Must One be Paleo?

Padwon was concerned about how to unplug the church from the Matrix. Must we become paleo? The answer is a qualified yes. Part of our captivity is due to our inability to see beyond our own cultural (or sub-cultural) shackles.

To be paleo is not to be attracted to 'all things musty and dusty,' it is to breathe in the wisdom of the ancients. You are right in saying that even the earliest Christian communities were in turmoil. However, the 'church' is not only the present day pew-sitter of a given era, it is the people from all times and all places whose primary calling in life was to be a light shining in the darkness. As Fr. Maximos says in Markides book The Mountain of Silence, "While we are in the dark not only do we assume that it is the natural state of things but that it is also beautiful."

The church will always be filled with sinners redeemed by Christ. But there are those among us and those before us who saw the darkness for what it was, not as something beautiful, or as the natural state of things, but a mere shadow of the Eternal City. These are the ones we should listen to. These are the ones who bid us to come back to our original intent--continuous contemplation of the One--that we are so full of the light of the One, that the Church, and hence the world are forever changed.