Cleaning up 2012

I've got two things to wrap up from 2012...so here it goes:

1 - The last time we met I posted about my grandmother's departure from this life to the next.  Her funeral was a beautiful occasion and when you compare it to those outside of Orthodoxy, there simply is nothing to compare.  If you have the inkling to do so, I suggest you find the service online and read through it. An Orthodox Christian's death is a feast of love.  I walked away from my grandmother's funeral with a refreshing perspective on death.  It "reminded" me how much I am loved from birth to death by not only God and my immediate family, but also by the entire Church, both triumphant and militant.  And it wasn't a mental reminder either. It was more like a transformation that didn't come from rational thinking like "Be happy!  She's in a better place and I can go there to!"  It is something much more sublime and indescribable.  Sort of how you really can't describe that state of being after the Orthodox Paschal (Easter) service.  Actually I feel it more acutely on Bright Monday after I have finished cooking/cleaning and had some sleep.  The world is illumined and you feel exceedingly hopeful in all things and the boundaries between heaven and earth seemingly don't exist.  Blessed are those who have attained the ability to walk around this world perpetually in this state!   

And then there is this:

2 - Prior to that post about my grandmother's death, I had been giving my own thoughts on Markides' book, The Mountain of Silence.  All in all, I liked the book and found it to be edifying and you can read through the comments for a little more discussion between myself and an anonymous poster.  I don't think I'm going to comment anymore on his books only to say that I quite liked his latest, Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality, especially Fr. Maximos' conversation about the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).  His teaching was that these fruits were listed in a hierarchical order and that without the one listed last, self-control, that the others are not truly attainable.  I suppose that is why the Church has such an emphasis (almost daily) on fasting, the tool to self-control when practiced correctly.   Obviously the book goes into more more depth than my two sentence synopsis.  There is also a chapter on Markides' journey to St. Katherine's Monastery at the foot Mount Sinai in Egypt.  As someone who has very little chance of visiting the Sinai desert, I rather enjoyed that chapter. To wrap it up, like I wrote in my prior post, not everyone likes Markides' books.  For me, however, the first book really had a positive effect on my life and perhaps that's why I have enjoyed the two that followed.     


So now what's in store for 2013 for Desert Deliberations?  I don't know really.  Maybe just random ramblings that I come across.  I did just read a lovely little book called Crazy John, which recounts the life a modern day Fool-for-Christ in Greece.  It can be purchased here through St. Barbara's Monastery bookstore. 
Here's an excerpt:

 

In this particular neighborhood that may not differ from all others, not even from our own--whether we live in the city or in a village-- the foolishness of a single person, a model of Jesus Christ, was enough to provoke a pleasant revolution. It is pleasant because it is unique, one of a kind, a novelty through time. This revolution breaks the demonic bonds of souls admittedly captured and attached to ephemeral and inferior things. It restores them to the frequency of heaven and to the invigorating, salutary, doxological pulses of the Holy Trinity. It attires them with the sense of the Greek "philotimo" and unselfishness, honesty and purity, patience and perseverance, sacrifice and love, humility and repentance. It is only with this attire that the soul can attend the unceasing everyday table, which God gives us bounteously.
 

It's a refreshing read for sure.

Wishing you all a marvelous New Year that brings transformations that you never thought possible!


 

Memory Eternal!

My pious and God-loving grandmother Julia enterned into eternal life this morning at the age of 101.  She was the 6th of 8 children, but the first in her family to be born in the United States.  She and her pious husband John (d.1983) raised two children of their own, my mother and my uncle who himself entered into eternal life in 2010.

Julia was a tremendous cook and baker who faithfully served her home parish of Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Christian Church in Syracuse, NY with these talents until her early 90's when she began to slow down a bit.  She loved Our Lord Jesus and always spoke about "Our Lord this" and "Our Lord that" as if she knew Him quite closely (which she did!).  She loved all Christians but expressed to me once that she wished everyone would come to the Orthodox Church because of the beauty of the worship and that the expression of love to our Lord Jesus could not be found in any other place on earth.  About 8-9 years ago while she was still living in the home that my grandfather built, I accidently walked in on her saying her morning prayers.  Although a little bit hunched over, her arms were uplifted as high as she could as she stood praying.  I felt like I had walked into a private conversation and so I hurriedly backed out of the room and sat in awe.  I am unworthy to have had such a magnificent handmaiden of God as my grandmother.  To say that I feel blessed is an understatement. 

We love you Grandma.  What a joyous day to have been greeted by Our Saviour, His Mother, your parents, your husband, your seven siblings and your own son.  May your memory be eternal!

The following video was her favorite hymn.  It is from Psalm 77.  I can close my eyes and hear her singing this in her kitchen.

