Letter from my Grandmother

This is a letter from my Nana, sent to my mother after my mother had a miscarriage and was despairing of ever having children. I often think of the generations of praying women from whom I came, and what an impact that had on me--the firstborn who, after four miscarriages (one, my twin), finally arrived.

February 16, 1960

Darling daughter—

Your precious personal letter is here and I appreciate your confidence in me. Right now I feel like I’m more in a position than ever to offer you encouragement drawn from vital experience. Coping with near-tragedy and the incidental problems—plus anxiety over you, Tom, Dave and Dad nearly “got me down.” But once more, and more truly than ever before, having obeyed the Lord (as hard for me) and having “cast my burdens” upon Him—help and restoration has been coming in from every hand.

I was shown, in a most emphatic way (in the night-watches) that there is no substitute for plain, old-fashioned courage and that if we have little of that by nature, we may have all we need by simply asking for it and believing it will be given…..

I read, somewhere, such a good slant on the verse “ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” The writer said that asking is primary, simple, effective only so far; seeking is asking plus effort; knocking is asking plus effort plus persistence. “Pay without ceasing,” St. Paul said. And I like to remember that he, too, had to be literally thrown, prostrated, knocked down before he could say “Lord, what wilt Thou have me do” and later that wonderful “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content”…..

Dear one, do not despair of receiving answers to your problems. The answers are all there, just tune in on them. This is not Pollyanna stuff. It is tried and true. Remember we are not promised “joy without sorrow, peace without pain.” Even our Lord Himself was not given that. Be we are promised comfort, sympathy, courage, and the “peace which passeth understanding”—if we believe and obey.

Never be ashamed of your tears and tensions, dear—only if you hang on to them as I’ve seen many do. Even our Lord was “agitated” (Moffat…) at Gethsemane, and in anguish. But after the cross, the resurrection!

I couldn’t offer a person like you pious platitudes. These are truths—the “word made flesh”…

P.S. Do not worry about the $500. Don’t need it now, anyway. The “way did not open” (Quaker) for the apt…..Glad you are going to get part-time job. You need to get out of house and be active.

PSS I’m so proud of you how you have taken your “low blow” and anxiety. It pears you have already “tuned in” or whatever analogy you like!

For Christian Unity

Tonight I am filled with emotion. Tonight my daughter received her first communion as an Orthodox Christian, after having been in the Orthodox Church for eight years. And tonight a bishop who is beloved to me received his last communion for the forseeable future.

This will be incomprehensible for my friends who are not Orthodox, and I have tried to avoid this kind of controversy in my writings. But the fact remains that Orthodox Christians, particularly in the United States, use the denial of communion as a weapon against each other. This beloved bishop has had enough. He feels that, as a bishop, if he is not taking a stand against this kind of disunity, he is part the problem.

I have never understood the Orthodox Communion Litmus Test, but it goes something like this: An Orthodox Christian visiting another Orthodox church approaches the chalice for communion. The priest has been instructed by his bishop to stop the communicant and ask, "What church do you go to?" By this he means, "What jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church are you a part of?" If the communicant answers with the "right" jurisdiction -- that is, one whose bishop his bishop likes and approves of, the communicant is allowed to receive. If not, the communicant is denied.

For a group of Christians that calls itself the True Church, this is pretty disappointing. The True Church can't even share communion with other members of the True Church? What can the "heretics" be thinking about us?

The word "canonical" is often bandied about and this has always left me even more confused. "Canonical," as far as I've always understood, means "according to canon." And we do have canons in the Church -- ancient traditions that bind us together (or at least, are supposed to.) After 2,000 years, none of us is completely "canonical." In the United States, we violate the canons by, for example, having two Orthodox bishops in the same city. Nevertheless, this word "canonical" is used to mean "my bishop doesn't like your bishop." The "canonicity" of said bishop is not actually in question. It's not about how scrupulously his group follows Church Tradition. It's about whether said bishop is on the approved "list" put together by the bishops with the most money, turf and power.

