Been awhile…

As the saying goes, It’s been a hot minute” since I last blogged. There has been so much in my world that I just did not want to sit and type. LOL. And sometimes this over-arching need to share every moment gets tiresome – I honestly do not need to see everyone’s latest recipe or drink they invented! I am toying with dropping out of social media. It sure wears on your soul. We do not have local or national TV in the house; we stream what we want to see. So I miss headlines now and then. My husband dropped out of an online messaging group and he noticed immediately how his overall demeanor and stress level lowered and smoothed out. What we take into our heads, and surround ourselves with, truly influences who we are.

We traveled to see our middle son and his family. They relocated pretty much across the country from where we live. It takes 17 hours of flying. Not the most fun thing. However, we had oodles of miles and were able to upgrade; I got spoiled. Hubby was attending a conference near where our son lives for a week. He flew out and I joined him at the end of the conference. Which meant I had to fly by myself. Don’t make fun of me! I spend most of my time at home, or with my husband. Occasionally I see close friends and our family, but I rarely leave the state, let alone by myself. Plus I had to leave our dogs…arrangements to be made, etc. Anyway, I had to deal with layovers and connecting flights and lugging my packages in my rolling suitcase (took fun stuff to the kids) through the airports. There were SO MANY PEOPLE!! Don’t get me wrong; I am no recluse. However, where I live, there are only 700,000 in the entire state, and it’s Alaska. There’s a lot of space in-between all those people! LOL! Airports and airlines are crowded things. Ugh.

It was fun to see the country from the air, though. Flying during the day is new to me; it seems like all the flights out of Alaska are in the middle of the night! So, I took lots of photos of how flat the country is. From one side to the other. Flat. Just sayin’! LOL!

Going to a place you have never been is exciting on so many levels. The architecture; the layout of the old towns; the miles of fields and farms. I loved every moment of our visit. The small towns were the best. Some of the buildings were literally from the early 1800s. Gas stations from the 1940s. Signage you know has been up longer than I’ve been alive! The antiques. The prices! Oh my word. It is far less expensive than up here. I came home with Amish butter – if you have never had it, treat yourself. I brought home Amish honey in big jars for $10. Unheard-of up here. I was able to see America like I never have and I am beyond thrilled my grandchildren are being raised there.

It was so incredible to drive down some of these roads and see homes that have been lived in for 100s of years. Farms that have been in families for generations. Downtowns with spires and grand town halls, complete with bell towers. Regular, normal families walking down these streets with their kids. Small businesses eeking a living out of small town life. Little cafe’s and wonderful local parks. Schools where the busses pick up and drop off every student, at their house. Where all the kids get hot breakfasts and lunches – regardless of economic need. Where you can walk to the local drugstore and see hand made soap for sale (yes, I brought some home). And where people know their neighbors. It was a much needed trip to once again feel good about this country. To glimpse into the diorama of quiet life in small towns. I actually got to see an Amish farmer driving his black buggy down the street. I was so excited I forgot to snap a photo. It was a long enough stay, in a quiet small town, that I desperately want to go back again, even with layovers and 17 hours of flying.

The trip was over too soon and we had a tearful goodbye. And then we got home and discovered we had brought with us our grandchildren’s bugs. Sigh. The day after we got home we found out our grandchildren’s school closed because too many kids were sick. Yay me! So for a few weeks in November, we both had the crud. (Not c19 or anything, just seasonal crud). I was still busy submitting campaign information for our local elections, so it kept me occupied at home. I couldn’t work the polling place because of the crud, but I kept my fingers in the pot. LOL.

One of the amazing things about Alaska is the snow. It is gorgeous. We had what we are calling the Blizzard of ’22. We got snow upon snow upon snow. And the 75 mph winds were insane. Power outages galore. Hubby was out of town when it hit and I was able to shovel the front to clear a path for our new stove to be delivered (haven’t had a working one in months) and to get our wood stove going. I was proud of myself. Poor man had to trudge up the driveway and dig himself out in order to even bring his truck to the house. What a way to end a week traveling! The snow was deep. We had 6-foot berms in our front yard. No joke.

Our dogs love the snow. And when it piled up that high, they loved the advantage! Maggie is barking to let me know she’s ready to come inside. Kolbe had looked out there and chose to stay inside with me. LOL. Smart guy! The snow got so high, it is over our 6-foot fences in the back, so the dogs now go outside on leads. Otherwise they think it is ok to just walk over the fences into everyone else’s yards. The winds also pushed the snow so we have portions of grass on one side showing, with 7+ foot snow berms on the other side of the yard. Most people say we set records for snowfall and winds. We already had the record for the most rainfall this summer. Alaska. We won’t have a drought anytime soon. Snow melt season is gonna stink!

I am thankful the temperature is back up into the 30s. Those -20s were a killer. The hubby went ice fishing this weekend and they didn’t even set up their tents. Heaters were going, but they were able to sit outside. That’s something!

Christmas came and went. In-between the holidays, we celebrated 38 years of marriage. We had a nice meal out, just us two. And then New Year’s came and went. Another wonderful evening just the two of us. We had been invited out for fireworks, but honestly, blowing snow and 35 degrees? Nah. Wood stove, a nice cup of hot coffee, and a good movie…we were fine. In bed by 10pm. LOL!