A brief interruption on the Markides' postings

On the side bar over there on the right under "Places to Visit" is a link to the Orthodox Christian Quote of the Day. I rather enjoy it and some days it's seems to be just the right medicine for whatever I'm struggling with.

Today's quote comes from one of my all-time favorite saints, St. Seraphim of Sarov. I am dealing with some people that are being malicious and hurtful and hence making them quite unlovable. Thank you St. Seraphim for your wisdom. God-willing we shall meet someday. (and thank you to Adam who faithfully emails these out every day)

God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. Hence, if we feel in our hearts the cold which comes from the devil - for the devil is cold - let us call on the Lord. He will come to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only for Him but also for our neighbor, and the cold of him who hates the good will flee before the heat of His countenance

It's not easy but I'm gonna try.

Markides' books - Part 1

Alrighty, it appears that whatever I'm doing with Blogger is sort of working so I'm just going for it. As I have mentioned probably ad nauseum on my blog, I'm just a regular person. I hold no theological degree, I'm not a PK (priest's kid), and heck, I'm not even married to an Orthodox person. I'm a cradle Orthodox woman who knew next to nothing about Orthodoxy as a child, pretty much abandoned the Church when I left home for college, and then returned almost 10 years ago at the age of 33. During the journey of the return which started in 2001 and finally *officially* occurred in February of 2003 when I stepped back into the Church, I read books. Lots of them. I started with the Orthodox Study Bible. If you are literate and call yourself a Christian, you have to have a Bible. IMHO, the OSB is a marvelous one and I recommend it to Christians of all flavors. After the Bible though, there are just so many things to read.


In the beginning I was choosing books without the advice of a spiritually mature person, so my choices were whatever I had heard of on BeliefNet or whatever was free. One of first books I picked up, because it was at my local library and hence free, was The Mountain of Silence, by Kyriacos Markides. Yes, I know, *some* people don't like Markides' books. The complaint is that Markides is too liberal in his beliefs, yada yada. That's fine. You are entitled to your own opinion. For me though, this book was a Godsend. It had nothing to do with miracles and such that are found throughout the book, although that stuff was fascinating and edifying. It had all to do with one chapter. The chapter was on logismoi. If you don't know what logismoi is, don't worry, I didn't know the word either, however I was all too familiar with it. I distinctly remember reading the chapter and saying to myself "OH.MY.GOD! There is a name for this?!!!" Here's an excerpt from the book which I conveniently found on another Orthodox blog called Orthodox Christian Medicine.

'Logismoi are much more intense than simple thoughts. They penetrate into the very depths of a human being. They have enormous power. Let us say,' Fr. Maximos went on to clarify, 'that a simple thought is a weak logismos. We need to realize, however, that certain thoughts, or logismoi, once inside a human being, can undermine every trace of a spiritual life in its very foundation. People who live in the world don't know about the nature and power of logismoi. That is, they don't have the experience of that reality. But as they proceed on their spiritual struggle, particularly through systematic prayer, then are they able to understand the true meaning and power of this reality. (pg 118).
"'I have noticed that some people, particularly young, oversensitive souls,' Fr. Maximos said, breaking the silence, 'suffer so much from these logismoi that it often leads them into psychopathological conditions. They reach such states partly because of their ignorance of the nature of logismoi. Such persons who may be attacked by a perverted, or let us say a sinful logismos, are unable to realize that such a logismos does not necessarily emanate from within themselves, but is directed toward them from the outside. They feel guilty and begin what the late Paisios used to call the 'the repetition of those whys.' They become obsessive. Oversensitive persons become even more sensitive and blame themselves with all kinds of questions: "Why do I have such a thought, why?" Such people are in dire need of proper instruction on how to handle the logismoi,' Fr. Maximos pointed out. He went on to say that the most dangerous logismoi are those sent by demonic spirits that get support and get activated by our own passions. Logismoi coming from demons are extremely devious and duplicitous" (pg. 120).

In all my life, I never had a single person ever talk to me about thoughts. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm pretty sure my own parents were not taught about logismoi and probably not my Sunday school teachers either. Or maybe they did teach about logismoi and I was sick that day. (Like I am convinced that I was home sick from school when they taught conversions of pints into quarts into liters. To this day I can't get any of that straight!) Whatever the case may be, THIS NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT TO EVERYONE! I have spoken with my eldest about logismoi (she's almost 14) and thankfully it has been discussed at summer camp as well. We deal with our thoughts 24/7 from birth to death. You would think this would be a topic to talk about.

I'll leave it at this for today. There will be at least one other post on Markides' books soon. The Mountain of Silence referenced above was followed up by Gifts of the Desert and then his latest which I have just finished called, The Inner River.

