Moving...

Benedicamus Domino!

This blog is no longer active. If you wish to see another of my efforts, simply go to this site. Thanks for reading! I hope you've enjoyed this journey! Now it's time for another to begin. Come along if you are so inclined!

Deo Gratias!

The End of a Blog, the Beginning of a Betrothal!

Benedicamus Domino!

A year and a half ago, or as near to that as makes no matter, I began this blog for a number of reasons, the first of which was that I was seeking clarity in direction for my life. I was seeking to live authentically, in a way that was both true to myself--my deep self I mean as opposed to my mere ego--and was also true to whatever might be God's will for me. I have occupied myself with that last 'whatever' likely far too often of late, but a part of this occupation was an earnest (I hope) prayer and wish for clarity where I felt there was only confusion. Accordingly, I embarked upon a journey, which although it did not unfold with the method I originally intended, did unfold many budding branches which have, I am now pleased to say, borne much fruit. I focused on my body, my mind and my spirit, and again, though many of the intended pathways I set out to explore have remained largely untrodden, there have been some upon which I have made good headway, one of which was to reconnect with many friends whose society I had let drop away from my life for the very simple but rather paralyzing reason that I thought they would not find me very interesting or might not find my society agreeable. I had no actual basis for this assertion, but I lived by it for some time, and only when I began this journey toward joy did I realize that it was crushing me under its vast and demoralizing weight and that this was a burden which I had constructed for myself, and which, therefore, I could of course destroy.

This act of demolition was a cry against the darkness, a candle in the rain, as it were. I wished to know if joy was truly possible, if truly eucharistic living could happen. I have realized now that it can and does happen in many people's lives. Does it truly happen in mine? Well, that's a question better left alone by me, for I am the worst person to answer it objectively. However, what I can say is that after this year-and-a-half's journey, the shadow has departed. The darkness has gone, and what I know now is that even though it may come again, it will not claim me this time. It will not bow me under its weight so that I feel that I cannot rise. I have found the clarity for which I have sought, and it is a glorious thing to contemplate.

Almost a year ago, I took a chance and put myself out there, connecting with the man who would later become my beloved. This in itself was a milestone, for I had not truly entered into a long-term relationship for many years and indeed, I felt myself unfit for it. I thought that I was broken, unable to allow myself to be loved, with nothing to give, for it had all been drowned in tears and regret, in fear of loss and in loneliness. However, Michael being who he is, he showed himself to me and basically made me reach out to him. He didn't force me, you understand, but merely by being who he is, he tapped the fountain of love which still lay buried in my stone-enclosed heart. He made me risk again! He made me feel like a girl again! He made me dream of a future which need not be circumscribed by a wall of loneliness, even despite my still-hermitish tendencies! In short, he was the medicine which God provided to begin the healing of my broken and bruised spirit, and now, now a new step has been taken!

As of last night, I am now a betrothed woman! Michael proposed that we share our lives in marriage, and I accepted him with a glad and a certain heart! I believe that God has answered my prayer for clarity, because time was that I was actually afraid of the idea of marriage! I felt that I would necessarily have to become less than I was as a single person. I thought that I could never find a man who could put up with me, who might find me interesting, who, in short, might be able to trust me enough to put his life in my hands and who would be able to accept mine in tturn. I suppose I felt that I had too much baggage for anyone ever to want to trust me. I had little confidence in myself and even less in my fellow-beings in this consumer-culture!

However, as last night proved, I do have much to offer and even more to receive from the man who is now my betrothed! I will approach this chapter of my life with the same attitude with which I have tried to approach all of my life, with an openness to new things and yes, even a kind of idealism which I used to hold but which, I hope, has been somewhat tempered by time and experience into a wiser and more mellow thing, a strength which will not snap at the least misfortune. I hope, in short, that it has begun the process of being transformed from fragile alabaster to a thing of adamantine strength and purity. For this is what marriage is all about in my view. Two people agree to come together. They are not perfected people. They are not even necessarily good or virtuous. However, they are courageous. They agree to come together and to build a life together, leaning on each other for support and yielding each of their wills to the other's true happiness. This is not the exercise of two egos satisfying each other, or it ought not to be. It is, rather, the process of moving beyond the ego to the true will, moving beyond mere romantic love to truly deifying and sanctifying love. It is a pathway to salvation which is not easy, but which can be very rewarding if it is approached sincerely and with a truly joyful and grateful heart on the part of its participants. This is what I think we both intend to do, and as this first joyful day of my betrothal to my beloved moves onward, I reflect that while the journey is not over, the need for this blog is not so pressing as it may have been some months ago. Accordingly, this will be the last post in this blog, and its web domain will cease to function in some few days. I may keep the Blogger address active for a while, but I am sure that before long, I will delete it. Will I start another blog? I don't know. Perhaps I have written too much. Perhaps I have lived too long in my head and now it's time to dismantle my ivory tower of words. However, nothing will be done until I have thoroughly revisited this blog in its entirety to see exactly how it has evolved and exactly whether I wish to keep any record of my personal reflections about life, God, myself and everything. The point is that my journey toward joy is still in its infancy, but the path is clearer than it has ever been before. No longer do I need to whistle in the dark, to scream my words to the world because I have no idea where I'm going. I know the path that I have been set, and I intend to travel it with Michael at my side! May God bless our steps and may He carry us when we stumble. May we always stand with each other as comrades-in-arms and may we have Christ to call us onward and to continue to show us the path we must tread! May we wake and sleep in love, and may we never let the sun set upon our anger! May we, in short, never be afraid to start over when we fall, and may we always lend each other a helping hand to rise again! May God who has begun this bring it to perfection!

Deo Gratias!

Joy-filled Evening!

Benedicamus Domino!

It has been a long time since I have taken to this little corner of the web, a long time since I have felt I had anything worth writing here. This, of course, was not due to the lack of anything worth writing about, but rather due to my own closed-off nature during the past few months. I suppose we all revert to type every now and again, and my type seems to be rather a solitary hermit, a person who can cause herself to feel alone even among crowds and who tells herself and others if they'll listen that she really likes it that way.

This of course is utter nonsense! However, I do persist in this pattern and it really needs to stop.

Ah well... What was it that I came here to write this evening, you ask? Well, Michael and I just spent a lovely evening with some friends of mine. Actually it was more like an afternoon and an evening. We had some great conversation, some fabulous food at a Czek restaurant, and just generally had a very lovely time.

The best of it was that I was able to introduce him to a friend who has been a comrade-in-arms of mine for many years. She and I are in some ways as different as night and day, but in others we seem to be linked at the brain-stem, and this is despite about a ten-year difference in our ages. I suppose what made me so happy was her assessment that I seemed to be like a different person since the last time we truly got together. I don't entirely know what that means, but I suspect that she was able to see Mike and I together and it really came home to her that we were comfortable with each other and cared about each other and such. It doesn't hurt that he is just a very special person. Anyone who meets him can see that and would remark upon it.

All I can say is that this was just a lovely evening! It made things more--well--real I guess. I can't really explain it well, but having Mike meet this sister-in-the-spirit of mine just brought things home to me that we're in this for keeps, for real! I'm just so happy!!!

Deo Gratias!

Looking Behind and Looking Ahead

Benedicamus Domino!

Last friday, I turned 35, and today, July 13 on the Julian Calendar, is the day on which the woman I took as a patron saint at my Baptism, Amma Sarah of Egypt, is celebrated. She was a desert mother: a woman who went out into the wilderness, fleeing from cities and such, in order to come face-to-face with the parts of herself that were not very pretty. She wanted, as did all these desert monastics, to strip away all the distractions which allowed her to delude herself into thinking that she did not have to make any improvements. We don't know anything about her life prior to her dwelling somewhere near Alexandria in a hermit's cell. We know she stayed there for a very long time, and we know that there are accounts of her meeting with other monks and talking with them.

This week, I've thought a lot about her and about what lessons she has taught me over the years. The biggest lesson is found in one of her sayings which was memorialized in the Patericon, or the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which is: "If I prayed God that all men should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure towards all." This saying has shown me that even if people don't necessarily think that my conduct is something that they can get behind, that's not the most important thing. It's not up to me to please people, because I'll never please everyone. However, what I can do is try not to hold grudges and slowly learn to look at every person I meet as an icon of Christ.

The second lesson that she's taught me is that it is sometimes necessary to simplify one's life. Whether this means cutting back on work to make time for family or getting rid of actual physical stuff, or perhaps even finding a way to overcome an addiction, change is possible and simplifying is a good way to promote that change. So much of the spiritual life for a Christian really has to do with de-cluttering of one's thoughts and one's heart. Peace has no room to dwell in an overly care-worn soul, so I am slowly learning what a long-ago dream actually began to show me: climbing the mountain is difficult, but the going is easier if we can shed, little by little, the things that weigh us down. Why try to carry our homes on our backs when we can make wherever we land into a home? We can't truly set out on a journey if we're tied to our comforts and conveniences. Life is not really about comfort and convenience. Every so often, things come along to shake the worlds we build for ourselves into pieces, and this is why we have to learn to acknowledge all these comforts as temporary and thereby to take greater joy in them because we know that they will not always be here someday.

The third lesson is that you can't run away from who you are. No matter where you go or what you do, you take yourself and your ego along for the ride. You can chip away at the excess and non-productive parts of yourself, and God can even heal those parts. Amputation is sometimes necessary, it is true, but most of the nasty bits in the heart and the soul can be salved with the balm of His mercy if we let him. However, no work at all can be done if we do not face our demons and allow ourselves to know them. Knowledge in this case is power, because once we look our passions and demons in the face, we usually realize how pitiful and weak they really are in the light of Christ, and we find that we do not have to be slaves to them but can allow ourselves to be freed.

