Dark Matter

There is a place that is in-between; it’s the moment we ride between next and last, and often between awareness and not. It is this moment that stands as if a flicker of light on a theater screen while the whir of the projector blades turn open and shut, clawing the film forward in-between. It is in this moment that we live and at the same time, seem so dead to so much of what really happens. For before we know it, the film pulls through and the moment frozen in the frame is gone. We want to believe there are no in-betweens, that we can live in the frame on the reel behind us, or in the frame not yet projected, and yet our focus is upon neither. Our eyes are only on the single frame flashed before us as we sit spellbound in darkness, mesmerized by the light to see a continuous motion that isn’t really captured in a progression of stills.

One wonders whether there isn’t more mystery beyond the screen. Often I succumb to the temptation to gaze sideways at those faces illuminated beside us, witnessing the show from the shadows – just in case. And though sometimes we imagine viewing ourselves as part of the scene, more often we’re too actively engaged for this sort of parallel wonder.

Yet to do as Moses was commanded: “To be still and know that I am God”; to freeze ourselves either to watch the scene before us or to become literally part of the scene frozen in the frame… this is where our hunter’s eyes relax…and begin to seek out the unseen, to step back from the overwhelming power of sight and apply our other senses. Maybe what we are looking for lies elsewhere… lies in-between the frames as the unseen, the hidden line we crossover in extending our love to a larger part of God’s creation. And maybe we begin to see beyond ourselves and those about us.

Equally, I wonder were our human mechanics as readily fooled as by the cinema; were our human senses as readily limited as species that see only black and white, or motion or in something else that is only part of what we know.. equally I wonder… what is it that stands beside me unseen, unsensed, immeasurable in some way.. and yet perhaps not unaware. And like the physicist who wonders at the vacuum that should be empty but is not; I am increasingly aware that the void may indeed be full.

Our universe is full of dark matter. There are fields of energy that suggest trace phenomena beyond our senses, just beyond measurement of our most sensitive tools.. almost beckoning us into the unknown. Similarly, our lives are full of dark matter as well… matters that will take years of development to unfold like the frames on the next reel. For now they remain unknown, but surely as they flash before us we will come to a more true, complete and deep repentance.

So I wonder how can so many be so certain we are alone; that we can or will know all; that what we see before us is all there is; that there is no great cloud of witnesses standing in the shadows beside us; that we are really so separate from those framed here with us; that we are free to do as we choose; and that we so easily control the moment in which we ride? I wonder especially that so many intelligent people can unintelligently reflect on the very discrete insights of scientific method and either conclude it must be essential or inconsequential… when it is only an unbiased tool too often poorly applied, and worse still, for which the conclusions and inferences are often vastly extended beyond their limits to demean the unknown in some sort of sophomoric triumph of the moment that misses the more obvious fact that the projector is about to whir the blade shut again, and pull the film forward. For the line between mechanistic and organic, between randomness and ordered seems less a line of demarcation and more a line of development emphasizing one and then the other in succession.

And I am oddly comforted. For I know that no matter how bad things seem at times, we could almost always be in deeper trouble than it appears; and my disappointment in “my betters”, in those around us, and especially in myself could be more material. Our troubles will pass. And though perhaps this gives credence to the supposition that the nightmares imagined within man’s deepest fears might well lurk in the shadows about us and even leak into the light, we know that God is with us. My guess is that our naïve unknowing provides more of an answer than we admit: God is good, loves and upholds mankind, and He is here with us – even in our darkness, even in our dark matters, too. He is here with the cloud of witnesses, and stands amongst us. If we can pull our gaze from the screen and turn toward Him.. even if only for a moment… He will quicken us, and strengthen our hearts.. come what may and what will.

Finding Life in Mindfulness of Death

I know I speak the obvious in suggesting that reading the freshly published “The Hidden Man of the Heart” by Archimandrite Zacharias (Mount Thabor Publishing) is a real inspiration. The deep sincerity and simplicity of his message is measured in language that resonates as akin to prayer. Yet he packs so much into each short passage that having listened once to these lectures on CD some time back, I found it difficult to absorb all he was saying without visual re-enforcement. Perhaps the Orthodox thing to do would be to order the icon, but as for me, I ordered the book. And now with it before me, it still witnesses to far more than the cold type in which it is set, and reading it is almost as if to hear it voiced again.

