Faith is an easier word to throw around than to understand

I have always been one not to use the word faith too much, not as a conscious effort, but because for me its meaning is so limitless, so past understanding, that I have feared, when I wanted to use the word, minimizing it. It is a word, though, that I often use in my writing, especially in my private journal entries as an admonishment to myself - Have faith, Katya. Have faith.

Living in the rural countryside I tend to forget what is going on in the rest of the world. I forget poverty, I forget war, and I forget the fierce struggle that many Americans are going through. Only when a relative of mine said, in much distress, that she had taken a huge loss because of the stock market plunge, and that her portfolio had gone done a third, did I begin to understand how much fear pervades our society.

Our country was, at its founding, built on the honorable ideas of freedom - freedom to think the way we chose, freedom to worship as we chose, and freedom to speak as we chose. And, most importantly, God was on our founders' tongues and pens. Now I see very little of God. Many talk of God, but how many truly are faithful? I find, and I am no exception, that what concerns most of us is money and what it represents - security. I have this particular job and this insurance plan, and I have so much in my savings account, therefore I am safe, I am secure. With the state of our economy at present, this security has been shaken.

My husband and I have never been rich, nor do we expect ever to be, but I also knew, if only subconsciously, that we had someone to turn to always, and that never would I have to worry about losing everything. No longer is this the case and I am confronted with a certain fear that I have never had to experience, but I also am thankful for my fear because it made me realize how much faith I do lack. I also realize that much of my identification, which I want to come from God, actually comes from my maiden name, my family and my education. I have made many decisions not to go a certain way, but have chosen a more strenuous one for which I am grateful, but I also knew somewhere, as I was making those decisions, that I was not, in fact, giving up everything. There was an entitled dignity that I have carried along with me that is based much more on where I come from than who I am in Christ.

Who am I without my possessions, without my knowledge, without my bloodline? Who am I stripped to nothingness? I am rather superficial actually, and I am not a woman of extreme faith. But, glory be to God, that today this has been revealed to me, so that I do have the time to repent.

Many Americans are waiting for our President elect to fix things, many anxiously flip through the newspaper to see how many points the DOW fell or rose, but this hope for better times is not necessarily rooted in Christ, and our fear is not for our soul but for our "security."

The bridegroom will come like a thief in the night and will we be ready? Will our souls be in such a state that we can receive God's mercy? Do we really have faith? When we say - Thy will be done - do we understand what we are saying?

"Just have faith!" We say - the bumper sticker cliche that is so easy to repeat. But it isn't just have faith. Faith is a grace given, not something we can obtain by talking about it or thinking about, but something we must ardently strive for at all times. And I think the proof of our faith is when we wake every morning, crossing ourselves, our first thought being to lift up our hearts to God, and not to fear this world. There is no place for fear if our faith is in Christ.

So, thank you God for these uncertain times, thank you for stripping us of all that which is unnecessary, and for taking away our worldly security, for hopefully, in this we will learn to put all our hope in You.

Perhaps it comes as a surprise

I haven't written anything in a long time and for no particular reason other than that I deemed blogging, for the summer, somewhat self-indulgent. I have been trying to pay more attention to my children. I have been trying to pray more. I have been trying to figure out who I am and not what I am considered to be. All that matters is who I am in the eyes of God, does it not? I think this is the hardest realization to get my mind around. God loves me. There is no reason for it - it is who He is. He is love. But how do I respond to that love? Do I live my life for Him or for myself?

I remember reading in Pushkin that Autumn was the time he wrote the best. I cannot remember now which poem this was, but I tend to agree with him. There is something about the difference in the air, about the crisp, vibrant leaves crunching under our shoes and the satisfaction of wearing a sweater for the first time, putting our babies in wool caps with knitted animals on them. I love the fall. I only wish it could last a little longer where I live. It enters very quickly, like a burst of wind from our dusty roads, and then, a few weeks later, the first snowfall comes, and our red and orange leaves are buried under the heaviness of winter like discarded candy wrappers.

I did not expect the fall this year, and suddenly it was before me. The ash trees outside my window now gold. The evening comes earlier - I must remember to turn on my porch light before I leave for Vespers. Though the midday is still hot, and it seems like a paradox. These stunning tree lined streets, the bales of hay dotting the fields, and yet the need for an abundance of liquid, the sleepiness that comes from too much heat on my face.

But I think about this, and how all of us as human beings are a sort of paradox, a living battle between what our mind and flesh wants, and what is good for our soul. My paradox is perhaps always trying to be something I'm not, trying to fit into my imagined idea of what a good woman is like a dress two sizes too small. Today I want to be myself. I want to love more, to feel less alienated from those around me and I want to nurture my relationship with Christ. But the fact is, I am broken. I will never be loved or even liked by all those who surround me. But then, Christ took on the Cross - can I not bear being falsely perceived, and perhaps rightly perceived. I, like everyone else, do not want to admit to having flaws.

