“… these are things that belong to the grace of God. There is nothing of my own. God gave me many gifts, but I did not respond; I proved myself unworthy. But I have not abandoned my efforts, not even for a moment. Perhaps God will give me His help so that I can give myself to His love.
That’s why I do not pray for God to make me well. I pray for him to make me good.
…
It doesn’t concern me how long I will live or whether I will live. That is something I have left to God’s love. It often happens that you don’t want to remember death. It’s because you desire life. That, from one point of view, is a proof of the immortality of the soul. But whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
+St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, Wounded by Love (I think it’s from the section “On Illness,” but I can’t remember)
Rejoice, life-giving Cross of the Lord, Thou never-conquered battle trophy of piety, Support and staff of the faithful, The wall surrounding the Church And the door that leadeth unto Paradise; Through Thee hath corruption been made to vanish and be no more, Death’s mighty power hath been vanquished and swallowed up, And we have been raised from earth to celestial things. O truceless foe of demons, and our weapon invincible Thou art the glory of martyrs and true adornment of all the Saints, Calm port of salvation, That which granteth the great mercy of God unto the world!
from the Vespers Aposticha of September 14, HTM translation
There was once a time when I thought that praying to the Cross was extremely weird. And on some level, I suppose I think it still is.
However, I also do not think it is possible to understand the power of the Cross, the meaning of the Cross, and even the Cross itself without praying to it.
The early Christian martyrs (and the early Christians generally) had a much different relationship with the Cross than we do now (at least in my estimation). The Cross was the gate to Paradise — first because the Cross mediated the death of the God-man Christ and thus made possible the Resurrection, and second because it is by imitating the Cross and embracing the sufferings of martyrdom that they themselves gained Paradise. The Cross has active power and grace. The Cross is the key and the ladder to Paradise.
If it doesn’t make sense to pray to the Cross, I encourage you to try, and to stick with it for a while. The hymn above is a good place to start; the two that follow it in the service are also addressed to the Cross. It is what I prayed when I thought the entire expedition and effort was stupid, and it totally transformed how I see the Cross.
Blessed feast day, friends! Through the intercessions of the Cross, may God grant us the strength to do our homework, go to our medical checkups, clean the kitchen, stand up to tyrants, defeat idols, and be kind to all people, Amen.
St. John Cassian (the Roman): feast day 29 February, transferred to today, 28 February
February has been, of course, such a short month! Being in grad school means time flies by, moments skip on the surface of life, and Lent is somehow just around the corner again.
I have been knitting a lot; I am coming close to finishing a shawl I have been working on for a really long time (it is the Find Your Fade pattern by Andrea Mowry; I love her patterns and eventually want to make them all). I am really excited to finish the shawl because for once I am actually excited to wear something that I’ve made (that isn’t a hat!)
I have been reading a lot this year so far. I think that having a bunch of required reading (about a specific subject like theology) has ironically made reading non-theology books/novels seem so much more appealing! According to Goodreads, I’ve finished 13 books since the beginning of January, but they have all been very short and I truly do not believe in reading success as being counted by number of books read. It is still a bit of a marvel to me, though!
I’m really excited for Lent! The number of services on my calendar added with the classes listed feels a bit overwhelming, but with God’s grace everything is doable, and the services themselves usually help us do them. I’m trying to figure out if I should pick a book to read during Lent, or just let my theology reading suffice, and let the ascesis be in doing it with as much attentiveness as possible. As usual, the solution is to ask the priest (a most wonderful and generally safe method of conducting the spiritual life).
Good strength, everyone, for Lent and for all other aspects of life going on right now! It is sometimes helpful for me to remember that we do not in fact live in particularly remarkable times, we are not special in our afflictions, and that no matter what God is with us (we have a whole hymn about it in Great Compline). I hope that might ease any burden you might feel, knowing that we are never alone in anything, and that the angels and saints always surround us with their prayers.
Keeping the thought of God always present before you, this form of words for your devotions is ever to be put first: “O God, make haste to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me.”