And here we are. Months after my last post. No one hardly comes to read my blog anymore. And that is fine, too. Everything has its season. Perhaps my blogging days are winding to a close.

I had a doctor’s appointment for blood work follow up and my annual physical. (That experience could entail an entire post!) I’m fine, by the way. I’m 1″ shorter than I used to be. A few pounds less, and I was consistently told things like, “for a woman of your age,” or “well, considering your age, ” and “you are in that bracket of 65 and older now, ” and “you qualify for the monthly medicare foot-care clinic.” Ugh. I finally told them to knock it off! I’m not that old. Good heavens!! In a way, maybe I am getting too old to opine on social media. Once people hear I have 6 grandchildren and graduated from high school in the early 70s, they tend to place me in the “irrelevant” category. I have always noticed that because of my size (still overweight, with gray hair) people don’t notice me too much. I blend into the background. Now that I am older, it seems that what I have to say, or add to the conversation, is not as germane as it once was. And that makes me sad. Pissed a little, too. Because when I see the idiots in our legislature here and on the national stage, I know they could use some old-time wisdom. Some people just age..they skip the wisdom part. And if my voice no longer carries outside my living room walls, maybe that is the right order of things. It’s up to my kids now; their generation is becoming the ones running things. My dad, who is 96, still rages against his cage in the memory facility he lives in. But I am glad he’s still angry – it means he’s still thinking and things are not right, on some level. And he’s locked away, no longer relevant to the world. It’s sad when you start realizing that you are one of the “old people” walking around. LOL.

Thinking on it all, I do have much to say, but there is a lot of clatter out there. I don’t want to become another “clanging gong” in amongst all the others. My posts may become irregular, or perhaps even cease altogether. I’ll ponder it and see what I feel as life moves along. I cling to my faith first and foremost, and to my husband and our love for one another, my family, and my friends. My circle is quite small these days.

And I try to be my best self where I am. I think God wants that of us all. Participate locally, to make this world a better place. And comment on your life once in awhile. I think that’s where I’m headed. Who said aging is a cup of tea??? LOL…

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“Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no…”

Blogging is interesting. Like I had said before, it is sort of like leaving a diary open on a table, and random strangers stopping by to read a page or two. When you use different blogging platforms, they offer you differing types of feedback. I actually know the exact number of people who follow this blog, and how many actually read each post on it. Sometimes it is just 1 or 2 people. And often one of them is me, because I go out and come in through a different portal, so I can see how it looks to someone stopping by to read a page or two. I can thereby make corrections or edits, so the viewing is easier.

But mostly, I come back to my blog to chat, really, and rant about things that bother me, or in some cases, things that please me. Today I am dealing with the continued fallout from a stressful weekend, where we were on edge worrying over the health of my mother-in-law, who had taken ill quite suddenly. She is not healthy yet, but at least they are making progress. (Please pray for her continued health and recovery). It is amazing to me how quickly our lives can turn. “On a dime,” as they say. We saw some interesting things this weekend, and spent some time with family and some good friends. All in all, it was a good way for us to end the week, and for my husband to prepare to travel today (although his 6:30am flight was cancelled and rescheduled until 3:00pm because of weather)! We spent our Sunday evening after Mass, enjoying our books until we fell asleep.

Most of us who put pen to paper, so to speak, understand that what we put out there is forever the world’s. What we write can someday matter, a lot, to someone who needs to read those words, right then. That particular pairing, I leave to God. If what I go through and how my mind works can somehow touch others, that is a blessing. I love reading so very much, and read constantly. But I don’t think I am a fictional writer. I just write what I am thinking about. “Musings of a mom”…like the title of my blog says.

Most of my time is pondering the eternal truths laid before us through lifetimes of days and moments, and through the internalization of the Word of God in our lives; our faith. Sometimes I veer over into politics, but I try to stay away. It is just too inflammatory. Faith can be, too, and I know that, but my faith is everything to me, and so I share that more readily.

And words can sting, but they can also heal. Recently, there was an instance where perhaps too many words were used, and some people felt betrayed. Words can betray a confidence, or spill a secret we thought was safe. Words can slice through our confidence with one phrase. And words can give us the confidence we need to accomplish the impossible. Words are precious and priceless and sacred. Too many people abuse words. To someone who treasures them, it hurts so much when words are used to destroy and harm, and pull down others, instead of building and creating and reassuring.

Lyrics in songs can be horrific. It’s so funny because from one generation to the next, words become (and can mean) something else. Words used in common language today would have shocked my grandmother. My great-grandmother would have had a coronary. But I am now supposed to be non-plussed with some of the vocabulary choices used regularly by teens and adults. (Words I tried once upon a time, but discovered that soap was not something I enjoyed tasting). I inwardly cringe and am offended, but try to not show it. But I am. The “March on DC” used words and images that 30 years ago would have been labeled pornography and the offenders would have been arrested. Movies that are now rated R should be rated X and labeled pornography (think 50 Shades). Musical lyrics should have those warning labels all over them, but rarely do.