I found myself rushing ahead to find one of my favorite vignettes and found it quickly in the second chapter:

“I remember accompanying a priest who went to see someone who was dying and had all sorts of tubes sticking out of him. That person took off his oxygen mask and said to the priest, ‘I want to live one more week so I can go and say, “Thank you” to the elder who saved my daughter’s life.’ And the priest said to him, ‘What are you worrying about? It is so much better up there! That is why nobody ever comes back.’ The priest spoke with such simplicity and conviction that I would have liked to go up there myself that very moment.”

Turning back to the first chapter in “The Awakening of the Heart Through Mindfulness of Death“, I was quickly stoked on underlining “the good parts”, but before long, realized I’d underlined nearly the whole chapter. I guess some of us are ever the freshman.  But the account given so clearly articulates a road from mere “belief” to the Orthodox faith that it will at once seem familiar to many and perhaps voice something others have struggled to understand much less explain.

While some will elide right by this thinking, “Oh, that again!”, for me it still resonates as one of the gifts of this faith for which I had little preparation. Yes, there are “altar calls” elsewhere where one witnesses to conversion, but this seems something different, something experienced rather than “thought” or “realized”, and something less dramatic and less pressured. Equally, it comes of its own… not necessarily unbidden, though there is that, too. And rather than ushering in peace, it can prove fundamentally unsettling and instill a spiritual restlessness of sorts.

I do not expect that there is any claim to exclusivity of these experiences to the Orthodox Church as some may come to the Orthodox faith through an experience of this sort outside it and others choose to remain outside it even so, but it does seem as if the account given here presumes an Orthodox believer. No matter, what for me was especially striking was the understanding of the formation that follows experiences of this nature as through Archimandrite Zacharias (and I would suppose elsewhere as well within the Tradition also) the Church offers affirmation and articulation that provides a structured understanding and vocabulary that at last fills in the opened gap.

And of course, one of the gifts discovered in Orthodox saints seems their amazing economy of  speech in describing their experiences. For no matter the temptation to think, “Oh… that’s just what I went through, too”, the directness of their language speaks to a depth of difference, relationship and authenticity that convey a sense of authority that shrinks our egos back into place and measure something of how far from these examples we really stand. And so I am not surprised to see the tremendous lucidity of Archimandrite Zacharias’s writing as his spiritual GPS plots a fine course through the waypoints to describe the progressive emergence of the mindfulness of death:

“He (God) opens the eyes of the soul that it might behold the mark of corruption and mortality of every created thing. Man then hears the groaning of a universe which has delivered itself up to vanity from which there is no escape. The soul is then granted the grace of perceiving the dark veil of death, corruption, and despair which envelop mankind and all life on earth. This spiritual phenomenon, unknown to modern psychology, is called ‘mindfulness of death’ in Orthodox ascetic terminology. It has nothing to do with the psychological awarenes that we shall die some day; it is more like a deep knowledge, accompanied by a wondrous sensibility of the heart, which perceives clearly, ‘the futility of any and every acquisition on earth’, and that ‘all is vanity’ (Eccles, 1:2).”

Later he continues that this mindfulness will progressively lead to a second gift, the fear of God:

“Mindfulness of death is an encounter with God’s living eternity; and it strikes the whole man decisvely because it manifest the hell of God’s absence from his heart, reveals his spiritual poverty and the barrenness of his mind. This painful experience engenders the fear of God, which begins to surround the heart and alter his way of thinking. Just as mindfulness of death is not a psychological emotion, neither is the divine fear by which it is followed: both are spiritual states and gifts of grace.”

No doubt many will hear this today and think of it in precisely the psychological (negative) way we are cautioned against. This is the base point of our culture.  Okay, so we’re simply suffering from depression or a midlife crisis.. but we’re also blessed with a spiritual awakening, and an affirmation of all that is wholly positive and uplifting. No matter that it forces us to address the negative in our lives.. no matter how deep or how close to the surface it may lie… we still see this as positive. For this is the basis where at last a place and moment is found to lift one’s eyes in genuine thanks, free oneself from petty-mindedness and learn disciplines to do differently. In short, this is simply to suggest there is great joy in recognizing the grant of a precious gift – even if it is only a starting point.

“The paradox is this: that mindfulness of death liberates man from the fear of death, and leads him to see all things from the perspective of the love of God. Where death had been a consequence of sin, it is now the Gospel of Life, for it causes eternity to take its rightful place above all earthly things in such an absolute and definite way, that even if the enemy were to offer centuries of earthly bliss and success, the believer now prefers the marks of the Cross through which true joy and eternal salvation are come to the world.”

