A Missing Generation in Orthodox Christian America - The "When In Rome" Ideology - Part 2

I have one of my daughters read my posts before I publish them and she has a valid complaint which is that my posts are not very in-depth.  And I agree.  I know I could be much more thorough if this was a podcast but I don't have the resources for that. I could talk for hours on end about Orthodoxy and this topic in particular, but I don't know if any one really cares to listen. To remediate this problem, I will try to put more meat into my posts from here on out.

So back to money.

It is no great revelation that money can be ruinous.  There was a time when I thought winning the Powerball would be the single greatest thing to happen to me.  Now, with half a century of life experience under my belt, I know that winning an enormous amount of money would send me straight to hell.  How do I know that?  Because I notice a change in myself when I have a decent amount  of money in my hands.  It's really bizarre. I become carefree and arrogant and I have to struggle to be vigilant with my behavior. Maybe that's not you, but it is definitely me. Yeah we could kid ourselves and say that we would give it all away or some other rationalization, but the hard truth is, when you have excessive amounts of money, you have no need for Christ. 

With money, supposedly, you can buy your way out of suffering.  Or buy things that will ease the suffering.  And it can be as simple as a buck for a candy bar or as extravagant as a vacation home on a private island.  Doesn't matter, you feel the power with both. And I don't think I'm too far off when I hear people vehemently demanding the redistribution of wealth that it isn't so much about the cash as it is about the power and control that comes with it.  The desire to control the outcomes in our lives is all tied back to money.  Maybe when I'm all done with this series I'll loop back around to suffering and control.  Fun stuff.

Now back to our story...

My father grew up the son of a poor immigrant father.  My grandfather did not speak English very well and had low-level jobs to keep the family afloat.  As most kids would, my father struggled with this.  It's not easy to be poor and ethnic in America and not fit into that WASP stereotype.  And without Christ, it is a constant life of suffering, anger and malcontent. My dad's MO, whether it was a conscious effort or not, was to get out of it.  

Although both of his parents were Orthodox Christians, from what I can gather, it doesn't appear that Orthodoxy was at the heart of their home. They went to services and festivals and I'm pretty sure that my dad went to Sunday school, but I never heard my father talk about God.  So when my dad married my mom and ventured out into the corporate world in the late 60's, he was not guided by God but rather the desire to escape the poverty and social subjugation of his upbringing.  In my formative years so much of what my parents talked and argued about was money.  They went through wild fluctuations of having an abundance and traveling the world to a complete low of almost losing the house. So it comes as no surprise that my father raised me to be a business woman.  My entire upbringing was focused on that endpoint. 

Now, in no way do I want to make my father seem to be the bad guy here.  I adore my father and I miss his love and humor every single day.  He was a good person, loved us dearly and was our biggest cheerleader in life.  Thankfully he did come back to the Church in the last several years of his life, so while I pray for his peaceful rest every day, I have peace in my heart for him. That's another post in itself too.

Now for my mother.

My sweet suffering mother was brought up in simplicity of a pious Orthodox Christian household.  My grandfather was a carpenter and my grandmother, a housewife with an 8th grade education.  Their faith was pure.  I once walked into my grandma's room while she was praying and I felt like I had stepped into a holy scene. It took my breath away. My grandfather would roam the house singing spiritual songs and never ever raised his voice in anger.  They both supported their parish with every talent God gave them. I am undeservedly blessed to have them as my grandparents.    

My mother had no formal education beyond high school other than a certification as a medical secretary.  And although she was raised in this piety of her parents, and had years of Orthodox catechism in Sunday school (I still have her books!), this simplicity did not translate into American culture and was not passed down to us.  My mother was thrown from a quiet existence where it wasn't that important to "know" your faith because it was actually lived to an absolutely insane situation in the suburbs of NYC where this simplicity is viewed as ignorance and avarice is viewed as enlightenment.  So, my mother had to adapt to Rome and do as the Romans do.  There is no room for Orthodox Christianity and money to peacefully co-exist and given our environment, money won. My siblings and I were raised as citizens of America's Rome.  My parents did take us to church, occasionally to Sunday school and we did spend wonderful summers at an Orthodox Christian sleep-away camp.  However, the day to day life, which should have been imbued with Christ, was not.  And as a result, unfortunate things were produced in me.  

The story of me...the next post.  

 

   

  

A Missing Generation in Orthodox Christian America - Ethnicity Issues

Before I begin, I want to state that these posts will most likely come across as apologetics. Upon my own return to the Church 17 years ago I encountered some push back from converts who were appalled at my basic lack of Christian knowledge.  Their observations weren't incorrect as I fumbled on how to explain myself.  It is my hope that I will at least shed some light into what some cradle Orthodox Christians faced in the US.