This weekend our deacon gave an insightful homily about words. The Scripture reading was Matthew 5:37 – “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Anything more is from the evil one.” And it got me thinking about words. There are so very many ways to say things. But I truly prefer simple and direct. Why beat around the bush and use prose like Shakespeare, when using small sentences like Dr. Suess will suffice? Especially if the meaning is still as clear? And truth is far more simple. When we speak truth, we don’t have to remember how we say things, because truth never changes. Eternal truths are the same. They never change. Presentation may change (i.e. Protestant, Catholic, etc) but the truth there is the same.

Rhetoric is the persuasive use of speaking or writing with the use of figures of speech and other devices meant to sway a reader. And sometimes, to me, that is what my blogging is about, I suppose. However, I think difference is highly underrated. I appreciate a differing viewpoint and enjoy learning about the whys and wherefores the speaker came to them. Perhaps I can be persuaded to change my view! It happened when I became Catholic, after having been raised Protestant. Those eternal truths reached out for me and took hold, and within the arms of Holy Mother Church, I had my moment with God, with Jesus, and I knew I was home. So words and truths can be effective and life changing. They can also effect our eternity.

And so today I pondered words and how they effect our lives in the here and now, but also how they can last through eternity. I would like to challenge myself and any others who actually read this, to think about each word they utter. Do we want that word to be held for eternity? Was it said in love? Was it said to defame or harm others? Was it said to raise up another and buttress them in times of need? Was it said, seeking redemption from He who created eternity? Was that word edifying for you and those around you? God knows your heart and He knows how we truly feel. Sometimes words are all we have to ensure there is a safe wall around us, keeping others away. And sometimes words are what we use to bring others to us, out of our loneliness and neediness. Words have such unlimited power. We need to be careful and respect each word we utter, letting our “yes mean yes and our no mean no.”

“An empty place in her heart…”

I think I have been in some sort of a deep freeze. My house is a total disaster. My laundry has piled up. I think I stopped “House-wifing” for some reason. I stopped pursuing things. It happened in like, September? Nah…maybe August. Not sure. Sort of a malaise came over me. I can attribute it to several things. I don’t choose to elaborate too much, but things that were steady and a regular part of my life, no longer are. People who I thought were my friends, no longer are. My son and his family are in CA and I miss them terribly. They had a new baby in November and I desperately want to hold her and just bask in all that newborn scent and sound. It is hard seeing photos and videos when I want to hold those babies and hug my kids. My youngest son is now a senior in High School and all these years of homeschooling are coming to a rapid close – he graduates in May. What will my days be like now? I started homeschooling in 1992! My eldest son took a job far away in August, right around my 60th birthday, and I desperately missed him. And I think I sunk into a depressed state. I am married to the most wonderful man. He has not said much. He’s scrambled for clean clothes when he’s traveling. He reaches across the piles when we are getting things off the table. He doesn’t complain when dishes pile up. He doesn’t mention the dust bunnies that have become Tasmanian devils. My office? Oh my word. A complete disaster.

What I have gone through is almost the opposite of the above, however, the sentiment is true. Instead of clean, I disappear into words. I read. A lot. As in hours a day. But I think, through lots of great vitamin D, some prayer, and talking with the right people, I am emerging. Not like a butterfly – I am still basically me. And I don’t think I’m fully with it, yet. But I can acknowledge there’s been a cloud in my life, and I can start to see the sun peeking through. It is almost as if I have been grieving. Not someone who has passed away, but grieving the loss of the familiar, the commonplace in my life, and some relationships in my life.

“The five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.”

When things in your life drastically change, you need to allow yourself to adjust. And I think that’s what I have been doing. When one door closes, we need to be able to see that next one opening for us. And sometimes, at least for me, that other door is hard to find. My hubby and I talked about it and we ventured out into a different area of our community – we stretched outside of our comfort zone. And guess what? We’re meeting new people and stepping into a new world. And we are making friends. Some that we have an inkling about, that we may stay close to for years to come. They may not know that, yet, but we’re thinking we may have found people we can invest time in, and become friends. The fun part is that they are not normally where we would find friends, and that makes it even better.

Today I chose to start taking back my house. I babysat my grandkids and when my granddaughter started to draw art in the dust on my TV stand, I realized it was time. So I cleaned my kitchen and dining room; I put things away; I started a load of laundry; and I made plans for tomorrow’s clean up process. It’s time to awaken from this slumber or malaise and reclaim my place. It’s time to move on and start this last half of my journey. I say “last half” because, well, I’m no spring chicken, but I am hoping for another 30 years or so. At least. So that would be the last 1/3, but half sounds so much better! Ha-Ha!

The Lord is always there. Patiently waiting for us to look up from whatever it is we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by (I have more than 700 books on my Kindle Paperwhite. Yeah. I get distracted). And I also think that our minds work, even when we are not purposely thinking about something. I have been working out things in my mind, deep in my heart, these past few months, in order to move forward. I have resettled my dreams and realigned my wants and desires. Change can be organic and simple, or it can be painful and bruising. I think this has been a bruising, painful sort, so much so that I retreated into myself and my books, ignoring the everyday, mundane aspects of life. My poor family.

