Category Archives: church

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 supreme moment of hospitality.

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Because when I recently rediscovered this post from three years ago, I was nourished by it again, I am re-posting it for my new readers and for all of us. It concerns the most enduring things, never outdated. One of those always-new things, which I’ve only this year begun to read and think about in the context of the Annunciation, is hospitality of the sort that the Virgin demonstrated toward the very Son of God. She is an example for us all.

Today is the beginning of our salvation;
the revelation of the eternal Mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
“Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!”

I had wanted to continue my ruminations on The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air by further considering The Moment that Søren Kierkegaard refers to when, after waiting in silence, “…the silent lily understands that now is the moment, and makes use of it.”

I don’t know what that moment consists of for you, for me, for us as a world community, or in our cities or church communities or families. No doubt there are overlapping times and seasons containing infinite instants, and only by quiet listening can we make any sense of them. But this passage in particular I wanted to pass on, in which the writer discusses what is missed when we fail to make the proper, standing-before-God kind of preparation:

“Even though it is pregnant with rich significance, the moment does not send forth any herald in advance to announce its arrival; it comes too swiftly for that; indeed, there is not a moment’s time beforehand…. But of course everything depends upon “the moment.” And this is surely the misfortune in the lives of many, of far the greater part of humanity: that they never perceived ‘the moment,’ that in their lives the eternal and the temporal were exclusively separated.”

So many thoughts swirl in my own noisy mind and heart that I could not imagine how I might find a way to share even these few gleanings with you. Then, in God’s providence and the church calendar, appeared someone who is the supreme example for us of being ready for the moment, that time in history and that time in her life, in a particular moment of a day, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her. Today we remember that event, when Mary listened, and responded, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

The Word became flesh and came to live with us, taking on all our human experience, its weakness and suffering and  death. He defeated death, and opened the gates of Paradise. The Incarnation, the beginning of our salvation, is The Moment of history; our own “Yes” to God, echoing Mary’s willingness, can be the essence of our every prayer as well, as we wait on Him.

Kierkegaard exhorts us, in words that seem especially fitting for this time of uncertainty and change: “Would that in the silence you might forget yourself, forget what you yourself are called, your own name, the famous name, the lowly name, the insignificant name, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Hallowed be your name!’ Would that in silence you might forget yourself, your plans, the great, all-encompassing plans, or the limited plans concerning your life and its future, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your kingdom come!’ Would that you might in silence forget your will, your willfulness, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your will be done.’“

We know that God’s will for us is good, now as ever. Our inability to see or understand that is due to our weakness or sin, or His hiding of His works. May He give us grace to wait and to pray, and eventually we will see the full salvation of the LORD.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11

Sowing in late winter…

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…or is it early spring?

The best time to plant some of these seeds would have been two or three weeks ago, but I was otherwise busy on the mild days, and when the weather turned colder I wimped out. But this week, at the end of a day when the sun was shining and my hands didn’t hurt from the cold, I was able to organize my thoughts and my packets enough to get some seeds into the ground. The rain has returned, blessed be God, and has watered them thoroughly.

Calendula plants and stock are growing in a couple of places in the garden; after the hardest winter battering, the stock are covered with little flower buds. The lemon tree having been pruned to a less gangly form, it’s showing off its dozens of fruits to better effect. I love the two plum trees! If they never produced another plum, I’d still count them well worth having, for the way their blossoms brighten these cloudy days and remind me that every hour brings us closer to summer.

Working in the garden through only the late afternoon made me incredibly happy. When I came in the house I could only pray “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

It’s been quite a week, indescribable for the most part, at least, in the way I would prefer to write about things. My report must be vague: The days have been full of friends, those Lenten services that are characterized by bright sadness, and the mercies of God new every morning. Mostly I came here to write about my garden that He uses to bestow on me His also indescribable gifts…

Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands
and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?

-G.K. Chesterton

A feast of fasting guidelines.

church, Lent,

More Fasting Guidelines,
from Abbot Tryphon’s The Morning Offering:

FAST from self-concern and FEAST on compassion for others.
FAST from discouragement and FEAST on hope.
FAST from lethargy and FEAST on enthusiasm.
FAST from suspicion and FEAST on truth.
FAST from thoughts that weaken and FEAST on promises that inspire.
FAST from shadows of sorrow and FEAST on the sunlight of serenity.
FAST from idle gossip and FEAST on purposeful silence.
FAST from problems that overwhelm you and FEAST on prayer that sustains.
FAST from criticism and FEAST on praise.
FAST from self-pity and FEAST on joy.
FAST from ill-temper and FEAST on peace.
FAST from resentment and FEAST on contentment.
FAST from jealousy and FEAST on love.
FAST from pride and FEAST on humility.
FAST from selfishness and FEAST on service.