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Sharing an excellent explanation of this Feast Day (tomorrow) for those interested.  Many continued thanks to Fr. Stephen for the ministry of his blog.

Tomorrow is the anniversary in the liturgical year of my Chrismation into the Orthodox Church.  What a journey it has been… a year of discovery, admitting the truth, finding forgiveness, love, and healing. This year I expect to more thoroughly participate in Holy Week and really, my first Pasca, having missed out on most of it last year due to travel and family issues.  It’s a quiet countdown, and end to the lenten season, and a feeling of joyful anticipation as we look forward to calling out, “He Is Risen!”. Somehow, it’s as if the voices and threads of history are joining us modern-day believers in the rich tapestry of the coming days.

In the Orthodox churches there is a wall of Icons at the front, the Iconostasis. There are doors with angels, there are faces looking at you as you stand before them and worship. One “gets to know” these images of saints over time…they are part of the tapestry of a family, in some ways, not unlike the rows of family photos lining the stair, and just being around what has become familiar is a comfort. Asking saints to pray for you, both visible and invisible, transforms the one asking…heaven and earth become “crowded”…and one feels less alone.

Since my conversion to Orthodoxy, I stood before Anne, the mother of Mary, the Theotokos. She is the saint our parish was named for. We asked her to pray for us. We remembered her life, her place in the lineage of Christ, her example. Many times I’ve drawn on that example for strength.

Yesterday it occurred to me that I miss Anne.

I know I miss my fellow parishoners. I pray for them daily, think of them daily, miss being a part of their lives and stories. I miss visiting them, bringing bread or sitting in armchairs and talking. I miss my priests. I miss having the church available for quiet, private prayers by candlelight.

But this missing a saint took me by surprise. Of course, she’s in eternity…what do we say when someone dies? “They aren’t really gone…they’re living in heaven”, etc. The protestant background I’m from doesn’t really acknowledge that beyond the grieving stage though and I’m pretty sure they’d all hesitate to say or believe that those in heaven even care a twit about what’s going on around here. But we don’t beleive that in Orthodoxy and we ask these saints to pray for us. It’s a church that prays for one another without the bonds of time holding us back.

Those who understand this better, or who could write it better, please forgive. It is likely very humble understanding I have. What I know is that in praying for Anne, and in asking her to pray for me, I feel I’ve gotten to know her a little. I stand before other icons of saints right now, out of necessity and gratitude, but Anne is not there to be seen. Of course, she’s as there as she is at St. Anne’s, but I miss her image, her icon. I haven’t gotten to know these others yet, though I’m sure that I will.

One thing I missed, without knowing a contrast, while I was protestant, was the presense of women. There were examples from scripture certainly, but they were mostly brought out in women’s bible study groups, or one or two mentioned now and then in a sermon. A few through history, used exhaustively (Susanah Wesley comes to mind…mostly for her ability to mother many babies cheerfully, not so much for her devotion to Christ). Missionaries here and there, again in our homeschooling lessons or women’s groups.

It is very different standing in a congregation of both men and women asking “Oh Godly Ever-Blessed Anne”, the grandmother of Christ, to pray for them, next to an icon of the Theotokos. Often on the calendar there are other female saint days; we acknowledge others every time a woman gives her saint name (mine is Julianna). Women became visible to me, in a way they never had been before. Their presence, their devotion, is a strength, an encouragement. It is in some ways, a redemption. Because as I felt myself disappearing, only visible for the role I filled and the services I provided, here were women who were unique. They are diverse. Where my femaleness was reviled, except where it was useful, theirs was integral and cherished. They are loved for who they are and were. They made choices that we remember. They have stories that we tell. They walked such different paths and yet in their devotion, they sing in unison.

So I took, and take, comfort in their lives. I miss Anne. I miss her image being visible, hearing her Troparion. If the saints are threads in the tapestry, how bare the world of christianity becomes without them.

We must live our lives in the fullness of our being, which requires that we live it in the place of wonder.

From Fr. Stephen’s blog today.