St. John Cassian, Selected Writings (St. Paisius Monastery, 2000)
International Orthodox Christian Charities is doing relief work in Ukraine, I’m putting a link to donate if you can or are inclined to; I know things like this are going around the internet and you’ve probably seen a lot of requests for help, but these things do help relieve people’s very real suffering and it is something very tangible even if it is something small
-Odds & Ends- A youtube channel I have been loving recently (her videos are so peaceful and beautiful and Christ-oriented) If anyone is interested in resources for any kind of Byzantine studies, here is a link for a bunch of open access databases; I think my favorites are the Athos Digital Heritage one and the Manuscripts of St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Library of Congress one (I would recommend exploring these if you have some time on your hands, these database websites can require a lot of clicking through) Paraklesis to St. Paisios the Athonite, because we all need a lot of prayers for peace right now
Monastery memories: summer 2017, GreeceChurch of San Felipe (built 1706; 264 years before the monastery pictured above started being built), Old Town Albuquerque, mid-November 2021
Months since last post: 6 Books finished: 18 Poems written: two halves Knitting projects finished: who knows Crochet projects finished: um…… none?
The last six months have been, as the prophet says, “a time to keep silence.” I ended up not starting graduate school, thought I wasn’t going to go to graduate school, felt really stuck and lost, prayed a lot, started teaching Sunday school (which I love so much), and now today was my first day as a graduate student! (I’m in the program I originally applied to, for theology).
In order to commemorate and celebrate this day, this big grand impactful promise of a day, which honestly felt almost disappointingly normal, I got a Starbucks cinnamon dolce latte. Let me just say, cinnamon dolce complements iconoclasm beautifully. (The study of iconoclasm, not the practice of iconoclasm. I don’t want to be anathematized, that would be really not good for my salvation.)
Starting school again has brought me out of my time of silence and filled me with a wonderful sense of energy and peace. It is a blessing to have a direction. Thank God for everything!
I have some book reviews stashed around on my computer, some thoughts on the “idiosyncratic school of reading,” a whole rant on the nonexistence of the Fates (Moirai) in Homer, and hopefully a bunch of new thoughts on old thoughts inspired by school. Basically, I will do my best to post more, and with pictures! (I take a lot of pictures with the thought, “That could go on my blog!” And most of them aren’t here. C’est la vie, I suppose.)
For a final thought, there is probably some kind of spiritual meditation to be had that the actual lived out version of the “straight and narrow way” is often more wiggly than any of us might like, especially when pandemics hit. (And God knows I fall off that bandwagon far, far too often.) But God is always good, and to quote something I said to a friend in early December when we were talking about maybe not being able to go to church on Christmas, “Christ is born anyway, because He’s like that.”
I hope you all had a wonderful Nativity and a blessed start to the new year! I have nothing but good wishes and prayers for you all.
St. Birgitta stitch, part 1: in which I still have sanity
St. Birgitta stitch, parts 2 & 3: in which I’ve totally lost it
Visiting family in Albuquerque and taking the Sandia Tramway for the first time
What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.
C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
This past year or so since I graduated with my BA in Classics has been very strange. Certainly covid contributed to its strangeness, but there were other things that compounded the strangeness.
I had been planning to go straight from my undergraduate to a masters degree in theology. All the classes would be online, and the community experience would of course be extraordinarily lacking. However, it was a conversation I had with someone about the future viability of my research interests that made me come screeching to a halt in this plan, causing me to withdraw my application a week before classes were to start.
Then I got a job working at a pharmacy, which was really nice, because I had some money for the first time since I graduated high school. I was working through treatment (I think a more accurate term might be management) for my mental health and starting to feel stable, more confident in myself, and a lot less anxious than I had in a very long time. But throughout this time, I kept questioning the decision I had made to not go to graduate school.
Of course I didn’t regret choosing to avoid online classes, but I missed the environment where I had felt so comfortable and where I had found my closest friends. At the same time, I didn’t want to go back just because I missed chapel and my friends. I didn’t have a viable research interest (the history and development of the typikon, while interesting to me, is not exactly the stuff of tenure).
Then the papers came.