So, on this day, I think about my life and what has gone before and what will come next, and I find that much of my life has been spent in frivolity or in gloom. My even-temperedness has often masked these two extremes from the world, but they're there and they're a self-perpetuating cycle. Houses of cards tend to fall over at the slightest puff of wind, after all, and houses built on infirm foundations tend to crumble in the storm. It is time for me to start building my house on reality, on the pillars of charity, mercy, faith and hope, and I have to begin at home. I have to begin with myself. I have to allow myself to accept charity and to be ministered to in mercy. I have to go forward in faith and hope, if not for the future, then for God's continuing support through whatever comes. He is there in joy and in sorrow, after all, and it is my job to learn to be thankful for both things, because in a way, they are both illusions. Life on earth will eventually descend into night, but life in Christ has no evening! I have to learn to truly live that way, to both acknowledge life for what it truly is here on earth but also to look to Christ as my well-spring! There is a way to see the world as it is and yet to hope. There is a way to be in full acknowledgement of the horrors that occur in this world but also to transcend them. However, in order to transcend, we must do as Christ did, and we must descend. We have to meet life where it lives, on its own terms, and then ask God to carry us through it. Amma Sarah met life by getting rid of the daily cares of being a wife and mother. Others meet it by being wives, mothers, husbands, fathers and workers. Either way, the journey is the same and we all need the same map and the same pilgrim's staff to lean on: faith. We can't avoid temptations. We can't avoid troubles and trials. These build our characters. However, we can ask God to carry us through them. We can lean on Him. We don't have to be perfect all at once, but we have to allow ourselves to slowly be perfected, and this entails seeing the flaws which need to be smoothed out by the Master Artist's touch. Only then can the true beauty in the creation be uncovered! So, I shall try to live by the lessons that Amma Sarah has taught me, and I shall go forth into this new year of my life with zeal and with boldness!

Venerable Amma Sarah, pray to God for us!

Deo Gratias!

The Power of Saying Thank You

Benedicamus Domino!

Today, I watched a movie called The Gratitude Experiment. It's a documentary designed to get viewers thinking in a different way about their lives. The speakers in the movie all talk about having a daily practice of gratitude and about how this has changed their lives in various and sundry positive and life-affirming ways.

The basic premise of this gratitude philosophy is that if we can learn to be grateful as we go through life, can learn to view ourselves in a constantly-receptive state and as therefore grateful for what we receive, then we will have a more peaceful mind, a more healthy body and a more fulfilling life in general. But my big question is: grateful to what? to whom? You have to have a 'you' to say thank you to after all. The movie talks a lot about being grateful to the universe. I suppose this can work if you really do feel that you are a child of that universe, but is the universe sentient? Is it aware? Is it personal? Some philosophers would have you think that it was. I, however, cannot think this way. Being a Christian, I have to believe that the universe as we know it (and even as we don't know it) is God's creation no less than we are. So, being grateful to the universe for the blessings in our lives would seem a little silly to me. The other problem about the universe is that people tend to treat it like a controlable thing. They say that we can control it and can direct it by our wills, and this is the other part of this gratitude philosophy. Be grateful for what you have on a daily basis and soon, your whole life will change. You'll get everything you can envision if you envision it with a grateful heart. Hmmm...

Another troubling part of this movie was that people tended to ascribe the gratitude we should feel to our own selves for creating the lives that we live. I think that it is important not to hate yourself or to despair about yourself, but I am troubled by the idolatry of the self which can occur if this is taken to its most logical conclusion. Basically, I don't really believe in the law of attraction. Think positively and all will be well? I agree that being more positive can give you courage and fortitude in the bad times, but in the end, that courage and fortitude has to break down if we do things on our own all the time.

I agree that gratitude has to happen. We have to, as Christians, be grateful to God for our lives and for what we have in this life. We should learn to be grateful to Him as often as we can, but it has to be organic. It can't be forced. We have to first start by acknowledging that we are, in fact, in His debt. We are the children of His mercy and not of our merit. Only then can we truly realize how great the gifts He has given us really are, and only then, in our knowledge of our own brokenness, can we begin to change our lives and begin to let Him fill us with His grace. The heck of it is that this is a day-to-day, minute-to-minute thing. It has to always be going on, even amid our distractions. It's one thing to be peaceful when we're in a peaceful place, but I think it behooves a Christian, especially one of a contemplative nature, to carry peace about with him or her. We should take the peace we find in prayer or in church or wherever we find it and learn to cultivate it, learn to recall ourselves to that place, and the quickest way to do that I've found is to say "Deo Gratias," or "thanks be to God." Take joy where you find it and let it fill you. Let it lift you and never forget to say "Thank you!" Will it change your life? Will you suddenly find your dream-job or your true love? I can't answer that, but I know that it will change yourself. I think a holy person is one who can rejoice in the Lord always and be grateful to Him for everything in life, whether it seems to be a positive triumph or a negative trial. Of course, I'm a very long way from doing this, from reaching this state, but it's something I'm aiming for with God's help. Gratitude is not about feeling happy. It's about being happy, and the difference between feeling and being is that feeling focuses on the self and is a constant struggle, while being is more about resting, more about letting go of the highs and lows of emotion and about finding a kind of all-pervasive contentment with life.

Of course, gratitude is a part of living the eucharistic life. It is a very essential part. Indeed, the offering that we can make to God which He will transform and transfigure and return to us is ourselves, our broken and bleeding selves, and the only thing that we can render to Him is gratitude, since He is doing for us far more than we are worthy of receiving. We are children of mercy, not of merit, but we can become children of grace, children of love if we let Him change us as He sees fit and not as we with our limited vision would seek to change ourselves. Till next I write, I will say:

Deo Gratias!

Following Christ's Example

Benedicamus Domino!

I've meant to write about this for a while now, but only at this point has there been a way into this topic that makes some sense for me.

What does it mean to follow the example of Christ? We're often exhorted as Christians to follow Christ's example in his merciful behaviour or in his adherence to the fundamental commandments that we should love God with all our heart, soul and mind and that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. This of course is what we ought to do, but is there more to Christ than a really exceptionally good man who taught with wise words? Was His sole bequest to us an example of charity and good works?

People often approach Christ's miracles as merely good works, as though restoring sight to the blind man was more of a merciful act than a mind-blowing restoration of that man's fallen condition to what God had intended it to be. The Bible is a little vague about this in the English translations at least. I can't attest to the original Greek of the New Testament. However, in holy tradition, we're taught in Orthodox Christianity that Christ actually molded new eyes for the blind man who had no eyes. He did this with the clay of the earth, creating life where there was no life and removing, in microcosm, the effects of the fall from him. This is what all His miracles were about: foreshadowings of the true and universal resurrection.

However, what did He also do? First, He was with The Father and spoke the universe into existence. As part of that universe and after the fall, He became like us, did his works and taught, died and rose again. This is another way in which we must follow His example. It's not enough to be blessed or baptized and then go on our way. We have to die to ourselves so we can rise in Christ. This idea of being baptized into Christ has always puzzled me, but I think I get it now. We are to do what He did at Gethsemane. We may think the medicine that will change our hearts tastes bitter, but we have to acknowledge our fears and then take the medicine anyway. God wants us to be like Him, after all. That's why Christ came to us, to make us like God.

I read a tweet recently that stated something to the effect that Christ has always been with us and is still with us, sticking up for us with God. This idea that Christ is "sticking up for us with God" is difficult for me. It makes it seem like God is some cold and distant figure and that Christ has to keep telling God not to smite us or something. That's certainly not a God I want to believe in! No. Christ is our doorway. He is our path. He shows us what transformation looks like. He quite literally is the ordering principle of the universe: what Plato called the Logos, and He is the living Logos, the incarnate Logos who has come into His own creation and has redeemed it and is redeeming it in each one of us and will redeem it at the Last Day.

So, if we are followers of the ordering principle of the universe, we have to take it that He knows how things should be better than we do. Let's take something that is not in the least controversial like equal marriage rites for people who are attracted to members of the same sex. Not controversial at all, right? Right. Well, I have always thought of myself as a free-thinking person, a person who knows her own mind and is willing to stick up for what she believes in, and I have come to the conclusion that my church's teachings on this subject are correct, and what my church teaches is that gay marriage is not marriage. We furthermore believe that this has come down to us from The Bible and from the very fact that God first made man and woman as one being and then took woman from the man and separated them.

We see marriage as a pathway to salvation. There are many such pathways, but marriage is the most common. It comes from the verse where God says that "for this cause (the woman) shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife." A marriage between a man and a woman is viewed as the best and most orderly (though fallen) state for mutual salvation, mutual healing, mutual moving closer to God and further from their fallen and broken selves. We believe that the man and the woman have roles to fulfill: man may drive the metaphorical car but woman navigates it. Man may be called the head of the family, but woman is the counsellor to the king: Merlin to Arthur. The kind of love that we usually associate with marriage in our age really isn't all that it should be. It's a fallen love. It's a start, but should not be taken as lasting. Another kind of love has to happen, a real love based on the knowledge of and compassion for each other's brokenness and a willingness to admit to one another that brokenness and to grow from it.

The logical question then is why can't this kind of salvific thing exist in a marriage between two men or between two women? First of all, we would state that sexual attraction is not all that it's cracked up to be. We believe that due to the fall, all sexual attraction is now disproportionate as an instinct to what it was before the fall. All our instincts and emotions are turned on their heads as fallen people. So whether you are attracted to people of your own sex or gender or to people of the opposite one, this attraction impulse is rather too big for us to handle it safely. So while in our culture we still tend to marry for love, sexual identity shouldn't be seen as either normal or abnormal depending on one's preference. It's all a bit out of joint really, and no one is any more "normal" than anyone else. This is where some Christian teachers get a little mixed up. A straight marriage is defined by them as "the way God intended it" or as "normal" or as "natural," while a gay marriage is defined as "unnatural" or "wrong."

We would simply say this: a union between a man and a woman is a marriage in the Christian sense. A union between two men or two women is not a marriage in the Christian sense. If it's a marriage under the law, then it's a marriage under the law. We can't really say that it's not, but the church wouldn't recognize it or bless it with the sacrament of marriage. Is this condemnatory? I believe that any faith has the right to define how its ceremonies are performed.

I recently heard a really interesting talk about sexual addictions, marriage and the Orthodox Christian perspective on all this. It was very informative and very helpful to me personally, as I often feel woefully inferior when I hear all the reasons that I'm wrong and the rest of the "enlightened" world seems to be correct about issues like gay marriage. First, I don't believe that sexual identity should ever have become quite the civil rights issue that it has. Sexual identity is really something that we fashion for ourselves and it is, in my opinion, a mask. Don't get me wrong! I believe attractions exist within people, but it is ultimately up to us how we deal with these attractions. There are some people who have had same-sex attraction who have chosen (not because of social pressure but because their consciences told them they should) to be married to people of the opposite sex. Were they brain-washed into doing that? Most people can't be brain-washed into a decision like that, or if they are, it won't last long. The drives are very strong. The very fact that people can remain monogamous during marriage is a pretty big thing! The drives, as I said, are very very strong: any sexual drive or attraction or whatever.