Okey Dokey let's try this once more

Okay, I have had some serious computer issues going on...For whatever reason I couldn't log onto Blogger unless I used Google Chrome. So I download Chrome, post that last entry, and then I try to post another entry, and Chrome doesn't show up anywhere. I've been trying and trying and nothing worked until I tried today and it works. So this is just a test post to see what happens. If it works, then hip hip hooray! If not, well then you'll never know that I tried. 

Hello. I'm back.

Well that was a long hiatus from blogging.  Lots of stuff going on here (all good thankfully!)  Kids are out of school now though, two are at summer camp and now I've got some free time to get back here.

When we last met I had done some posting on repentance.  Hope you found it helpful...it was for me at least.  Sometimes I think this blog is really more for me than anything else. It helps me to think out loud and connect those proverbial dots. I'm hoping that if I post something really wacky that I'll get a comment from someone telling me that I've officially lost my mind.  I have had some people disagree with me on some stuff (privately not via the comment section).  Nothing huge like I'm spreading heresy or anything but more along the lines that I'm not hardcore Orthodox enough.  That's a fair assessment I think.  Oh well...let us move onward.

So where to start up again?  Yesterday, a good friend of mine suggested I do list of Orthodox Christian books that I like and maybe a little review of them.  I manage my parish's bookstore and am familiar with many titles so I'll give it a shot.  I was going to do a ranking but I have decided that can't rank them because I love many of them for different reasons.  Additionally, we are in the process of moving and most of my books are in a storage facility that is probably close to 150° F. Call me crazy, but I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to venture in there at this time.  I will start with the books that I either just purchased or I can borrow from our parish's library that I've already read.

Let me do some rummaging around and see what I can come up with.  See you in a day or so.

Forgiveness after Repentance

St. John the Baptist by the hand of Nicholas Papas.  This icon can be purchased at Come and See Icons.



 I am the lamest of lame of bloggers.  Sheesh...I haven't posted anything in over a month and now look where we are!  At the very threshold of Great Lent!  I really dropped the ball on these repentance posts, although how appropriate that I accidently picked today to post, a feast of St. John the Baptist.

I have always wondered (and probably should have taken the time to ask a priest or someone who would know) what the big deal was about St. John the Baptist and why we have so many days in the year that we remember him in the Church.  He has no less than 6 days (7 if you want to include the one in which we honor his parents Zachariah and Elizabeth) dedicated to him. Well it finally dawned on me that perhaps the reason we remember him so often is because of his core message of the Christian faith..."REPENT!"  (It's not a bad thing to be reminded to repent during the course of the year. Seven times is probably not enough for me actually.)

Anyhow, if you are familiar with St. John's story, you know that he was martyred by beheading for his message of repentance.   People generally don't like to be told to repent, although we all think we are St. John and ask others to repent all the time.  And then the crazy part of that is once people do repent, we still don't forgive them. Case in point, Michael Vick.  I just read an article last week of a poll taken that he is currently the most hated professional athlete in America.  If you are not familiar with Mr. Vick, do a quick google of Michael Vick and dog fighting.  He spent 548 days in a federal prison for some pretty heinous crimes involving dogs. However, since being released from prison in May of 2009, at least in the interviews I have seen/read, he seems to be a more mature and changed man. He returned to professional football after serving his time and was voted to the 2011 Pro Bowl (a big deal for an American football player).  And yet in 2012, people still want to hate him.  I'm not saying the guy is a saint, I don't know him personally, but what is it with people asking others to change and then not forgiving them once they do? (Here's a good article from Time U.S. about Michael Vick's journey if you are interested.) 

We all have things in our lives that we are ashamed of, have repented of and do not want to be reminded of because of the pain it causes to our hearts. We are not the same person today as we were yesterday, last year, 10, 20, 30 years ago.  And neither are the people around us.  As we have repented and been forgiven by God and those we have hurt, so must we respect that others have done the same.  Only God knows the sincerity of one's repentance, not you or me.  All I am asked to do is to forgive those who wish to be forgiven (and forgive those who haven't asked too!)  I'm not saying it's easy.  It can be a real struggle sometimes because we like re-live the hurt others have caused and either exalt ourselves over them or use it as an excuse for our behaviours.  Again, I know it's not always that simple, but it is a must-do if you consider yourself to be a Christian.  One of my favorite parables that Christ gives us is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  Read it here from Matthew 18:21-35.  Pretty sobering stuff don't you think?

This Sunday, the day before the Fast begins, is called Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church.  We ask forgiveness from God and each other. It allows us to start Great Lent with a clean slate and then step into the the Fast ready to repent, only focusing on our own failings and not that of others.  It is an essential step in the journey towards the Feast of the Ressurection of Christ.

Forgive me dear readers if I have offended you today or any day.  May you all have a blessed and fruitful Lenten journey.