In life, we are given a very few friends. We are given many, many acquaintances. Sometimes we confuse the two. We lean on people who are not prepared, or equipped, for us to depend upon. We make assumptions that sometimes we should not make. I have blogged about this before, but I truly have about 6 people (not including my family) who I know would come and hold my hand as I take my last breath. And that is truly a blessed life. We just don’t connect in our hearts with too many people. We have activities that we do in common, we go to places in common, we may even have similar basic beliefs. And all those things provide us with opportunities to develop comrades-in-arms. They give us a framework within which we can grow and become who God meant us to be. However, very few of those comrades are connected to our hearts and souls. Very few. Often, when we let people in, we assume they will treasure our efforts to share; that they will value what we offer them – which is our inner self. But so few people are prepared for that sort of commitment. In our fast-paced, automatic world, deep and lasting friendships are becoming more and more rare. So I cling to the ones I have had for decades; I treasure them and hold them dear in my heart. I reach out to new ones, and someday they, too, may take a place in my heart. I am always open to God’s blessings in my life. But I also have learned, and am still learning, that people come and they go. And they do not always have my best interest at heart.

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.” George Washington

Proverbs 16:28 “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.”

So today I begin anew. I may fail again tomorrow. But I know that I am somehow awake today, whereas I don’t think I have been awake much recently. And through getting all this out on my blog, it makes it real; concrete. Sometimes God allows us to sink a bit; to flounder a little; to seek Him more when we “come out of  it.” He also placed some amazing people in my life that can reel me back in, with saying very little. And that means more than they will probably realize. And there are those who, when I ask them to pray for me, I know they are. Thanks be to God for the many blessings in my life. I leave you with this – I totally “mommed” out today. I made hot muffins for my son for breakfast, before he had to catch the bus to school. And that is a great start!!!

 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world…”

I am sort of all over the place today. My hubby is off on a business trip again. He is gone 2 weeks of every month. Lately he has chosen to take them back-to-back so he has more of a steady time at home. The house felt sort of empty this morning. Getting old is weird. Hormones are all over the place. Squirrel. My hair is gray. I am trying new products to tame the frizzes. I tried the method where you wash just with conditioner. Not pretty. Tried for a week and could not stand it. Discovered my hair needs keratin. Who knew? Conditioning today. We got 18″ of snow the past 3 days. We are using either our wood stove or floor heating and it makes the air so dry. And my hair flies all over the place. Lovely when you add wool scarves and sweaters. Not. See? All over the place.

I just reconnected with a friend from High School. She and I were so close, for so long. I am not sure why we stopped being in touch. Perhaps me getting married and having kids and she was seriously in school and having a career…and we moved away from one another, too. But it is so good to get connected via Facebook, and to relaunch our relationship. I was so excited!! It gave me a spring in my step today.

So I blow dried my hair and it is still so fly-away-ish. Had to re-apply the leave-in conditioner. We will see how this formulation works for me. Gray hair is so picky.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

My hubby and I have been dealing with issues regarding our parish and the practicing of the faith we have come to love (and were so well instructed in, by an amazing priest and many friends – priests and monks among them). And it has caused a little friction. Nothing like damaging to our relationship, but in our 34 years together, our faith journey has always been a joint one. Perhaps friction is not the right term. It’s more like there was a pea in our mattress and we just were not comfortable. We always walked together in faith. Our journey has amused many, and confused even more! And over the past 6 months or so, we have sorted of marched to a different drummer. And that is never good. I was always cautioned to not marry outside of my faith practices because people who are “un-equally yoked” do not work out. And I experienced it once, in a long term relationship. I was even engaged to him. He was Jewish. (Reform, not Orthodox, or it probably would never have happened in the first place). But eventually, especially after having developed such an amazing relationship with his rabbi and knowing I was firmly a Christian woman, his cultural adherence to many Jewish traditions, and me not fitting in well with his family, caused me to call things off. He was a great person and I did not wish him ill. I just realized we could never work. His rabbi and I remained friends, up until his death, often meeting for coffee and chats, long after my relationship had waned. I knew I needed a good, strong, Christian man in my life and was wise enough to call the wedding off. And when I met my husband, he lit up my life. And the more I got to know him, the more I wanted his faith. I wanted that relationship he had with God. I used to watch him pray, and while kneeling next to him, prayed that I could be like that. He has been good for me. I often tell him that he saved me from my worst self. He dragged me into a more pious life and I loved it. Over the past 6 or more months, that has waned. And I admitted to him that I miss it. At this same time, my husband realized our relationship with our faith practices needed to change. We spoke and realized we felt the same way about things. About some pretty important things. Whew. A good talk is sometimes all you need to realign your northern star – in my case, that is my piety and sense of faith permeating everything; my relationship to Christ and His Church.