The paper ideas started coming in droves. I would pick up the Iliad and suddenly feel that I needed to write a paper about vocation versus identity through action or inaction in the Iliad using Achilles as a case study (and maybe throwing in Euripides because let’s face it the guy was a genius). This paper started as a very specific idea frantically scribbled down before bed and turned into a complex, multilayered set of thoughts that I’m still figuring out. I also wanted to write a paper about the whole process of Patroklos’ death, which is quite possibly my favorite scene in the Iliad (followed or preceded by Hector and Andromache, I’m not sure).
Finally I got to the point where I found the thesis idea that I want to write about an pursue for my graduate work. I’m not going to name it specifically here, because unfortunately academic paranoia is usually justified, but it is very generally about Orthodoxy and mental health. I am so excited to write it, and to be honest, even if it doesn’t go anywhere it will be worth doing.
I suppose this is a really long-winded way of saying God willing I will be actually starting grad school in the fall. I’m still not quite sure exactly how I’ll manage all the details, but as my spiritual father once pointed out to me, God has not let me down yet. I am thankful for my “gap year,” and I am thankful that all my saints have found me a way to go. (I have a posse – St. Catherine of course, St. Xenia of Petersburg, St. Phanourios, St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, and most recently St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain.) Without them I’d very much still be lost.
-Odds & Ends- Video explaining the St. Birgitta stitch pictured above (also Morgan Donner is wonderful) Video Recording of the Akathist to St. Porphyrios (in Greek) Onesimus, the blog of Dr. Bill Black, an OCMC missionary serving in Nairobi who I had the great honor of meeting when he spoke at a retreat hosted by the missions committee at my college (please pray for him and his work, and if you are interested and/or able to, please go here to support him financially) I just finished this book about St. Paisios (I know I’m a little late to the bandwagon on it, but it really did come into my life at the right time). A couple of my dearest friends have such a good relationship with him, and I am so glad that I started having my own relationship with him as well. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger has completely disillusioned me of the notion I’ve had since high school that Salinger is terrible. He is not.
I feel it is fairly appropriate to have a screen capture of Over the Garden Wall at the beginning of this post, since I have been feeling just as lost as Wirt and Greg are throughout the show. I identify with Wirt; I want to be more like Greg.
Many things have happened since I last wrote a post. I got a job as a pharmacy technician. I’m learning more about medications than I really ever wanted to know, and I honestly don’t find it terribly fulfilling work. However, I am helping people, so that is good.
I haven’t read very much (as evidenced by a lack of book reviews posted here). I keep intending to read, but for some reason I have some kind of mental block that keeps me from cracking open those beloved spines and allowing myself to be inspired. Earlier, in the fall, I lacked the mental and spiritual energy for it. Now I simply put it off, perhaps because I am afraid of opening myself to spiritual connections (even to fictional characters) or because I am afraid of thinking.
I did pick up a copy of Mary Oliver’s Devotions in the airport on the way to my best friend’s wedding in January, and the poem “For Tom Shaw S.S.J.E.” made me break down in tears on the flight. It was on page 8. I have re-read it many times since that first time, and every time I am struck by Mary Oliver’s ability to touch the heart of the matter with a few simple words. Her writing is helping me see the beauty in the world again.
This might should have come earlier given its importance, but I finished my degree and graduated. As one might expect, it was terribly anticlimactic. It was also heart rending in a way I think many others did not experience, since this was the second graduation ceremony I did not have (homeschooling and graduating early and moving to a monastery do not typically allow for such things). I think the loss of another major marker traditionally associated with growing up, as well as the lack of finality to all the work I put in, has really impacted me, although I do try not to dwell on it. I have to trust that this is God’s intention for me and for the world, and to be honest, not getting graduations is (in the modern parlance) a “first world problem.”
It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory and still to love it.
Oscar Wilde
I wrote this quote from Oscar Wilde at the beginning of the journal I started in October. I have been trying to live by it, trying first to see the glory in the taint and second to love both. Making things, like the Dalai Llama and two and a half pairs of socks, has been helping. Remembering that I have people who love me has been helping. Trying to add to the beauty of the world, even though I fail so miserably most of the time, has been helping.
