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Newsletter Message from Fr. Lawrence: ‘Kicking Until It Bleeds’

In one of his songs, Bruce Cockburn speaks of the difficulty of being

lovers (we would add “and Christians”) in a dangerous time, and he says

“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.  You got to kick

at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.”  Though the image is somewhat

lurid, Bruce is correct.


    Great Lent is about learning to kick.  Everything worth having—a

successful marriage between Christians, a vibrant prayer life, a life of

integrity in the world—all comes with a cost and a fight.  (The World,

the Flesh and the Devil will make sure of that.)  The darkness is all

around us, blinding our spiritual senses, weakening our will, making

compromise and spiritual failure easy.  We have to kick back, and kick

hard.  And repeatedly.


    That is what our Lenten fasting is about, and our attendance at

Presanctified Liturgy.  It is easy to just roll over and play dead, to

take the way the rest of the world takes, to make excuses.  But such

playing dead too often leads to becoming truly dead.  As Orthodox

disciples of Jesus, playing dead and giving up is not an option.  We are

called to live in the light, and to push back the darkness that threatens

us and those we love.  We are called to kick.  Great Lent is upon us. 

Let the kicking begin.