Shattered

A few days ago I accidentally broke a glass pitcher that belonged to my Grandmother. I remember the day my mother, my aunts and uncles and I went to participate in what they all referred to as "The Great Divide." My Grandmother was moving out of her apartment to a nursing facility and so she was giving her belongings to her four children. As a newly married young woman, I thought little about anything but supplying my kitchen and home with useful pieces of furniture and kitchen supplies. The glass pitcher was something no one else wanted, but I really took to it. It has been, almost nightly, the pitcher I set on the dining room table with water and freshly sliced lemons, limes, and, on occasion, cucumbers. At brunch, it holds orange juice. When I make Spanish food, it is filled with Sangria.

When using this pitcher, and serving dinner in general, I think of my Grandmother and feel that she would be proud of the refined manner in which I serve my family, but the feeling is very much akin to what a little girl might feel giving a tea party to her stuffed animals, that, in a way, I am play acting. The pitcher may be beautiful, the plates I use Tiffany, but they have been given to me, something that belongs to a life my Grandmother and her parents lived. Under my elegantly set dinner sits a table that we found at a rummage sale. As far away as my Grandmother now is physically, so is the world she came from. I realize I did not really know her, but the pitcher was something tangible, something that connected me to her in a way I could not perhaps emotionally.

More striking was that Pavel was sitting only a few inches from where the pitcher landed and broke into pieces, and that not even the minutest piece of glass scratched his skin. As I swept up the shards of shattered glass, I felt sad that I had lost one of my favorite serving items, and sad that I had lost what it represented, but I glorified God that He protected my child from harm.

Last week Florence and her children were in a terrible accident on a country road. She hit black ice and the vehicle went out of control, fell into a ditch and rolled over, caving the entire roof in. They all walked away without a scratch, so that looking at her yesterday, I could not even tell she had been so close to something unimaginable. The car was totaled, items pierced into the front seat by the roof, but the Icon of Christ on the dashboard, which flew from side to side in the past when she simply made a turn, didn't even move. God protected her and her children as He had protected Pavel.

Today is the first day of Lent, which I am embracing with much joy. I look forward to stripping away all the usual busyness of my day to day life, of not listening to the radio or watching television, of being in church more often, the beauty of the evening services, the prayer of St. Ephraim, how it feels to receive Communion at the Presanctified Liturgy after a day of fasting. During Lent, we "break" ourselves and we let God break us, so that we can arise from the pieces different, hopefully human beings more attuned to Christ. My breaking the glass and Florence's accident are representatives of new beginnings, of cutting off the old man and letting in the new. Both of us are changed. Obviously she is more changed, as her accident had the potential of being much more tragic, but both of us were given a window to the Divine. Both of us recognized God in our lives.

He gives us these moments because we are weak. We cannot see him dwelling with us at all times. We cannot see the angels processing through the royal doors at Liturgy. All He does is think of us, love us, and yet, in our daily routine, we can go many hours, even days without calling Him to mind.

The greatest gift He gives to all of us today is the Great Lent. Today He is continually in my mind, as I try to fast, to pray, to avoid temptations I would otherwise ignore like talking too much or flipping through a catalog. I look forward to hearing the first part of the Canon of St. Andrew tonight, to the dark church, the smell of beeswax and rose-scented incense, the Kontakion in the Sixth Tone. I look forward to my legs being sore from the many prostrations. But most of all I look forward to the journey, the struggle even, because when I struggle I know I am not completely lost.