http://blog.kevinbasil.com Decimation & Reconstruction: a weblog Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:08:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en O Lord and master of my life! Dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk! Prostration. Instead, give me the spirit of prudence and humility, of patience and charity. Prostration. Yes, my king and Lord, let me look at my own sins and refrain from judging others: For ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/02/23/prayer-of-saint-ephrem-2/ Fr Ted Bobosh has some excellent background on fasting and what it means in the twenty-first century: Fasting: Curbing the Desires of the Heart. I love that the rules for fasting were originally meant to curb ascetical showmanship and place fasting in a communal context of discipline and obedience. http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/02/15/fastings-backstory/ We have been thrust out of the garden of paradise for our failure to see God through his creation. The world was meant to be transparent, a crystal clear window through which we saw God in all his splendor. Instead, we made the world an idol, and it became opaque. ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/02/14/expulsion/ I wish I could spend my time posting delicious recipes of our family's fasting menu. Instead, I'll be struggling with providing three different diets to my family (mine, [my eldest daughter]'s and everyone else's which includes some serious Asperger's-related food aversion issues). I guess I'll write about the struggle. It's ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/02/13/lenten-meditation-i-on-the-purpose-of-the-fast/ sung at Psalm 50(51) In Tone VIII: Open the gates of repentance for me, O giver of life, * for at early morning my spirit seeks your holy temple * though the temple of my body remains defiled. * In your compassion, cleanse it with your loving kindness and your mercy. Direct me ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/01/25/hymns-for-lent/ It has been almost a week since the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Carrefour (car-FOO), Haiti, just southwest of Port-au-Prince, the capital. I suspect that my church's charitable organization is funneling funds to other charities with resources on the ground in Haiti; this is good but not exactly efficient. With ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/01/19/haiti-relief/ Troparion, Tone I When you were baptized in the Jordan, O Lord, * the worship of the Trinity was revealed to the world. * For the voice of the Father witnessed to you by calling you his beloved Son, * and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2010/01/06/1076/ Please forgive me, dear readers. My email form has been borken for quite some time now, and I totally never knew it. It's fixed now. http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2009/11/13/fixed-email-form/ TRIGGER WARNING This article, or pages it links to, contains information about sexual assault and/or violence against women which may be triggering to survivors. Senator Al Franken, the junior senator from Minnesota and Saturday Night Live alumnus, recently introduced an amendment to the defense spending bill currently being debated in Congress. ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2009/10/17/rape-nuts/ A friend of mine from college posted a note on Facebook (which I will not repeat in its entirety) which wondered if there was an answer to the following dilemma, posed by Penn Gillette (of the comic magic act Penn & Teller): "'If God, however you believe God, communicated to ... http://blog.kevinbasil.com/2009/09/08/penns-dilemma-for-jason/