I will anger people by saying these things. And to be honest, this makes me nervous. But, as this beloved bishop pointed out, just before receiving his last communion, Jesus was scourged and mocked and crucified, while modern Christians tend to dislike being inconvenienced or made unpopular for the sake of speaking out.

This does not mean that I have courage. I don't. I grieve every day about the rift between me and many of my Orthodox friends. We don't talk about it because we do care about each other, and it hurts to talk about. Saying these things will create even more distance between us.

But watching this bishop, who is beloved to me, (and has been since I was a troubled teenager), receive his last communion broke my heart. I know how to write. And it is not for me to remain silent any more.

And even amid all the sorrow and disunity,

CHRIST HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH, AND UPON THOSE IN THE TOMBS BESTOWING LIFE.

Holy Week

Thomas and his dad, Fr. Andrew.

A blessed Holy Week and Pascha to all!

Faith and Skepticism

Today I'm pondering my last post and noticing that it was a lot different in tone from my previous posts, which were written two or more years ago. This is partly a matter of audience -- it was originally written to a Christian online forum of which I am a part, and I think I've directed other posts to a somewhat more diverse group of readers.

But I'm also thinking about how much I've "settled in" to my faith in the past several years. And that this isn't a bad thing.

When I decided to come back to Christianity after having had a bit of a tiff with the Christian God and His people, it was because I'd figured out I can't do spirituality any other way. I need the Christian story and I need my faith to be Jesus-centered and I need for Jesus to be the God-Man, who was interested enough in relationships with people that He'd come in a form we can understand.

So as much as I had come to admire aspects of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Neo-Paganism and other faiths, I realized that I had to have Jesus as God or I'd be miserable.

I've said before that the faith of my youth had an enormous emphasis on prooving itself to skeptics. Since I grew up with a skeptic, it seemed very important to me to prove that Christianity was rational, factual and ultimately impervious to argument.

But when I came back to faith, I did so with the realization that I can't prove any of this stuff -- I just need it. So I more-or-less "special-ordered" my faith:

• God is Mystery (check)


• God is "everywhere present and fills all things" (check)


• God loves and is a befriending God (check)


• God came in the flesh to save us from death (check)


• Jesus, who is God Incarnate, died and then came back to life (check)


• We are never, at any time, without hope (check)

But a funny thing happened on the way to the altar. The first few years, I was more a skeptic-with-hope; now I seem not to need the skepticism anymore. And this is a strange realization -- that skepticism was as much a need for me as faith was. Skepticism was my safety-net, just in case I ended up being a fool. If, at the end of all things, my beliefs about Jesus turned out to be a fantasy, I wanted to be able to say, "Yeah, but I wasn't absolutely sure. I wasn't operating on blind faith. I STILL HAVE A BRAIN, ya know."

Of course, I wasn't sure who it was I'd be saying this to, because if the atheists are right, I won't exist anymore, anyway.

Am I simply more psychologically invested in my faith? Yes, definitely. But it's more than that. It's a kind of caution-to-the-wind thing -- a lack of concern over whether others find me foolish. And what happens now is that I encounter God more frequently, now that I don't hold back. There's a freedom in this -- in being able to light the candles in the chapel and not second-guess myself in the middle of the night, but to simply know that Christ is present with me. It is, I think, something like the stages of falling in love. At first, we are unsure of the beloved -- we don't know whether we can trust him, even though we are attracted and he seems attracted back. But after some time goes by, the relationship develops a surety. I've noticed this in 26 years of marriage. And I notice it in my faith.

So I find I am at a new phase now. One that fills me with wonder.

Thinking 'bout the Saints

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Hebrews 11:32-38

I know a man who, when it is his turn to read this passage, cannot get through it without tears. I wonder if it is because after years of not only studying, but celebrating daily the lives of the Saints, these events do not seem to him like something that only happened in Biblical times, but at all times in our history as the Church.