I have found over the course of this year that writing about Orthodoxy has been very difficult. I can scarcely articulate the wonder and joy it brings me, nor the reason why… it is overwhelming at times with it’s vastness and crowdedness and a whole host of words that may have to be experienced to (not) understand. More irony I suppose. It is also quite deeply “my sacred” and I hold it close. I find I can not hold it out there to be opinioned against, such as I could a lifestyle choice I recently made or deliberate goal I’m working on. For more reasons than could be counted I am grateful for my priest, Fr. Stephen Freeman, but one of those reasons is his blog. Today he has a stronger-than-usual position post on how differently the ancient church viewed both the church and salvation than does our modern culture; it is these very differences that ring true to me, having come from modern “traditions” with manufactured authority structures and a random-feeling, situational and fluid stance on what role the church plays (or should play). It was with ideas such as this,

“Anyone who does not know that the Church is what salvation looks like has not begun to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. We cannot love one another unless there is another to love. Indeed, the New Testament, with the exception of the Book of Philemon and the Pastoral Epistles is written only to the Church. And those exceptions are written to men only in regard to their place within the Church. The New Testament belongs exclusively to the Church. If you are reading it as an individual and not as a member of the Church to whom it was written, then you are reading someone else’s mail.”

that, upon hearing, was like a light switch of rationale….a peg of a certain shape finally finding a fitting nest.  At times, Orthodoxy reminds me more than I ever could have imagined to remove the largest idol I have, my self, finally placing me into the context that was meant in the beginning.

I do not have a comment policy on this blog currently in place. Though for this post, and any that tremble so close to what is dear to me,  I would ask commenters tread gently and respect whose space this is; I share in an effort to present myself authentically, which should not be mistaken as an invitation to debate certain things.

Think it’s nothing of consequence? Think the small stuff doesn’t matter?

I don’t beleive that life is made up of big events, like we leap mountain top to mountain top. As much as I am defined by some certain very large events in my life, for instance, being born, getting married, burying a child, moving to a new state…I am moreso defined by a million little momentary choices made day by day, year by year. Choices that build upon one another like bricks, to make an eventual wall, a life that has been lived one moment at a time. It’s why I think what milk I drink matters in the long-run and why gardening is more than growing food. It’s why making myself wash dishes when I don’t feel like it or praying when I can’t find words has value in my eternity. Kissing babies when they fall and being there to do it is Kingdom Work and if my bread comes from a plastic bag or my oven, it affects my spirit.

Inspiration today came from Fr. Stephen’s post “Losing My Religion”.

I love running. Well, not quite… I hate running. No, not exactly because I do it too much. I like the results running gives me. What else is true is that I’m a horrible runner. I’m not even sure one could call what I do “running”….it’s more like wogging, a combination of walking and jogging, done with a grimace on my face and the feeling that vomit is not far behind. No matter how often I run or how I train myself, I still can’t go faster, and it doesn’t feel better; timing my “mile” would be obnoxious. My “runner’s high” means I’ve pushed through the ready-to-puke-feeling and can actually run and feel on the verge at the same time. It’s not unlike that place in labor that is early transition: not quite the place where you are out of your mind in pain and urgently wanting that baby out but well after the place where your body is getting to serious work and you know there’s no turning back, no doing this another day, no other way out but through.

And so I run because while all this is happening to my body, my brain is pushing through the exhaustion and the anxiety. The junk in my trunk is hopefully melting down a little more. And somewhere around the third lap I start to be able to think clearly.

I LOVE this place in my mind. Ideas fall into a practical order that I can see almost tangibly and figure out how make them real; I can “see” what thing to do next. I step back from the emotion of stuff, because emotion while going through grueling physical work is too distracting, and see the elements of situations for what they are and what needs to be done. Lately, I’ve thought about my business, my book, my marriage, my kids, our future…

Today though, I had company. One of the neighbors was out on her go-cart. She had a child on a child’s-size 4 wheeler making laps with her. She (the go-cart driver) is the daughter of the woman who reported our children to the police for playing outside too much. They made circles on their exhaust-fuming machines while I tried to walk-run-wog my own. When I clung to the inside of the loop, they crossed over the lane to come at me head on, antagonizing and daring me to “play chicken”. Later, she was joined by two other girls on 4-wheelers, also making loops.

