Monthly Archives: March 2023

The darkness keeps its appointment.

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LAMPS

Eight o’clock, no later
You light the lamps,

The big one by the large window,
The small one on your desk.

They are not to see by—
It’s still twilight out over the sand,

The scrub oaks and cranberries.
Even the small birds have not settled

For sleep yet, out of the reach
Of prowling foxes. No,

You light the lamps because
You are alone in your small house

And the wicks sputtering gold
Are like two visitors with good stories

They will tell slowly, in soft voices,
While the air outside turns quietly

A grainy and luminous blue.
You wish it would never change—

But of course the darkness keeps
Its appointment. Each evening,

An inscrutable presence, it has the final word
Outside every door.

-Mary Oliver

 

Here was at home.

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Today was most wonderful, as it was a fully At Home Day, after a long period of being away every day, always for good things, of course. It could be called a catch-up day, as I’ve had the time to concentrate on tasks that have been getting shoved aside and neglected for too long. Cooking and tidying up took quite a bit of time; because I’ve been cooking more lately, I end up washing dishes more often, but that’s okay, because I enjoy cleaning up the kitchen if I can really give it proper attention. I watered a wilting/dying house plant, and while I ate my lunch I watched the birds outside on the patio, as they finished up the last of the suet feeder.

I took some papaya peelings and Brussels sprouts trimmings out to add to the worm bucket. And it occurred to me, since worm farming is called vermiculture or vermicomposting, etc., maybe I could call my worms “vermi’s” — what do you think? It sounds cuter than worms. This is what my worms typically look like when I take off the lid of their 5-gallon bucket. I’m always relieved if they are looking alive. When the weather drops to freezing, they are unhappy, and disappear into the center of their habitat to huddle together.

It’s been raining steadily all day — until now, when just before the sun went down, it came out and made everything sparkle — and I knew last night that I would want to have a fire in the stove so that I wouldn’t be distracted by being cold, on this day of opportunity. So I brought quite a few logs into the garage in advance of the rain, before I left for a General Unction service at a sister parish.

At this Orthodox service we pray and sing, and hear seven epistle readings and seven Gospel readings by, ideally, seven priests. Last night we only had one bishop and four priests, which meant that when we got to the anointings “for the healing of soul and body,” we had just five of those. Surely they were more than adequate to convey this special grace during Lent. One of the epistle readings included this passage from the book of James:

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

(I didn’t take pictures at the service, but I found online these images that are typical.)

Since I opened my sleepy eyes I’ve been blissful knowing that I didn’t have to watch the clock, or change my clothes and get in the car to go anywhere. Much of my morning could be contemplative. Though my supply is very low, there were plenty of logs still, to keep the fire going and the house cozy. It seemed the most blessed day. Once, for a brief moment, a thought came to mind, comparing my life to the “old times” of a few years or decades ago — but I regained my focus pretty fast.

After dinner I was reading in a church calendar that has quotes for every day. This one from St. Luke the Blessed Surgeon was just on point:

It is not right to speak of the former years and to bless them and to curse our own age. We must know that in every age and in every place, people who actually seek their salvation find it.

-St. Luke of Simferopol and Crimea

St. Luke might well have reason to bless his former life, that is: before his wife died leaving their four children motherless, before Lenin came to power, and before his three imprisonments and torture. He had his priorities right, as you can see by reading his life here.

It’s likely that sometime in the future I will fall into longing backward for days like today; I hope the example of St. Luke will help me to cut it short and be fully present in whatever kind of days lie ahead. But for today, his exhortation made me glad that I had been able to be here and now, and that the here was at home.

The very smallness of children.

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“The essential rectitude of our view of children lies in the fact that we feel them and their ways to be supernatural while, for some mysterious reason, we do not feel ourselves or our own ways to be supernatural. The very smallness of children makes it possible to regard them as marvels; we seem to be dealing with a new race, only to be seen through a microscope.

I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened of it. It is awful to think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it is like imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing bigness of stature. We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a deity might feel if he had created something that he could not understand.” 

-G.K. Chesterton 

We always seem to have a baby or two in our parish at any given time, but in the last couple of years we have lots. It’s a joy to see them growing up through their first year: First they come in a sling or pack on their mother’s chest. After a while, they are sort of “free floating,” carried about by their godparents or friends for admiration and greeting. In Orthodox churches it’s traditional to stand during services, and in my parish we have no pews, so babies often crawl or sit on the floor looking up and around at the tall people; older children like to sit down beside them and engage in silent conversations with their eyes.

Then, surprise — one Sunday the baby will be up on its feet and toddling, and his father probably is following at a short distance, to make sure he doesn’t toddle right up into the altar. My goddaughter Mary, who was born just before my husband died, is now a big girl, and it’s been a while since I could carry her. These days we sometimes go about hand in hand, which is good, because if it came to a chase I would lose that race.

Today during Divine Liturgy I was happy to notice for a few minutes a particular child who has the most beautiful face I have ever seen on a baby. Her temperament, by all accounts, and by what I have seen, is serene. She toddled very near me as I stood near the north wall, and I bent down to whisper “Good morning.”  Later after plopping on the floor by her grandmother’s feet, she turned around and gave me a little wave with her tiny hand.

The order and beauty of her room.

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“Artists in the Christian tradition have been inspired by the New Testament stories, and one story in particular has prompted them to reflect on the nature of beauty and its place in our lives: the story of the Annunciation. In this story we encounter a moment of interaction between the human and the divine, when an angel appears in the most private and protected part of a woman’s home.

“The light that radiates from the angel falls not only on Mary but on all the objects that surround her, showing the fitness of the woman for her holy task in the order and beauty of her room. The Annunciation by the Dutch master Joos van Cleve (1485–1540) illustrates the point. None of the objects among which Mary sits is purely functional: everything has an edge, an embellishment, a kind of gentle excess. The furnishings are not just accidentally there: they are there because they are also owned, shaped, and cherished. Mary has arranged the room with beauty in mind, so as to be a fit welcome for an angel.”

The quote above is the first paragraph (divided by me into two) in an article
by the late Roger Scruton, “The Beauty of Belonging”,
published several years ago in Plough magazine.