Nearly Orthodox
Day 30: S'mores
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I admit, I had hoped to simply reblog and draw attention to what would most assuredly be an amazing post, maybe even complete with recipes, from OhSheCooks. When I checked her blog for something to steal share though, I came up empty on this front. Blurgh. You see, I don’t care for S’mores. I just don’t. Go ahead and judge harshly if you wanna. Haters gonna hate. I don’t get the attraction,…
Nearly Orthodox
Day 29: St Herman of Alaska
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I somehow neglected to post yesterday for the blog challenge. My only excuse is that it was a weird day. If we were talking in person and I knew you really well I’d probably tell you it was a weird effing day and I don’t swear all that much (anymore.) It’s nothing specific, nothing to worry about; odd circumstances, some holiday stress, some free floating anxiety, maybe a bit of hormonal shifting.…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Eight: Monastics
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For today’s prompt I pondered many directions to take the entry and in the end I kept coming back to this piece that I’d written a while ago. If all goes to plan this excerpt will appear in my book, “Nearly Orthodox” that will be coming out this summer. 🙂 —— By Easter the second year we attended Redeemer in Nashville, Dave was finished with regular attendance at church again. He was…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Six: Deborah
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The prompt today being, “Deborah” gave me some trouble to be honest. I did a little research, did a little digging, did a lot of thinking and what kept coming back to me was that tree. Deborah’s tree. It was a place so well associated with her that it took her name, “She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Six: Oil Lamps
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On the shelves in the first house we owned, Dave and I kept a collection of things; souvenirs of our travel, gifts from friends and family, odd knick-knacks we’d found or acquired in one way or another. We kept the collection on the blonde wood shelves in the diningroom of our craftsman bungalow on the north side of Chicago. Before that they’d lived on the top of the crates in our loft…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Five: Snowflake
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The move from Chicago to Nashville in 2005 was an adjustment. The one thing we pined for in the winter was snow. Though middle Tennessee gets thin layers of powdery snow throughout the short winter season it’s nothing like Chicago. When the forecast calls for snow in Tennessee schools close, people panic and grocery stores run out of milk and bread as if milk and bread are the two things anyone…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-four: The Zygote
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After the opening proclamation, the Great Litany is chanted. This litany begins every liturgical service of the Orthodox Church, as well as virtually all sacraments and special services. It is the all-embracing prayer of the Church for everyone and everything. It consists of petitions to which the people respond: Lord have mercy. -Orthodox Church in America At Liturgy we pray for the world, every week, without fail. We pray for the world…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Three: Christmas Trees
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There’s a lot of discussion about how early people are beginning to decorate for the holiday season. I know people who put the tree up the moment the Thanksgiving turkey is cleared from the table and I know people who wait and bide their time where this is concerned. We always wait but it’s not for any deep or metaphorical apprehension of the season. It’s because I kill trees. I kill trees…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-Two: St. Nicholas
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Being raised Catholic, when I think of the Feast of St. Nicholas I am always reminded of chocolate coins. Every December 5th we’d pull out the Christmas stockings and hang them on the mantel and in the morning we’d wake to find the stockings filled in the night by “St. Nick.” There were stickers and markers and bags of chocolate coins. Though many people think first of Santa Claus and “Jolly ol…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty-One: Gifts
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“…gifts bespeak relationship. Not just the simple binary relationship of two men in a cafe, either, nor that of friends and lovers: gifts do not just move, they move outward into some larger circle.” -Lewis Hyde “The Gift” We don’t need any more stuff. It could be that I’m overwhelmed with house rehab or the weight of the season or the simple truth that gift giving has never been my forte but…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twenty: Incense
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Incense is a trigger. Usually my fainting spells are spurred by the smell of hospital rooms or the sight of needles or blood but incense has become a trigger too. For a number of years I could not enter a Catholic church when incense was being used without getting light-headed. I’d spent a great deal of my grade school years greeting the marble floor of the church with my skull, my limp…
Nearly Orthodox
Day 19: Handel's Messiah
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Messiah is not a typical Handel oratorio; there are no named characters, as are usually found in Handel’s setting of the Old Testament stories, possibly to avoid charges of blasphemy. It is a meditation rather than a drama of personalities, lyrical in method; the narration of the story is carried on by implication, and there is no dialogue. — Christopher Hogwood Oratorio (n.) “long musical composition, usually with a text based on…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Eighteen: Feet
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A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. Rev 12:1 In an alcove at St Teresa of Avila Church stood a statue of Mary. She wore blue robes over her white tunic, hands outstretched and smiling serenely. Her head was crowned with a circle of stars and she stood upon a globe, one…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Seventeen: Holiday Depression
