Original Sin: Are You Hiding From God?

If you've never seen R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated I urge you to give it a look,
it's amazing.
http://bit.ly/Uj7Wf5

Genesis 3:7-13

Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron-like girdles. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and woman hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of You [walking] in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. And the Lord God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me—she gave me [fruit] from the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.

 So, HEY, everybody ! and Welcome to Lent 2013 ! Sew, even though Ash Wednesday CAN fall as early as February 4, it sure seems like it snuck up on us this year. 

I realised in cobbling this post why my writing always seems so rushed.

"I believe my head is so big  because it's filled with dreams." The Elephant Man

"That's why her hair is so big ... it's full of secrets ..."Mean Girls

There's so much I want to say. There is so much i THINK i know, there is so much i'm SURE i know, there is so much i want to SHARE ! "i'm a givvah, i give." Like in this quote from Genesis:

1. I want to talk about "apron-like girdles";
2. I want to talk about "Lord" "God", their meanings and etymologies, common understandings and uses;
3. How much I GET MY LIFE from the image of the "Lord" "God" walking "in the cool of the day" ... just before sunrise and just before sunset have ALWAYS been my favourite times of day, I think they're absolutely mystical and Jewish scholars tells us, especially on Sabbath,  that, when kindling the Sabbath candles, a woman holds the power of the universe; as a woman kindles candles in her home, candles are kindled in the divine realm, symbolizing the union and harmony between heaven and earth that is achieved on Shabbat.
4. I want to point out, in Genesis THU-REE ! the Original Blame Game, which I think is HILArious: God is all, "Did you do this?" and A-dom is all, "THIS woman YOU gave ME ! !  ..."

But antyway, back to the post:

One of the things I absolutely GET MY LIFE from is better to me than any Ofrah AH! HA! moment ... it's that moment when you're listening to or reading Scripture and someone offers a different slant on a moldy old passage that  you NEVER thought of before, you NEVER HEARD of before ... something that literally shakes your brain and causes you to think in an entirely different direction, waking you to a world filled with new colours and vistas. This happened to me last night at our Ash Wednesday service. I know almost everyone thinks they have the greatest, smartest, bestest Rector on the planet, but I gotta tell ya, we sure do, and between her and our other priests we have some of the FINEST preaching on earth. 

Her sermon isn't up on the website yet, but, in essence, what Mother said was this: Perhaps it was not disobedience which was Original Sin, as obedience is something which must be learned; perhaps Original Sin was HIDING FROM GOD.  I want to point out that I TROOLEY do not believe God is angry at the beginning of this passage at all. I think God is all like, <Where ARE you> ... all gentle like, and then angry at the circumstance ... <What the hell are you doing? Why are you HIDING from ME? WHO TOLD ! you you were naked, you're BEAUTIFUL ! that's why i MADE you this way ! WHO TAUGHT YOU SHAME ?!?!?! i don't WANT you to know shame, I want you to walk in the beauty of my LOVE for you ! !> (auntie dasch translates it all for you tee hee)

Let's face it: <Even the darkness hides nothing from God...for God did knit [us] together in [our] mother’s womb.> Do we think anything we think or do or say is a SURPRISE to God? Do we think God doesn't know what's going on in our spirit? in our heart? in our mind? Let's make a Lenten pact: that we take EVERYthing to God in prayer and lay it at the feet of God.

I'm going through it right now...my mother-in-law is in hospice on her journey from this life to a desired better and heavenly country where she may finally rest after a decade of physical limitations, a long and vibrant career teaching generations  of high school students, and 80 years raising hell and whooping it up feyusly. SURE, I'm praying for the ease of her discomfort, a peace-filled and gentle slide into the light of God's eternal sabbath rest, and strength for the family she will be leaving behind. But I also went through an entire DAY yesterday (Valentine's Day, btw) having a HUGE pity party that EYE'M doing all this stuff and getting no recognition for it, EYE'M going out of MY way to be the perfect husband, the generous provider, the behind-the-scenes genie, and strong enough for everyone else and who is thanking ME, who is being strong for ME. I took it to God and guess what I heard: I'm right here. I am your strength. Am I not enough for you? Turn to me and I will give you rest.

Let's not hide from God. Let's take everything to God, all our weaknesses, all our frustrations, all our anxieties, all our concerns ... and let God make this a peace-filled, refreshing Lent for us all.