In all of this, I know, there is salvation, and that I am never alone even when I feel completely alone. God is everywhere and fillest all things, and where there is God there is life, joy, light, communion, holy silence. How much we have been given. Our job is simply to respond to the gift - to be thankful, and to, above all things, love.

Grief Arrives in its Own Time

Florence called me today to tell me it's about time I updated my blog. Yes, it is about time. To say I've been busy is just one excuse that usually suffices, but I have also been sad. I realized these past few weeks that words sometimes can be utterly useless. My dear, dear friend Olivia lost her father unexpectedly, and, as I watched her suffer, watched my usually exuberant friend go silent and see the tears, seemingly without end, fall from her eyes, I suffered with her and for her - because the world had lost a great man and because I could do nothing to take her suffering away. I sat in vigil with her at the hospital, I prayed, but words were not her or my comfort that day.

As I was going through old issues of The Sun Magazine I came across this poem by Stuart Kestenbaum and I thought immediately of Olivia and her sister Maria, two wonderful women who are the product of their God-fearing, honorable parents.

It doesn't announce itself or knock

on the door of your heart. Suddenly

it's right behind you,

looking with great pity

at the back of your neck

and your shoulders on which

it spends days placing a burden

and lifting it. Grief arrives

in its own sweet time, sweet

because it lets you know that

you are alive, time because

what you are holding becomes

the only day there is: the sun stops

moving, the sky grows utterly quiet

and impossibly blue. Behind the blue

are the stars we can't see and beyond

the stars either dark or light,

both of which are endless.

To Olivia and Maria-

I promise one day the grief with subside. It will not entirely dissipate. You will always miss your father, but, at one point, the grief will not seem endless. I love you both very much.

Your Katya

The Key to Happiness - Mud

Yesterday it rained. It was a cool, light rain, which the earth soaked up gradually, turning our otherwise dry, dirt roads into wet, muddy roads and our yellow fields to English pastoral. Having just returned from a trip to San Francisco, where my mother complained of the long winters where it can rain for months at a time, it occurred to me how two places in the same country can be so different. Here the rain is cherished, every drop of it, because it dictates the livelihood of its people.

On this rainy Wednesday, we happened to be burying a one-hundred year old woman, Lina, who has lived in this place all of her life, and has seen more changes than one can count. The priest, during the sermon, spoke of her simplicity and what a impact her simple life had on so many people. I looked down at her still, small body from the choir loft, and thought about all the things she must have seen and experienced in her life from 1907 until her last hour on Bright Friday of 2008. Our culture does not revere the elderly as it used to. The infirm and aged are now a burden, something to put away in a home that deals with them so that we do not have to. They may be frail in body, but what wisdom they have, what stories they carry. They are like buried treasure, something we must search for to find. The way the priest read the absolution prayer over her, stopping between phrases because he was beginning to cry, I realized he had discovered that treasure, while I, too occupied with my own life, had only visited her a few times. I did not know her, but he loved her, and felt acutely the loss that her death brought about. I felt loss at that moment too, for a life I never knew.

After the service, while I was making my way back to the car, the mud was so thick that I began to sink into it in my high heels, trying to carry a stroller, a rather large diaper bag and a squirming one-year old. I felt very silly in my impractical dress - why didn't I just wear boots? Part of me was quite perturbed - Damn this mud, I thought to myself. But just as I was about to bring the heavens down on my head by cursing its fruit, I watched Baba Anna lower herself carefully into her car. Oh, what beautiful, beautiful mud. Our Bozhe has not forgotten us. He has given us this beautiful mud. What a sweet Bozhe we have. I stopped and smiled at her, suddenly feeling quite superficial and childish.

That evening most of the mud had hardened, but there were a few puddles for the taking - Sasha's favorite activity, especially when in his church clothes. We put on our wellies - mine, the signature black, his, green with froggie eyes. We jumped, we stomped, we ran through, so that there was hardly an inch of skin that was not covered with mud. Pavel squealed with delight from his stroller seeing us gallop through the water and laugh out loud. I cannot remember when I felt so free and so full of joy. And it was so simple - my children, a few mud puddles and the willingness to play. I imagine for Lina as a child and a mother it was not much different, only that the mud signified whether or not a crop would grow to its fullness. So many things pass away, but the simple joys do not.

Yes, what a wonderful Bozhe we have. He has rewarded us. He has not forgotten us.

To endure until the end

I remember Father Thomas Hopko once saying that if you do not believe in evil, just try to be good. I have tried to be good, and I have seen the evil one try to bring me to the ground. I have been slothful and self indulgent, and felt very little struggle. Good does not come naturally except to children and those who have the minds of children. To be good takes courage, great effort - to be good means to step into the arena, ready to fight, ready to endure, to be defeated, and then rise again.

Anne Frank writes in her diary that she believes everyone is, deep down, good at heart. This shows tremendous goodness and compassion on her part, as she tried to understand what kind of world allowed such terrible things to happen, and how human beings could treat other human beings in such horrendous ways, but I would have to disagree with her statement. Our framework is from God, is good and holy, for we are created in His image and likeness, but we choose to either build on this framework or to tear it down. We can become so bound by Satan that Christ becomes unrecognizable in us. It is a terrifying image, but it is a true image.