The point I'm trying to make is that sexual identity can be a mask and usually is. We want to focus on the person, the joining of two persons in marriage, and again: one way follows Christ, who is the incarnation of the ordering principle of the entire universe, and another way does not follow that order. Is one moral and one immoral? I personally don't like those kinds of binaries. If morality equals following in line with the ordering of the universe, then alright, but I generally think of morality as a set of codes by which we all try to live.

So what about homosexuals in the church? Here we come again to following Christ's example. We certainly ought not to cast stones or to spread hate speech or hate literature. We always have to learn to look to the person first, to go behind the masks that everyone wears and find the truth of the human being, because God loves all human beings. The fall is the fall, and we're all a part of that fall. No one should judge another's sins. We all have to look to ourselves as the chiefest of sinners and then look out at the world. When we do that, less condemnation and more mercy and charity happens. As for homosexual attraction, we would deem that to be a passion or a sin but only amongst many other sins that we all commit every day. We're all in the church to be healed, but the healing may take months, years or perhaps our whole lives. We don't, or we shouldn't, believe that any one sin makes a person unlovable. However, we do believe that there is an order to the universe and that marriage between a man and a woman is a pathway to regaining that lost order within ourselves and within the family we create as well.

Again, however, I myself cannot see writing letters or shouting slogans asking that gay marriage rights be abolished in Canada. I believe very strongly in the separation of church and state, and while I do believe that a faith has the right to define what it means by marriage if marriage is sacred to it, I also believe that the state must do what it sees as being in the best interest of all its citizens, and if a large enough group makes a big enough noise, it is the democratic state's mandate to at least see why they're making the noise and to see what can be done about it. Our country's response has been to legalize (via the courts mind you and not via parliament) same-sex marriages. So be it. Do I think that anyone marrying each other in a same-sex context is automatically damned to hell? God forbid! I don't know their hearts or minds or lives! What I do know is what the church has taught me and what I, after many years of wrestling with it, have come to truly believe. Again though, no gay marriage in Orthodox Christianity does not equal burning people out of their homes or beating them up or defaming them or causing them to lose their livelihoods. We just believe that the sacrament of marriage exists between a man and a woman, and that any other kind of union just wouldn't be a Christian marriage. Would it be an evil marriage? Not to my way of thinking anyway. It's simply beyond the boundaries of a Christian marriage as we in the Orthodox church see it.

So, in order to follow the example of Christ, it is also necessary to look at the world and to see whether there might be an ordering of things which is more profitable than whatever our opinions of a given moment (I mean here age) might be. We humans are a changeable lot after all. One minute homosexuality is almost universally condemned and the next, it's becoming more and more accepted. But how can we trust even that? What if some cultural shift comes along and turns what we assume to be true on its head? As a Christian, my social and political views should never be about my emotions. They're changeable too, and many social and political persuaders like to use emotion to hook adherents. Another thing I've learned is that it's alright for me to be in conflict with a teaching of the church. However it's not necessarily the correct thing for me to spout off about my own opinion right away. It's often best to just be patient and let the faith deepen within you, and then one might begin to see the reasoning or truth behind a given tenet or teaching. The teachings are after all merely a road-map. I don't believe in teachings. I don't believe in anything. I try to follow Christ. I'm not a philosopher. I'm not religious. I'm simply a Christian woman trying to make sense of her world the best way she can. Take all these thoughts in that spirit therefore, and let them be as they must be.

Till next I write,

Deo Gratias!

A Joyous Discovery!

Benedicamus Domino!

I've been away from this blog for far too long, but I'm back now with a joyous discovery. I don't know why I haven't hit on this before now, but I suppose I'm just obtuse or something.

Today I heard a really exquisite piece of music done with only a piano in the hands of an extremely talented musician. It was his own composition and it just radiated love and intimacy and wonder! Now, it is a fact that I have noodled around quite a lot on the piano. I sometimes engage in improvisation when playing music for an event and when someone asks what I'm playing, I have to say that I really don't know, which always sounds silly. Well--and here's the obtuse part--I've never very seriously till now truly entertained the notion of composing instrumental pieces. For some reason I thought I just wasn't good enough to do that or something. Now, I'm nowhere near as agile on those piano keys as some are, because I've let a lot of my technique go to pot over the years, but today I actually began to compose what could be called a musical poem or a musical painting. I realized that I could paint in music. I can, if I want to, take a phrase of music and weave it into tapestries. I don't know why I've never tried it before! I'll tell you what though. I'm going to keep on doing it and see what happens! Here's the first feeble effort. I'm thinking of calling it "Mercy" when it's more polished.


Deo Gratias!

Soul-music

Benedicamus Domino!

Tonight, I wanted to write about something which I call soul-music. I don't mean here the music popularized in the 60s and based on Blues and Rock and such, but rather something more subtle. Soul-music is an experience (whether musical or not doesn't matter) that literally sings to the soul and causes it to respond in sympathy with that experience. For me, this singing has to take the form of something which leads me out of myself and causes me to look beyond my everyday life to something higher, deeper, truer.

One of the first experiences of this soul-music that I can remember is the hearing of a set of wind-chimes over my grandmother's back fence. I would stand at the fence when young for minutes on end just listening to the chimes which belonged to a neighbouring house. I found it marvelous that the mere passing of a breeze could make these pieces of metal or glass create such beautiful and unlooked-for music! It was as though the wind itself was composing its own tunes, or as though the chimes were brought to a kind of strange and momentary life by the wind playing upon them.

I recall that I never really wanted to find the chimes, to know where they were. I always wanted to just stand at the fence, knowing I could never reach these marvelous things, but knowing that their sound could always reach me and fill me with a nameless and unbounded joy, a simple happiness for which there really is no word. I have always wanted a very tuneful set of wind-chimes, because whenever I hear them they add something to my surroundings. They automatically make me feel peaceful whenever I hear them, and it is incomprehensible to me that anyone could find their sound annoying. I am sure that some people do, but for me, it is as though the world has been made just a little more magical when I hear a well-constructed and perfectly-balanced set of wind-chimes ringing. And it's never the same if some hand makes them ring either. Only the wind's touch, so unpredictable and so changeful, and yet so strangely rhythmic as well, can truly make them sound as they should. That is what makes them fall like music into my heart and soul. They seem to bid me hush and be still, to call me into some sacred and secret place where the wind has a language all its own and where I can almost begin to understand it, just as wind among rustling trees can do. It is truly beautiful and restorative to my spirit to hear, on a pleasant summer's day, the soft chiming of the bells of the wind! It is one of the most joyful noises I know!

Deo Gratias!

Creativity and Me: Part 1

Benedicamus Domino!

I have recently begun a small course on how to master one's artistic habits, or in my case, how to create these habits in the first place. I've often heard and read about people who have such a passion for their writing or their music or whatever that they simply must spend time working on that craft each and every day. I, alas, have no such consistent drive, so when I found this course on the internet, I chose to see what it would have to offer. I am also choosing to publish my journal entries for this course here. Since this is part of my journey toward joy, I feel it to be appropriate for this blog. So, here, three weeks late incidentally, is my first journal entry for the course.

"Mastering Your Artistic Habits

Journal Entry 1

I am working on my creative personality.

This means to me that I feel that my current use of that personality is not in a good place. I am not letting it live to its fullest potential, so therefore, I am working on it, overhauling it, approaching it as a mechanic would approach a car that does not run well, or rather, does not run the way *he* wants it to run. Yes. That's it. It's not that the car doesn't work and really needs fixing. It's just that it doesn't sound right, it isn't slick enough. So I want to tune things up, to supe up my creative drive and to become, at last, a "real" artist.

I think I've always felt that I only play at my music and my writing. I think that on some level I've always felt inferior to others who seem more devoted to their crafts than I appear to myself to be. The truth is that they simply do their crafts every day. I, right now, do not, and I feel that I ought to.

Animals

I am a bit of a chemelion because I often try to please as many different types of people as possible. Rather than being staunchly myself, I wear different masks and sometimes hide parts of myself behind them. I stifle myself in this process.

I am also a hermit-crab, not so much because I steel other people's vacated homes, but simply because I tend to wall myself off from people sometimes.

I am also a tarrior. When I find something interesting, I stick with it. I won't let go even if someone tells me it's weird or strange. I am capable of going the distance to achieve a goal when I really really want to do it, but that's the problem. I have to really really really want to do it!

My Dreams and Hopes

I hope to be able to make some kind of living by my creativity, whether it's through music, writing and/or motivational speaking, or by some other creative means. I know this takes hard work and a head for the gritty details of business management and the like, but it is what I would wish to do.
I also hope to publish at least one novel or book of poetry or collection of stories. Whether this means self-publishing or publishing with a firm, that's one thing I dream of doing.
I hope to record a second album, at least one more.
I'm not looking for fame or fortune. I'm not looking for riches. I'd just like a way to use my gifts to good purpose and to let them flower rather than shutting them off as things impractical or unrealistic.

Plan for Making Creativity a Habit

I will spend at least an hour each day working on my writing and at least an hour each day working on creating more music.

Other Uses for my Artistic Side

I can use my artistic side to help shape and hone my church choir's efforts. I can also often bring interesting things into conversations with friends and family. I have often used my love of writing to help people who hate doing it, and I enjoy doing this."

So, there we go. There will likely be seven parts to this particular set of postings. I'm already finding out interesting things about myself!

Deo Gratias!

What's in a Name?

Benedicamus Domino!

Well, I can't sleep and don't want to do so yet, so I thought I'd write again, and this time, the subject is names. What truly is in a name? Would a rose by any other name truly smell as sweet? Assuming that changing the name of the rose did not change its genetic structure as well, then yes, I suppose it would smell as sweet if it were called something like Stinkweed or Skunk Cabbage. However, we humans take great pride in names. Some cultures give naming a great significance, viewing the word by which one is identified as sacred. Some cultures give their children one name when they are young and a completely different name when they reach maturity. Some people change their name when they take a new religion, and people's last names often get changed when they are married.

So, why am I writing about this? Well, to speak the truth, I've had a fascination with names all my life, and there have been times when I wished to shake off the name I am legally known by, not for any really rebellious reason but merely because it seemed not to reflect the me I wanted to be. Once, I decided that I would name myself Anne, because I took Anne of Green Gables for a heroine. This was when I was nine and it never really caught on.