The only other things going on in my life right now are trying to figure out which foods I am allergic/sensitive to, which means a lot of non-egg and non-dairy foods, lots of music, and stealing momentary snuggles with my (11 year old) kitten.
I hope you all are doing well, and that God will give us all the grace and strength to make it through the pandemic. (And through February. God knows Februaries are already hard enough here in this northern hemisphere. I will make it through with tea and cupcakes, and I will gladly share should anyone need them.)
C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity came at a timely point in my life. Lent started; church was hard. COVID-19 happened; church was banned. Then, I decided to pick up this book, because not going to church was easy, and staying away from church felt normal.
So I was faced with what is part apology for Christianity and part challenge to become a Christian. The part of me that really likes where I’m at right now resisted this challenge, but the quiet part of me that used to really love going to church started to raise its head. It reminded me that at one point I wanted change in my life, and that the good things I have right now are gifts that even several months ago I was begging to have. All that is to say, this book had an impact on me.
Mere Christianity consists of three parts. The first is about the challenge which the existence of morality essentially poses, the second is about Christian morality particularly, and the third is a sort of explanation of basic Christian doctrines.
In the first part, I found Lewis’ critique of Dualism insightful, as I had not thought about the fact that by labeling one power “good” and the other “evil” we are essentially passing judgment on them. His ideas about the source of the idea of good being an Entity (Person) above all of us which guides us rather than forces us to do things made a lot of sense to me.
The second part I found easiest to read of all three, as I have grown up Christian and much of what he wrote was already familiar to me. Here he introduced the idea that in order to practice love (the most essential of all Christian virtues), you really need to do exactly that: practice. One does not start out by being able to love perfectly, but by practising love of neighbor and by practising love of God one can get better at it.
This sort of theme of you don’t start out perfect was continued in the third part. We are commanded to be perfect, yet we are not perfect; the reconciliation of this occurs when we give ourselves fully to Christ and allow Him to make us perfect through the “good infection” of His presence. One point Lewis kept making here is that we do not become Christians to become nice people but to become good men.
Once there was a time a couple years ago when I started reading this book. I did not get very far that time. Reading it now, it has moved me and caused me to think in a way that would not have been possible when I originally tried to read it. It is so nice to read a book about theology that was written in my native language and not in a translation of the Greek; the Fathers of the Church can teach us so much, but often the language is not as natural as what I found in Mere Christianity.
As is so often the case, this book entered my life exactly when it needed to, and I am very grateful for that. Lewis reminded me of faith and challenged what little I have, and I hope that this book will continue to make me think more deeply about the nature and challenge of Christianity.
As I am writing this, I am approximately two weeks away from being done with all of my classes of the second semester of my senior year. In other words, I’m almost done.
This, as you can imagine, brings up all kinds of feelings, especially because I have to finish my degree in quarantine (or whatever we are calling this situation right now). I am nostalgic for my campus, stressed about finishing all my work, at a point where I am apathetic towards my work, and basically terrified about what comes next.
The great big future is before me after this, and there are no right or wrong answers about what to do. I have done what is socially acceptable, and now (young) adulthood is here on the very visible horizon.
Of course, I have been working towards going to grad school, but at this point it is not in my immediate future, and I have a year to fill. A year of reflection and solitude, a refresher year after this degree I just finished. (If you can’t tell, I’m a big believer in gap years.)
I’m excited to read a lot. I’m also excited I found a platform which supports local bookstores (bookshop.org). I’m also excited to announce that I registered for an affiliate link on bookshop.org. You can find my shop here if you feel like supporting it in any way. I made some shelves with books I like and a few books I want, but go ahead and explore the whole website. Support those indie bookstores! (…and maybe support me too, if you want…)
I suppose I should mention that I was (and still am) really opposed to registering for an affiliate program with Amazon, because of the monopoly they hold on Internet shopping. Basically, the fact that this exists makes me happy, and I am glad to support them (and I probably would link to them now anyway, so there’s that).