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Last night after packing and sorting things in the formerly flooded basement I flung myself on the couch. The idea of dinner loomed in my head and the kids began to make noises about “being bored.” They’ve had the last five days off school and Dave and I spent those days cleaning up the basement to be ready for the rehab to come after that water leak from the refrigerator upstairs destroyed…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Sixteen: Feast of St. Andrew
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Let us gaze upon these stars and marvel at their brilliance! When Andrew, whom we commemorate today, found the Lord of all, he cried to his brother Peter, “We have found the Messiah!” -St. John Chrysostom The icon shows him later in life, white hair and long beard but he was young and working as a fisherman with his brother, Peter, when they met Christ on the shores of Galilee. It is…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Fifteen: Avarice (love of money)
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“And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll’s house, a voice would start whispering: “There must be more money! There must be…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Fourteen: Giving Thanks (as a nation)
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Our trip to New York this past summer was a whirlwind. We saw an opportunity to go with very little notice. Dave had a client meeting in the area and the flights were cheap and available. We packed up everyone, made a hasty plan, booked a room and embraced the adventure of it all. With three days in the city we stayed in the heart of Times Square and made that our…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Thirteen: Eucharist
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Eu·cha·rist Origin late Middle English: from Old French eucariste, based on ecclesiastical Greek eukharistia ‘thanksgiving,’ from Greek eukharistos ‘grateful,’ from eu ‘well’ + kharizesthai‘offer graciously’ (from kharis ‘grace’). I could toss around the word, “transubstantiation” all day long. The word clung to me for years as I wandered from my Catholic upbringing. I can remember key historical dates, some stories of the Saints, major doctrines of the church and the idea of…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Twelve: Vestments
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I’ve written already here about my resistance to being told what to wear. It’s that inner punk rocker having a tantrum. When I saw the topic for today that was my first thought. Tossing it aside to see what else I could find in my brain to write about I came next to the idea of writing about what my boys wear to church every week. It might be the same “nice”…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Eleven: Turkey
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There are some memories I have to fact check with my mom, my brothers or my sister because they are so strange and outrageous that I cannot imagine it’s actually true. This is one of them. We were one of the first people on our street to bring home a microwave. The Amana Radarange had a dial-centric control panel and lots of chrome. We were just grazing the start of the 80’s…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Ten: Words
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This essay first appeared in the Ruminate Magazine blog earlier this year. In this season of waiting, examination and hope it felt right, when given the “choice” of topic for the blog challenge to pull this one out. Also, I’ve been a little cranky lately. ………………. Better safe than sorry… The word was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think, before I had a chance to choose carefully…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Nine: Sabbath
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One thing we’re discovering about owning a Leopard Gecko as a pet is that not only do you keep a reptile, you also keep crickets and mealworms. It’s like a whole “circle of life” thing over here. At first, Scully ate small crickets, about the length of my fingernail. They were small, quiet and fast. I’d find escapees randomly hopping along the floor from time to time. Now that he’s older, Scully…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Eight: Canned Goods
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I have a habit of asking “why.” I’m convinced that a big part of the length of my three years as a Catechumen was due to this habit. It ought to be noted then, that when the prompt for today came down the pike from Fr John Peck at the Preacher’s Institute it was a stretch to not question the thinking there. Canned goods. Was it just a whim? Was it something…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Seven: Holy of Holies
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When the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried the Spirit of the Lord with them. Shored up on poles and trudging through the heat they would carry the Ark of the New Covenant which housed the ten commandments given to Moses. They would follow the cloud by day and the column of fire by night and when they stopped to rest, they would lay down the Ark and make camp. The…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Six: Glory
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Who is the King of Glory How shall we call Him? He is Emmanuel the promised of ages. When I hear the word, “Glory” this old song is what comes to mind first and it’s appropriate, this being the Nativity Fast and all. When I was a kid, we sang “The King of Glory Comes” during Advent for the most part. It felt ancient, almost tribal and it stuck to me somehow. Because the…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Five: A Good Work
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“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” -Phillipians 1:6 We made the transition from homeschooling to “real” schooling this year for all four of the kids. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m the helicopter mom now. When we homeschooled I was all about adventure and self-directed learning and following instincts, sending them to “real” school has shown me to the be the…
Nearly Orthodox
Day Four: Choice
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In ancient Rome there was a poem About a dog who found two bones He picked at one He licked the other He went in circles He dropped dead Freedom of choice Is what you got Freedom of choice! -“Freedom of Choice” Devo The topic for today’s blog challenge was left up to the writer, an open theme, write what you like and that kind of sucks frankly. I’ve typed and backspaced…