Then, when I was eleven, a friend and I took Les Mis names. She was Cosette, the romantic lead in the story, while I, being me, just had to be Eponine, the tragic but heroic girl in the shadows, the girl who died to save her beloved who never knew she loved him. No hearts and flowers for me then! Only blood, a broken heart and some indefinable strength, some inner heroism that went largely unnoticed by those around her. That may have seemed like a lot to think about for an eleven-year-old, but I thought about it.

Then there was my Jane phase. Jane Eyre was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager, and Jane herself stood for strength and courage, sacrificial morality, and I think she also stood for what I wanted then: a love, a partner who could love me for my wits and my nature rather than, or as well as, my looks. I never liked Catherine Earnshaw, and while something in Tess Durbeyfield appealed, she was all too tragic for me. So, friends of mine called me Jane, and one time, I think because I owned a set of Chinese harmony balls, they called me Harmony Jane! I think I still have a letter written by a friend of mine where she addressed it to: Dear Jane. It was nice!

Still, I've been left wondering why I have this fascination with renaming myself every once in a while? Once I grew up, I certainly didn't do it much, though a friend of mine and I had nicknames or other names we would call each other once, and there was a notion in Paganism of taking a sacred name, of finding a name that really stood for you and the self you wanted to become. Then, when I was a catechumen, I decided that I would take the name of a saint who meant a lot to me, but when it came time for baptism, I sort of chickened out. I mean, I had found a really neat St. Sarah to take as my namesake saint, but still, well, a part of me wished I hadn't chickened out.

Then, about two years ago, I recalled a name which I'd always loved the sound of ever since I first read it as the title of a lovely poem by Longfellow, and no, I don't mean Hyawatha! :) I mean the name Evangeline. Even the simple sound of that name evoked such a true sense of joy that I've hardly ever felt its like, but I left it alone. Who was I, a grown up woman and a Christian, to go about changing my name at the drop of a hat? Well, there was one way I could do it, and I went to spend a few months at a monastery seeing whether I truly had the will and the wherewithal to become a nun, and what I learned there was true joy unbounded!

Even amid the challenges I had there, even though I ultimately made the decision to leave, at least for a while as I thought at the time, I was sad to leave it. I was sad to leave the life I had found there, and yes, even amid all the new and wonderful joys this year of discovery has offered me, I am still a little misty-eyed at the recollections of the treasury of knowledge, compassion, dedication and wisdom I found with even a glimpse of that life.

So, I have made a decision. I intend to pursue the path of an oblate of that monastery. This basically means that I will continue to be a lay-person in the world, but that I will commit to certain monastic observances, prayers and the like, and all that sort of thing. This would not be a lifelong vow if I didn't want it to be. I could remain an oblate if I got married and such. However, I would be considered to be attached to the community of that monastery and I would be able to take some spiritual direction from there as well. I truly see no other course that makes sense, and I've discovered that this path is not so uncommon among Benedictines as I thought it was.

So, what does this have to do with names? Well, I decided that if I were given the choice, I would take the name Evangeline if I became a nun. I still intend to take it as an oblate. One can do this if one wishes. However, I don't want to wait till then. This blog is about discovering new things and living for joy, and I have discovered that my true name, my real name is Evangeline. Of course, there's nothing formal or official about this name-change, and people are free not to use it if they wish not to, but it's there.

Evangeline is a name which has to do with the Annunciation of Mary, and her response to the miraculous tidings that Gabriel brought were to allow them to come to pass by giving her "Amen" to his words. The moment she said "Alright" was the moment when the actual conception happened in a miraculous fashion, and this is how I want to be. This is how I have to learn to be if I am a Christian, even if it means confronting hard truths and acknowledging difficult-to-acknowledge things about myself. All the good deeds and prayers and fasting and memorized Bible verses will do us no good at all if we do not allow God to work as unhindered by us as possible in our lives. Of course the process of becoming less of a hindrance is a slow and lifelong one, but I wish to be the change I want to see, as Gandhi would say, and so I'm taking a name which means what I want to be and to do. I am, at least in some sense, coming to a new birth. I am learning who I am and who I should be, just as this blog and this journey toward joy was supposed to help me to do, and who I am and who I want to be is summed up in the name Evangeline. So, I claim it now for myself, and hope to have it conferred upon me as an oblate.

What's in a name? Maybe nothing really, but for me, they seem to mean a lot! Of course, my legal and baptismal name is still Sara and will be so, but well, Sara has a lot of associations that I'm trying to distance myself from, a lot of pains and sorrows that I just don't want in my life anymore. Saul became Paul on the road to Damascus. He called himself Paul because he thought of himself as the least of the Apostles. I wish to call myself Evangeline as a reminder of the path I'm on and how far I still have to travel, but also as a reminder of the wonder and awesomeness of the tidings of how Christ has conquered death and has made it so that we all can be renewed and filled with true and undimming joy, if we will but say: "I'll let You change me. I'll let You love and heal me. I'll even let You tell me that I've gone wrong, because that's what loved ones do."

I've always been afraid of that changing. I've always been afraid to really let Him work on me. I've always held something back, some small part of me. I didn't want to get "drawn in" by Him, but all these fears and hesitations are needless! He's not going to destroy the stuff that is really me! His fire will consume all the useless bits, yes, but not the me He has made, and if I ever do appear shining white in glory, it will be His glory in which I'm covered. It will be Him who makes me whole, and no one or nothing else. My soul is the bride, poor and unlovely next to Him who is its rightful Bridegroom, but He will give me a wedding garment to wear which is much better than the garment I currently have on, that fume and fret of emotions and desires which I call myself but which is merely my ego, merely a puppet which I have created in my pride and vanity. I'm finally really learning, really beginning to take my first timid steps out of the nursery. I don't believe in Christ as such. I must learn to be His follower now. I must learn to know Him.

A friend once told me that she thought that I'd take one of two paths as a Christian. She thought I'd either mellow out of my first zeal or would become a nun. Well, in typical Sara fashion (or should I say Evangeline fashion?) I have chosen neither path. Mellowing out just means to me watering things down, compromising. It's true I've found balances and such, but mellow out? God forbid! I've been entirely too mellow as it is! It's time to stop being mellow! However, this needn't mean running off to become a missionary or even becoming a nuhn. What it does mean is finally just being me, being unreservedly and unapologetically me, which has always been difficult for me. I am an inate people-pleaser. I want people to think well of me. I find rejection of any sort rather difficult to deal with, and so I often hide parts of myself away or pretend to be something I'm not, and I just can't do it anymore! It feels wrong and it's time all the pretense stopped. So, as this Lent continues and as the joyous season of Pascha enters in, I hope to bring this new birth of sorts to true fruition. I hope to continue to feel revitalized and freed, and as always, I hope to continue living for joy!

Deo Gratias!

Strange Days

Benedicamus Domino!

I am certain that the thing on many people's minds this week is the horrifying tragedy of the bombings in Boston on Monday. Whoever has done this, it is clear that they wanted to cause definite harm by loading the bombs with ball bearings. How can we make sense of this? It is really impossible to even try, but the real question is: why does this surprise us?

I mean, I know why it surprises us. I know why evil deeds which seem simply to cause harm and to have no possible redemptive purpose surprise us, but should they? They should shock us. They should offend against our sensibilities, because even in our fallen state, we have a sense of fair play and a sense of honour. However, I sometimes think that the fact that we're all not out there just beating each other up every day is surprising. I often think myself at any rate above that sort of thing. What need have I for violence whether of word or deed toward my neighbour? I live in a civilized culture, don't I? Well, if I were really to look at the thoughts, every little thought I mean, that swirl around in my brain, I'd soon realize that my thoughts are just as bad as, if not worse than, the kind of thoughts which lead people to attack others in this massive and grotesque manner. The truth also is that I am capable of wounding just as deeply with my words as with those ball bearings. It gives one pause to think this way.

Of course, the other question that gets asked at times like this is: how could a benevolent God allow such a thing to happen? Why is there still so much horror caused by man's inhumanity to man? It's simple and yet not simple. First, we have free will, and this doesn't mean that our wills are free to a point. This means that we are free to choose to do *anything* we wish to do. God can perhaps warn us. He can perhaps give us morality or a sense of honour to combat and to check our free will, but if we throw all that away, and we can do it if we set our minds and souls to it, then nothing stands in our way. We still have the wills which were given us when our destiny was to become rulers of the earth, but we lack or only have fragments of the God-given wisdom to exercise our wills correctly.

As Christians, we believe that God came to us as a man so that we might be made like Him, so that we might be made into the kind of noble and powerful beings that He always wanted us to be. I only pray that those killed in the bombings will rest in peace, and I further pray that those responsible will be brought to earthly justice. I actually don't wish Heavenly justice on them, because I don't know what that would mean. I'd rather see them be healed and forgiven for whatever deeds they have done. Still, that takes an act of will on our part as well as an act of unbounded mercy on God's. We have to ask to be forgiven. We have to know ourselves to be in need of help. This is a difficult thing to know in a middle-class Western life such as mine anyway. I also pray and hope that charity and mercy will come out of this tragedy, that people will help each other and support each other as neighbours and fellow pilgrims on this earth. That's all that can be done now by the average person. We can't investigate or hunt culprits down or anything. All we can do is lend what strength we have and what prayers we have and hope that some good can come from the ashes of this evil!

Deo Gratias!

Speak your Truth Quietly and Clearly!

Benedicamus Domino!

I may have used this subject-line in another entry, but it seems very applicable today. The line comes from a strange and interesting little meditation on life called Desiderata. It's by a man named Max Ehrmann, and I've always loved it. "Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there can be in silence!" I think I'm misquoting, but well, man! How can you go wrong with something like that? It contains many maxims which I have tried to take for my life. One of these is: "Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars." This is a great truth. I don't think it means that you should just let yourself be or not pay attention to what needs improvement, but rather, I think that it means that it is right to seek for healing, right to end old patterns and find more healthy ones perhaps, or to find new ways of dealing with old wounds. Sometimes, the old advice from our mothers is true: "For heaven's sake, don't pick at it!" Sometimes, letting the wound be a wound is best, and sometimes finding a good ointment or medicine is best. Whatever happens, doing the kindest thing for yourself must in the end result in a better self, a more well-developed and less broken self.

