Tag Archives: change

We must be indifferent.

February 10, 2024quotesattachment, change, contentment, discrimination, Elder Aimilianos, justice, progress, the heartGretchenJoanna

A word from an Athonite elder:

The faithful are often scandalized by the prosperity of sinners. And it is true that if we look at things from a purely human perspective it can seem as if God has distributed His blessings unjustly. Here, where He should have given a measure of happiness, He has given only misfortune. And there, where He should have dispensed riches, He gave only poverty. And where poverty was in order, he lavished wealth. When we wait for a blessing, He often deals us a hard blow, while at the same time He maintains smiles on the faces of those around us.

In a way that echoes modern social concerns, we might say that God discriminates, and this is something that scandalizes us. Why does this scandalize us? The answer is simple. It is because our hearts are still attached to earthly things, still clinging to false “goods” that we continue to covet and crave. Thus the solution to our dilemma must be sought elsewhere, and this means that we should not be hasty in abolishing whatever strikes us as discrimination or injustice.

We live in a time of rapid change, when every innovation is presented to us as “progress,” but before real change, real progress, can take place, something must first change within us. And for this to happen we must become completely estranged to all things earthly and human, to all human logic, to all human ways of thinking, and to every so-called material good. We must be indifferent in the face of all things. And only then, when we have become strangers to all, can God become all things to us, as if there existed nothing else in the world for us except God.

It is this alone that can grant us true and lasting tranquility. Otherwise, if our heart is attached to anything earthly, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to be, we can be sure that it will make us suffer.

—Elder Aimilianos of Athos

Old baker, fresh starter.

June 27, 2023bread, food and cookingchange, sourdoughGretchenJoanna

In the last year or so, I changed my mind about bread baking. I think it was in 2019 that I had decided not to bake bread — any more! Even though I’d been baking all kinds of yeast breads for most of my life. That was okay for a while, but recently, I realized it just didn’t feel right, to eliminate that art and craft entirely.

I planned to get back into making sourdough loaves, but week after week I never made time to assemble the ingredients for the “pre-ferment” that would collect wild yeasts from the air. Then when I was at my daughter Pippin’s earlier this month, I found that she had a good one going. She was happy to share it with me, so I moved half of her starter to a new quart jar and fed both jars a couple of times while I was there, and then brought the one home.

Today I used it to make a “sponge,” by combining one cup of the starter with two cups of water and three cups of (rye) flour. I will let that ferment for a couple of days and hope to bake just one loaf from it this week. Part of the reason I had given up bread baking was that I had too much bread to use or give away; the solution to that would be to make one loaf at a time — which I am certainly not accustomed to doing.

After I set the bowl of small sponge on the table, I went off to the church kitchen to help bake our special holy bread called prosphora. And today is my name day, on which I remember St. Joanna the Myrrhbearer. That’s three things that make me happy, and if I hadn’t been so busy about them, I might have figured out a way to tie the threads together for a blog post, the way I made a sponge out of several parts. If the bread turns out well, possibly it will be the unifying loaf.

A cold but cozy first night.

March 20, 2023home, workchange, housemates, wood firesGretchenJoanna

Several years ago I realized that my wood stove was becoming dysfunctional in a couple of important ways. I thought that I should probably change to having a gas fireplace insert, now that I am older and my back is not as strong as it used to be, for carrying the firewood and bending over the stove to build and tend the fire.

I also thought, mistakenly, that I was not allowed to install a new wood-burning insert in our area. When I learned that it was only for new construction that the building code forbids them, I was elated.

And during that time my housemate Susan began to carry wood and build fires, too. Many times when I came home from a trip or just a late-afternoon outing in the winter, I walked into a house that had been all cozied up by her ministrations. These various factors persuaded me to buy a new wood stove, with the help of my son who shopped all over town with me.

I’ve been enjoying the fires very much this past winter, and my back has been up to the work involved, because I’ve been doing my “strengthening exercises.” (Isn’t that what Tigger also does?) The recent rains came with milder weather overall, and I haven’t had a fire for a week — until this cold, cold evening of the beginning of spring, when my feet would not get warm. It was late before I got on task, but now the logs are blazing and my toes are toasty.

For the last two months, though, I have been the only wood-carrier-fire-builder around the place, because my last housemate has moved out, and I am living alone for the first time since the summer just after my husband died. God brought me three housemates during those years, and they were all wonderful people to have around. For awhile there were three of us women living here. But now it seems it has been given me to live alone (with God) in my house, which has been more of an adjustment psychologically than I expected. I got through the transition and I am loving it.

Happy Spring!

Your language is the world’s richest.

September 12, 2022poetry, tears, the languageAfzal Ahmed Syed, change, wordsGretchenJoanna

IN YOUR LANGUAGE

In your language every line begins from an opposite end.
The pronunciation of its words changes from day to night
and their orthography changes with the change of seasons.
A new word enters it on some special day
and on some days a familiar word is made obsolete.
The shape of its letters changes with your change of clothes.
You make no effort to put together words
that are crushed under feet from your carelessness,
because your language is the world’s richest.
The first kiss, the second kiss and any count of kisses
are all identified in your language with separate words.
If anything ever causes you to become tearful,
all the books in the whole world written in your language become drenched.