If Today You Hear God's Voice, Harden Not Your Hearts

Our Gospel Lesson for Sunday Advent 3 is Luke 3:7-18, the old chestnut of John the Baptist addressing the “crowds that came out to be Baptized”.

I have a confession: people specifically, the unwashed public up close in crowds, repel me. In March I began a job working in what I refer to as Tourist Zone 2, in the shadow of the Tiffany star at 57th and 5th, just south of Central Park South and The Plahza. Having to maneouver my way through “children laughing and people passing meeting smile after smile” while I’m trying to get from my crowded train, around two construction sites, the Apple Store and lines of rickshaws on the way to my office every morning is an object lesson in prayerful meditation during my Advent practice. I do love people in general, however, and what fascinates me most about them in the abstract is what they pray about and what they pray for, and what they think about and what they say out loud.

An hilarious thing to me in this vein is when I used to watch one of my girlfriends at my old job go COMPLETELY berserk because she would ritually give work to one particular department at the firm and they would ritually COMPLETELY mess the project up requiring her to do the whole project all over again herself. You would think after a couple of times, let alone every time for my eleven years with her, it would cease to be a surprise and become an expected behavior, yet each and every time she would become exasperated all over again in new and exciting ways, together with tried and true rants, about that department’s incompetence.

I do it myself, especially with my weight gain over the last 11 years. I keep saying, I’m so fat, I’m so out of shape, I need to lose this weight, one of these days … Backstory: I was in a miserable job, I ate and drank my feelings and now, 60 pounds overweight, I keep saying, UCH ! I’ve GOT to get this weight off … then I think, but it’s Easter, just these few chocolates; oh, it’s Halloween, my yearly Snickers bar (and not many kids came by this year so what am I supposed to do with these leftover Hershey miniatures); dear, here we are at Advent again, I have to make my sister-in-law her favourite holiday cookies. I balance my exercise routine with the substantiation that we live in New York and I walk miles every day, so I must be healthy, plus we don’t have enough money to join a gym; the Ashram is so inconvenient to practice daily … like I can’t practice yoga on my own floor at home, as if I don’t have free On Demand exercise channels, can you imagine MAKING the cookies but not waking up in the middle of the night and have SEVERal, rationalizing it by pretending I have a sleep-eating disorder. Oh, and then there is the daily free leftover catering at work, like I seriously need a brownie and an extra sandwich just because they’re free and have no calories (but I don’t eat the bread, so that’s healthy). As Ethel Roberta Louise Mae Potter Mertz used to say in an exasperated tone, “Honestly, Lucy”.

I’m (obviously) no scholar, but I was learned [sic] that between the writing of 4th Maccabees (≈19 B.C.E.) and when we presume John began his ministry of baptism (≈26 Anno Domini), the countryside was bursting at the seams with Messiahs. Everyone was looking for Him and it seemed there was one on every corner, so John by the Jordan River was not as much an oddity as we might think. What gave him distinction, however, was a new message: repentance. Metavnoia, μετάνοια, a change of mind, the act of heartily amending with abhorrence one’s past . The system of Jewish ritual since it was handed down from God by Moses afforded propitiation of one’s wrong-doings through ritual sacrifice and the assurance of no guilt from wrong-doings by adherence to these rituals. No concept of remorse, no practice of inner reflection, no sense of personal responsibility for the wrong-doing, just the clearance of the balance sheet through performance of a ritual. John came to announce a new path.

We pronounce the Confiteor during Eucharist and at least twice each day, at morning and at evening prayer, and the words flow so easily from our lips, just like the Lord’s Prayer, but do we mean them? Do we realize what we are saying? Do we examine our hearts and make amends and attempt repentance, a turning away? I’ll tell ya, it would be easier for me to give up one of my two cloaks to a stranger in need sometimes than it is for me to let go of the resentment I feel from an offense I perceive from someone, or to abandon some judgment which brings my heart to hatred for someone, seldom realizing that I must be guilty of the same thing I despise in them or else I wouldn’t know how to recognize it. We are guided by John in our Gospel Lesson to make straight our paths, to prepare the way for the Lord and to lay the foundation of reasonable and just behavior, guiding us to await in joyful anticipation the cleansing fire with which Jesus will baptize us.

“As the people were filled with expectation…” In my very humble opinion, I find The Revised Common Lectionary a bit clumsy this time of year, as it requires us to be very nimble bobbing from nativity narratives to Jesus’ early ministry, a visit with Doubting Thomas and our risen Lord with a side trip to the fiery fields of Armageddon before we dock with shepherds watching their flocks by night. I buoy myself during the season of anticipation by remembering that we’re not just waiting for this grown-up Messiah, or for the return of the Christós; we’re also waiting for the birth of a little baby.