For me, the path to wholeness is with Christ. For others, it may lie elseware, and whether I believe your path leads to the same place to which the one I'm on leads doesn't really matter. Most of the time, no matter what we like to say in this age of tolerance and non-judgmentalism, differing paths do not end up at the same place. One only needs to look deeply into any philosophy or religion or worldview to know where it claims to lead, and while a lot of the outer trappings may be the same, a lot of the moral framework is there, the insides are fundamentally different in most cases, with Christianity perhaps being the most different of them all. It is radical to be a Christian. It is radical to believe that God, the Creator of the Universe, became a man, a true man, and truly died, and truly rose from the dead. The very idea is utterly incomprehensible to the human mind! However, does this mean that I can disparage someone else who doesn't know Christ or has chosen not to know Him? (To say "believe in" is just difficult here, so I'm saying something else to make it clearer.) No, I cannot do that. All I can do, all any of us can do, is speak our truths quietly and clearly. The other side of the coin is that we must also listen. We must also really hear, even if we don't want to hear what is said, even if we find what is said repugnant. We must be willing to set that aside, to listen, and then to speak in our turn. Only then can a true connection be made. Only then can true understanding emerge!

All this pussyfooting around, all this choosing just the right words to convey something so as not to offend someone else, it's just got to stop! Words in themselves should not be offensive! Words should not be loaded with baggage from the past. Of course they are, of course we live in a society filled with loaded words, but what if we all agreed to just put the baggage down? What would happen then? Might the barriers between "us" and "them" actually come down? Might we actually live in a society which truly gives us the right to free speech and free fellowship? There was a woman I knew who was fired from her job because she went against the job's policy of saying "happy holidays" and said "merry Christmas" to someone on the phone. The truly absurd thing about this is that the client on the phone had said "merry Christmas" first and the person in question was just returning the greeting! Has it really come to this?

I mean, if Christianity truly became the hegemony that everyone thinks it is, I still would have a problem with a policy which disallowed me to return someone's greeting using the wording of their choice. I'm not, for instance, going to tell a Jewish person who practices their faith "Merry Christmas." If they said it to me and if it was Chanukah, I'd wish them a happy one of those. If they said "merry Christmas" to me and it was not Chanukah, then I would likely say: "happy holidays," because presumably they'd be on holiday from their work or something. But all this watering down of things just has to stop! We are not all the same, we will never be all the same. We are all gloriously and wonderfully different, and it's time we all got to grips with that and stopped worrying so much about offending each other or being offended in turn!

So, there's my truth for the day, spoken perhaps loudly and opaquely, but there it is nonetheless. I refuse to allow the English language to be reduced to Orwellian Newspeak!

Deo Gratias!

Always, We Begin Again!

Benedicamus Domino!

This is the first anniversary of the day on which I began this blog. Though its seeds were planted elseware on the net, it was not begun in earnest until April 11, 2012. I'm not going to do a year in review, as I already did something of the kind at New Years, but I will reflect a little bit on the last year and whether my journey has indeed taken me anywhere.

I began this blog as a way to define for myself what it is to live authentically, to live more for eternal things than for those things which are fleeting in this world, but what I've come to realize during this last year is that it's fine to embrace the transitory so long as we know that it is transitory and fully acknowledge this. The catch is that our whole culture is based on trying to live as though the things which do not last in this world should last, and if they don't, we're somehow doing something wrong or should do something right to make them last. This isn't far from certain ancient faiths which involved doing rituals and propitiating gods or ancestral spirits to ensure fertile crops or healthy children. I suppose we will always make these equasions in our minds: if I do X just right, I'll get Y. However, the danger here is trying to make something mortal into something eternal by sheer effort of will or by following fads which promise much but deliver very little.

The fact is that we live in a world that is filled with death--with decay. However, in the midst of this tendency to decay or to run down, the universe gives us brilliant signs of life, of life deeper than what our senses can perceive, though even that life is pretty amazing to contemplate! And as a Christian, I believe that Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection has actually reversed this principle of decay, or has shown us how to leave it behind in favour of the life that is in Him. And what is this path? It is summed up in the words of Mary at her Annunciation: "Behold the handmaid (servant) of the Lord! Be it unto me according to thy word!" Gabriel gave her a message which she could hardly credit, but although she questioned him about it, in the end, she said: "So be it. I won't oppose this. I won't stand in the way of this strange and somewhat frightening thing." This is what we have to do. We have to learn to listen for God in our lives and then to say: "Amen!" This is how the thief on the cross repented. It was in a single moment as he was being punnished for admitted crimes.

God quite simply wants to dwell within us and to change us from the inside out, and we're really the only obstacle in His way. We have spent ages as a race building walls, temples, altars to ourselves. We have sacrificed others on those altars, stepping on them to cause our own stars to rise higher and higher. Unfortunately, what we call stars are only mere candles or sparks in comparison to the light which God gives to us, and they burn out all too soon, but while they burn, they set others on fire and cause conflagrations which destroy whole civilizations and perhaps worse, sometimes even individual souls.

The problem is that these sparkes are untamed. They blow around on the winds of change and chance, but we have the ability to change this. We have the agency in our universe to still our little spark and to fuel it with God's flame. It will steady us and cause our destructive sparks of fallen life to be changed into true stars, true suns around which others will orbit. But first, we have to allow what we think is our life to be killed. We must stop building the temple to the self, must stop constructing the wall of ego and passion. God's fire is ten million times more consuming than our little feeble spark. It will, if we give it the chance, burn down the walls separating us from Him, and it will transmute us, will lessen the death that is in us and give us new life. The wheat must be buried in order to come to life! The ego must be burned away for the God-created self to emerge and to flourish in the light of day.

This, in the last analysis, is what living for joy for me is about. I seek God's joy, God's life, because quite simply, without Him, I'm dead. I must learn to be grateful for every day I'm given and to make each of those days an offering in return, to say with Mary every day: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it unto me according to Thy word!" Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day. I cann't be like the thief on the cross. My spirit would do it! Perhaps even my heart would do it, but there is still the wall, still the ego to deal with and to oppose. As St. Benedict says: "Always, we begin again." Always, we're being shown how far we have to go, but this should not be a cause for despair. It should fill us with happiness. We should be filled with joy, because once we know there's a wall, we can learn to stop building it higher and we can let God's all-consuming fire work on us, for though it destroys, it also gives life and causes our little spark of soul to be blown into a true and steady flame of love and mercy. This is what we do it all for: to become more loving, more charitable, more merciful, more truly human than we can be on our own and in our fallen state.

This year has been intense for me. Have all my goals been met? Not yet. Have I learned much? Definitely, and the best part is that the journey isn't over yet! It will never end unless I end it. I will never stop growing unless I kill it. I intend to let it grow, even if it means admitting hard truths. God, Christ, what He wants to make humanity and the whole universe is more than worth a little difficulty on my part! So, onward I go, wherever my path leads me!

Deo Gratias!

Thoughts

Benedicamus Domino!

I usually come to this journal when I'm feeling pensive, and tonight is no exception. I just heard of the death of a man whom I only vaguely knew. He appears to have died in his sleep of what may be a heart attack. He was in his forties. I saw him in January and he seemed in good spirits, but he didn't know the end was coming. He had no way of knowing it. Indeed, very few of us do know when our lives will end, none of us very precisely at any rate. It always gets me when I hear of deaths like this, deaths not due to accident or anything but which happen while a person is asleep or in some instantaneous way which is completely unforeseen by the person or unpreventable.

As a Christian, I'm supposed to sort of take these things in stride. I'm supposed to remember that death comes to us all and that we know not when our souls will be required of us, to speak biblically about it, but it still gets me. It still shakes me up. It still makes me feel like I've wasted my life or am wasting it, that I take time for granted and not as a gift to be treasured and used productively. This man has left children behind, older children yes, but they are barely out of their teens. What could be the reason for that? I know what the reason is according to the theology to which I subscribe. We live in a fallen world, a world filled with death, that is with decay. Things in this world are transitory, including our mortal lives. Did God take him as some sort of mercy? I'll never know of course until my own life ends in this world. Still, this news has come as a shock and a troubling thing. It is good to be troubled, for the pot to be stirred, so I have decided to let this troubling news act on me as it is supposed to. I will embrace it and learn its lessons. May this man, who will remain unnamed in this journal, rest in peace, and may his memory be eternal!

Deo Gratias!

The Gospel According to... Webber?

Benedicamus Domino!

Today being Good Friday for many Christians, I thought I'd write about something which was and strangely still is for me one of the many fascinating stops along my own road to Emaus and a true meeting with Christ. This is the musical or "rock opera" called Jesus Christ Superstar, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This was long before The Phantom of the Opera and certainly long before his current hit: The Wizard of Oz. I received it as a gift during a time when I was enamoured with Webber's more modern musicals, and when I get so intrigued, I always feel it necessary to learn more than just what is current with a given artist, author or composer, and besides, I had occasionally heard the title song on the radio and rather liked it, so I asked for the recording of the musical as a gift.

What I got was the sound track of the 1973 film version, and while it left something to be desired in terms of truly wonderful singing and such, there was something fierce in it, something real. A lot of movie versions of musicals come off rather wooden and flat when compared to the theatrical production, but this one, at least for me, had something that I've not found in even the best recordings of the actual Broadway musical. I guess it brought the events leading up to the crucifiction to life in such an interesting way that it made me really think about what Good Friday means, and for a girl of fourteen, that was a revelation.

Now, twenty years later, I of course don't believe in how Christ is portrayed at many points in the musical, but it still holds a strange fascination for me and I was glad to find the original, unremastered movie sound track, scratchy audio and all, just recently for my computer music collection. I've been getting rid of cassettes as I don't use them anymore, but that one having vanished was a bit of a sadness to me. It just goes to show you that God can use anything to help to bring a person closer to Him. Heck! I bet there have even been some people who became Christian due to Monty Python's Life of Brian! "Always look on the bright side of life!" These kinds of things have often been called irreverent by Christians, and perhaps they are in some ways, but I really believe that even seeming irreverence can actually be a kind of honour and worship, or by its very nature as a kind of foil to the truth, can actually point out the truth to a listening soul and an open heart.

For instance, I attended a church some weeks ago where worship songs were the order of the day. There have been people who have called them irreverent. Yes, songs based on scripture, simply because they have a rock-'n'-roll beat, have been called irreverent! Now, while I don't think they have a place in the kind of church services I attend, I don't think them irreverent! They simply are what they are, and I'm sure their composers wrote them with care and attention. They may not be my particular cup of tea, but does that mean I should simply damn them? God forbid! For me, Jesus Christ Superstar was a way to God. Who knows what will lead others to Him?