To Be or Not… Ain’t the Question

I’m told a common temptation among Orthodox converts – both clergy and layfolk – is to strive for the guru thing, to speak with the economy of language and depth of insight, to deliver the “one word”.. and in short, to be a staretz able to see into others hearts and strengthen their faith. This isn’t a new insight, but it’s not an especially Orthodox problem either.

In my former affiliation and one-time position as Sr. Warden there were some issues with the youth program for teens in our parish. Okay, the fact that we felt compelled to draft a State Trooper as an  “instructor” … even if he only had to call for backup from the SWAT team three or four times… might tell you something. So anyway, I remember asking to see the instruction manual… and after studying it a while (15 minutes), I recommended budgeting for some “training” ’cause it was clear the program placed an enormous burden on the instructors.. in effect expecting them to become something akin to youth gurus. I thought it was unrealistic.. but that was precisely what our instructors had concluded, too,  only they tended to try their best… I mean, being a youth hero and all that is kind of appealing on some level .. so each year and with each batch of teachers, they’d set out to transform themselves … only to spiral downward … into the same disastrous results.

So maybe it’s the nature of religion in America today that in order to justify spending the time, we fall into the trap of having to develop and project something of a spiritual “aura” – whatever that is.  We want people to look at us and say “Wow” or “Cool”  or “There goes the guru”. Problem is that we don’t have any examples in pop culture of what these folks are really like (“Might be the Dali llama?”) … but we’re always ready to re-invent ourselves… why not in this way? So the vulnerability of those of us geezers to aspiring to become a sort of religious guru or yogi or baghwan is just there lying on the floor, or maybe it’s by the curb and we bump into the double parked Rolls Royce as we go by. We’re even ready to settle for something less… like red Corvette with yellow pin stripes.

Okay then there’s blogging. Does it happen here? Sure. But I ask you…do we have to really need to have something to say? Do I ? I know…. it helps but maybe only in a minor way. Maybe  it’s enough to say nothing with  style. That’d be good, or at least it’d confuse the ol’ English teacher better than usual. FWIW, the stuffed animals – three toads, two frogs and penguin who still read this blog (the bears… well, they bailed).. I’m sure they’d all attest I’ve never felt compelled to link opening the trap or penning a word with such mundanities as “necessity” or “purpose”. Fact is, the mouth kind of works good as a fly trap and if I’m typing, at least I’m not messing up the rest of the house. Least that’s what my Dad used to say.

So I’m happy to report immunity from the guru factor. Certified. That’s the good news. The bad news is that perhaps I don’t have anything to say either… and the style tends to fall off a cliff every now and again. But I mean… blogging… it’s better than actually doing something, huh? And I’m not actually looking at my navel if I”m just writing about it.

P.S. I promise to “borrow” something more worth reading .. next time… lest the remaining “friendly” beasts start to get feisty.

There Goes the Weekend…

One of the graces open to us in the Orthodox Church lies in engaging in dialogue with the saints and those sufficiently strong hearted to follow in their path. Through their stumbles and humble efforts, we learn that the road is less improbable than we would have it, and are encouraged to work on the little things rather than avoid the possibility altogether. Sadly no task is really too big if you break it down and get going – and they have.

Oh boy, have they. Wrote too many books, if you don’t mind my saying so. I mean, the nerve of wanting to tell me, “Pssst. Hey! You can do this, Dude.” And as we all know… smart ideas never begin with “Dude”… but they figured that out, too…. the sort of bothersome trick here is that they put “Dude” at the end of the sentence. Yeah. Right. Check it out, man. Not kidding: There goes the weekend.

I mean, the temptation here in the almost summer, here with a long weekend…. here… you know… yeah, you know what I mean. The temptation is to simply say it can’t be done; that salvation (or God) doesn’t exist. I mean the better part of the dialectic lies in the arguments on the side of dismissing the whole and going fishing, playing golf, reading the Sunday New York Times or just staying in bed…. right? I mean, trust me… after one hard week after another, sleeping in just this once… it isn’t just a spiritual experience, it’s saving the environment, the planet and the whales; it’s my humble part of doing what I can to help the world, hold down gas prices and feed the hungry; it’s keeping it real and chilling for world peace, right? Light a candle? Wear a ribbon?

Maybe not. Those doggone pesky saints seem to testify otherwise; testify to a different reality for flesh and blood; and lived different lives. Their lives, their words and their worship testify that the whole of this Christianity thing is eminently do-able. And the path forward lies in taking the heavens by storm… an utterance I would once have thought more appropriate from Milton’s Lucifer rather than from saints of the Orthodox Church. But there you are; and one after another seems to say the same thing: “Save your soul, and tens of thousands will be illumined.”