So ya know? I don’t get the appeal of 4 wheelers on a paved loop. It’s right up there with mud bogging and Nascar. Snow mobiles? Those make sense in their context. Jet Skiis…way fun. And ATV’s out in the country seem to have a purpose too. But loops on paved concrete, when gas is over $3 a gallon, and the things pollute like you wouldn’t believe, making so much noise that the drivers can’t really communicate and they weren’t even racing….well I don’t get it.

One message did come in loud and clear though. After many, many consistent reminders through church and the afternoon today, I know I don’t love my neighbors. In fact, I’m struggling with down right hatred and resentment. I’m mad at them, mad that they don’t like me, mad that they won’t even just leave me alone. Hatred and anger does not feel good. It’s not what I thought I’d have in this neighborhood, this country life I hungered for so long. Approaching them isn’t a safe idea; any thoughts of bringing a pie or cookies would be spurned. I’ve been waving at one man who sits on his swing watching me run everyday; after 9 waves deliberately in his direction on every loop (he’s about 15 clear feet from my path and stares right at the road) I finally gave up.

So how to love these people? I crossed the road when they played chicken. I made (well tried anyway) to think of other things rather than dwell on how much I dislike their pastime. I avoided eye contact and kept my mouth shut. Other than that, I’m a bit out of ideas. If you have one, I’m open to suggestions. And if you’ll pray for me, please do.

Why does Orthodoxy feel so full to me? Like it’s the fullness of Christ, the fullness of christianity, the fullness of any expression this human could ever aspire to? This is why. I missed today’s liturgy; didn’t know it was even happening in fact, so bad am I at looking at my calendar some weeks. But he’s right (about more than one thing, might I humbly say): it was not a part of my protestant experience (more than an almost incidental bible story) and I’m ever grateful that this deep  ocean of Orthodox christianity is there and that I have as long a lifetime as needed to discover it. When one has been a “christian” for over 20 years and yet struggles to know very basic things about the Christ she tries to follow, things not even brought up much during those first 20 years, finding “the point” is refreshing balm.

from wiki: “short, impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give a particular insight into a character, idea, or setting.”

• life changed Saturday, a process was completed, a process was officially begun. On Lazarus Saturday, that tiny taste of the pashca to come, we stood with others and were chrismated. And while my baby has miraculously slept through the night for three nights and while I’ve gone to bed early each day and napped as well, I find I am exhausted and in a way, spent, tired, full. They said, “welcome home” when we were done and that’s exactly what it feels like: profound belonging.
• and Sunday was palm Sunday; we held palm frond crosses and said the words, “accept me as communicant” and prayed for others as catachumens, and with the weekend, walked into our first Holy Week experience. The feelings, the end of lent, the quiet watching and listening we are finding ourselves doing, are close to virginal in their newness; they are multifarious and light and as restless as the cloud shadows on the greening of the mountains. It is strange as we both long for the end and want to hold onto each day in near silence; it sometimes seems nearly everything is too loud.
• which makes life rather interesting with little people about…little loud people who are running barefoot and talk constantly and are excited about every change, from the cat’s belly as it undulates from the kittens within to the apple tree that sprouted and the tulips that bloomed.
• we travel this week which means there is much to do. Food is simple: lentils, rice, granola, fruit, water. I’m disinterested in anything more, I suppose at least in part because the baby is now a boy fully weaned. There is soap to make, clothes to wash, grass to cut, bags to pack, words to write.
• Andrew said today, “Mom? Why is that police car going through the Discount Tobacco drive thru? Isn’t that inconsistent?” Kids pick up on stuff…. then later he asked why anyone would want to drink milk from cloned cows because, “doesn’t what we eat become part of us?” I thought I heard about some show that asks whether or not adults are smarter than 5th graders and wondered if it’s maybe not about intelligence or learning but about having that honest insight intact and not yet being so jaded that they can still see right through the excuses we make.

