Parental Guidance

Conscience is the first law of God, which He carved deeply into the hearts of the first-created. In turn we each make a photocopy from our parents when we're born.

Children contract their first spiritual colds from the open windows of their parents' senses. The mother passes on her cold especially when she is not modestly dressed and scandalizes her children with her behavior.

The holy life of parents instructs the souls of their children and so they naturally obey them and grow up with piety and without psychological problems, and the children are pleased with their parents. The parents are gladdened by their children in this life and in life eternal, where they will once again glory in them.

My brother, don't ask for anything in prayer except for repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the grace of God, and God will uphold you in His grace and will give you whatever you need for your own salvation as well as whatever is needed, should the case arise, for you to help another soul in need.

Counsels of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

For some reason, I thought being a parent would be so much easier than it actually is. The moment I think I have a handle on some little thing, something HUGE looms up behind me. This is really HARD. I don't know who these women are that claim it's so easy and can breeze through the day without wanting to throttle their perfect kids (who would never ever need a good throttling), while looking like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths but I am definitely not one of those rarified creatures.


God has seen fit to give me a delightful boy, though. So, rarified or not, I have to make sure I am what God needs for me to be for my boy. There is so much Gabriel needs from me, and let's not even begin to talk about the wants! I swear, that boy wants everything he lays eyes on. Much like his mama. HA!!

Anyway, doing it by myself is not an option. Praise the Lord that I don't have to. I am so grateful for His word to me a few years ago. He promised me:

All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
   and great shall be the prosperity of your children.
Isaiah 54:13
And now, my daughter, do not be afraid; I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know you are a worthy woman.
Ruth 3:11

He has done all that He said and more. So now, moving into another arena of life that I feel woefully inadequate to tackle, I am praying again for Him to remember His promise to me. Not that I believe He has forgotten, but perhaps I have. Without Him there is no way I could have come as far as I have. I hope He never thinks I forget this and so, by reminding Him, I remind myself that I am His servant and He has not forgotten me. (Isaiah 44:21-22)

By remembering, I remind myself that He will make me able to take care of Gabriel and all the things that need taking care of (and maybe even some of our collective wants) if I merely do the one teensy, tiny, itty-bitty, little thing He has asked me to do: become a saint. One little thing. Heck, he even told me how to do it. Remember God. Say my prayers. Go to church. Forgive my brother. Obey the commandments. Of course that can be the hardest part of all.

The cool thing is, He will help me with that, too. Even when I scamper around like a squirrel on crack- laced coffee kicking up things like I've lost the very last acorn the world will ever see.

Trust me...It has happened. It ain't pretty.








Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Relevant Reading
The Life of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain
Works of Elder Paisios
Isaiah 54
Isaiah 44
Ruth 3
The Hardest Part

Once Upon a Time

A million years ago I was forced to embark upon an adventure I was grossly under-prepared for. I had few if any marketable skills, was suffering from severe low self worth and just generally felt like a failure: at life, at relationships, motherhood, at just about everything I had laid my hand to. I had no idea what I was going to do with myself and honestly, jumping off a bridge onto I-40 so I would not inflict myself on anyone else seemed like a very good idea at the time.

Then God said, "ALL THE ASSEMBLY OF MY PEOPLE KNOW YOU ARE A WORTHY WOMAN."

It has taken me a long time to hear that and believe it. He has given me worth. With and without all the extras that make up what we think are important in the Western world, it is nothing but good to know I have worth in His eyes. I look forward to what He will do, but I know that nothing will be as important to me as the past four years of my life.

And Ruth said, "May I continue to find favor in your sight, my lord,

for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, 

even though I am not one of your servants." 

(Ruth 2:13)

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Relevant Reading
The Book of Ruth

Thankful

I am so grateful to God this day. For all that He has allowed me to go through and for all that He has brought me through. For everything, I am grateful to Him.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

More of Granny Weatherwax's Wisdom

An old woman (Granny Weatherwax, who happens to be a witch) and a priest (Mightily Oats) are sitting by the road having a conversation.

(The conversation starts on the classic subject of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?")

Granny Weatherwax: "Sixteen!"
Mightily Oats: "You've counted sixteen?" said Oats eventually.
GW: "No, but it is as good an answer as any you'll get. And that's what you holy men discuss is it?"
MO: "Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin, for example."
GW: "And what do they think? Against it, are they?"
MO: "It is not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray."
GW: "Nope."
MO: "Pardon?"
GW: "There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
MO: "It's a lot more complicated than that--"
GW: "No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
MO: "Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
GW: "But they starts with thinking about people as things…"

Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Today, we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy which is the day the 7th Ecumenical Council ruled on the iconoclastic controversy, which had raged on and off since 726. The celebration of icons in worship and their veneration were restored on the first Sunday in Lent in 787.