So the military has its endless drills, training exercises and wargames; we have our long services, our heavy calendar of liturgies, feasts, and saints days. We seem to find ourselves in a church where they know how to multiply worship like loaves and fishes. And all we can say is that either we’re completely out to lunch… or somebody must know something. So as they used to say on Hillstreet Blues, “Be careful out there.”

Counsels on Conversion of the Heart

Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov’s “The Arena” offers much humbling advice for monks. But there is also more as well for those of us who aren’t advanced as spiritual warriors but simple lay folks busy in our everyday backsliding lives (me!). The attention to the detail and its close reading in scripture is not overlooked in the Orthodox Church, and the good Bishop is no exception here:

“You are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”           (2 Corinthians 6:16)

Thus begins Ignatius’s discussion of the union of the mind with the heart as the “union of the spiritual thoughts of the mind with the spiritual feelings of the heart”; and it is the core of his description of the joy the christian experiences as “ordained a priest or high-priest by the Holy Spirit”… for the “worship of God in the Spirit and in Truth.”

And as there is much truth in Archimandrite Zacharias’s note that there is a three-fold experience of this structured as: 1) foretaste, 2) withdrawal and purification, and finally 3) re-union (please forgive that I’ve simplified his words here from memory), in some respects the process of conversion to the depth of faith found in this ancient church may seem to involve something of this foretaste though perhaps on a smaller scale. For it is indeed a yearning for the love of God that brings us here, but this is not the end, not deification, but only a beginning of a beginning. Yet all the same, it may offer a glimmer of understanding of what the whole is all about.

Thus when Ignatius continues his discussion of this union, there seems a parallel to the difficulty we OBC’s (Orthodox By Choice) have in describing our conversion to a deeper and more demanding relationship to those we love around us – for all has truly changed, and In so many ways those on the other side can scarcely comprehend – other than that we must be in love:

“The fulfillment of the commandments which precedes the union of the mind with the heart differs from the fulfillment of the commandments which succeeds the union. Before the union the ascetic fulfills the commandments with the greatest labor and difficulty, forcing and compelling his fallen nature; after the union the spiritual power which unites the mind with the heart impels him to fulfill the commandments – makes it easy, light, sweet, delightful. I ran the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart, says the Psalmist (Psalm 118:32).”

Again, Ignatius is speaking of something far deeper than entry into the Church.. for it is not the church per se that we enter, but union with the Church as the Body of Christ. It is this Body, seen and joined here to us in the sacrament of Chrismation (and in his deeper discussion – theosis).. that offers not an earthly experience of the sort we had known before, but something indescribably different that we are called to, chosen out of the world for… and not strictly by our reasoned choice, but by what we experience as almost a necessity of our heart’s longing for God… for we “find no rest until we rest in thee”. And it is for this reason that the Church is not an earthly vessel seen as any other institution, but as a divinely instituted sacramental body wherein we are blessed to experience true worship for the first time. It is beyond words.

Sadly the wonder that lies herein is something like the sword that divides incarnational faith from all other, and as sweet as it is, there is this incommunicable pain as well for those we leave behind and can no longer reach except as they see the animation of our hearts lit upon our faces. If only they could, if only they would…taste and see that the Lord is good… our joy would be that much greater.

Quotations taken from pp. 86-87.

The Fitz Challenge

When I first discovered reading, it was mostly short stories – detective stories (Asimov), mysteries (Doyle) and horror (Hitchcock). And then there was F. Scott Fitzgerald – a writer’s writer in a very American way. It wasn’t that he wrote prose as langorous and beautiful as Ray Bradbury (he didn’t); and it’s not that he had the wit of Twain (he didn’t), but he was a keen observer, and somehow he carried you into the story and set you down gently…. as gently and graciously as Jay Gatsby. He had the whole package.

Of course when I went off to really study literature and the like, Shakespeare was modern… and I never got even within 500 years of a 20th century writer. So for as much as I loved F. Scotty, he has remained a mostly a memory for a long, long time. There was of course that very bad movie that came out during the courtship of my first girlfriend – when movies were something you did to get out on your own… and the experience put me off from reading Scott’s most well-known Gatzer novel. It wasn’t a short story, and Robert Redford’s rendition… killed more than Myrtle.