DISCLAIMER: I don't speak for everyone but I am willing to bet that many cradle Orthodox Gen X'ers have some of these things in common with me.  I'm not looking for pity or an excuse for what happened.  Just sorta laying out how things were/are.  

So, here we go.

It is very hard to have an ethnic name in WASP America.  My beautiful maiden name had 10 letters. I could always tell when a substitute teacher calling attendance arrived at my name because she would take a deep breath and then slowwwwly sound out my last name.  Phonetically it wasn't that hard and honestly I felt even worse for the Polish kid who came after me with 13 letters. I only had a "v" that threw people off.  That poor kid had 2 letter "c's", a "y" and a "z".  He just said "here!" before the sub even attempted.  

Anyhow when your name is so distinct and ethnic sounding, you just don't fit in with the Miller's, Johnson's and Brown's of the world. I can remember times throughout high school, when the US was still involved in the Cold War, some people would raise their eyebrows over my last name. I had a boy in college tell me that he really liked me but could never take me home to meet his parents because of my name.  At first I was confused because I honestly thought he was referring to my first name which isn't terribly ethnic.  When I asked what was wrong with my first name, he laughed and said that he had meant my last name. 

Oh.  I see. 

That feeling of being different, of being excluded, of not belonging wasn't easy to bear, especially for a shy girl. I did spend fantastic summers with other "ethnic" kids at an Orthodox Christian summer camp. But in the end, we all returned to our homes and all those feelings returned.  I just didn't fit in.    

So while I really couldn't do anything about my last name, the only other option was to assimilate through behavior.  If I acted like the other kids then maybe I would no longer be on the periphery of American society.  

A rational sounding plan, no? A sort of "When in Rome..." idea.  Unfortunately, it was largely disastrous and had deep and destructive consequences.  That will be the topic of my next post. 

A Missing Generation in Orthodox Christian America - An Introduction

As I look around the nave of my church it is clear as day that there are not many people in my age demographic.  There are plenty of people 10+ years older than me and, Glory to God, an abundance of younger adults, most who are converts to Orthodox Christianity.

My age demographic is Generation X, those born 1965-1980.  I know there are Gen X Orthodox Christians out there. I went to summer camp with a whole bunch of them and there were quite a few in my parish growing up.  I can count on one hand how many have remained active in the Church.

To be clear, these posts are not meant to guilt or demand explanations from anyone.  I know what happened.  I was there and I am not in least bit surprised in the situation in which the Church finds herself.  It is my intent with this series of writings is to explore why so many are missing and what it is that keeps them away.

My vantage point:

I am of  Russian/Slavic ethnicity born in the United States, as were both of my parents and two of my grandparents. We have been in the U.S. for 110+ years and I only speak English (and whatever French I can recall from high school and college).  However if you looked at my 10-letter maiden name and looked at my face, I definitely fit the bill as someone from Eastern Europe.  And that's where the first post will start.  Ethnicity and acceptance in American society.

Final thoughts on feminism or whatever this has morphed into...

Before I write this last post on feminism or whatever else it has morphed into at this point, I just want to say this.

These posts, the last one especially, have been about how our culture, through sex, has managed to distort
how women should view themselves in terms of their worth.  And although I used unmarried girls as examples, this idea extends to all women, married or not. Wrong thought patterns don't end with a wedding ring. 

Additionally, I know the Orthodox Church's stance about sex outside of marriage.  However, these posts were not meant to talk about the Church's beliefs, but more about how women are being taught to view themselves in western culture.  The Orthodox Church does not teach women that their self-worth is based on how sexy they are. And, if you can recall the first post, I mentioned how the Church holds women in extremely high regard.  It is world that does not.  Most of us live in the world and not in a self-contained monastery.  I can walk into my local grocer and see a stand-up cardboard cut-out of a nearly naked young woman greeting me by the check-out.  She has a six pack in one hand while the other grasps the string of her swimsuit bottoms.  Oh, so just turn my head the other way you say?  Okay, I've turned my head and now I see a stack of magazines promising me "101 Ways To Be Sexy Well Into My 50's" staring right back at me.  Okay, then look ahead.  Alrighty, I'm looking ahead and in front of me is a painfully thin 60 year old woman in "skinny" jeans with just slightly less plastic to her than a Barbie doll.  It's unavoidable.

And lastly, I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that most mothers, whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist/agnostic want "good" things for their daughters.  They have hopes of raising happy and loving young women.  However, as we cannot meet in the religious forum to discuss this, we must meet in the secular one and call out the lies that has the potential to ruin our daughter's lives.  It was from this point of view that I wrote the last post. I don't think I said anything un-Orthodox, but it certainly did not have a religious "flair" to it if you will that most of my blog posts have. Truth be told, the initial idea for this topic came from an agnostic mother.  We both love our girls and expressed our terror of this demented world that they face.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

So what to do?  I have a few ideas, although I am certainly open to others.