 

I have taught my kids that it is better to be that lone person, standing for what is right, rather than going with the majority. I believe that to be so in pretty much everything. You can apply it to your chosen career – be the best you can be at whatever it is you do, even if you are not a part of the crowd. In politics, for me, I rarely follow what the majority is calling for. I am conservative – socially, financially, spiritually, and pro life. Period. It permeates even the voting booth. In my faith, I prefer historically connected, profound, and deeply rooted worship. Throw in beeswax candles and icons, and I am there! I was raised next door to Russians, whose parents immigrated from Russia. They had such an interesting spin on life. From the father of the family, I learned to fence, using rapiers from the Royal Court in Russia. I learned to drink Russian tea made in a Samovar. And I learned about Russian tales and foods, traditions and history. I fell in love with Russia, reading everything I could find on it. The old, the traditional, the historically connected has always grabbed me. As an adult, I found myself learning all about my faith at a secular university, funnily enough. I converted to Catholicism as an adult. Coincidentally, about this time, I met my husband. (When I was dating my Jewish boyfriend, I was Geneva Presbyterian – until I converted to Catholicism at age 27). Over our 32 years of marriage, as we have journeyed through a very “orthodox” Catholic life, we discovered the Eastern Catholic Church. It was then that I truly began to breathe with both lungs. I was hooked. We moved over to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which is culturally Arabic, but Byzantine/Greek in worship style. My husband became a Deacon, after attending the Melkite seminary. We made life-long friends we dearly miss, during this time period. I literally fell in love with Church. I was there 2-4 days every week. I helped with our homeless kitchen and soon found myself transporting donated food weekly in my suburban, dragging my homeschooled kids with me. I loved working in the kitchen with all the Arab ladies. We had so much fun. And they taught me Arabic traditions, histories, foods, clothing styles, and how they raised their kids and the many faith traditions they held precious. When we moved to Alaska, we discovered there was no Melkite Church up here. We have been adapting. Our youngest son found a youth group he loves, at the local Roman Catholic parish. We support him in attending their “young men’s bible studies” and trips, and youth group every week. (He is well-known in the local parish and usually brings up the gifts on Sundays at Mass. He’s quite the popular teenager. We joke that he knows more people in Alaska than any of the rest of us does). We attend there as a family and it has been good. It is not our beloved Eastern tradition, but it is Church.

 

 

We’ve adapted to this culture up here. (It’s cold and white everywhere these days, because we have so much snow!!) We have become sort of bland. Ha-Ha! And I got pulled away from the practice of what I love, into a rather generic sort of Christian expression. Even in these posts, I was more inclusive, even of the photos I would use to illustrate my posts. I have stopped explaining about my faith practices, letting people just assume I am a generic “Christian” woman. Which I am, but I realized that I have been compromising myself. It is not all of who I truly am. I cannot please the public; I cannot continue to “pose” as something I am not. And I was caving into the pressures I had warned my kids about all these years. I was not being true to who I really am. I am an Eastern-rite Catholic woman. I love the smell of incense. I love the Divine Liturgy. I love chant. Not Gregorian, but old world, eastern chant. I love icons. I love being in a church where you can scent the incense from a previous Liturgy, and light the beeswax candles and be transported to a holier place; a place of oneness with God. It eases my soul. And even if I am “all over the place” and a tad bit scatterbrained today, I am also more at ease because I have realized these things about myself. And it comforts me.

I realize that many of you do not worship this way, nor understand why people would. Our democratic ideals have permeated our styles of worship, and that is okay, if it sits well with you. I have always been a history-oriented person. I majored in Anthropology and minored in Biblical Archeology. History – church – faith. It has alway been a part of who I am. When I walked the parapets of a castle in Wales as a 16-year-old, I felt those walls speak to me. I would run my hands down them, marveling at how ancient they were and how connected to that antiquity I felt. I was walking the lands of my ancestors and I felt truly at home and very welcome, in among all the artifacts and tapestries, old walls and artwork. Walking through Churches and Cathedrals while we visited England, I constantly had a backache because I spent the entire time bent over, looking at all the engravings on the stones. I took so many rubbings. I felt rooted. I could really breathe at some of these places. It is the same for me in the way I choose to worship. I love tradition and the fact that I can historically trace my Church back to the Apostles. We have songs that are so old, there is no written record of them, just references to them by the Church Fathers, talking about how old they were back in the Apostolic days. Those of us who are Melkite like to tease our Roman/Latin Rite friends that we had St. Peter before they did, because he established the Church in the east before he meandered his way to Rome (wink-wink). And so I have decided that I am not going to hide who I am any longer. I am not going to water things down. I am not going to represent an American Jesus for the palpability of my newer friends. (And those in my business world). I believe in Jesus Christ and I do that in communion with them. However, I also believe in the traditions that brought Protestantism its lifeblood. We had the traditions long before they were put into a book – the Bible – the same one we all read, before all those pesky books were removed out of it. And we were an oral people – sharing our faith and our traditions with others through the practices passed on to us from the Apostles themselves. This is not a haughty or conceited viewpoint, nor is it meant to put people off. But it is the Church I choose to worship in; it is the tradition which gives my lungs breath. It is part of who I am.

[By the way, my hair feels amazing right now. The blow drying has cooled and it feels like silk. Still gray, but not so much frizziness. Maybe this stuff is working!?!?! Keratin – who knew??]