The icon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy commemorates the “restoration” of icons in the churches and to their use in Orthodox worship. The focal point of the icon is an icon itself, the Virgin Hodegetria, a popular depiction of the Theotokos as “Directress,” or literally “She who shows the way to God.” To the left of the icon is the Empress Theodora and her son Michael III. To the right of the icon are the Patriarchs Methodios and Tarasios. The icon is surrounded by numerous saints who struggled against the Iconoclastic heresy.

As usual on this day, we celebrated at a pan-Orthodox Vespers service at St Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church in Durham. Fr Nicholas was there from my church as well as the host priest, Fr James and surprisingly, Fr Dmitri from my son's godmother's church. Both Fr James and Fr Dmitri remembered me and I know Fr Dmitri hasn't met me more than twice and Fr James only once! Mom was right when she said  people watching goes both ways. LOL! Both of them, and Fr Nicholas, blessed Gabriel. He is such a great kid. Everyone loves him. Afterward, we had a great Lenten meal in the rectory and Gabriel got to play with some of his friends from church. 

I love being part of a church that honors the history of it's doctrine. Sometimes I think that people discard history far too lightly. If we do not know why we worship as we do, what is the point of worshipping? The why is just as important as the Who. After all, the Who is the One who gave us this style of worship; He is the why! It's in the Old Testament -- poke around in the Pentateuch and then compare it to what we do in the Orthodox Church. It's amazingly similar. The first Christians were Jewish and worshipped in the Temple after all!

What really made my heart full, though, was listening to Gabriel and watching him during the prayers. He knows the prayers, even when they are said in Greek, simply by the rhythm I suppose. He recognized when to cross and frowned as the chanters sang, "Kyrie Eleison". When I asked him what was wrong he said, "I don't know what they said. But shouldn't it be Lord have mercy?" When I told him that was what Kyrie Eleison meant, he gave me such a look. LOL! And the various priests and deacons recognized him too. He makes quite an impression. I'm proud to be his mama.

Anyway...

As the Prophets beheld, as the Apostles have taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers have dogmatized, as the universe has agreed, as Grace has shown forth, as Truth has revealed, as falsehood has been dissolved, as Wisdom has presented, as Christ has awarded: thus we declare, thus we assert, thus we preach Christ our true God, and honor His Saints in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in churches, in Holy Icons; on the one hand worshiping and reverencing Christ as God and Lord; and on the other hand honoring as true servants of the same Lord of all, and accordingly offering them veneration. 

This is the Faith of the Apostles; this is the Faith of the Fathers; this is the Faith of the Orthodox; this is the Faith which has established the universe!

Amen!

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Relevant Reading

Antiochian.org/Sunday of Orthodoxy

GOArch.org/Great Lent: Learn Listen Share

If You Weren't In Minneapolis

Byzantium, Iconoclasm, and the Monks ~ Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

Prayer of a Single Parent

Lord Jesus Christ my God, who carried Your own Holy Cross to Golgotha, grant me the strength, patience and wisdom to bear the burdens of parenthood.

Fulfill in me anything I may be lacking and grant that through our prayers and those of Your Holy Mother, our family may grow closer to You and a Life in Christ.

Amen

"O Virgin Pure"Part 1

"O Virgin Pure"Part 2

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner

Relevant Reading

O Virgin Pure by St Nektarios of Aegina

Forgiveness Sunday

In the Orthodox Church, the last Sunday before Great Lent - the day on which, at Vespers, Lent is liturgically announced and inaugurated - is called Forgiveness Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, at the Divine Liturgy, we hear the words of Christ:

"If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses..." (Mark 6:14-15)

Then after Vespers - after hearing the announcement of Lent in the Great Prokeimenon:

"Turn not away Thy face from Thy child for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily! Draw near unto my soul and deliver it!"

after making our entrance into Lenten worship, with its special memories, with the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, with its prostrations - we ask forgiveness from each other, we perform the rite of forgiveness and reconciliation. And as we approach each other with words of reconciliation, the choir intones the Paschal hymns, filling the church with the anticipation of Paschal joy.