Know what happens when a little baby comes in to your life? I’ve heard stories! Time evaporates. You need to be prepared well beforehand with a cozy sleeping space, food and clothes, toiletries and toys … there’s no time to collect them after baby’s arrival and there certainly is no time for selfish and petty little problems like lack of sleep or the inconvenience of a diaper change or food preparation… the baby needs to be attended to constantly and you need to be in top mental and physical condition or you’ll collapse. (Actually, I’ve also heard stories that no matter how tip top shape you’re in you’re NEVER ready for the first few months of a newborn’s needs.)

It’s all well and good to be bored and wander out to the shores of the Jordan to have an afternoon’s entertainment observing the funny-looking John shouting about the coming of the Lord, but what happens if you listen but you don’t hear. Are they accountable for the content of the sermon? It’s all very lovely to tell people I go to church all the time, but that doesn’t mean I’m paying attention to anything that’s being said and it certainly doesn’tmean I process or practice the words I proclaim during the service. Am I required to act accordingly throughout the week? As Joyce Meyer says, “I can sit in a garage all I want, but that doesn’t make me a car.”

Advent calls us to a season of clarity, expectation, renewal and new birth … not just a season to sing pretty songs and hear pretty stories but a season of preparation, readiness. A chance to cast off our own chaff and blossom as mature grains of wheat to be gathered in to God’s granary lest we be consumed by unquenchable fire, ingesting this call to excellence and heeding the exhortation that we should not rely on the devotions and practices of our past, but be revitalized by a renewed and passionate present so that we are worthy to greet the coming of our Savior, whether his first arrival or his second. Not just to hear John proclaiming the Gospel that whatever I have is so bountiful and sufficient that, if I give some away, grace and bounty will be mine. As he tells the soldiers, I should be satisfied with exactly the blessings I have. And as I tell myself, concentrating on being overweight is not going to lose me weight and “one day I’ll get to that” doesn’t get me fit. Watching my intake, planning and attending to my practice, and steadfast diligence is the key to my success. Isn’t that true for almost everything in life at which we wish to excel?

Sobbing Over Our Laundry

 

I think it was Janeane Garofalo who said, after the 1993 World Trade Center bomb, that she couldn't leave her apartment for fear that our then newish local 24-hour a day station NY1 would broadcast some other horrible thing happening in the city and, as our portable telephones were the size of toasters back then and far from being smart, we wouldn't know we were in danger, we wouldn't know which neighbourhoods to stay out of, we wouldn't know where to go or what to do and so we all went out and purchased transistor radios and 8-volt batteries and walked around listening to 1010WINS news radio, not sleeping, and obsessing about safety. This rather prepared us for the days after 9/11 when we were trying to figure out what was really going on. No twitter back then to get instantaneous information like now.

My husband Snoodles works for Jesus and is off on a conference today and I was putting up the laundry and doing the dishes and I realised I haven't been living thoughtfully, I haven't been living carefully, and it makes me worry that perhaps it's been a while since I took this inventory.  The Hindu Festival of Diwali is coming tomorrow, sometimes called the "festival of lights". It takes place in a lunar void and asks us to pile our prayers and hopes and dreams in that void to bring the moon to fullness. Diwali also asks us to be aware of our own inner light, and to acknowledge that which is beyond the physical, that which is pure, infinite, and eternal ... you know ... God and stuff. <The celebration of Diwali also speaks of the "victory of good over evil", refers to the light of higher knowledge dispelling all ignorance, the ignorance that masks one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With this awakening comes compassion and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings joy and peace. Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Diwali is the celebration of this Inner Light.> (wiki)

This election cycle had me a wreck. I've been plastered to the television and the interwebs and then comes the bloody Rains of Ranchipur and praise god for Twitter because I'm STILL finding out about services in real time but I just cannot bring myself to watch anymore real-time mourning.  I know too many people who have lost LITERALLY everything they own.  They don't have a spoon, they don't have a shirt.  Everything was washed away.

