Father Stephen de Young spoke at the Antiochian Orthodox men's retreat recently on this subject. His perspective was around how we have lost "community" as everyone gets farther away from creating with their own 2 hands. The church itself is where he proposed we get this back. I think of the accounts of the early Jerusalem church in Acts as an example. There is also the dynamic between companies and governments. They are symbiotic. Government provides the means for commerce - currency, laws, protections and companies provide the value to keep the government going. They are like a bear and a trainer. The bear protects the trainer and the trainer feeds the bear. Alas, as we see everyday, if the bear turns his back on the trainer the trainer will cut the bears rations and if the trainer turns his back on the bear the bear might just have the trainer for lunch.
During the last embers of the COVID era, my friends and I founded a cum-panis. Specifically, we established a cooperative in Montréal called Symbolitech because we decided that if we didn't break bread together, not much of our dying parish and dying families would be left. Not long after the beginning of our cum panis was founded, our parish and families were resurrecting; some call this miraculous, others call it the simple act of breaking bread. Communing co-relates the miraculous with the digestible, in truth, knowing is eating. When we began to eat together, we began to get to know each other. Through this, we rediscovered the simple meaning of Christian life and why so much of our Christianity has moved in the wrong direction over the last 50 years. We stopped eating together, talking to each other, and earning a living together. Our churches' togetherness vanished without us knowing why; we sensed something had gone wrong but couldn't pinpoint why.
Discovering the redemptive power of breaking bread, I've seen the revival of a parish and the radically changed lives of the members of Symbolitech. The enchantment of the Lightman and the Christian wears off like nighttime during an eclipse. The world of the Lightman, their world of liberty and market values, dies in our hearts due to tiny things that the church hasn't considered adequate evangelism tools or even discipleship. It was not by the act of establishing another think tank or another Christian college. Since the beginning of the 20th century, never have Christians been more economically productive, we've written thousands of books per year, we have more money than we've ever had, we have more TV channels than ever before, universal presence on the internet and yet it has not saved the west because we neglected the more important thing – breaking bread. So, our efforts in the cultural war failed because we ignored the mystery of dining together. It didn't take much to defeat satan, but it does take the right little thing, like David's pebble in his slingshot.
There are undoubtedly giants before us, and we are surrounded by them all day. But they will not be defeated with 50 million dollar college campuses or Hollywood productions or by perfecting the education of Christians with doctorates and other degrees. Give me the breadcrumbs, and I will show you the gates of hell prevailed.
We started our cooperative to prove precisely this; all you need is the bread and wine for good measure, and the rest will follow. Yes, there is a business plan, and yes, there are a lot of websites to build, marketing campaigns to design and many bureaucratic back and forths; there is no isolation from the world in what we are doing. On the contrary, it was that much more present within it. Every day is a dance with challenges that move us towards a mission imbued with meaning. We no longer see our communities predestined to be secularism consumption of our souls; there is no inevitable decline. The world of the Lightman looks to us much like the people in Isaiah's vision who pondered satan's demise.
"Is this the man who shook the earth
and made kingdoms tremble,
the man who made the world a wilderness,
who overthrew its cities
and would not let his captives go home?"
More people will be leaving the technocratic babble of the Lightman and turning back to bread and wine. Secularism is fatiguing; it makes way too much noise. Cum panis is the way of the future, and we're already seeing its fruits.
Excellent article that shines light on the real solution.
“We no longer see our communities predestined to be secularism consumption of our souls; there is no inevitable decline.”
And this joy is the hope of every soul! It is a type of bulwark to realize “there is no inevitable decline” in our culture or in our being. That hope is the point and why we should eat together. Brother… your comments are inspiring. I’m gonna look you guys up! Let me come and throw you a Georgian feast called a Supra. It will be dear!
We got round to finishing our website. If you're interested, I recommend taking a look. You'll probably need google translate to make your exploration worthwhile. Have a great weekend! https://symbolitech.com/
I loved this article. Thanks for writing and sharing it. It really resonated with me since I started a business last year with: my wife, my brother, my cousin, and two of my long-standing friends from like 20 years ago. I love this idea of bringing back our understanding of the company towards "breaking bread". This will go in our charter, for sure.