I might do a book review and updated TBR comparing what I have read with what I want to read. That will definitely happen after May. I also have some project updates and some other things in the works that should be coming along soon after I get some abundant quantities of free time.
Until then, God bless, and I will see you tomorrow on Pascha!
In the upcoming couple days, I will become one of the displaced college students who have had to leave their colleges or universities and go home to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus (aka COVID-19).
There is not much I can say about this except that a lot of the fears and anxieties about one’s physical and emotional safety are made a lot worse when one is forced to leave one’s home (however temporary) and drive across the country in a world that does not want to be close to anyone at the moment.
I’ve been very much trying to focus on the positives, like the fact that I have somewhere to go, and the fact that I have money for food, and the fact that my college gave me more time than most to pack up and leave.
But sometimes, the negatives and specifically all the uncertainties associated with my particular situation feel more overwhelming than the strong presence of the good things.
This makes it hard to pray in a time when prayer is most vital.
I think I am finally starting to understand what the Fathers mean when they stress the importance of the practice of the virtues and the practice of prayer when times are easy. We can’t face hard times correctly if we do not face easy times the right way.
May St. Nikephoros the Leper intercede for us, and may God have mercy and save us all, in all the ways we need.
Some brothers asked Agathon which good work required the most effort. He replied, “No labor is more difficult than prayer. Demons understand that prayer is a path to God. They will do everything possible to hinder this journey. Prayer is like fighting a war.
By Way of the Desert, entry for March 4
This month literally brings with it the beginning of Lent for us Orthodox folk, which is a beautiful as well as a stressful time. It always feels as if there is more to be concerned with, when really this time is about focusing on the one thing needful.
I have been doing a lot of reading for school, mostly Pindar with a side of St. John Chrysostom and a bit of Herodotus thrown in for good measure. My favorite is the Philokalia, which I am working through in a non-linear fashion because apparently that is how one is supposed to do it. If anyone wants to know this order, please let me know through email or whatever, because this way definitely beats cracking open Volume 1 and starting with, “There is among the passions an anger of the intellect, and this anger is in accordance with nature.” Oof. Start in the middle of Volume 4, my friends. It is much easier.
For personal reading, yesterday I (re)read from start to finish C. S. Lewis’ classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I would say it was a delight, which it was, but it was also very challenging, because I’ve been in a bit of a rough patch recently spiritually. It’s all good and probably means I’m growing, but you know when an allegorical children’s book is challenging, things are rough.
On the same spiritual front, I’m about halfway through a book called The Divine Flame, which is a book about a divine flame that St. Porphyrios lit in one man’s heart, which inspired him to become a monk. I’m obsessed with St. Porphyrios; he’s absolutely wonderful and has been very active in my life, so this book is very dear to me. I actually got the copy as a gift when I was visiting his monastery (the Hesychasterion of the Holy Transfiguration), which is near my monastery in Greece.
I’ve also been reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea for my book club. It’s a literary ode to the story, which despite its relative lack of a plot I don’t mind overmuch, but one does have to acclimate to her writing style. Alongside that, I’m (still) reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I really should finish it, but school and spiritual reading has been taking priority recently.
After writing all that it occurs to me that I’m reading a lot of things simultaneously. I’ve always done this, it keeps me entertained. Since the whole going on brain meds thing has happened, I’m at least a lot better at finishing them, which is nice.
As far as crafting projects go, I’m working on the same sweater and the same embroidery and many of the other same projects as recent posts will mention. I’ve also started a Honey Study Hat (pattern by Andrea Mowry, because apparently I’m addicted to her patterns) in a lovely gray wooly wool that didn’t have a label. I will say, brioche stitch is much easier than I thought.
Whether it is at night or during the day that God grants you the gift of praying with a pure intellect, undistractedly, put aside your own rule, and reach towards God with all your strength, cleaving to Him. And He will illumine your heart about the spiritual work which you should undertake.
A Discourse on Abba Philimon, from the Philokalia
P.S. I’m sorry about the lack of pictures, but my room is a mess and I really couldn’t be bothered to take any. So writing it is.
Even Thine Altars 