And on that note, I wish a blessed Good Friday to all who celebrate it at this time, and a truly joyful celebration of Christ's Resurrection on Sunday!

Deo Gratias!

Of Churches and Life Changes

Benedicamus Domino!

Well, for Orthodox Christians everywhere, the season of Lent has begun. For me, it began rather differently than it has these past few years. For starters, I missed performing the rite of forgiveness that our church performs on the Sunday immediately preceding the beginning of Lent. It's a beautiful rite where you ask each other's forgiveness for any wrongs you may have committed in the year past. You don't list the wrongs, but you do ask for forgiveness. I recall when I first heard about this rite, it didn't make a lot of sense to me. Why should I ask forgiveness of someone I hardly ever see and whom I've likely never wronged? Still, when one goes through the rite with its accompanying prostrations (kneeling with one's forehead touching the ground" and mutual asking and granting forgiveness, it makes you know beyond a doubt that this kind of humility, this kind of consciousness of wronging other people and needing their forgiveness, is a necessary part of the Christian life. There's a saying from one of the saints, John Chrysostom I think, which says: "During lent, we do not tear meat with our teeth, so neither should we tear each other with anger." (I'm paraphrasing.) The point is that to fast and to pray and to do everything we need to do in Lent is meaningless if we allow our passions or our egos to get the better of us. Of course, as things go, Lent does tend to bring those things into sharper focus. Since we're consciously fighting or trying to fight against them, they seem to intensify. However, this is where the guarding of the heart and of the senses comes in: a very deliberate attempt to check angry or covetous or prideful thoughts at the door as it were, and not to allow them to infect us and to inflame our egos. So, as we abstain from certain foods and perhaps even certain pleasures, (though this should be done carefully and with balance,) we also try to abstain from needless anger and violence toward each other. We channel all that energy into prayer, almsgiving, reflection, meditation on the Scriptures, and other spiritual things. This is a time of intensified spiritual activity which should flow over into all aspects of life, and asking the forgiveness of those whom you have wronged or may have wronged unconsciously during the past year is a nice way to start this six-week journey.

So, to continue then, this past Sunday was Forgiveness Sunday and I, for the first time, was not in attendance at my regular church. Instead, I attended a Christian Reformed church with my beloved. It was actually an interesting experience, the more because you could tell that this church was actually trying to cast off some of its Reformed traditions and to become something more non-denominational-protestant in its feel. They sang worship songs rather than hymns from a hymn-book. Though there was a nod to that tradition. They did sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness." They had a band and really good singers, and people sort of danced and clapped and such and really got into the music. There was definite joy in what they were doing, so why was it that I didn't feel it? Why was it that I was actually a little saddened by it?

Well, a part of the reason had to do with my conception of a fine old Protestant church experience. There ought to be an organ in my conception of this, and slightly uncomfortable pews, and a wood or marble floor, and well, those grand old hymns! I mean, that's my conception of what it was like to go to a Protestant church when I was younger. Then there was another curious thing. The pastor who preached a very good sermon actually basically came up against a bit of the Gospels which seemed to outright deny what he as a Reformed Christian had always been taught and he admitted this. He actually admitted that the old way of believing that faith alone justified us before God might not be the whole story. This was both refreshing and somehow unnerving to me. I mean, it was great that he could admit of his doubts, but it was also rather odd that a pastor steeped in the traditions of his faith should have those doubts. Of course, it's likely that he's had those doubts for some time. This, as I understand it, is definitely not one of the more traditionally-minded Reformed churches. However, when all was done, I was left with a strange kind of emptiness.

I mean, the people were friendly, the music was enjoyable, the sermon was interesting and thought-provoking, so what was missing? What was always missing for me in these kinds of church experiences? Well, all I can put it down to is this: I didn't feel different when I entered this church. I didn't feel as though this place was a place of prayer in quite the same way as a more traditional-feeling church (the pews and the organ and the choir and such) would make me feel. And yet, that's not even it! This church had comfortable chairs and carpet on the floors and such and had the feel to me of just some big hall or community room or something, but that can't be all there was to the not-feeling-different. We used to have our church in a renovated office suite above a dentist's office. It was small, cramped, had one bench (not a pew) to sit on, but still, I always felt different the moment I entered it. Part of that feeling of difference might have been the smell of the incense or something, but I don't know. I still say that something was missing for me in Sunday's church experience that I've never found so fully present as in an Orthodox church.

And you know, that isn't even dependent on language. I've been to churches where no English was spoken during the service and it still felt--well--different. I think the reason, apart from the more intangible reasons which may exist, is this. We clearly define sacred space and sacred time. I mean, all life should be treated as consecrated to God, but when you enter an Orthodox church or a church where some sense of tradition abounds, there is a feeling of--well--concentrated sacredness I guess. We're all trying to accomplish the exact same thing. We're seeking peace and everything in an Orthodox church is supposed to promote peace of heart and nourishment of the soul. Still, is the sort of joy that is inherent in those worship songs wrong? Is it false or impious or something? I can't really say an unqualified "yes" to these questions. To those who sing those songs and who pray in that less subdued manner, it is pious. It is expressing their love for God the best way they know how and the best way they can. Still, it rubbed me the wrong way. Something about how they prayed seemed so--well--overdone. To them it may not have been an act, but to me, it just sounded so--well--it sounded like they were trying to seem devoted to God. But do I have a right to judge this? No. All I can do is say how it affected me. The truth is that I felt all at sea with no clearly-defined liturgy. I felt as though this was just some big God-party and that true worship wasn't really going on. I mean, the words were there, but the bottom line seemed to be thankfulness for having been saved rather than a frank acknowledgement that we are always in need of God's mercy and abounding love. That either makes me a snob or really expresses something real that I was missing in this particular church. "And the church said: Amen" was done a lot, and that seems so out of keeping with what I remember as typical Canadian Protestant usage that it just jarred me. It was a tiny thing, but it jarred me. Still, it's good to be jarred out of one's complacency. It's good to see what's going on in the rest of the Christian world. Is it particularly nourishing for me? No. Will I continue to attend this church at times? Sure. I owe it to my beloved to do that. Still, it was as though I drank spiritual sugar-water on Sunday rather than the nicely-aged whine I usually get.

Again, I'm not mocking the beliefs of the people who attend this church. I can't do that since I don't know their hearts, but for me, liturgy is intimately connected with receiving Communion, and all of liturgy is a preparation of the gifts to then be shared. The ritual and the structure is accomplishing something, is going toward something, and by extention shows us what we should be going toward as well in our whole lives. Church is the one place where we can truly lay aside all earthly cares for a time and meditate on God's mercy and love. It may look stayed and subdued when compared to the kind of worship I saw on Sunday, but I tell you that joy abounds! Gratefulness oozes! The liturgy is a kind of catharsis and always changes the person who experiences it.

Having said all this, I will attend that church again. I have to do so. It's important for partners who have differing faiths to experience each other's ways of worship and of life. It only makes sense, especially now that I know beyond a doubt that this is for real, this is long-term. And this is another reason these past few days have been strange for me. I came to this decision rather suddenly but in a way which I know was blessed of God. We talked and spent time sort of drinking each other in and such, and well, everything we said and did was mutually-respectful, mutually-honouring of each other and our journeys, and well, it was just beautiful. I haven't felt this way about someone--this committed way--since Dan, my fiance who passed away over ten years ago now. A part of me thought I'd never feel this way again, but God stepped in and proved me wrong. There's a definite "smell" of God surrounding our getting together and our subsequent learning about and with each other. Will everything be perfect? No. Will life be roses and sunshine? No, but I know that I want this man for my partner, for my yoke-fellow, to use Paul's rather unflattering term. :) I think together we will be able to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, and have a lot of joy doing it as well.

Even though we've only been together for about three months, I know there's no other man for me. He's willing to dip his toes into Orthodoxy, which I know will be rather alien and odd to him. It is to all of us converts in some way or another. I just hope that as he experiences it, he understands that for me to leave it behind would be like cutting off my own head or something. It permeates one's whole way of thinking and living, or it should do. It's not a simple adherence to a set of creeds, though it may seem so at first. It did in fact seem so to me at first, but what I've learned is that it goes beyond that. The creeds mark out the path for us and let us know if we might be straying away, but the path itself forces us to grow, forces us to challenge our egos for supremacy over our hearts and minds. It quite simply forces our slumbering souls to arise and awaken, to watch and be heedful lest the Bridegroom come and we are unprepared. Is it easy? No. Do I sometimes wish I were anything but an Orthodox Christian? Yes, but that's my ego talking. That's my weakness crying out for what it wants most: it's own way. Hospitals are not always pleasant places, and our church is looked upon as a spiritual hospital. We go there for healing, and all the sacraments and rituals are designed to accomplish that healing in us. Of course we praise God and must be thankful to Him, but we must always be being saved, I guess. It's a process. Christ's death and resurrection were the beginning of that process and have done the lion's share of the work of accomplishing that process, but without our own individual wills at our own individual times in history, salvation isn't just given. A gift can't be given unless it is accepted, and we must accept that gift again and again, though so often we tend to hide it or cover it up or forget that it's there.

I think this is true of a lot of things in life as well. Taking love for granted is not a good idea. I mean, while God's love is unconditional, we can put ourselves (I feel) in a place where He can't reach us. If we really tell Him to go away and sincerely mean it, out of His own true love, He will do that. He will leave us to ourselves, but only because He gave us free will and yet also said that the choices of that free will must have consequences. Seeing all life as a gift is something I still aspire to. I know it's possible. I know people who can consciously do that and these are holy people. My ego is still in the way of that process for me. However, it is hoped that Lent will be a good time for me to learn yet more of the lessons of humility, mercy and love which Christ would have us learn. Glory to God for all things!

Deo Gratias!

The Changing of the Years

Benedicamus Domino!

It was seven years ago today that I stood in church and professed myself willing to unite myself to Christ. Seven years ago, I was made a catechumen of the Orthodox Church. Today, under the auspices of St. Zoe and St. Martinian the Anchorite, the Christian journey was made real for me in a way it had never been before. This was my first formal declaration in front of other people that I wanted to be a Christian. Before this, I had certainly called myself a Christian, but I had made no formal vows or declarations of the same. Even when I thought with all my heart that I wanted to become a Roman Catholic, when push finally came to shove and I could have converted, I never put the plan into action. I was content, or so I thought, to remain in my little bubble of Sara-brand Christianity. Heck! I didn't even go to church once I left high school! There was no grounding in reality, no support from others on a regular basis, no parish to call my own, nothing. Was it any wonder that in the end I found myself wandering in a sea of confusion and setting Christ aside?