I often fall into an argument with my mother on this very subject. She does not believe in evil, and she finds Anne Frank's statement true and one she lives by. I commend her for this, as she often tries to explain people's behavior not from the stance of good and evil, but from her psychologist's perspective. There is a psychological reason for everything, but she would adamantly disagree with me that we are in the midst of a great warfare for each of our souls.
This is not to say we are to be the judges - only God can judge - or that we can always blame our sinful behavior on the devil, but we are to recognize evil so that we can properly combat it.

I write this today on Great and Holy Tuesday, as I have found, starting with the Bridegroom service on Sunday night, that many circumstances have made it almost impossible for me to have a good and prayerful Holy Week. I came to the service expecting a choir - not one member showed up. I tried to cut a few things in order to save my voice, and by so doing, disrupted what the priest was supposed to do, thus making him perturbed and frustrated with me. A cell phone went off during the reading of the Gospel. Sasha threw a fit. Pavel threw up during a reading from the Kathisma. Yesterday he was diagnosed with an ear infection and I couldn't get to Presanctified. My husband and I have been fighting. I have not attended to my personal prayer. In the midst of all of this - at one point I sat on the steps of the church in tears, so angry I was prepared not to attend any more services for the rest of the week - I see that the evil one is truly at work. He does not want us to be in Church. He does not want us to pray. He wants us to be at enmity with one another, and to walk away angry and in despair, to not partake of the Risen Christ. My realization of this does not excuse my behavior, but it makes me aware that if I am going to attend to the week, I must be vigilant, armed with prayer and asceticism. It is right that I suffer, for by so doing, I am partaking of Christ's passion. As I sit on the steps outside of the church angry and frustrated, I understand only a small part of how Christ must have felt going to His voluntary Passion. But what I have that the disciples did not, is the knowledge of the Resurrection, that all of this will end in victory, even if it does not feel like it at the moment. I must endure to the end as Christ did, knowing Satan will lay out temptations every step of the way. I know I will fall, grow weary. I know I will despair, but my goal is not to despair utterly. Each time I fall, I must rise, pick up my cross, and continue along the way of Christ.

On the Other Side

When the day descends
and the wind blows too strongly,
so that I lose my breath
when I step out of the car,
and the smell of fire sits
in the air like evening mosquitoes
swarming in late July,
I try to remember - Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

I try to remember that on the other side of despair is joy.

The Anticipated Light

Today, when I started my car, I accidentally mistook a selection from Mozart's Requiem on the radio for Christos Voskresi. It was strange, as I am very familiar with this piece of music, and never before had my mind confused the Latin with anything else. But there it was. Christos Voskresi sounding out through the car under the guise of Mozart.

My son Sasha doesn’t quite understand the cycle of the Church yet, so he keeps arguing with me that it is not Lent, but Pascha, and about twenty times a day I am instructed to sing Christ is Risen. It seems odd, my voice carrying throughout the house in high festal soprano on a Friday during Great Lent, but then I realize it does make sense, for the whole point of Lent is to ready ourselves to see the Risen Christ.

So often I find myself falling into the superficial aspects of the Fast, like mourning chicken korma and beef tenderloin, or trying to reason whether it is or is not appropriate to go to the Symphony. The exercise in will-power, to gain control over the desire of the flesh, is good, but I also need to remember why I am doing it. I am putting away all that is unnecessary, so that I can concentrate more fully on Christ, and with this comes great joy. On the other side of doubt, struggle and darkness there is always joy.

I wish I could have remembered this yesterday as I sat on the floor of my office munching away at a bag of Doritos, and then sipping, not so elegantly, the ever-notorious caffeinated, carbonated beverage, feeling very sorry for myself. Most of the time I am fully content. I play with my children, attend to their needs, I prepare the music for services, I write, I clean, I pray. But yesterday on the floor I wanted nothing. Sasha came up to me and asked me to read him a book and I could not even find the energy to stand up. The darkness was so heavy I could not cry, but continued to stare out into the emptiness of my own mind. After a few hours my husband came home. I sat glumly at the table, picking at my lentils and he talked about his day. Both children fell asleep just after six, and he suggested we sit in my office and read together. And there was joy. My listlessness did not completely dissipate, but there was joy. I could see beyond my own shadow on the floor.

We pray for the Lord to take away the spirit of despair, something that I pray all the more fervently for during the prayer of St. Ephraim. I know now despair and darkness will always pursue me, but I also know the despair is part of the joy I feel later, the darkness part of the light.

I understand Lent this year in a way I have not in the past. It is not about what we do and do not give up. It is not about breaking or following the rules. It is about being in a state of anticipation always. We stand, like the wise virgins, waiting for the bridegroom to appear. We eat less, we stop watching television, we stop listening to the radio, so that we can be vigilant, so that nothing distracts us from our vigil outside of the tomb of Christ. We need not wear mournful faces, because we know He is coming. We know He will rise again.