And so my friends, from here on out, I will be sharing honestly about who I am. I will share through an Eastern lens, through the faith I practice. I am ecumenical because I believe we all hold the same God in our hearts, but I won’t apologize or hide that I prefer icons and a Jesus prayer, Divine Liturgy and incense, the iconostasis and beeswax candles, confession in front of an Icon of Christ the Pantocrator, and cantors with no musical accompaniment, to pretty much all the rest of it. It just fits me and I will no longer apologize nor hide it from you. It is part of what makes me, me. And it is part of who I am when I communicate with all of you, on this blog. I hope you will continue to read, if you do. I am still who I am! It’s just me going back to the me I was a few years ago.

May the Lord grant you many blessed years.

 

 

 

 

“We give thanks to You, invisible King..”

 

“We give thanks to You, invisible King. By Your infinite power You created all things and by Your great mercy You brought everything from nothing into being. Master, look down from heaven upon those who have bowed their heads before You; they have bowed not before flesh and blood but before You the awesome God. Therefore, Master, guide the course of our life for our benefit according to the need of each of us. Sail with those who sail; travel with those who travel; and heal the sick, Physician of our souls and bodies. By the grace, mercy, and love for us of Your only begotten Son, with whom You are blessed, together with Your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)

This week is hectic. It’s Thanksgiving here in the USA. So many ways to celebrate; so many ways to give Thanks. Each time we attend Divine Liturgy, we continually beseech God for mercy, and we constantly give thanks, “to You, invisible King.” This holiday season is one where tensions fly with family members and friends, alike. Everyone has a plan in their head of what the “Holidays” are supposed to be. For whatever reason, they ALWAYS fall short. Why is that? I remember a conversation between two siblings, wherein they were recalling incidents in their youth. One of them remarked, “Were we even raised in the same family?” It was because their memories were vastly different of the same events. And I know that is what happens each year. We have fond recollections from our youth, but they are quite often not what truly occurred. We laugh and laugh as our boys retell certain instances in their lives, because to the mind of a child, it happened a particular way. But, we, who experienced it as adults, have a far different recollection.

Hosting the holidays has been stressing me out. It’s because I have a very tiny house and there will be a lot of grown-ups trying to cram into it. I do mean a tiny house, with a one-butt kitchen. (If you have one, you know what I mean). There are other reasons, too. Like trying to live up the expectations of a family feast for my kids, grandkids, and extended family members. We also have many, many subjects that will naturally be taboo at our table. (A varied belief system, political system, and even agnostic/atheistic tendancies). There will be football! Ha-Ha! But even that can be heated (we all like different teams). The food is coming in from a variety of people, so all I have to worry about is the turkey (they don’t stress me out – just a big chicken), stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. Should be simple. We will have far more food than we can eat but hopefully everyone can taste something they like. My kids have already said that since they are now adults, I can’t make them eat what they don’t want to eat. So if all they eat is stuffing, gravy, rolls, and pie, washing it all down with a beer, I need to deal with it. Ha-Ha.  Well, okay then.

I am missing the days of attending Divine Liturgy and feeding the homeless, as we did in previous years. Our current parish is hosting a meal after the Divine Liturgy and I will miss it this year; perhaps next year we can hop from place to place, enjoying the company of a variety of family and friends. Perhaps sharing our previous experiences in helping the less fortunate will be something I can share around the table, maybe even inspiring an openness to giving to others. Who knows, maybe next year our family (extended as it is) will help to feed the homeless? One can always hope. One particularly happy Thanksgiving was shared with friends in Washington State a few years ago. My god daughter flew up for the weekend and we went to a friend’s house. They had invited a lot of disparate individuals and their table conversation was incredible. We had such a wonderful time. It was nothing like we had experienced in the past and to this day, it is one of my favorite holiday memories.

Thanksgiving, or Turkey Day as I like to call it, is a peculiar holiday to America – and I like the idea of it. But with all the political correctness going on, we don’t really focus on the Pilgrims being grateful for a harvest helped by their interaction with the native peoples, and with them sharing their bounty. We instead are focusing on our own small families (in perspective) and on what time the stores are having their “Black Friday” shopping hours! People are boycotting lists of stores who are opening on Thanksgiving itself, and many who are already set up for Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is my second favorite holiday. For most of my life, it was my favorite holiday (I have been converted to Pascha. I adore the whole environment of Lent and Easter, especially learning all the new traditions here). In recent years, it seems like more and more that the marketing world leads us from Labor Day in September, right through to Thanksgiving and Christmas – all at once. The ads and the deals; retailers trying to get your money. It is taking away from the “thankfulness” of the season. I wish we could return to simpler, quieter, and slower days and years. We just seem to be rushing through all our days lately. Perhaps it is because I am getting older and I notice it more. And I truly wish we could get over this attachment to all the “stuff” we need to buy. Remember the old saying, “You can’t take it with you?” Seems so appropriate. We should stop and be content, be grateful for what we do have.

“But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.…” (1Tim 7:6-8)

My prayer for my family and friends is a grateful heart and spirit. Silence, peace, and loving kindness to everyone. Being sated by what we already have and being able to recognize our wealth – in things, yes, but in our family, friends, faith, country. Enjoying those around us. Feeling the blessings God has laid before us in our lives. God is good and He knows what is best for us. Hosting Turkey Day is good for me. It lets me work on my “Martha” and learn to be more “Mary.” God is working in me, even in the week of “Thanksgiving,” as I am learning to redefine my essence of “family” and being grateful for those who darken my doorstep and gladden my table.