Today's my birthday and I'm thinking about Saints. (I wish there was a connection, but there's not). On this day (in the Gregorian calendar) we celebrate The Hieromartyr Charalampus, Bishop of Magnesia, the Martyrs Porphyrius and Baptus and Three Women Martyrs, who suffered in the year 202, The Holy Virgin Martyrs Ennatha, Valentina and Paula, who suffered in the year 308, and Saint Prochorus of the Caves, who was a native of Smolensk, and entered the Kiev Caves monastery under the igumen John (1089-1103). (For more go to www.oca.org and click Feasts and Saints)

In looking at the Saints listed above, I would note that only one of them, St. Prochurus, could be called specifically an "Orthodox" Saint. This is because the Church split in 1054. Up to then, we were one Church. (There were no Protestants until the Reformation, several hundred years later.) So it begs the question -- if these Saints are our great-grandparents in the faith, why don't most American Christians know about them?

That's how I've felt as a convert to Orthodoxy. And I grew up in a liturgical church. While the Saints are not God, neither are they ordinary. They are the ones who have, at great expense, pressed into God to the point that His light shined through them. Here's just one example from Scripture of their not-ordinariness:

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.Revelation 20:4

I first began reading hagiographies before I was Orthodox. I was writing a book about St. Vaclav ("King Wenceslas"), who was a 10th century saint. The things said about him seemed so fanciful to me that I despaired of finding some "real history" to read about him. All the miraculous stuff was thrown right in with the "real" stuff. I read hagiographies that way for several years, kind of winking and snickering, even at the gruesome deaths of martyrs. It seemed so over-the-top.

Now it occurs to me that I never winked and snickered at the crucifixion, nor at the story of the youths in the fiery furnace, nor at the beheading of John the Baptist. Those stories seemed "real" to me because they were in the Bible. And the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and that he previously walked around with Shadrach, Mishak and Abednigo in the flames was easy for me to swallow because I'd been told those stories since childhood. Yet I'd discount as fanciful the stories of the Christians who followed over the 2000 years since the Resurrection and gave their lives wholly to Christ. They gave themselves way, way, way more than I have, and many are doing the same today.

So I think it is at our peril that we discount the Saints. Without them, we would have no Bible, no Church, no Good News. It would have been lost to the ages, just as many of their lives have been to generations of Christians.

Why Study the Bible?

As soon as I write this title I am aware of its tract-like applications. My mind conjures up images of well-scrubbed, smiling people in sensible shoes. They want YOU to study the Bible because if you do, you will be a better person, which they very much want you to be. Their smiles turn down a little at the corners when they ponder that you do not study the Bible – that you can’t quote verses the way they can, that probably you are very Immoral as a result. They beckon to you from the picture and offer you a casserole.

When you open the tract, there is a cartoon of the Fires of Hell, in which you will be scorched for not reading the Bible. It is very sad that you will be roasting there and the people with the casserole want you to study the Bible so that you can avoid this. They do not want you taking their casserole to the Fires of Hell where it will become inedible.

Forgive me. I am afraid my baggage is showing. But I do love the Bible. I am a story writer and a story teller and a poet and it is partly for this reason that the Bible is beloved to me.

The other day I was talking about a Bible story with one of the teens who hangs out at our house. It was the story of Joseph and his brothers and though this particular teen attends church regularly, he didn’t know the story. The Bible can be intimidating when read in isolation. It’s an old book. But I told our friend the story – how Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, (because Joseph was rather an arrogant jerk), so they threw him in a dry cistern and then sold him to some traders and told their dad he’d been eaten by a wild animal. How Joseph was framed by the wife of his employer (who was, um, “interested” in him) and thrown into prison for several years, but later became a powerful man in Egypt because of his ability to interpret dreams. How, when there was a famine many years later, Joseph’s brothers had to come to him (not knowing who he was) and beg grain from him. And how, after putting his brothers through the mill so to speak, Joseph finally told them who he was. And he wept so loudly that he could be heard from a great distance. And how he then invited his father and brothers to live in Egypt.

I love that story. I love its tension and its messed-up family and the humanness of Joseph and his flawed but simple faith in God. And when I was finished telling it, our friend was chuckling and rather intrigued that such gritty stuff would be in the Bible.

I think we need these stories. More and more our culture is losing them, not passing them on, even banning them from the public square (but that’s a whole other discussion). And I think it is a great loss. Not only do we end up with blank spots in any literary study if we don’t have a basic knowledge of the Bible, we also lose out on shared stories. (And no, I am not ignoring that there are other shared stories we could benefit from as well.)