What is the meaning of this rite? Why is it that the Church wants us to begin Lenten season with forgiveness and reconciliation? These questions are in order because for too many people Lent means primarily, and almost exclusively, a change of diet, the compliance with ecclesiastical regulations concerning fasting. They understand fasting as an end in itself, as a "good deed" required by God and carrying in itself its merit and its reward. But, the Church spares no effort in revealing to us that fasting is but a means, one among many, towards a higher goal: the spiritual renewal of man, his return to God, true repentance and, therefore, true reconciliation. The Church spares no effort in warning us against a hypocritical and pharisaic fasting, against the reduction of religion to mere external obligations. As a Lenten hymn says:

In vain do you rejoice in no eating, O soul!
For you abstain from food,
But from passions you are not purified.
If you persevere in sin, you will perform a useless fast.

Now, forgiveness stands at the very center of Christian faith and of Christian life because Christianity itself is, above all, the religion of forgiveness. God forgives us, and His forgiveness is in Christ, His Son, Whom He sends to us, so that by sharing in His humanity we may share in His love and be truly reconciled with God. Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a return to it, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season. Thus, truly forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for the Lenten season.

One may ask, however: Why should I perform this rite when I have no "enemies"? Why should I ask forgiveness from people who have done nothing to me, and whom I hardly know? To ask these questions, is to misunderstand the Orthodox teaching concerning forgiveness. It is true, that open enmity, personal hatred, real animosity may be absent from our life, though if we experience them, it may be easier for us to repent, for these feelings openly contradict Divine commandments. But, the Church reveals to us that there are much subtler ways of offending Divine Love. These are indifference, selfishness, lack of interest in other people, of any real concern for them -- in short, that wall which we usually erect around ourselves, thinking that by being "polite" and "friendly" we fulfill God's commandments. The rite of forgiveness is so important precisely because it makes us realize - be it only for one minute - that our entire relationship to other men is wrong, makes us experience that encounter of one child of God with another, of one person created by God with another, makes us feel that mutual "recognition" which is so terribly lacking in our cold and dehumanized world.

On that unique evening, listening to the joyful Paschal hymns we are called to make a spiritual discovery: to taste of another mode of life and relationship with people, of life whose essence is love. We can discover that always and everywhere Christ, the Divine Love Himself, stands in the midst of us, transforming our mutual alienation into brotherhood. As l advance towards the other, as the other comes to me - we begin to realize that it is Christ Who brings us together by His love for both of us.

And because we make this discovery - and because this discovery is that of the Kingdom of God itself: the Kingdom of Peace and Love, of reconciliation with God and, in Him, with all that exists - we hear the hymns of that Feast, which once a year, "opens to us the doors of Paradise." We know why we shall fast and pray, what we shall seek during the long Lenten pilgrimage. Forgiveness Sunday: the day on which we acquire the power to make our fasting - true fasting; our effort - true effort; our reconciliation with God - true reconciliation.

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

I fail at this abysmally, I think. There are some whom I must remember to forgive on an almost hourly basis, it seems. I wrestle with myself and ask the Lord for forgiveness all the time because I know just how far short I fall here. ~sigh~  I always think forgiveness should be over, out and done with after the first time you do it. If whatever it is keeps coming up, doesn't that mean you didn't do it right the first time? Does forgiveness have to equal friendship? Some of the things I have read on the subject in the Christian/ Orthodox Christian community seem to imply that this is so, that once you forgive someone you have to be friends again. I mean, frankly in certain situations, that just leaves one open to continued abuse and betrayal of trust doesn't it?

I don't know. I just don't know. I look forward to the Forgiveness Vespers nonetheless, however. Someday I will know, I have faith.

Lord have mercy on me a sinner.

Relevant Reading
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Psalm 51
Psalm 55:12-14, 16-22

Lather, Rinse, Repeat...

The found humor inherent in the phrase is that the instructions, if taken literally, tell the user to lather their hair, rinse the shampoo off, then repeat the process—but they do not say when to stop this cycle. In theory, a person could conceivably keep washing and rinsing their hair forever (or until they ran out of shampoo) as they repeated the instructions over and over.
Wikipedia Entry

It's that time again. Lent is coming and I am anticipating it like someone was handing out bacon-wrapped filet mignon on the corner. (And considering it is Lent I am talking about that is truly ironic.) I think I do this every year: I anticipate Lent as this huge life-changing event and I inevitably piddle it away. Weird, but true. So...What if I don't? I mean really. What if I don't get all freaked out by the next 8 weeks and just chill? I wonder what might happen.

I think this means I am finally getting over my convertitis and moving into the reality of my life as an Orthodox Christian. Many people I know will be mightly glad to hear that I am sure . LOL! Seriously though, I can't live my life quoting the Early Church Fathers. The whole point is to live what they wrote, not just to quote them randomly in internet conversations that have little bearing on the real world. What they were writing was the real world and their intent, I believe, was for us to live our lives using their experiences as real life examples, not as experiments in a petri dish.