Wonderful and just happy to be connected and may your good work bear fruit brother. I'd love to patronize your work. Let me know how it may be so. And also... there is someething breaking in this world of ours where this kind of "sentimentality" in my article is now receiving a second look. Something new or perhaps, something very old and new to us, is being reborn. I think. Thanks for your comments David!
I ended my subscription following the advice of a priest. However this Great Lent, by your prayers (?! I should be so lucky), I've come to realize a corollary of the truism, "everybody bleeds red," is that I dont get to pin responsibility my spiritual life on anyone except myself.
I know this sounds borderline un-Orthodox, but it's not. In the way I mean it:
We all have to "deal with what we've been dealt;" we all have to attend to our own consciences and dont get to hang our salvation-hat on anyone else's hook.
Of course in Orthodoxy this is made *easier* by obedience to our spiritual father/mother. In my case it was not him who gave the advice that I cut myself off from you, but another confessor. And one who at first even confused you with your brother! (In the Ortho convert world, that's a love or hate 'em relationship right there).
However.
Who you *actually* are- an Orthodox Christian and sinner who strives to unite himself to Christ honestly in our modern world-
has won me over.
This post being the last nail in the coffin, of my "easy life" just choosing to follow advice given... that upon more careful and nuanced evaluation fails to take in both you in your complexity, and me in my complexity, and Orthodoxy in its breadth and mercy.
(I'm also biased toward you because, well, the black lives in my family)
so.
I'll find a way to re-subscribe.
but wanted to ask your forgiveness, before approaching the great Feast.
I thought an important component of the new world company concept would be the mercenary companies of the crusader era, and their protestant one-upping, the East India company. It was a very effective way to compartmentalize and organize piracy/looting and industrial scale bread taking, while disconnecting the "homeland" both from the risk and, to an extent, the taint. The Muslim jihad tried to do that, but was much less efficient and compartmentalized, apparently...
These are great examples of early (as far as the modern experiment goes) bread takers. Love it. The entire subject isn't as linear and obvious as I was trying to make it of course, but you are on to this big timei!
Father Stephen de Young spoke at the Antiochian Orthodox men's retreat recently on this subject. His perspective was around how we have lost "community" as everyone gets farther away from creating with their own 2 hands. The church itself is where he proposed we get this back. I think of the accounts of the early Jerusalem church in Acts as an example. There is also the dynamic between companies and governments. They are symbiotic. Government provides the means for commerce - currency, laws, protections and companies provide the value to keep the government going. They are like a bear and a trainer. The bear protects the trainer and the trainer feeds the bear. Alas, as we see everyday, if the bear turns his back on the trainer the trainer will cut the bears rations and if the trainer turns his back on the bear the bear might just have the trainer for lunch.
During the last embers of the COVID era, my friends and I founded a cum-panis. Specifically, we established a cooperative in Montréal called Symbolitech because we decided that if we didn't break bread together, not much of our dying parish and dying families would be left. Not long after the beginning of our cum panis was founded, our parish and families were resurrecting; some call this miraculous, others call it the simple act of breaking bread. Communing co-relates the miraculous with the digestible, in truth, knowing is eating. When we began to eat together, we began to get to know each other. Through this, we rediscovered the simple meaning of Christian life and why so much of our Christianity has moved in the wrong direction over the last 50 years. We stopped eating together, talking to each other, and earning a living together. Our churches' togetherness vanished without us knowing why; we sensed something had gone wrong but couldn't pinpoint why.
Discovering the redemptive power of breaking bread, I've seen the revival of a parish and the radically changed lives of the members of Symbolitech. The enchantment of the Lightman and the Christian wears off like nighttime during an eclipse. The world of the Lightman, their world of liberty and market values, dies in our hearts due to tiny things that the church hasn't considered adequate evangelism tools or even discipleship. It was not by the act of establishing another think tank or another Christian college. Since the beginning of the 20th century, never have Christians been more economically productive, we've written thousands of books per year, we have more money than we've ever had, we have more TV channels than ever before, universal presence on the internet and yet it has not saved the west because we neglected the more important thing – breaking bread. So, our efforts in the cultural war failed because we ignored the mystery of dining together. It didn't take much to defeat satan, but it does take the right little thing, like David's pebble in his slingshot.