From a wonderful site, “(In)courage ~ Home for the Hearts of Women” and an article entitled, ” A More Mary, Less Martha Thanksgiving”  by Dawn Camp, came the following WONDERFUL advice:

“If you’re an anxious holiday host, I hope these thoughts help you, too:

Don’t experiment with new cooking methods or recipes on crucial dishes unless you have a backup plan. Delegate, delegate, delegate: ask other guests to bring bread, sides, or desserts. More Mary, less Martha: spend more time enjoying your guests and less time cleaning; use paper plates! Let your guests help you set the table and get the food ready to serve; they’re thankful you’ve opened your home and want to assist you. Enjoy the people you’re with; you probably don’t see enough of them. Thanksgiving is about being thankful; make it the focus of your holiday.”

I plan to take her advice to heart. I am about to sojourn to the store with my youngest son. I plan to get paper plates and lots of napkins, even plastic silverware and cups. I want this to be an easy Thanksgiving; a joyful and thankful day. And I hope by simplifying things, we can enjoy one another more (and I will even help myself destress a little bit) and truly be in the mindset to give Thanks.

Golden moments stolen out of time…

This month, my 5-week preemie turns 30. I am blown away. When I concentrate on solely that one life, I am filled with memories, like a kaleidoscope of short films. My pregnancy was a difficult one and I was hospitalized for most of it.  Once the doctor sent me home, still on bed rest, I waited. It didn’t take long; just 5 days and my water broke. My husband was so funny, prepping in that new-father sort of way. He laid large, black, yard-sized trash bags on the seat of our car, with a towel on top of that – just in case. Our drive was uneventful, but about 30 minutes in traffic, with me sitting on plastic trash bags!  When I arrived at the OB’s office, they tested me and said that yes, my water had broken and to walk down to labor and delivery. I took a few steps outside the office door and grabbed onto the railing and went to the floor – my first real contraction! After he was born, I shared with my husband how tired I was. I asked him the time and he said, “It’s 4:30.” I replied, “Wow! 4:30 in the morning! No wonder I am so tired.” He corrected me, “It’s only 4:30 in the afternoon – you were only in labor 4 hours!”  Ha-Ha.  Felt like forever; I was taken, for 4 hours, out of time; I had experienced kairos. And so began our life as a family, 30 years ago. I just cannot believe that little boy is now a married dad himself. So much has happened. But every so often, time stands still and we are given moments of insight and memory. This morning, when I gazed at the foggy trees in our yard, I was swept back in time to a precious moment with my newborn son, and it seemed like I was there. I could smell him and feel the weight of him in my arms. And my heart was swollen with renewed love for him.

I was thinking on this today and was brought up short when it hit me – this is exactly how Church is sometimes. Chronos versus Kairos! Our firstborn seemed to love being in Church. He would pay attention and was quiet when we needed him to be. Our middle son was so funny as a baby/toddler, because the moment we would enter the Church, he would get drowsy. He always slept on the pew, through the entire Mass. I was worried he would never participate in the Mass, that he would not know what was happening. One early morning on the freeway traveling to Church, he started saying the entire Eucharistic Prayer I, in Latin, from the back row of the van. He was about 4 years old, I think. I guess I was worried for nothing! Our youngest regularly slept on the floor under the first row in Church, while I sat in the second row with the other deacon’s wives. He would awaken in time for the end of Liturgy, happy as a clam. I was worried he had no concept of being in Church, but when he began serving on the altar, he required very little instruction. He’d been mystically as present as his older siblings, absorbing the things of God, even in sleep.

The Church offers us “other” when we attend Divine Liturgy. An opportunity to leave chronos behind – the worries and pressures of our lives, our day, our hours. We enter fully into kairos – the moment, the perfect experience of God. The ancient Greeks gave us these words for time – chronos and kairos. We still use chronos, when we measure the passage of time, in words like chronology, anachronism – when we do we speak in seconds, minutes, hours, years, centuries. Chronos is quantitative, whereas kairos is qualitative. Kairos is something apart from chronos. It specifically speaks to moments; to the perfect moment, the right moment, the opportune moment. It is when the world stops and takes a breath and life is changed. Forever. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, in Ecclesiastes, “to everything there is a time” and kairos is this moment in time; it refers to the perfect moment of God. In Church, we are transported into the moment of worship with our Supreme Being, surrounded by the Heavenly Hosts. This is from the Anaphora of the Eucharistic Canon:

“For all these things we give thanks to Thee, and to Thine only-begotten Son and to Thy Holy Spirit; for all things of which we know and of which we know not, whether manifest or unseen; and we thank Thee for this liturgy which Thou hast found worthy to accept at our hands, though there stand by Thee thousands of archangels and hosts of angels, the Cherubim and the Seraphim, six-winged, many eyed, who soar aloft, borne on their pinions, singing the triumphant hymn, shouting, proclaiming and saying:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