Oh what an exciting week it has been! And few will probably appreciate the magnitude of that statement…this was the week of our daughter Clara’s 8th birthday. Due to a misunderstanding of where I was on the calendar (itself a minor miracle in the last week of March), I first thought her birthday was Sunday. Then Tuesday. But really, it was yesterday. What struck me as beautiful is that is was the kind of comical befuddlement that happens to my living children’s birthdays too. It was the first time it had happened with Clara’s; the darkness that has followed me every spring has been lifted. I attribute this almost completely to the fact that she has been remembered in corporate, public prayers for the departed since late fall. Her presense as one who prays for me as well has been validated; something I’ve long felt but never heard another say so seriously and earnestly as I have this winter. That she is no longer my “secret”, that I no longer feel like I must fight the tendancy to make the dead invisible, has been it’s own miracle in my spirit and the result has been the lack of dread as we’ve approached the season of anniversaries.

And so this has been a good week! Tulips and butterflies and ivy and daffodils! Sunshine and supreme warmth! As I type there is birdsong outside my open window.

Last night we made our first confession, in preparation for our upcoming chrismation. I’ve been pondering what confession really is: said privately it really is only an admission that you know what God has already known. True confession does require another’s ears hear your words. I made a list, one to help me remember and stay focused, but what the true result was the creation of a record resulting in self-loathing and shame. And I think for the first time my embarrassment at needing to say this before another human being, especially one I love and respect so much, gave me a glimpse at what must be so much more grievous before a heavenly father. And in to an earthly, lesser, extent, I think what happened was glorious. Because this confessor, this human being, did not seem to look at me differently afterward and certainly not with the scorn I’d feared. Rather than rejection I was given grace and love. I left feeling comfort and reassurance that my redemption is truly a possible thing, even with habitutal sins that I’ve long struggled with, even as I fight battles like everyone else, not so odd after all. And if that is model of what really happens in a heavenly realm then I stand amazed and bit sad that this was missing from my tradition for a lifetime.

I’ve two major projects in the works: a book and new business. This blog has over 50k hits per month and the readership is growing, what I’m told is a good performance for a young site. Requests for web work and blog make-overs have come, putting together a “professional blogger” kind of service. So I’ve assembled packages for business people who want a blog, or have a blog that needs revamping, and out of time or knowledge constraints, want some help with it. It’s work I love to do, love to learn, and in some ways, feels like a cummulative way to use what I’ve been developing for a long time.

The book is the other Major Undertaking, one that is much fun and since NanoWriMo, is not all that intimidating. The goal is to have it ready to show to an editor/publisher by the end of September of this year. The working title is Low Income is Better Than Owed Income: How One Family Decided to Live on purpose and Become Debt Free. I’ve got extensive notes and the outline done, and oh yeah, I lived it. It’s our story, plus the testimonies of other like minds, and lots of practical tips for those wanting to give it a go as well.

The image of a puzzle keeps coming to mind, pieces fitting together and the completed picture working its way into focus, a metaphor for the coming year. Everything is a part: healing, committment, work and effort, rest and prayer. The result is clarity; the irony to me, in a year resplendant with ironic moments, is that clarity is the meaning of her name. Some gifts take a long time to open.

A new name. In so many ways, the very concept of sainthood is part of what restored my hope in christianity this past year as we began to learn about Orthodoxy. And, when we became catechumens, we started reading about the amazing lives (and often deaths) of people who lived what they believed to the extreme. It’s been reassuring to “get to know” the stories of those throughout christendom who persevered.

Picking a “name saint” though was difficult and not all members of the family have yet decided. We have a little “St. Kenneth”….we may have a St. Thomas and a St. Andrew the First Called (though there are a few Andrew’s to choose from). Mom, Dad, and Celia have been harder.

Sometimes people choose thier name saint because the name is close to thier given name. Sometimes it’s because their saint day is close to their birthday. I felt like I took a different way around, a long way around: I wanted a story I could relate to, aspire to. I had “story criteria” I was mentally tallying every time I read a story. I’m still not sure if this was “okay” to do but it meant I “met” a lot of fantastic saints along the way and eventually, through the help of many helpful parishoners and ultimately David’s godfather, I met Juliana.