There are undoubtedly giants before us, and we are surrounded by them all day. But they will not be defeated with 50 million dollar college campuses or Hollywood productions or by perfecting the education of Christians with doctorates and other degrees. Give me the breadcrumbs, and I will show you the gates of hell prevailed.
We started our cooperative to prove precisely this; all you need is the bread and wine for good measure, and the rest will follow. Yes, there is a business plan, and yes, there are a lot of websites to build, marketing campaigns to design and many bureaucratic back and forths; there is no isolation from the world in what we are doing. On the contrary, it was that much more present within it. Every day is a dance with challenges that move us towards a mission imbued with meaning. We no longer see our communities predestined to be secularism consumption of our souls; there is no inevitable decline. The world of the Lightman looks to us much like the people in Isaiah's vision who pondered satan's demise.
"Is this the man who shook the earth
and made kingdoms tremble,
the man who made the world a wilderness,
who overthrew its cities
and would not let his captives go home?"
More people will be leaving the technocratic babble of the Lightman and turning back to bread and wine. Secularism is fatiguing; it makes way too much noise. Cum panis is the way of the future, and we're already seeing its fruits.
Excellent article that shines light on the real solution.
You wrote:
“We no longer see our communities predestined to be secularism consumption of our souls; there is no inevitable decline.”
And this joy is the hope of every soul! It is a type of bulwark to realize “there is no inevitable decline” in our culture or in our being. That hope is the point and why we should eat together. Brother… your comments are inspiring. I’m gonna look you guys up! Let me come and throw you a Georgian feast called a Supra. It will be dear!
We got round to finishing our website. If you're interested, I recommend taking a look. You'll probably need google translate to make your exploration worthwhile. Have a great weekend! https://symbolitech.com/
I loved this article. Thanks for writing and sharing it. It really resonated with me since I started a business last year with: my wife, my brother, my cousin, and two of my long-standing friends from like 20 years ago. I love this idea of bringing back our understanding of the company towards "breaking bread". This will go in our charter, for sure.
Wonderful and just happy to be connected and may your good work bear fruit brother. I'd love to patronize your work. Let me know how it may be so. And also... there is someething breaking in this world of ours where this kind of "sentimentality" in my article is now receiving a second look. Something new or perhaps, something very old and new to us, is being reborn. I think. Thanks for your comments David!
the part where I apologize...
Dear John;
I ended my subscription following the advice of a priest. However this Great Lent, by your prayers (?! I should be so lucky), I've come to realize a corollary of the truism, "everybody bleeds red," is that I dont get to pin responsibility my spiritual life on anyone except myself.
I know this sounds borderline un-Orthodox, but it's not. In the way I mean it:
We all have to "deal with what we've been dealt;" we all have to attend to our own consciences and dont get to hang our salvation-hat on anyone else's hook.
Of course in Orthodoxy this is made *easier* by obedience to our spiritual father/mother. In my case it was not him who gave the advice that I cut myself off from you, but another confessor. And one who at first even confused you with your brother! (In the Ortho convert world, that's a love or hate 'em relationship right there).
However.
Who you *actually* are- an Orthodox Christian and sinner who strives to unite himself to Christ honestly in our modern world-
has won me over.
This post being the last nail in the coffin, of my "easy life" just choosing to follow advice given... that upon more careful and nuanced evaluation fails to take in both you in your complexity, and me in my complexity, and Orthodoxy in its breadth and mercy.
(I'm also biased toward you because, well, the black lives in my family)
so.
I'll find a way to re-subscribe.
but wanted to ask your forgiveness, before approaching the great Feast.
in warmth;
-Mark Basil
Excellent and thought provoking as always.
I thought an important component of the new world company concept would be the mercenary companies of the crusader era, and their protestant one-upping, the East India company. It was a very effective way to compartmentalize and organize piracy/looting and industrial scale bread taking, while disconnecting the "homeland" both from the risk and, to an extent, the taint. The Muslim jihad tried to do that, but was much less efficient and compartmentalized, apparently...
These are great examples of early (as far as the modern experiment goes) bread takers. Love it. The entire subject isn't as linear and obvious as I was trying to make it of course, but you are on to this big timei!