Of course, if you know me, you understand that the Bible is more than ancient literature to me. It is a framework by which I attempt to understand a God who is beyond knowing. In the Gospels – the stories of Jesus – I begin to experience the character of God by reading what Jesus did and said when he walked the earth. And even though I have read those stories over and over, I hunger for them again – how Jesus healed the sick and walked on water and raised the dead and spoke with such gentleness to the disenfranchised and with such forcefulness to the self-righteous. I need to return to those stories because when I read them it changes how I act during the day – how I view things. It takes me out of myself long enough to see the beauty of those around me.

Orthodox Christians view all other people on the earth as icons of Christ. If we love Christ, and are reminded of that love daily, we are motivated to treat everyone we meet with dignity and caring (even the self-righteous, who were loved by Him in their blindness.) Reading the Bible is a reminder that I need – and lately, the only Bible reading I have been doing is Sunday mornings at church.

So, we are going to begin a first-Saturday Bible study this weekend at our place at 4:30. We’re going to start with the Gospel of St. Matthew – read a little, discuss it, find out what the early Fathers and Mothers of the Church had to say about it. Then we’ll have a Vespers service, which is an evening service of ancient prayers and psalms. After that, we’ll have a potluck.

Everyone is welcome – you needn’t attend our church or be Orthodox to participate. Contact me if you are interested and I’ll give you directions. Maybe I’ll even make a casserole.

Mother of God

When Mary uttered her brief and obedient, “So be it,” I hardly dare say what happened then — the word of the creature brought the Creator into the world.

— Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, 1874

Today I am thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day, so that’s probably why. But I think about Mary a lot these days, being still somewhat at the beginning of my love for her — as if she is the mother I didn’t know I had.

Anything I write about women and Christianity is bound to be controversial. Friends ask me why I’d be part of a faith that seems so focused on men. Others worry that maybe I worship Mary. Some say — rather hopefully — that she is really our version of the Goddess. And to these questions I have to answer 1) There’s more to ancient Christianity than meets the eye 2) Venerate and worship are two different things 3) No, not a goddess, and that’s the beauty of it.

I have been in communities where I felt patronized and minimized as a woman — where men patted me on the head and told me that my role was “to be a support to my husband,” or “to bear children.” I have also been in communities where men were considered somewhat evil, or at least rather pathetic, but we forgave them anyway (maybe).

It wasn’t until I attended an Orthodox service that I experienced a community offering profound reverence to a woman:

More honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without corruption thou gavest birth to God the Word. True Theotokos, we magnify thee!

“Theotokos” means “God-bearer” and it’s what Orthodox call Mary. The implications are astonishing: a human-divine cooperation by which God becomes physically present in the world, in a form we can relate to and understand.

For Mary to have “accepted Christ into her heart” as she did (making her the first Christian), she had to have a deeply intimate connection and transparency with the Divine, cultivated over years. Tradition tells us Mary was brought to the Temple when she was three to be raised there, and that she left her parents and climbed happily up the steps as soon as she arrived. We are told that she slept in the Holy of Holies (which, if one is familiar with Jewish tradition, is outrageous. I was shocked when I first heard that teaching. But there is something quite wondrous about it.)

Orthodox believe that we are created in the image of God and that our journey is to remember who we are in that image — to come back to our Edenic selves, as it were, in a process called Theosis, or Divinization. This does not mean we are the Source of the universe; rather we journey closer and closer to the Source, until we become united with the Divine as iron takes on fire. The Theotokos is a perfect example of this, and as such she gives me hope. Mary is not a goddess, because she doesn’t have to be. She does not have special powers that I don’t have. She is an ordinary human who opened herself fully to God. This is something every single human being can do. In fact, it is our destiny. That is why we can hymn a human woman so extravagantly.

Mary elevates not only women, but all humanity, by reminding us of who we are and of our incredible potential for goodness. In mother-love she calls my attention to the wind of the Divine stirring in and around me — and gently prods me to have the courage to say, “So be it.”