Juliana of Lazarevo was *amazing*. She had 13 children, 6 of whom died, but those other 7 she raised in a busy household that ministered to the poor and needy. She lived a long and dedicated life and had a peaceful, quiet death. Reading her story, I was struck by her consummate unselfishness and compassion for those who often didn’t even have the basic necessities to live with, were ill or dying, those who had no one to love them or pray for them. She was a woman who acheived sainthood without becoming an actual monastic, though her life was very similar in ways, especially after her husband died and her children were grown.

I am inspired by her perseverance, her hard work, her dedication and selflessness, even in the midst of what must have been a sometimes busy life, at times grievious. Even a few of her adult children died young; this was a woman who was faced with great trial and in her response, showed even greater love and mercy.

In a week when I’ve rather starkly confronted my angry tendancies and brittle repsonses to stress, she leaves me humbled and without excuse.

And so, Juliana I have chosen. Read her story here.

Fr. Stephen had this on his blog today; ironically highlighting part of a prayer I myself was going to write about. Irony is part of Orthodoxy is part of Christianity. The going has indeed gotten tougher; prayers are coveted.

Metanoia: a change of mind or lifestyle arising from spiritual conversion or repentance.

Such a season of change it is with my heart, life, and mind this year! I find the summation, my metanoia, everywhere, from the little crevices of routines rhythmically done year in and year out to the big, bold environmental earthquakes changing the backdrops of our days.

Last year the word that came to me over and over was “holistic”. In a steady stream of irony I watched and participated in life changes that were completely whole in their reach, not even the smallest detail being unaffected. Who knew that what kind of chickens I keep this year or where my children attend boy scouts  would be changed by the way I pray and where I do it? For nearly two years we have worked to pay off our debts, we’ve prayed, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” every week, and now we stand on the precipace of seeing that come to fruition. What a radical thought it is then, to be climbing the stairs inoccuously gathering laundry and to realize that starting in a few short weeks, the money we make will be mostly ours to use…it is owed to no man!! That same prayer includes the words, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and for the first time in my life I’m thinking about and visualizing what that can look like, what it can be like.

There is a new energy in my home, an optimism and freedom that we’ve long wanted but weren’t sure how to attain. It is, yes, ironic, that within a season of The Great Fast, we should feel so full, so rich, so blessed beyond measure. There is goodness abounding that for years we chose not to partake in, thinking that in denial we somehow became more pious. Why we chose to draw a shade about the light that had the potential to illuminate our path, I wonder at now.

One thing is sure: I can’t imagine any going back. Once one has feasted at a table that includes such rich texture, taste, and beauty…when health and fullness can be asked for and recieved, even as they may defy fitting within the small constraints we box them in with, there can be no rational reason to going back. Only an embracing of fear could cause a return to old ways and “God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

it will never, ever make up for a lack of good care, feeding, and watering. Discipline without nurturing is always abuse.

It’s spring time in more ways that one around here.

Winter is a time of dormancy, of sleeping, of waiting. It’s often a time of pruning so that there is a better health. Interesting thing about the act of pruning: the healthy return sprouts in a new place, not the old. Unlike a starfish….cut it off, grow one back; starfish restore what’s been cut off….pruning means redirecting and ultimately can be a tremendously healthy thing. Life is better off for it, but that old growth will not revisit from whence it came.

And so that is where I am this morning. I’ve been pruned, I’ve pruned, there is a redirected health that is ready to explode forth in glorious color. This morning it is a bright day with a high blue sky and the birds are singing. I swear I hear one of them say at dawn, “put off the old, behold all things are new”…. and so I will.

My list today includes a heavy clothesline, an order for a new batch of chicks, names of plants and maps of where they will go, mopped floors, and a few open windows. I will paint fence posts that now have a bit more time to wait until they need to contain new birds and this is fine, even an improvement over the old plan, because we are no longer rushed and can do the best job in our own time.

If Winter is old and grey, Spring is new and alive, much as I am today. Seasons propel forward, not back, and moving on never felt so good.