So in filling-in the space between my next Orthobook, I picked up my daughter’s college text of “The Great Gatsby” – complete with all her professor’s lectured notations in the margin. I was done in a blink.. and with these things of course.. someone else’s notes start a dialog in your head.

But let me say what joy there is in reading this unhappy prose, and what a masterpiece of its own in its beautiful account of a period not altogether unlike ours. Talking it over with my wife, I almost want to begin reading it all over again… and of course I’ve started to. It’s not that it is good, but that the art of telling so compliments the setting and the characters as if it were itself the perfect white linen, or a 1920 Pierce Arrow Roadster.

And though I’m struggling to think of one good person in the book, and there’s certainly no conception of this as a description of an Orthodox life, re-reading the opening two-page introduction left me pondering whether there weren’t an Orthodox reading of this. We’re talking about the “reserve of judgment” as a matter of hope after all. And it is this key… this suspension of judgment, this not seeing into others hearts but simply observing them as if from afar that starts the mind along this course.. a sort of ascetic aesthetic. Not suggesting that everytime we see something we have to make a leap into searching for an Orthodox retelling… but maybe it’ wouldn’t be  bad to consider the possibility.

Sure, part of the appeal and wonder of this may lie in the fact that F. Scott’s not a writer of thick Russian books, but rather shared this land (though perhaps through a besotted haze). Though now he lies under a traffic diamond with Zelda in nearby Rockville, Scott knew our people and our dreams. And maybe there is some key to understanding the meaning and place of Orthodoxy in this. Maybe not. Maybe there’s nothing there after all. I’ll have to keep re-reading.

But in the meantime, I’m not the only one with this standard on my shelf. Surely someone else has given it a thought. All I’m suggesting… is that I’m curious. Feel free to chip in.

Missing the Saintly Mark

You know the cruise line commercial… the one where suddenly the screen fills with the pointed bow of a ship whose immense size and slicing lines would make Columbus scream in terror; would puzzle geometrists and pain naval architects; whose potential treasures in passengers and “booty” lures pirates, “Disco Stu”, and “educators” into giving never ending sales presentations… whose seaworthiness astounds physicists and leaves engineers open to the possibilities for floating other edifices off the East Bronx Expressway… and whose crew of Cap’n Bogart, 1^st Lt. Cagney, First Mate Bronson and a disappointed Steward (Keanu Reeves) greet you with a wry smile, a bottle of whiskey, a couple of rounds from 9mm automatics.. and a “Yo’ duuuuude!”

“Hey…. enough already. We get it. Something’s completely wrong…”

And out of the cold clammy darkness a voice full of luxurious intention booms:

“Somewhere between not sleeping, not exercising, not getting your work done, and not getting home to dinner until ten o’clock at night… suddenly it hits you….. you’re completely inadequate without a week’s ride on our yacht. Yes, we know that after a week of almost daily services (Holy Week – yes, can’t compromise the ol’ nomination prospects for Slacker the Year Award by looking too… too… uh… Orthodox), you can feel the same inadequacies around the home, the office… just about anywhere: Mail piles up, reports go unread, memos unwritten. Even newspapers look irrelevant: Stuff happened; you weren’t a part of it; what else do you need to know? And instead of getting over it…. you feel yourself under it…. And that if only it were over… but it’s not, and it won’t be. So rather than getting back to it, why not just get away… really away… why not come aboard…”

I reach over, and switch it off… and shift back to sifting paperwork and rebuilding the model of my life where the pieces fly off and get re-attached… only to fly off again. Of course, with just the right amount of redefinition of parameters, a small rethinking of the original intent…. “Failure is good”, yeah… and I’m “done” and “moving on”. Can’t hold out over the overlap between the “included” and “excluded” as if it mattered… as if “ought” and “are” could overlap as well…I mean it’s only a model… not the real world. We’ll just keep tweaking… it’ll come out. But the closer you look, the more clearly you see the need to start all over again with something fresh. But opportunity knocks… and even a less than ideal solution clearly serves better than none. Sure.. it won’t feel right and the probability of error is high, but the added value of further paralysis by analysis is offset by diminishing prospects. So you go with what you’ve got, and you use the model anyway. You call it a day. Tomorrow will be another chance, another start, and another compromise… or maybe you’ll finally get it.

