4/10/2016

off highway 36



The waxing gibbous moon smiled in a dark California sky. Beneath it I journeyed quickly up a damp, tree-lined path to my "cell". This was a monastic apartment, one of four in a cabin honoring four apostles. Mine was named for John, who is remembered as an evangelist and theologian. I lay down on the cot provided by four dear women monastics for my weekend pilgrimage and snuggled in under many blankets (not living monastically at all, really, in this comfort, except for having more time to enter into prayer than I usually receive).

It was my final night of three at St. Xenia's Skete near Wildwood, off Highway 36. There'd been abundant variations of March clouds, downpours, wind, and sun (and there would be snow the next morning). Inside a crimson, forest church the prayers began early, the last ones ending past dusk. I'd been fed abundant portions of simple, healthy food. I had met beautiful hens, a mellow rooster, and a rescue dog of shepardish parentage named Noble. Noble likes to guide hiking pilgrims up a hill on the logging road, and he appreciates a carrot for a treat on the way home.




Three nights I'd lain on my cot in wonder. The moon peered in the window. Two women friends in their own apostolic cells breathed evenly at rest.

Partly I slept, partly I marveled. There was space here which was a sensation. With surprise I recognized it as one I first experienced last summer, the day of my surgery in the hospital in Oregon. That July Monday our priest came to my room before the orderlies arrived to take me. He prayed the Orthodox prayers for a Monday (which address angels, those beings circling the throne of heaven ever hymning God), and he listened to my confession to God of my sins.

Now I was fully recovered from anesthesia and fluid drains, my stitches were long ago absorbed and my scar had faded to pink. I lay on a cot in moonlit March hours before Monday prayers, in my forest cell named for John the apostle, in joyous recognition. I recognized that same sensation from July, from, actually, during my surgery: one of extreme donation toward mankind, of identity yet of pure self-lessness, of love in amazing abundance. That's the closest I can come to description, and it doesn't scratch the surface.

Many people might explain this as my fantasy. How can I blame them? I am, most obviously, not an apostle, evangelist, or theologian. The longer I live the more uncool I become. A simple-eating rescue creature, one who meanders ahead, falls behind. I'm scared in the moonlight and grateful for shelter.



It is good that Thou hast humbled me. It is very good. In the instant of surprise, of recognition of heretofore unimagined beauty, a brush with kindness, the breath of angels.

4/01/2016

from an unsafe practice


I like to think of myself as kind and pleasant and safe to be around. Certainly sometimes I am, but also sometimes I'm not. Just ask my family.

A few weeks ago I blogged about Tim's and my friend who is staying in Victoria's old room. At the time I thought of myself as expressing something uncomfortable fairly pleasantly, but thinking back on it I've recognized I was criticizing this man we've known a long while.

He did act strangely at first, but after three weeks he suddenly came out of it and was his old self. Of course, if he'd been developing Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, improvement wouldn't have happened. We three have gone along now, with little ups and downs, pretty well. But nagging at the back of my mind has been my talking to people about my friend without his knowing. This wasn't kind or pleasant or safe. I was ignorant of how things would develop, but that really isn't an excuse. One recent morning I faced into my need to repent to God and apologize to our friend.

I told him I had talked to people and blogged about this stuff behind his back. He took my request for forgiveness very kindly. He mentioned that another friend had worried about his trouble speaking there for a while. He said he was ultra-focused at the time on several things. (I wouldn't be surprised, though he didn't say it, that he was somewhat anxious about coming to live in our Orthodox home. He may have worried Tim and I would try to coerce him to convert.)

This friend is a musician; he belongs to a symphonic band. Now that we're past this awkward phase in our household with him, I listen gratefully of an evening to scales and arpeggios escaping beneath the guest bedroom door. I'm grateful for his ability to focus and to forgive. I hope we'll dwell harmoniously, despite missed notes, a little while longer.


Featured Post

New Playroom

I've been consumed for a few years by care for my parents, so writing has fallen by the wayside. In and for my heart, this has become a ...