Today I had a great conversation with The Boy about where and what he should eat when he is with his father during the Lenten period. We discussed veggies and fruit and fish without backbones (somehow he thinks we eat jellyfish!! ) and cheese and milk. He was good with that. It was a good conversation. I didn't get all wrapped up in reminding him to pray and how to pray and when to pray and what direction to pray in and who to pray for and which saints to pray with and so on and so forth...We just talked about dealing with being at his dad's house during Lent.

The stress level was SO much lower. I like that. I like that a lot. I also like that I have found a way to put my smilies in my blog posts, but I digress.

I think that is where I need to be. The doing is not as important as the who'ing of my life. The stress level goes down so much when I remember to concentrate on who I am and not what I am doing. Rarely will what I do matter but who I become through it is what is important. I hope I can remember that as the days go by.

Lord have mercy on me a sinner.

Dealing

“The Spiritual life consists in how you deal with what you've been dealt. ..."
Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann


Right now, I am just trying to deal.





Relevant Readings
Schmemann.org
The Nature of Things--And Our Salvation
Life, Death, Love

prayer vs Prayer

"I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity."
— C.S. Lewis






"Comfort", "happiness", "joy" and "comfortable" are all different things, you know? My religious life and relationship with Christ brings me comfort and joy even in the midst of profound unhappiness and enhance those fleeting moments of happiness. On the other hand, my relationship with Christ also makes me profoundly UNcomfortable when I look at my own sin and the passions I need to overcome and eradicate from my life, but brings me great comfort in knowing that in confession comes forgiveness and in the ascesis of the Church comes the healing that brings change.

This past week has been extremely uncomfy for me...In more ways than one. I have not been a nice person. I mean, if I wasn't attached to me I would have left me alone. It was that bad. Inflicting myself on others was probably not the best thing either. My poor boy had to live with me though. Do you know how ridiculously tiring it is to not reveal just how grumpy you actually feel only to find out just how badly you've not hidden your grumpiness? Ai ya.

What really sucked was it seemed like the more I prayed the worse things got.

Then I realized that I wasn't praying. I was complaining.

Kvetching.
 Pouting.
Whining.
Bitching.
With a bad attitude.

Yes, you can do all of the above when you pray from a prayer book.

True prayer is hard work. It doesn't just happen. In Scripture, people often prayed for days at a time, concentrating on the Lord, on reaching Him and finding His will. The saints of the Church, the Holy Fathers and Mothers did not find their prayer lives easy and, to quote St Theophan's Letters, "Instantaneous prayer life is impossible. You must make a strong effort to control your thoughts, at least to some degree. Prayer does not come about as you expect—by just wishing for it, and, suddenly, there it is. This does not happen." (Letter 48)  Prayer of the heart comes when one makes an effort; to those who do not strive, it will not come. (Letter 15).

I know this week I have not been preparing myself to pray properly. I've just been listing what I want God to do for me to make my life easier and more comfortable. Even in my prayers. I've not remembered Him and what He has already done for me. I have an aircraft carrier full of things I should praise Him for but I keep asking for more. Hmph. Can you say "spoiled brat"? His mercy endures forever...Mainly because my memory is so dang short.

I am also a victim of the idea that my worldly and spiritual lives are separate. That "when one becomes involved in work at home or in business, immediately one steps out of the godly realm and away from God-pleasing activities. From this idea, it follows that once the desire to strive toward God germinates, and talk turns toward the spiritual life, then the idea inevitably surfaces: one must run from society, from the home — to the wilderness, to the forest. (Letter 49) Nothing could be further from the truth. I need Him all the more when I am away from my prayer corner.

Well, where has your prayer vanished? It seems to have started off quite well, and you had already experienced its grace-filled actions in your heart. I will tell you where it has gone. Having prayed once or twice with warmth and in earnest, and having experienced such immediate help through prayer...you thought your prayer was forever established, and that there was no need to maintain it. You thought it would flow by itself. Expecting prayer to continue on its own, you began to rush and carelessly left your thoughts to wander unchecked. From this, your attention scattered, thought went in all directions, and your prayer was no longer true. Once, twice in such a careless manner, and prayer disappeared. Begin anew to establish prayer and plead with the Lord to help you. (Letter 71)

So my problem this week has been me. By eschewing (yes I said eschew...I have a librarian's vocabulary) the "medicine" of the Church I've been sabotaging myself. Doing godly deeds in an ungodly manner (Letter 49) won't help me attain theosis anymore than sitting in the library will make me a book.

I hope that I can remember this in these weeks leading up to Lent.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.