Lysistrata's Daughter

A couple of nights ago, I finished Father Joe: the Man who Saved my Soul by Tony Hendra. I was almost sad to be finished, because the storytelling was so wonderful. It's about Tony Hendra, who played Ian Faith, the manager in Spinal Tap, and his relationship with a Benedictine priest, who counsels him, but more importantly loves him and is his friend throughout his tumultuous life. As a young teenager, Hendra experiences a crisis and is introduced to Dom Joseph Warrilow, usually known as Fr. Joe. Fr. Joe is supposed to "straighten Tony out," but instead of lowering the boom, he responds to the deeply confused young man with love and understanding and helps Tony to see the other people in the crisis in that way as well. This is the pattern of Hendra's relationship with Fr. Joe. Expecting to find judgment when he loses his faith at university and knocks up his girlfriend, Fr. Joe instead counsels him about being unselfish toward his wife, to embrace his vocation a...

Tonight we went to the little Serbian mission in Irvine, because a myrrh-streaming icon was going to be there, and Y was asked to help sing the service. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about this icon at first. I think doubt and skepticism are my default reactions. I wish belief came more naturally to me, but I find myself always, always questioning. We picked A up from school, then fought traffic on the 110 and 405 for over an hour. We got to the church with about 15 minutes to spare, only to find that the icon (and its driver) were stuck in the traffic from which we had just extricated ourselves and would be about 30 minutes late. A played in the grass outside the church, which is in an office park, while we waited. At last the icon arrived, and the service started. The church itself is about the size of a largish living room, and it was packed with people. A and I stood near the front. The icon was actually quite small, a mounted print of the Iveron-Montreal icon o...