Admit that the waters around you have grown

Discussion in 'Spirit Daily and Spirit Digest' started by Krizevac, Jan 11, 2014.

  1. Krizevac

    Krizevac Archangels

    http://www.pravmir.com/the-times-they-are-a-changin/

    The Times They Are A-Changin’
    Fr. Lawrence Farley Jan 6th, 2014 // Comments are off for this post

    Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. Recently I came across a news story that had everything: patriarchal men facing off against earnest feminists who were protesting male oppression and church traditionalism. The story had liberated sexuality, violence, and people screaming in frustration who couldn’t take it any more. It had a conference of 17,000 who gathered at the annual the National Meeting of Women in San Juan, Argentina to discuss violence, gender issues and abortion rights. It had a burning effigy of the Pope, surrounded by crowds chanting slogans. It even had topless women. A journalist’s dream. Why then has it not been all over the news? After all, you can blur the topless parts. Who wouldn’t eat up a story about earnest feminists assembling to discuss and denounce male oppression who find themselves confronted by horrid patriarchal men from the church?

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    Maybe because the horrid patriarchal men from the church weren’t the ones doing the confronting. It was the women who were doing the confronting, going topless and storming the Roman Catholic cathedral in Podomos, Argentina, the city where the conference was held, to inflict damage upon it in the name of their cause. Last year 500 tried to storm the cathedral. This year it was 7000 feminist troops who tried to storm the building. You can read all about it here, including watching a brief news video.

    In anticipation of this year’s storming, 1500 turned up to defend their San Juan cathedral from damage. The men linked arms in a ring outside to prevent entry. The women responded by going topless, shouting obscenities, molesting them, spitting at them, and spray-painting the faces and bodies of the men. Yep, spray-painting, mostly their faces and crotches, some with Nazi symbols. Oh, and chanting too. What would a feminist protest be without chanting? In this case they chanted, “To the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, who wants to get between our sheets, we say that we want to be whores, transvestites and lesbians! Legal abortion in every hospital!”

    Wow. Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up. What were the men doing when all this physical abuse against their bodies was going on? They were praying the Rosary. Some were weeping.

    White bearded oldsters like me may be reminded of a line from Bob Dylan: “There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’. It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin’.” Dylan was of course talking about something else entirely (and something then much needed), but the pertinent martial imagery is irresistible when looking for words to describe the current situation. The times they are a-changin’. I have, of course, no crystal ball with which to foretell the future. I cannot tell whether or not the violence accompanying this Conference (which I assume left the organizers of the Conference and the majority of its attendees properly appalled) will continue to escalate as the numbers seem to suggest. It could be that future sessions of such feminist conferences will be happy peaceful affairs, in which quiet thoughtful (and fully-clothed) women ask their Christian male friends to sit down at the table of serenity and joint-dialogue. But I am not betting our church’s building fund on it.

    The issue of course is larger than this annual women’s conference, or even about feminist movements in general. Rather the issue is the increasing hostility with which Christians are regarded throughout the world. If you doubt that “hostility” is the right word to use here, ask yourself why this story was not front-page in your town. The media does not want to portray Christians as victims. Everybody knows that Christians are the big, bad guys. Christians have already been designated as The Oppressors, and so cannot ever qualify as The Oppressed. And since the men being oppressed, molested, spit upon, and abused in San Juan were Christians, the media clearly thought that it was better to simply suppress the story entirely. Thus whether one looks at the determination to eliminate opposition to the Gay Rights movement in Russia (much reported), or the escalating incidents of persecution and even martyrdom of Christians throughout the world (much under-reported), the times are a-changin’ for the disciples of Jesus Christ who still cling to the traditional Faith once delivered to the saints. It is, I suppose, to be expected. St. Paul warned us in 2 Thess. 2:3 that before the End a great rebellion would occur. Even if this rebellion turns out not to be that rebellion, St. Paul’s words still apply, for he also warned us that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Some may decry this is alarmist. I rather regard the situation as properly alarming.

    At the very least one needs to open one’s eyes wide enough to see that “there’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’”. The battle, however, is not new. It is the timeless and perennial struggle between darkness and light, between the Church and the World. Byzantium and the post-Byzantine era, in both east and west, gave us a bit of a break from it, but that break is now over. The times they are a-changin. Let us take up the full armor of God, that we may be able to resist and stand our ground in the evil day.

    Source: Orthodox Christian Network

    Come gather 'round people
    Wherever you roam
    And admit that the waters
    Around you have grown
    And accept it that soon
    You'll be drenched to the bone
    If your time to you
    Is worth savin'
    Then you better start swimmin'
    Or you'll sink like a stone
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    Come writers and critics
    Who prophesize with your pen
    And keep your eyes wide
    The chance won't come again
    And don't speak too soon
    For the wheel's still in spin
    And there's no tellin' who
    That it's namin'
    For the loser now
    Will be later to win
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    Come senators, congressmen
    Please heed the call
    Don't stand in the doorway
    Don't block up the hall
    For he that gets hurt
    Will be he who has stalled
    There's a battle outside
    And it is ragin'
    It'll soon shake your windows
    And rattle your walls
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    Come mothers and fathers
    Throughout the land
    And don't criticize
    What you can't understand
    Your sons and your daughters
    Are beyond your command
    Your old road is
    Rapidly agin'
    Please get out of the new one
    If you can't lend your hand
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is
    Rapidly fadin'
    And the first one now
    Will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin'.
     
  2. miker

    miker Powers

     

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