Generally, the only times I am in stillness are at prayer and watching TV.  I don't stroll when I walk, I get there.  I don't really live in the City, I move through it.  It's very weird.  And, similarly, I don't contemplate washing the dishes, like Snoodles does, taking joy in the particular utensil and its history, contemplating the beauty of the color blue of the parker bowl he's drying.  I pound through things to get them done because there's something else to do and something after that.  So this morning I realised I had a good four hours of nothing really pressing to do, I didn't have to attend the news cycle, projects are still wanting attention, but I didn't have enough time to start and finish any of them, so I really just took time to wash the dishes and I really just took time to put up the laundry, slowly, thoughtfully, prayerfully, attending to the moment I was in ... and it was then, when I was hanging up my ten pairs of khakis, that it washed over me how deeply and how importantly I am blessed.  Not just in this moment, but throughout my life.  Not just in possessions but in friendships, deep interconnected knowings of me and other caring and concerned persons all of whom share with me the wonder and the awe of the miracles which populate every second we're given and each of whom stitched themselves in to the fabric of my very being to make me who I am right at this minute.  And I began to sob.  Slight guilt that I had so much, a reckoning to make sure I stay grateful, a reminder to make sure that I am living fully each moment I'm given and a resolve that I SHALL populate those moments with my full attention.

Okay.  I'm off to the Village to watch besties perform some new music! Here's hoping my trains are not only running but actually stopping to pick me up, which they didn't last night ... for hours ... ugh.  Ganug.  Okay.  Happy Diwali and don't forget: Let's all be awake while we're blessed to be alive.

RNC Game Changer

Photo source: http://bit.ly/Pq6dyb

Know what the ultimate game-changer would be? A lack of electricity ... or at least, a lack of a 24-hour a day news cycle, the inability to indoctrinate through repetition ... how about a restriction that the candidates are only allowed to use cardboard and glue sticks to campaign for your vote ... or everyone coming to the reasonable conclusion that time and again we have invaded countries and taken down governments and regimes who want to impose "religious doctrine" over "democracy" ... where is the "Grand Old Party" of my youth ... don't get me started ...

Bakin' Bacon

Daddy had the patience of a saint and was the KING of "low n slow". He was an Iowan farmer, up at 4 every morning and by the time we lazy bums got out of bed at 5.30 he had a pound of bacon ready, a "Howdy, howdy!" and a "How many eggs to you want for brefkes?" We had bacon and eggs and white toast and grits and butter every single morning...obviously well before Dr. Oz.

I am not good at all at makin' bacon. I don't know why. When I make it for Hoppin' John I take scissors and cut it up in to inch bits and stir and stir and stir. (My world-famous recipe here.) I found this easy peasy recipe about a decade and go and it's fool-proof. I always see that a lot of people put the bacon on a baking rack and place that inside a lasagna pan. I find that this produces a dryer bacon and it takes longer to cook.  I like putting the bacon directly on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet and it works beautifully. I've never had splatters, I've never had spills and at the end you have about a 1/4 cup of bacon grease ready to make other recipes yummy!

Place slices of bacon on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Do not ! stack them or overlay them, they must be side by side.
Place in a COLD oven.
Turn up to 400 degrees, bake for 20 minutes and remove the bestest crispest bacon you've ever had.

Sick To My Stomach



SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QByOWw


I know many people don't believe the struggle for homosexual rights corresponds with the "civil" rights struggle of the 60s because, presumably, we CHOOSE our orientation (and UGH i hate the word "lifestyle" and p.s.: I remember being attracted to men at age 4, srsly), but the pictures and videos I've seen from Chicken Pride Day (thank you, Randy Rainbow) have made me feel dirty and numb and frustrated and sad and I hope one day they all look back with embarrassment like I hope the people above do.

 

(the thing i love so much about Randy Rainbow is he always does what i think we do best ...
plow through others' ignorance with a song and a tiara.)

Let's get over the issue of "civil" civil rights for a second (and the fact that this whole mishegas is a Seinfeld episode).  Let's get over the fact that (a) Jesus never says anything about homosexuality, (b) if you bitch about Old Testament laws against homosexuality then you BETTER be living the life of an orthodox and observant Jew and (c) this country is not run against the rules of the Bible, it's run against the rules of The Constitution ... (1) I don't think people in the US understand that there are TWO parts to the "marriage" ceremony because it is most often performed in a religious setting ... the civil part and the "religious" part ... the religious leader performs a blessing in the name of the religious institution and is also licensed to perform the civil part, which is why we hear, "By the power invested in me by the State of Bladie-Blah", I now pronounce you ...".  This "blessing" part was just proudly approved at #GC77 by members of the Episcopal Church.  (2) I'm tired of those opposed to same-sex marriage presuming we're all godless heathens (read: non-religious Christians), and (3) honest to fukcakes(tm, djs), I can't imagine anything more "conservative" than WANTING to get MARRIED ! and wanting to raise CHILDREN !  (and there's always that old chestnut: "If you want to put an end to gay sex, legalize gay marriage" hardee har har.)

