by the present imbrolgio over immigration. Like it or no, Spanish is not the language of the American conversation. Like it or no, there are many who have an voiceless (yet, very real) sense of their Americanness. There is a vast difference between the American national conversationn (which, I posit exists) and the tenets of American Suburbanite Materialism. I fear that you are confusing the latter with the former.
Do take care, may God bless, Vara Drezhlo
cs "While sexuality is important, it is a symptom of a deeper division within Christianity about revelation." that's good analysis... the base is so-called "revelation"... and... as is known that there have been many claims of revelations in many parts of the world over thousands of years... is it reasonable to think that the only "true" revelation is from a small tribe in the Middle East about 2 to 3 thousand years ago? as Rod quotes "... Tolkien's line... explaining Christianity in a nutshell: a myth that's true."... it seems that the majority worldview is that it is not literally true... and that seems to be a growing opinion based on the increasing knowledge and understanding of the world... and actually, going back to the base, there is no strong evidence that "revelation" is a real part of the world... it's an idea invented in ancient times... it lacks any reasonable explanation for why it is a true idea... meanwhile, there is good reason to think that ancient persons put their imaginations to use and claimed that the voices-in-their-heads were from God... "revelation" is a traditional idea... but tradition does not guarantee that it is a match with Reality... the general idea of "revelation" is a myth that is most likely not true... faith hope love joy peace to all...
"Going a step further...God has never been nor ever will be invented. He is neither a product of any sort of imagination nor does he obey trends." I'd say that this is a true statement. I believe it as well. However, although God may not have been invented, all religions were, invented by human beings to explain their universe. In that way, all religions are myths, all can be considered truth from the POVs of their adherents. I all comes down to faith, which does not depend on proof. Maybe the religion you are in is not the one you should be in, if it doesn't coincide with what you feel to be truth. Maybe, instead of changing what others find comforting, you should find another that fits you better.
I sure like that quote and your first three and a half sentences... then: "... all can be considered truth from the POVs of their adherents." but not from the POV of God... which is a way to define Reality... and though we can't know Reality with any certainty... ideas that appear to be mismatches with Reality should be rejected... and... since Religions appear to be mismatches with Reality... there should be changes so that all the supernatural mismatches are no longer considered to be real history... in this way, by acknowledging the mythology of the supernatural stories, Religion doesn't have to be rejected as out of touch with Reality... so the great spiritual value, mixed in with all the Myth, doesn't have to be missed by persons who would otherwise reject the whole thing because of the unreliable supernatural stories... faith hope love joy peace to all...
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