I believe that any faith needs this kind of conscious intentional step, this kind of actual putting of a toe upon its path. Indeed, any event in life needs this kind of celebration, this kind of firm acknowledgement that it is real! I think we as a society have largely lost this tendency toward rites of passage and such.

As for my becoming a catechumen, I remember that I had been very ill about two weeks before and was still suffering from a nasty cough. It took all my efforts to pronounce the vows and such that I was asked to make. Still, when all was done, I knew I had done what must be done. I knew that this step was the formal step I had always denied myself, and I knew without a doubt that Baptism would surely follow as night follows day. I knew, without even knowing the ins and outs of the faith I was joining, that it was the truth. I knew it on a level which cannot be put into words. I knew it as surely as one knows the person whom one is destined to marry. It was beautiful!

I took a name then, a name which I thought I would be Baptized with but which, in the end, I decided not to take in Baptism. Still, I think of it as one of my names and I still celebrate that saint as one of my patrons. She is St. Melangell of Wales, and I believe that it was by her prayers that I found Christ again, for her story and her example often came to me out of the blue when I was feeling spiritually dry and watered my heart with gentle rain, so that when I finally decided to follow Christ, I felt it only right and necessary to take her name as my banner and her as an elder. The mere fact that she and I were on different levels of existence was not a barrier for me. Recently, I celebrated one of her feast-days by singing an Akathist (a service of prayers and hymns) to her which a friend who became my Baptismal Sponsor gave to me on the day I was made a catechumen. I read it on the bus traveling to church and it, as much as anything, proved to me that I was on the right track. Its every line seemed redolent of Heaven and also of earth. It pointed to what was for me a new understanding of what Christianity was, and it did so with simple beauty and the sort of imagery which could not help but sing to my very soul. I don't use that Akathist very often anymore, and I think this should be rectified. However, I think I'd like to reproduce it here. It's very beautiful and Melangell is just a really wonderful woman to have as a spiritual ancestor and a patron saint. So, here's the Akathist. (Oh, and the word "Akathist" in Greek means the "not-sitting-down-service." I rather like that it's named after how one conducts oneself rather than after the poetic forms used.)

AKATHIST TO OUR VENERABLE MOTHER MELANGELL

Kontakion 1

To thee our patient intercessor and watchful guardian,
We thy lambs who flee for refuge beneath thy protecting mantle,
Offer thee our hymns of thanksgiving and devotion,
For as thy divinely-bestowed authority doth ever disperse evil,
Do thou foil the darts of our pursuing enemy,
And teach us by thy meekness that we may cry to thee:
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Ekos 1

A thousand angels sing thy praises O Melangell, for having beheld thy solitary struggle for love of God, thy striving after the virtues and thy victory over Satan; they welcomed thee into the habitations of the righteous, chanting to thee such things as these:
Rejoice, dove of the wilderness!
Rejoice, sparrow cherished in the hand of the Heavenly Father!
Rejoice, lily arrayed in unfading glory!
Rejoice, rose of ineffable sweetness!
Rejoice, beloved dwelling of the Lord of Hosts!
Rejoice, thou who eternally abidest in His courts!
Rejoice, tree planted by streams of living water!
Rejoice, tender olive branch of hope!
Rejoice, meek lamb, hearkening only to the Shepherd's voice!
Rejoice, thou shepherdess, ever tending His flock!
Rejoice, thou who art sheltered by the wings of the Most High!
Rejoice, thou who liftest our eyes to whence cometh our help!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 2

Knowing thee to be a gift at thy birth, O thou in whom the Pearl of Great Price hath found a home, thy kindred rejoiced, seeing in thee the forbear of comely generations, and they sang: Alleluia!

Ekos 2

Wishing to procure for thee a life worthy of thy lineage and beauty, thy pious mother Eithni sought to espouse thee to a great and generous chieftain of thy people. But the ways of the Heavenly Bridegroom are higher than our ways, and we can but render thanks to His Providence:
Rejoice, fair adornment of thy people!
Rejoice, treasure of thy godly mother!
Rejoice, eternal heirloom of Ireland!
Rejoice, emerald beyond all price!
Rejoice, pearl in the divine diadem!
Rejoice, golden chalice finely-wrought!
Rejoice, dowry bequeathed to the Church universal!
Rejoice, precious stone enduring through the ages!
Rejoice, luminous brooch, adorn our hearts with repentance!
Rejoice, divine crown, raise our minds on high!
Rejoice, our inheritance, may we store up incorruptible treasure!
Rejoice, that we may seek first the Kingdom of God!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 3

Compelled by love for the Most High, stronger than all earthly attachments, O thou who didst daily pay thy vows, thou forsookest the bosom of thy family, beginning thy journey to the sweet spiritual meadows, praying: Alleluia!

Ekos 3

Crossing the water and arriving upon shores fertile as the Egyptian deserts in faith, the saint hastened to Pennant, her divinely-appointed arena, and the fields were joyful, and all the trees of the wood rejoiced hearing her song:
Rejoice, O my soul, in the all-providing mercy of God!
Rejoice, for here I shall seek salvation!
Rejoice, for this is the place of mine eternal rest!
Rejoice, for this is the place of my resurrection!
Rejoice, for these trees which shield me from worldly eyes!
Rejoice, for now I must seek the hidden life of prayer!
Rejoice, for the night is far-spent and day is at hand!
Rejoice, O my soul, and awake that thou be not found heedless!
Rejoice, good instructress of monastics!
Rejoice, that we may desire thy godly fervour!
Rejoice, thou whose prayers have hallowed the air!
Rejoice, thou whose tears have purified the earth!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 4

Who can describe the storm of temptations which assailed thee during thy fifteen years in the desolate, lonely wilderness, O thou set as a hart upon thy high places? For in thy humility thou didst ever strive to hide thy virtue. But now thou art glorified by Him whom thou glorifiedst in thy life, crying: Alleluia!

Ekos 4

Kneeling upon a rock, thou builtest thy spiritual house upon the Rock that is Christ and a fulfilment of His Commandments, mortifying thy flesh and routing the hordes of the demons; and even we, whose ascetic efforts are as the wings of a fly take courage from thy victory, hymning thee thus:
Rejoice, O Melangell, pillar in the eternal temple!
Rejoice, shining foundation of the new Jerusalem!
Rejoice, marble tablet inscribed with the Lord's new name!
Rejoice, adamant of noetic vigilance!
Rejoice, bastion of obedience to the divine behest!
Rejoice, tower of strength against the dark forces of hell!
Rejoice, rampart against despondency!
Rejoice, unconquerable fortress of purity!
Rejoice, living stone, may we attain such unwavering resolve!
Rejoice, thou altar, consecrate our souls to holiness!
Rejoice, white stone of victory, strengthen our hearts to resist temptation!
Rejoice, thou who leadest me to the rock that is higher than I!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 5

Though hidden from human eyes, creation beheld thee as a star O holy one; wild beasts became docile in thy presence and timid creatures grew fearless. Raising its eloquent hymn of praise, thy valley sang its new song unto the Lord: Alleluia!

Ekos 5

"And the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." We who reap the bitter fruit of Adam's disobedience in Paradise see in thee O Melangell hope for our own restoration to life, singing to thee thus:
Rejoice, faithful fulfiller of the Commandments of Christ!
Rejoice, icon of trusting obedience!
Rejoice, thou in whose garden the Lord walked with joy!
Rejoice, thou who heldest sweet converse with Him even at the sixth hour!
Rejoice, willing bearer of His easy burden and light yoke!
Rejoice, thou who now partakest of the Tree of Life!
Rejoice, for thou madest of thy valley a paradise!
Rejoice, for through thee it is now a step away from Heaven!
Rejoice, thou who paintest anew for us the colours of creation!
Rejoice, thou who teachest all to honour its grandeur!
Rejoice, bridge spanning the chasm of our sins!
Rejoice, thou who dost guide us across it in safety!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 6

After long years alone, battling against the powers of the air, O thou who castest lightning from Heaven, thy gentle hands upraised in prayer proved mightier than the foray of an earthly prince, who, seeing manifest the harmony in thy valley, was wroth, paralysed and unable to cry: Alleluia!

Ekos 6

Touched at last by divine grace which is able to reach down into our deepest darkness, his heart was converted; and, from the depths of his soul he was moved, O Melangell, to sing thy praises:
Rejoice, revealer of the unrepentant!
Rejoice, terror of the demons!
Rejoice, wakener of souls in the sleep of sin!
Rejoice, thou whose godly love pierceth hearts of stone!
Rejoice, dew that quenchest the flame of the passions!
Rejoice, blinding flash of purity!
Rejoice, gentle light of the holy glory of Christ!
Rejoice, unexpected joy of contrition!
Rejoice, soft radiance of the Light that knoweth no evening!
Rejoice, divine splendour, renew my darkened life!
Rejoice, lamp brimming with the oil of the virtues!
Rejoice, thou who art a beacon, deign to lead even me to salvation!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 7

Desiring to reveal a ray of true light amid this age of mirage and delusion, the Shepherd of our souls led likeminded maidens to thee, for they saw in thee a teacher of the one thing needful, and devoutly placing their lives under thy protecting mantle, they sang: Alleluia!

Ekos 7

Though rejoicing because of the amnesty granted thee, and loving thy solitude, thou didst not oppose this new visitation from the right hand of the Most High, receiving all who came to thee, and lowering thine eyes in deepest humility, thou didst move them and us to pray:
Rejoice, restorer of wayward hearts!
Rejoice, guide of blinded souls!
Rejoice, thou who leadest our feet in the way of peace!
Rejoice, for we too seek the Dayspring on high!
Rejoice, thou whose eye was wholly single!
Rejoice, thou whose soul was full of light!
Rejoice, good instructress of the young!
Rejoice, kind support of those venerable in years!
Rejoice, thou whose care constraineth us to seek the heavenly Prize!
Rejoice, thou whose zeal stirreth us to run the race set before us!
Rejoice, uplifter of our feeble hands!
Rejoice, make firm my faltering steps!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 8

Desiring to immerse themselves in the sweet serenity of thy shrine, O thou who givest good gifts unto thy children, pilgrims began to flock to thy monastery's enclosure from near and far, fugitives found sanctuary, the oppressed a respite, and weary travellers found refreshment for body and soul, raising their grateful song: Alleluia!