Most importantly, though ... what the hell business is it of yours the kind of consensual sex I'm having (with a human being having reached the age of consent in the particular state in which the sex occurs within the CONfines of the statutes of the kind and SORTS of sex which may legally occur ... have I covered it for the Christianists?  thanks.).  Let's say that I have misunderstood, since 1973 when I began studying the Old and New Testament thoroughly, learning the languages in which they were originally recorded, burying myself in the cultures in which they were crafted at that specific time in herstory and passed down, all under the prayfilled guidance of whom I believe, within the confines of these "scriptures", to be "God"'s "Holy Spirit") that my specific creation as a homosexually orientated [sic] being is contrary to these writings and that my (rather flaw-free and legendary) practise of these attractions are disordered and an abomination.  What DIFFERENCE does it make to the United States Constitution.  Shouldn't it be illegal, then, for Atheists to be "married" because they're not being married in the name of God and Jesus Christ?  Shouldn't it be illegal, then, for any non-Judeo-Christian to be married because they're not being married in the name of Jesus Christ? and how all of a sudden are these Christianists denying that for EVER there have been Evangelical seminars (which, in my pentecostal past, I have attended and taught) that Mormonism is a CULT but it's okay to run an LDS Republican for president.

Let's cut the shit, people, and concentrate on important things like ending poverty and hunger, concentrate on providing healthy water to those in need, universal education and gender equality and health care for children all over the globe.  Maybe then all the energy expended on cursing the fact that God introduced me to the person God made specifically to join me to for a life of service in God's name could be used for good and not for hideousness.  Stop making me apologize for my existence.

Thanks for sharing, I'm sure, your Auntie Dasch

What Orthodox Iconography Is

http://bit.ly/MriLVG
by Photios Kontoglou

The Holy Transfiguration of Christ, through the hand of Photios Kontoglou (+July 13, 1965) (http://www.hellenicnews.com/media/k2/items/cache/47b9371a5ec847a6416d19e09506ac86_XL.jpg)

  
What Orthodox Iconography Is, by Photios Kontoglou

The religion of Christ is the revelation, by Him, of the truth. And this truth is the knowledge of the true God and of the spiritual world. But the spiritual world is not what men used to—and still do—call "spiritual."

Christ calls His religion "new wine" and "bread that cometh down from Heaven." The Apostle Paul says, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away: behold, all things have become new."

In a religion like this, one that makes the believer into a "new man," everything is "new." So, too, the art that gradually took form out of the spirit of this religion, and which it invented to express its Mystery, is a "new" art, one not like any other, just as the religion of Christ is not like any other, in spite of what some may say who have eyes only for certain meaningless externals.

The architecture of this religion, its music, its painting, its sacred poetry, insofar as they make use of material media, nourish the souls of the faithful with spirit. The works produced in these media are like steps that lead them from earth up to heaven, from this earthly and temporary state to that which is heavenly and eternal: This takes place so far as is possible with human nature.

For this reason, the arts of the Church are anagogical, that is, they elevate natural phenomena and submit them to "the beautiful transformation." They are also called "liturgical" arts, because through them man tastes the essence of the liturgy by which God is worshipped and through which man becomes like unto the Heavenly Hosts and perceives immortal life.

Ecclesiastical liturgical painting, the painting of worship, took its form above all from Byzantium, where it remained the mystical Ark of Christ’s religion and was called hagiographia or sacred painting. As with the other arts of the Church, the purpose of hagiographia is not to give pleasure to our carnal sense of sight, but to transform it into a spiritual sense, so that in the visible things of this world we may see what surpasses this world.

Hence this art is not theatrically illusionistic. Illusionistic art came into being in Italy during the so-called Renaissance, because this art was the expression of a Christianity which, deformed by philosophy, had become a materialistic, worldly form of knowledge, and of the Western Church, which had become a worldly system. And just as theology followed along behind the philosophy of the ancients—so, too, the painting which expressed this theology followed along behind the art of the ancient idolators. The period is well named Renaissance, since, to tell the truth, it was no more than a rebirth of the ancient carnal mode of thought that had been the pagan world’s.

