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.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

This sentence is taken from the title of one of Adam Zagajewski's poems, which I happened to find on the last page of The New Yorker from September 24th, 2001. I saved this particular issue from The New Yorker because it was put out in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy. At first glance, the cover looks like it is entirely black, but holding it up to the light I see it is the black outline of the Twin Towers against a charcoal black background. For a moment I feel that I am free falling as I remember the day the world went dark.

I have mixed emotions about The New Yorker. I feel I ought to be blown away by every story and poem I read in it because, after all, it is The New Yorker, and the editors at this magazine are so much more sophisticated and illustrious than I could ever hope to be. But then, I must admit that I am not blown away by most of what the magazine publishes because what most of the fiction and poetry acutely lack is a sense of vulnerability from the author. The fiction is cleverly written. It is well-written, and the pacing is almost always flawless, but I am rarely able to lose myself in it because I feel that I am reading a story written for The New Yorker, and not seeing into someone's soul. In the case of Zagajewski's poem, though, I was able to feel his vulnerability. I read the poem aloud four times in a row, letting his exquisite language dance off my tongue. I have not read something so beautiful in quite some time.

My eyes then were caught up by a full-page advertisement from the ACLU opposite the poem. It screams out in bold letters: WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER LOSE? a. CONTROL OVER YOUR DAUGHTER'S REPRODUCTIVE DECISIONS b. YOUR DAUGHTER In the center is the grave of Rebecca Bell: 1971-1988. She died from an illegal, botched abortion. My immediate reaction was one of horror and sadness - for Rebecca and for her parents. I didn't even think of the baby that had been aborted, for that was not the advertisement's intention. Rebecca Bell's grave stands at the center, but why does it not read: Rebecca Bell: 1971-1988 and the unborn child of Rebecca Bell: 1988-1988? The child is not mentioned, it is not even an afterthought. It is Rebecca Bell who matters, and more important than Rebecca Bell, Rebecca Bell's reproductive rights.

Today is the Sunday of Orthodoxy and Father gave a very heartfelt, powerful sermon about our responsibilities as Orthodox Christians - to proclaim the truth always, just as the defenders of the Icons did. Too often we do not proclaim the truth, and, in fact, nod our heads at falsehoods because we are afraid to offend, while the saints who we commemorate each day lost their very lives.

There are two falsehoods that are being propagated today - 1. That we all believe in the same God, and 2. That abortion is a right and not an atrocity. We tread lightly around these issues. In fact, very often we are ashamed. Someone at the takeout restaurant says - It doesn't matter in the end what church you go to. It's all the same. I nod, smile, and pick up my orange chicken and rice. It's inconvenient to enter into a discussion. I want to eat my orange chicken. I don't want to have any awkwardness the next time I come in for takeout, so I agree to something that I know is not the truth. At dinner with an old friend, I complain about my experience with Curves, the workout center for women. She exclaims - Did you know they donate a huge amount of money to ProLife groups? - Oh, I didn't know, I respond. Why did I not say - I'm ProLife. I didn't want to spoil the meal. I didn't want there to be an uncomfortable silence, or an argument. I, in a sense, agreed with her that ProLife is wrong. Now I am ashamed of myself. I too, who claim to have the truth, the one, undivided Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, am afraid to speak the truth because I have been conditioned to be polite at all times. But today I am putting this away. I will speak the truth always, because it is my responsibility to speak the truth. It is not a suggestion from Christ. It is a command. The priest and bishops are not the sole guardians of the Faith. I am a full member of the Church. I too must be a guardian of the Faith.

Yes, try to praise the mutilated world. Say it is a good thing for women to have innocent lives torn from their very flesh. Say Rebecca's rights are more important than the innocent child's. Be polite, nod. Say - Blessed are the wombs that never bore and the paps which never gave suck. Call good evil and evil good. Yes, try to praise the mutilated world. But also remember. Yes, remember, we will have to give an account for it. We will have to give an account of what was given to us and how we protected it.

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.

A New Song

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord." Psalm 40: 1-3

Tonight the wind is heavy. Through the vent in the laundry room I hear a continual, almost angry tapping. Outside it is bitter cold. The mud I sloshed through yesterday under a bright sun has now frozen, sealing my footprints in the earth. Yesterday I put on the black ropers Nightengale gave me to wear to a County Fair dance two summers ago. The mud had hardened to the boots' heels and left little pebbles of dirt all throughout the entryway. At times I despise the mud, slippery and impossible to keep clean of. I love to wear long city coats, high heels and dress pants. None of these items are fitting for this kind of landscape, yet I continue on, fighting God every step of the way. I will not let go. I will not let go of who I am and where I come from! But who am I? Where did I come from? I, of course, came from God. And I am nothing unto myself. I belong to God.

It isn't as simple as the clothes I prefer to wear, is it, but an overwhelming fear to really change? Yesterday, for a moment, I let go. I walked across the length of the snow covered lawn, across the mud filled lot to where my husband and son were eating oatmeal cookies brought back from Church. I walked quickly, breathing in the warm air, full of the smell of the earth, of cattle, of hay. I wasn't thinking about myself at all, but glorifying God for the beauty He had shown me. I felt full of life, but also free. I felt the same way today when I put on boots and my husband's old college sweatshirt to take the uneven walk out to the mailbox. In the distance I saw the cupolas and three bar crosses, the bells. I thought of how much this image reminded me of village churches in Russia, how I am not quite so far away from everything as I thought.

Yesterday we commemorated the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and yesterday, by utter coincidence, I finished a biography I have been reading about Tsarina Alexandra and I watched the documentary on the return of the Tikhvin Icon. I was filled with so much emotion, both sadness at the tragic history of Russia, and also joy at seeing thousands of faithful lined up outside of the churches in Riga, Moscow and St. Petersburg, some for up to twelve hours, to be able to bow down and venerate the Holy Mother of our Lord in this miraculous Icon. Unto her final breath, the last Tsarina called upon the Lord, assured of His final deliverance. Oh, how faithless we can be here in America. How we forget how many suffered and died for those very privileges we so take for granted today - to go to Liturgy, to venerate Icons, to speak the name of Christ.

I do not want to forget. I do not want to forget what the faithful of Russia did for me. I do not want to take for granted that moment walking through the mud, stopping to look at the church in the distance. I do not want to forget that I do not have to fear for my life in going to the services, or baptizing my children, or having Icons in my home.

Tonight I try to sing a new song. I fight not to fall into loneliness and sadness looking out into the dark, silent night. I try to remember I am surrounded by the saints. I try to remember I belong to God, and that if I wait patiently for Him, he will draw me up, He will set me upon a rock, making my steps secure. He will put in my mouth a new song.