1 - The obvious. Always reassure our daughters of our love for them.  Their worth to us is obviously not based on sexiness, but it also is not based on academic, athletic or musical ability either.  My eldest plays on a competitive sports team.  Although she may be disappointed in her performance certain days, and I will agree with her that she has the ability to play better, I never ever compare her to other players or withhold love from her as a method to perform better.  Maybe that works for some parents, but not for me.

2 - The idea of self-awareness (which I think I meant to say instead of self-control).   It seems to me that too many people (male & female) just float at the surface of life.  They indulge every whim that their body tells them to do without being aware of how it affects both themselves and others.  Be conscious.  Be aware. Don't give into every craving you have...be it food, sex or whatever.  You have much more power over yourself than you realize.   

3 - Don't lie to yourself and be realistic.  It's okay to have dreams and plans, but it's also okay to change course.  If you are having a hard time balancing a career and children, it is not a disappointment to anyone that you stop working, or work less and spend more time with your family.  You are no less of a woman if you decide to do this despite what some "feminists" may say.  I read an article* a few weeks ago where the editor-in-chief of More magazine, Lesley Jane Seymour, suggested that women need to "...suck it up for the sisters, girlfriend" and try for higher-paying, more stressful jobs in the workplace.  You don't answer to Ms. Seymour or any other "expert".   "They" are not there for you when you have to miss another chorus recital, wipe away a child's tear because of hurt feelings or clean up throw up at 4:30 in the morning because your child has just gotten sick all over the bathroom and now you are completely stressed because you have to give a presentation at 8 am.  I'm not saying that women cannot work outside the home and still be good mothers.  My point is that you should not feel like you "have" to live up to expectations set by other people, especially people you don't even know. 

*(This article was published in the 11/2/11 Arizona Republic, section CL, page 1, sourced from Gannett news service.  I've tried to find the online version, but only came up with one that not surprisingly omitted the "suck it up" comment.  Most of the article is found here. It's a good read. ) 


Again, I apologize if these string of posts weren't religious or offered an Orthodox Christian response to modern day feminism.  I'm sure someone much smarter than myself has written something on the topic, but for now, all I can offer are the things that I have discovered to be true or untrue.  It really turned out to be more of a public lament more than anything else I guess.

Okay, well now in the Orthodox Church we are heading towards the Feast of the Nativity, aka Christmas.  The Nativity Fast starts today actually.  From here until the feast, the topic will be mercy.  I love mercy.  My favorite Old Testament story, the story of Joseph and his brothers, and my favorite parables in the New Testament either center around mercy or somehow allude to its importance.

...Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy....

See you soon...

A tree farm as a part of my family tree

The Barna family farm at sunset in Waymart, PA.

Pardon the interruption for a shameless plug regarding my family tree.

Most of my family came to this country a little bit over 100 years ago with one part of my family initially settling in the Pittsburgh area to work in the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania. After a few years of doing this, my great-grandfather came to the realization that coal mining was a dangerous business and after making the perilous journey over the Atlantic for a better life here in America, he wasn't going to risk losing his life in a coal mine.  So my Great-Grandpa Barna and his pregnant wife (with my grandmother) and 4 children made one final journey to the rolling green hills of Eastern Pennsylvania to do what his family in the "Old Country" had done for many generations, farm.

In time, the family grew to 8 children in all, with one of the younger kids eventually taking over the farm.  As a child I would go and visit Great-Uncle Joe and his wife Aunt Marge on the family farm (at that point a dairy farm), and although I only visited them maybe once or twice a year, my memories of that family establishment are still quite vivid and endearing.  I am so unbelievably privileged to have had that experience as a child because truly there is nothing that can compare to traditional American farm life. Unfortunately this lifestyle has all but disappeared thanks to huge food corporations (see book at side bar on Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry, two big thumbs up) but that's a beast of a topic for another day.

At any rate, by God's Grace, this farm is still around and now in the loving hands of my Great-Uncle Joe's grandson, Dan.  Dan has abandoned the dairy farming aspect of the business and has now focused on something really amazing, a tree farm!  One Two Tree Farm Wholesale Nursery grows over 50 varieties of high quality, well maintained trees on over 77 acres of rich Pennsylvania soil.  Simple words can not suffice in expressing my gratitude to my cousin Dan (and his father, his aunt and all those before them!) for keeping the Barna farm alive.  In doing so he not only preserves my childhood memories, but also preserves the Earth and thereby aids in the preservation of mankind.

May God grant much success to this tree farm and many many years of life to all of those in my family that have worked so hard to keep the Barna farm a living, breathing entity.