I love that our Liturgy reflects the action of the angels and that while we enter into the sanctuary that is Church and the Divine Liturgy, the angels are surrounding us, constantly singing to Our Lord, in Divine Worship. And I love to lose myself in Liturgy. I’ve had people experience a Divine Liturgy for the first time and one of their reactions is usually to the length of the service. (And the singing and the incense…) And for me, it passes in a moment. As the mother of young children, it can take much longer. Getting children to experience kairos only happens when we expose them to it on a regular basis. It’s hard to expect infants, let alone adults who have never been to a Divine Liturgy, to not have questions or get antsy because of the foreignness of it all. Babies are just short adults; we need to be present to their senses in how we share our worship. It can be confusing for all of us and we ought to encourage the experience of kairos for others. So many adults are annoyed by the noises and wiggles of infants in Church. Personally, I rejoice with the angels, because those children are our future.

There is a beauty to experiencing kairos. Chronos ages us. Chronos makes us tired. Chronos gave me gray hair! In mythology, Chronos was always depicted as evil, or as Father TIme and an old, decrepit man walking with a cane, barely escaping the Grim Reaper. Kairos is always young, handsome, and full of love and happiness. Kairos brings joy to people. Kairos lives in the perfect moment. Our souls soar in kairos, when we give ourselves over to the experience of God in His Liturgy. And God gives us glimpses of those perfect moments, moments of kairos, throughout our lives. It is just hard to recognize them sometimes. As I typed this, I remembered the first time I felt my firstborn son move in my womb. I recall placing my hand over him and reveling in the gift of life. I cried with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, that I was allowed this divine gift of life. And that moment was a kairos moment. Time, as chronos, stopped for me, as I felt my child wiggle in my womb. 

So I pray for more perfect moments in my life. I pray that I can stop, be still, and experience more perfect, sublime moments. God moments. Time loses its hold when we step into karios and live with God. The angels are singing, miracles are happening, and life will never be the same. The world holds its breath in kairos. Eternity is glimpsed. The miracles all around us are a part of the complete experience of God. We can find those kairos moments, and we want to treasure them. God gives us kairos to raise us up, for those perfect moments, moments we forget time itself and live fully in that golden moment.

Trust me, moments come and moments go. Some are hard to get past and cause us intense misery. Those are the moments when we live in chronos, hoping beyond hope that they are over and done with. With a moment of kairos, we are transported outside of our own timeline and we come truly alive – for the sole moment. I related in a previous post how I cried at the Phantom of the Opera – that is a kairos moment. I completely let the angst of the traffic, of feeling harried, fall away in that moment of bliss. That moment of bliss erased all the other chronos I’d spent getting there. Those are golden moments. Golden moments that are not repeatable, nor should they want to be. We relish them because of their uniqueness. Spending time, outside of chronos, in the presence of God, refreshes us and quite often brings us to our knees. We are separate, we are apart. We are alone, and yet with the choirs of angels, worshipping God.

When I look at my dirty laundry, I long for those moments of kairos.  And yet I know that if I dedicate myself to the task at hand, even washing clothes can be golden moments, if we use them to pray and offer our labor for the good of those who need it. And I can often lose myself in menial tasks, being transported in memory to those moments that spur me on, that guide me in my chronological march through life. Kairos is our gift from God, but it is also His invitation, to seek Him out.

 

“…you don’t like reading?”

I am a reader.  I am an avid reader.  My local library loves me!  I am constantly online, looking through reading lists, checking on my favorite authors, making lists of books to get my library to order for me, and reading.  Ha-Ha! I read – a lot. I went to the library on Friday and picked up 7 books waiting for me. I have already read 4 of them and it is only Wednesday.  There are more books waiting for me at the library!  It has become our Saturday morning errand – dropping books off and picking books up, at the local library.  Last Friday I actually had the car, so I was able to go to the library a day early; it totally messed up our Saturday! Ha-Ha!

My husband and I are becoming such old fuddy-duddies that we will go to bed NO LATER than 9:00pm, so we can lay in bed and read until at least 10:00pm every night.  And I mean EVERY night!  We hate being out late because we miss reading time.  And on rainy or snowy weekends, we cuddle up with our blankets on the couch or recliner and read.  We have chosen to watch less TV and read more.  Our youngest son, aged 15, thinks we’re a little nuts. He stays up longer than us, but comes into our room, chatting away about various things until he finally settles into bed himself.  It has become such a part of our lives, and helped our lives to be more quiet and still, that I have not felt like posting on my blog.  I would rather be reading.

And so, for now, I will blog when the mood strikes me.  It seems to me that so much of what I share somehow strikes an angry cord in people (not sure why they bother reading my blog if I do that to them) and I really don’t have all that much of an audience, so I think I will lay aside this blog for a bit.  Perhaps when I get back into it, I will have something important or worthwhile to share.

In the meantime, I will work on keeping our plants alive this summer and eating some home-grown fruits and vegetables, and I will work on my “goodreads” list, my library list and I am also investigating e-readers.  Trust me, as a die-hard book lover, that is saying something.  But I realize how much easier my library trips would be if I could do it all online.  Then we might just have to re-arrange our Saturday mornings!

Blessings, all. Happy Summer!