But just as those theologians were wading around in the slimy swamp waters of philosophy, and were in no position to taste and understand the clear fresh water of the Gospel, "drawn up to life eternal," so, too, the painters who brought about the Renaissance were in no position to understand the mystical profundity of Eastern liturgical iconography, the sacred art of Byzantium. And just as the theologians thought that they could perfect Christ’s religion with philosophy, since for them it seemed too simple, they being in no position to penetrate into the depths of that divine simplicity: just so, the painters thought that they were perfecting liturgical art, more simply called Byzantine, by making it "more natural."

So they set to work, copying what was natural—faces, clothes, buildings, landscapes, all as they appear naturally—making an iconography with the same rationalism that the theologians wanted to make theology with. But the kind of theology you can get out of rationalism is exactly the kind of religious iconography you can get out of copying nature.

This is why their works have no Mystery, nor any real spiritual character. You understand that you have before you some men masquerading as saints—not real saints. Look at the various pictures of the Mother of God. "Madonnas" who pose hypocritically, and those in tears, weeping, which are even falser yet! Corpses and idols for shallow men! Our people, who for centuries have received a great and profound nurture from Christ’s religion, even though outwardly they seem uneducated, call a woman who pretends to be respectable but who is really not, a Frankopanayhia, a "Frankish Virgin," thus making a clear distinction between the "Frankish Virgin" and the true Virgin, the Mother of Christ our God, the austere Odogitria, Her "more precious than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim". In other words, in the simplest way possible they make a neat, sharp distinction between the art of the world and the art belonging to worship.

Western religious painters who wanted to depict the supernatural visions of religion took as models certain natural phenomena—clouds, sunsets, the moon, the sun with its beams. With these they tried to portray the heavenly glory and the world of immortality, calling certain things "spiritual" which are merely sentimental, emotional, not spiritual at all.

In vain, however. Because the blessedness of the other life is not a continuation of the emotional happiness of this world, neither does it have any relation to the satisfaction the senses enjoy in this life. The Apostle Paul, talking about the good things of the blessedness to come, says that they are such that "eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man."
How, then, can that world, which lies beyond everything a man can grasp with his senses—how can that world be portrayed by an art that is "natural" and that appeals to the senses? How can you paint "what surpasses nature and surpasses sense"?

Certainly, man will take elements from the perceptible world, "for the senses’ sake," but to be able to express "what surpasses sense" he must dematerialize these elements, he must lift them to a higher plane, he must transmute them from what is carnal into what is spiritual, just as faith transmutes man’s feelings, making them, from carnal, into spiritual. "I saw," says St. John of the Ladder, "some men given over with passion to carnal love, and when they received the Light and took the way of Christ, this fierce carnal passion was changed inside them, with divine grace. into a great love for the Lord."

Thus, even the material elements which Byzantine iconography took from the world of sense were supernaturally transmuted into spiritualities, and since they had passed through the pure soul of a man who lived according to Christ, like gold through a refiner’s fire, they express, as far as is possible for a man who wears a material body, that which the Apostle Paul spoke of, "which eye hath not seen, neither hath entered into the heart of man."

The beauty of liturgical art is not a carnal beauty, but a spiritual beauty. That is why whoever judges this art by worldly standards says that the figures in Byzantine sacred painting are ugly and repellent, while for one of the faithful they possess the beauty of the spirit, which is called "the beautiful transformation."

The Apostle Paul says. "We (who preach the Gospel and live according to Christ ) are ... a sweet savour of Christ unto them that are saved and unto them that perish. Unto them that have within them the small of death (of flesh), we smell of death; and unto them that have within them the smell of life, we smell of life."

And the blessed and hallowed St. John of the Ladder says, "There was an ascetic who, whenever he happened to see a beautiful person, whether man or woman, would glorify the Creator of that person with all his heart, and from a mere glance his love for God would spring afresh and he would pour out on his account a fountain of tears. And one marveled, seeing this happen, that for this man what would cause the soul of another to stink had become a reason for crowns and an ascent above nature. Whoever perceives beauty in this fashion is already incorruptible, even before the dead shall rise in the common Resurrection,"
"Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind . . ." (Rom. xii. 2)

From Word Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
September 1964
pp. 5-6

(http://www.orthodoxiconsonline.com/articles/Kontoglu_whatisiconography.asp)