Lysistrata's Daughter

Tradition is alive. It's passed down from person to person. This is why our young converts get so confused. They look to each other, all equally ignorant, or online, which by its nature cannot hold the tradition. I don't want to make an idol of a priest, because I think hanging out with the sisterhood ladies and the guys who hang out smoking on the patio and singing in the choir and in general having real life experiences of all aspects of church life is the way that the tradition is passed on. Because so much of life IS online now, I think we need to be very clear and explicit with new people that you have to experience Orthodoxy to get it. A bunch of learned podcasts will not and cannot substitute for showing up to services.

Look, my dewy-eyed new convert, I'm going to tell you a secret:  mostly, the church doesn't work.  Mostly, it's just as ridiculous and absurd as any other motley collection of broken human beings.  But don't give up.  There's nothing that works any better on offer elsewhere.  You have to keep showing up.  Just show up and learn that feelings and hamster-wheel thoughts aren't real.  Show up and try to quiet your inside, but if you can't, show up anyway.  Most of the spiritual life is showing up.  And sometimes, your heart will break open and be able to contain just a tiny shard of grace and beauty, but it will feel like the whole world.  Savor those moments, but don't look too hard for them.  They don't come just cuz you whistled.  But when they come, be grateful, and tuck that joy and peace and grace away in your heart.

You find it on many mom blogs--some kind of admonition that all of us moms (especially if we are religious and have more than two children) get our acts together and go out in public not looking too “weird”. We should dress stylishly, put on some make up, do something with our hair. This is framed as some kind of evangelization tool. Which is crap. It’s just the same old woman on woman shaming. It’s especially bad when this line of thinking is presented as an act of charity for those “who have to look at you.” When this comes from other mothers of big families, it’s just intolerable cruelty. I don’t know about any other women, but when I look like a wreck, it’s not because I want to. It’s because there’s some kind of crisis--teething baby, sick kid, husband working unexpectedly meaning solo parenting--all or any of which could combine to create a back up in the laundry or just suck up any time I was counting on to make myself presentable. The last thing I need in those m...

a morass frustration and rage and despair imprisoned, nothing will ever be better ex opere operanda He promised to be there and He was I can see again see the beauty that's been here all along

Looking around my house, I wonder if there is another way to furnish and decorate than thrift stores, yard sales, hand me downs, gifts, and curbside finds.  Maybe, but I doubt it's as fun.  Viva Craigslist!!

This morning, as we scrambled around frantically to get ready for church, Vuk's new shoes were nowhere to be found.  His new Lightning McQueen shoes that he loves in very truth.  So instead, he had to wear his old Thomas the train shoes, which had belonged to Lev and are quite sad looking and embarrassing to me, though my standards are not particularly high.  The rubber around the toes is completely worn away, and the fabric under that is gone at the big toes, so bits of white are visible.  But I wasn't quite embarrassed enough to prefer his rain boots, so we strapped them on and went to church. Happy feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple, by the way. Now, you must understand, we had ransacked the house.  Looked under every table and every couch, searched in every room, even the Padre's office, where the children are not allowed.  Even in the cupboards of the play kitchen, which hide lost items more often than one would think.  Nothing. ...

"Lev!  No being Gollum at the dinner table."