Ekos 8

Grant us also, O Melangell, who are strangers and exiles in this world, a cup of cool, living water for the sake of Christ, from thy beloved hands which are ever extended to embrace thy flock, debtors because of our sins but who pray:
Rejoice, for thy hallowed place was a haven in troubled times!
Rejoice, for thine icon guards us wayfarers to this day!
Rejoice, thou who meetest us in our times of decision!
Rejoice, fellow traveller along our winding paths!
Rejoice, welcomed guest at the Master's table!
Rejoice, humble servant of all those bidden to His feast!
Rejoice, thou whose name is as the music of harps!
Rejoice, thou whose works are a hymn in praise of God!
Rejoice, thou whose intercession for us is a lighted doorway!
Rejoice, thou who teachest us the hospitality of mercy!
Rejoice, warm my cold heart at the hearth of repentance!
Rejoice, help me to set a watch before my mouth!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 9

Having flown across the Jordan of this life, O thou who hast thy pinions covered with silver, thou standest now on Canaan's side amid the angels and a great cloud of witnesses. While we, the last, tossed about in our scattered flight, raise our small voice in supplication: Alleluia!

Ekos 9

Princes and poets alike have honoured thee in art and song O venerable Melangell, but our words are as the lisping of children. Even so, constrained by our love for thee we sing:
Rejoice, thou who dost worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Rejoice, thou whose voice adorneth the celestial choirs!
Rejoice, thou who hast reached the Promised Land!
Rejoice, thou who ever drawest our eyes thither!
Rejoice, thou who carolest the gentle breezes of our redemption!
Rejoice, thou who art a lark guiding us to the eternal springtime!
Rejoice, thou who by the grace of Christ stillest the waves of our tribulations!
Rejoice, thou who sweetenest the bitter waters of our sorrows!
Rejoice, thou whose fiery chariot was humility!
Rejoice, bestow upon me, too, a double portion of thy meekness!
Rejoice, thou who hast borne the heat of the vineyard's day!
Rejoice, strength of monastics at the eleventh hour!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 10

Desiring, come what may, to preserve thy wonderworking relics, shrine and gravestone, O Melangell, the faithful people of Pennant hid and guarded them when darkness threatened to devour the light of their remembrance, and through the sorrowful centuries their fervent prayer has risen, as quietly as the smoke of incense: Alleluia!

Ekos 10

Thou art ever a fortress for us O saint, for even during times of spiritual dearth, Christ's followers have resorted to thine aid with hope:
Rejoice, shepherdess who leadest us beside the still waters!
Rejoice, defence against soul-destroying wolves!
Rejoice, thou whose sweet song still echoeth in thy valley!
Rejoice, thou whose presence toucheth hearts unawares!
Rejoice, thou who meetest us at the crossroads of our lives!
Rejoice, gentle guardian through the dark night of our soul!
Rejoice, thou who leadest us amid the encircling gloom of doubt and unbelief!
Rejoice, thou who keepest our feet from straying onto the broad road!
Rejoice, our staff in climbing the steep and narrow way!
Rejoice, our guide, for we walk in darkness!
Rejoice, thou who pointest the way to eternal Life!
Rejoice, guide us in the way where light dwelleth!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 11

Though every tongue seemed stilled, yet rock and stone have been revealed as messengers, bearing glad tidings to hearts and eyes longing for a sight of thee, O thou who takest thy wings toward the dawn, for lo, in this our latter generation, thy shrine once more graceth the countryside of Powys; and pilgrims, numberless as the sand flock to it, with the joyful sound: Alleluia!

Ekos 11

As a candle upon a candlestand art thou O Melangell, after thy long vigil, until the Knower of all things manifested thy light in the midnight of this world; and filled with wonder we say:
Rejoice, thou who art a sign of renewal for Orthodoxy in Wales!
Rejoice, fulfilment of an ancient hope!
Rejoice, icon of meekness and authority!
Rejoice, shrine of strength and healing!
Rejoice, for in our joy, night is become radiant!
Rejoice, for through thee a new day is dawning!
Rejoice, dewdrop reflecting the Morning-star!
Rejoice, gentle rain bringing newness of life!
Rejoice, consolation for weary fishers of souls!
Rejoice, for through thee many stray lambs are carried home!
Rejoice, kind tutor of children!
Rejoice, thou who lovingly nurturest spiritual babes!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 12

Falling to our knees before thy holy relics, we give voice together with a sea of travellers who, over time, have sought thine aid; can it be that such a joy should be granted to us the unworthy ones! For all who bring to thy feet our world of burdens find solace beneath thy comforting mantle: Alleluia!

Ekos 12

Within thy church, the baying and clamour of the world is hushed and in that place of prayer, clarity is restored. Many come away healed of bodily illnesses and all find refreshment as we sing:
Rejoice, our unfailing intercessor!
Rejoice, thou who standest before the Lord with the children He hath given thee!
Rejoice, healer of our bodies!
Rejoice, gentle physician of our souls!
Rejoice, profound peace amid an age of tumult!
Rejoice, calm amid a life of chaos!
Rejoice, thou who desirest that our distracted hearts be attentive!
Rejoice, thou who desirest that we share in thy Sabbath rest!
Rejoice, pray for me that I may walk softly in the presence of holiness!
Rejoice, pray for me that I may speak with love to my close ones!
Rejoice, pray for me that I may see the beauty in all things!
Rejoice, pray for me that I may do only that which will bring joy to the angels!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 13

O most blessed mother Melangell, thou whose authority disperseth evil and whose meekness sheltereth thy lambs, entreat the Lord and Shepherd of our souls that in His mercy, He may vouchsafe us to run the good race set before us, to win the heavenly Prize, that ever rejoicing with thee in the eternal bridal-halls, we may unceasingly sing to our Bridegroom: Alleluia!

O most blessed mother Melangell, thou whose authority disperseth evil and whose meekness sheltereth thy lambs, entreat the Lord and Shepherd of our souls that in His mercy, He may vouchsafe us to run the good race set before us, to win the heavenly Prize, that ever rejoicing with thee in the eternal bridal-halls, we may unceasingly sing to our Bridegroom: Alleluia!

O most blessed mother Melangell, thou whose authority disperseth evil and whose meekness sheltereth thy lambs, entreat the Lord and Shepherd of our souls that in His mercy, He may vouchsafe us to run the good race set before us, to win the heavenly Prize, that ever rejoicing with thee in the eternal bridal-halls, we may unceasingly sing to our Bridegroom: Alleluia!

Ekos 1

A thousand angels sing thy praises O Melangell, for having beheld thy solitary struggle for love of God, thy striving after the virtues and thy victory over Satan; they welcomed thee into the habitations of the righteous, chanting to thee such things as these:
Rejoice, dove of the wilderness!
Rejoice, sparrow cherished in the hand of the Heavenly Father!
Rejoice, lily arrayed in unfading glory!
Rejoice, rose of ineffable sweetness!
Rejoice, beloved dwelling of the Lord of Hosts!
Rejoice, thou who eternally abidest in His courts!
Rejoice, tree planted by streams of living water!
Rejoice, tender olive branch of hope!
Rejoice, meek lamb, hearkening only to the Shepherd's voice!
Rejoice, thou shepherdess, ever tending His flock!
Rejoice, thou who art sheltered by the wings of the Most High!
Rejoice, thou who liftest our eyes to whence cometh our help!
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

Kontakion 1

To thee our patient intercessor and watchful guardian,
We thy lambs who flee for refuge beneath thy protecting mantle,
Offer thee our hymns of thanksgiving and devotion,
For as thy divinely-bestowed authority doth ever disperse evil,
Do thou foil the darts of our pursuing enemy,
And teach us by thy meekness that we may cry to thee:
Rejoice, O Melangell whose staff putteth evil to flight!

A Prayer to St. Melangell

O holy mother Melangell, who dwellest now in light unapproachable with a multitude of radiant, glorified ones, ever rejoicing to behold the beauty of the Lamb: we lift our voices and hearts to thee in supplication; for thou art one who hast trode this path of the Christian life before us in an age as pagan and tumultuous as our own. As thou chosest earthly exile from thine homeland, spurning thine imperial lineage, wealth, glory and a prestigious marriage, to become a citizen of Heaven and a bride of Him who eternally loveth mankind and sacrificed Himself for us, instill in us courage to count all things here below as nought, for the sake of those eternal blessings. And as thou didst abandon earthly honour and comfort, subjecting thy body to the harsh asceticism of solitary vigils, kneeling in prayer upon a stone slab for fifteen years without seeing another human face, do thou teach us to seek for that completeness which no longer seeketh the false consolations of this world. And as thou art known to be the protectress of small, helpless creatures, help us to nurture and protect our souls as little children, without whose presence we shall in no wise see the Kingdom of Heaven. Thou art revealed as a healer in our days; and we ask that in thy kindness, thou intercede for our loved ones who are suffering, whose names are remembered daily before thy venerable relics.
Thy wisdom was sought, not only by those desiring to embrace the monastic life under thy guidance, but by other anchorites abiding in stillness in the valleys round about. Ye did all drink abundantly from the Fountain of Immortality and now we beg you: pray that our hearts be cleansed through repentance, that they may worthily receive a few drops of that same life-bestowing spring, who together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, good and life-creating Spirit is worshipped and glorified now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen.

Troparion to St. Melangell Tone 8

Preferring the rigours of monasticism to worldly status and marriage, O pious Melangell,* thou wast fifteen years on a rock, emulating the example of the Syrian Stylites.* Wherefore, O Saint, pray to God that He will give us strength to serve Him as He wills,/ that we may be found worthy of great mercy.

So, there we have it. Seven years have come and gone. That seems somehow significant! I've seen a lot of changes come and go both in the church and in me, but that truth, that knowledge that is indescribable, that thing which is more than logic and beyond mere emotion has kept me here, has made me learn and grow and keep on going when a lot could have made me stop. I am fundamentally where I need to be. I would die a spiritual death if I were not here. Of this I'm certain. So, upon this day of joyful recollection and peaceful contemplation, I will simply say: Glory to God for all things!

Deo Gratias!