Sure, confidence flags a bit… but only slightly. This is it… the top of the game, and the best we can manage. I mean… this is what they’re paying me for….right? And it’s working, isn’t it? At least so long as I’m aware that I’m making these compromises…. I’m still in control? Maybe far more rides on this than admitted…. and maybe less. Maybe I’m overstating my importance, or the importance of the moment; and maybe this confusion is the problem. Hard to tell. G.K. Chesterton had it right long ago that no matter how far we take it, no matter how much research and well-seasoned experience we use to prevent it, … deep down we know there is a degree to which our irrational fears are justified… and an inevitable, almost terrible “wildness lies in wait”… a wildness that doesn’t just trip us later, but trips us even now …and on those things about which we feel most certain.

And thus at root, all our hard sciences and our hard numbers harbor this notion of uncertainty as the limit of knowledge approaches zero, and the “squishiness” of life remains. And like an amoeba, the cell walls of this squishiness divide, and multiply our divergences into limitless possibilities. We see little of this, but in reality, this “choice” represents an unwitting failure to admit the Heisenberg principle that the demarcation between the observed and observer collapses… or at least remains inherent in the design rather than a separate experience. And then it ocurrs to us to wonder, “Who is the designer of my life? Perhaps there is no separate, there is no “sola”… and this is it: our impact on the waters like that under the bow of a ship is something we mistake as a true divide when in truth it leaves no more than a surface wake. For further back the water eddies and re-conforms to the broader currents, and pulls back around us, even swelling against our hulls and rudders as if pushing us downhill from behind and along our way.

And yet here in our secure tacks where we are most confident and self-assured we find that living life is far more art than science, and understand that science itself is something of an art. And here I witness to my own artlessness, as surely portrayed as a Mondrian paint-toss free-for-all rather than the well-framed, perfectly executed Turner landscape I profess. For no matter what anyone might say of his painting, Turner at least knew when he was done, and would turn, pack it up, and walk away while the others continued their “corrections”. By contrast, I find I’ve only begun to understand how I am un-done…. or can’t be done… at least not alone. And were this a canvass of oils… the mess could clean up – and even if muddied, might be painted over once hardened. Yet it seems here far more as if the canvass becomes an ink and watercolor wash where the stains and errors show themselves happily to their advantage in others… but less so the closer we turn to gaze back upon ourselves.

And so it is that I become keenly aware of how much I miss the saintly mark, so close upon Pascha, so close upon Bright Week and its happy seeming respite from repentance.. and here am I.. all but dulled again…and ready for another ride, but lacking the terseness, the immediacy and virtue of St. Mark.

What’s for Dinner…. Again

The shift from Lent to Holy Week brought great anticipation, long services, lots of new instructions for altar servers (we managed to “get” about half), aching feet… the usual. Mostly, the pace picked up… even as the bod’ wore down. For me, it also brought to mind the sounds of Aaron Copland’s Rodeo with Robert Mitchum’s voice-over: “Meat… it’s what’s for dinner!” But I’m getting ahead of myself. By far, one of my favorite parts remains St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily:

“Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.”

Though translations vary, hearing these words on this my second Paschal feast, and this year’s second Easter, refocused the mind from preparation and not… to the centrality of sharing in the Resurrection. It goes straight to the heart. No fooling around, no fancy language, just straight up. And yet remains a language of love… the same we would offer, or should on seeing the image and likeness of God in our loved ones, our neighbors… even (and especially) our enemies and those who mean us ill….for yielding to the heavenly within seems the heart of our faith.

This year, the Paschal services shifted from a sense of newness in the sense of “strange” and “unexpected” to one more of wonder and joy. Surely this was fed by the vision of joy so clearly registered on Father’s face and especially in his eyes as he sang the words to one of his favorite pieces at the start of the vigil (“This night…”, “This night…”), and again upon reading St. John’s homily as we pressed on. Yes, surely this night will remain blessed, treasured and pondered in my heart for some time.

And as simple as it sounds, the long anticipation and ultimately the joy of breaking the Lenten Fast – and breaking it together – through the sharing of the sumptuous, fleshy foods on which we feasted… clearly captures something I can’t say I had noticed in my earlier worship… not that it wasn’t there… simply that without emphasis it escaped me. For breaking the fast in this way brings more than refreshment, and offers a real sense of restoration, and an to end our separation from that which sustains our life – even as we have been separated from the Lord and Master of All. And even if only for a short time, and even if only in a measured way, we have nevertheless endured… maybe even at times with grace and patience. But now, we are released from suffering… another night of beans and beans and beans… and whatever. Alleluia! Hood-ah!

What a night! What a great day! What a happy sacrifice! What a release! Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen! Happy Bright Week to all!