Snatched Away

"In the normal course of family events, every other thing got snatched from her hands: her hairbrush, the TV clicker, the soft middle part of her sandwich, the last Coke she'd waited all afternoon to open. She'd once had a dream of birds pulling the hair from her head in sheaves to make their red nests."

--from Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver  

True story, that quote. 

"Once you're a mom, you really don't have anything that's yours anymore. Everything you have belongs to your kids," my aunt said to me the other day.

Yes. Also a true story.

Before I had two little boys, I took for granted such luxuries as:

going to the bathroom alone

having my own things that were whole, clean, and not reeking of spit-up

sleeping through the night

decorating with things that are beautiful and breakable (and doing so in low-lying places)

sitting for five consecutive minutes at a time.  

And now, everything I have, apparently, is up for grabs: time, space, stuff, even my very self. My flabby gut and stretch marks are a testament to this. Even the kitchen sink (and the bathroom sink, for that matter) is theirs for the taking, it seems. My older son monopolizes it every morning, splashing and spraying water as we try to brush our "teef". 

This daily "snatching" in its many forms has been a source of great irritation to me as I crash, bang, and fall through this vocation of mothering. It seems (more than I was consciously aware of before) that I really like having things that are mine. It drives me crazy that my "personal bubble" is always being burst by someone touching, pulling, grabbing, spitting up on and interrupting me. (And it often feels like the little birds of sleep deprivation have even stolen all the coherent thoughts out of my head).

No, I have absolutely nothing of value that my youngins have not snatched away. The thing is, I am starting to accept (intellectually, at least), that this "snatching" actually may be beneficial to me. 

Kenosis is a Greek term for "emptiness" or "emptying out." This word is often used in Christian theology, particularly in the Orthodox church, to describe the process of "self-emptying" we go through as we strive to love. We surrender our own will so that we can do the will of God. 

In my case, this "self-will" does not go down without a fierce fight. It seems I will beg and plead and kick and scream against circumstance before it finally snatches, wrenches, drop kicks and drags away what I want. My experience of kenosis does not feel very glamorous or graceful or even holy most of the time; it feels more like throwing up the virus of all things vain and proud and selfish after being nauseated by them for so long. 

Even my desires that seem benign and even noble--like wanting to follow a sign to an "organic heirloom plant sale" yesterday or wanting to get a "good night's sleep"--end up becoming selfish wants that I give up only when a screaming and crying infant drags them out of me. 

Okay God, you win. 

As C.S. Lewis once put it, I'm a "have-it-Your-way" mother trying to learn "Thy-will-be-done"--and it's not easy. And yet, every so often, I have an encounter with another person who makes me want to do better and be better:

Like my aunt who took care of her kids all day then worked the night shift at a nursing home.

Like my friend who gives her son with special needs blenderized meals through a feeding tube every day. 

Like my uncle and aunt who organize yearly fundraisers to find a cure for cystic fibrosis, the disease plaguing two of their three children.

Like my mom and dad who bring bubbles and sidewalk chalk for my kids, clothes for me, and dinner for a party of seven when they come to visit.

I used to think a hero was someone who performed grandiose feats to the admiration of any and all onlookers, but now I'm starting to believe that heroes are all around me, living great sacrificial lives virtually unnoticed. They are heroes by habit, achieving kenosis by performing one small act of love after another as they go about their daily routine. A bottle of bubbles here, another blended meal through the feeding tube there--acts that are seemingly small but mighty in love,  mighty in the eyes of God Who sees these mites being offered to Him through the "least of these".

"A small but persistent discipline is a great force; for a soft drop falling persistently, hollows out hard rock" 

writes St. Isaac of Syria. 

The "ascetic of love" hollows too, slowly and over time. This, I think, is what is meant by the "perseverance of the saints": To keep doing, to keep giving, to keep loving...a little at a time.

As I marveled at my aunt's ability to often run on four hours of sleep and / or to stay up for 24 hour periods as she balanced caring for kids by day and working at night, she said to me, "Oh honey, you'll be amazed at the stamina you develop..." 

As my sister watched me in action in the go-go-go throes of stay-at-home motherhood in a recent visit, she deemed a mother's inability to rest, "mommy momentum."

Perhaps "mommy momentum" is nothing more than the grace of God imbuing me with strength to rise to the challenges of love that are daily set before me. If so, may "mommy momentum" never elude me, even as my role in life changes and evolves. May it be the force compelling me to daily acts of heroism that hollow my heart of selfishness and snatch me away in love.  

Extreme Listening

from our zoo trip with "pa"

"I never learn anything from listening to myself."

--from Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

A few nights ago, I had the privilege of attending a book discussion group with some ladies from the area around our new home. As we discussed Kingsolver's novel, I found out a little about the women in the group: their thoughts and opinions, their families, their convictions, their dreams. 

As the "new kid on the block" (as my friend Mary-Ann put it), I felt compelled to try to shut my mouth and open my ears; to practice "extreme listening" by soaking in what these women had to say rather than telling them what's on my mind.

This exercise turned out to be surprisingly harder than I thought. Though I told myself it would be more advantageous to listen and learn, I found myself struggling to restrain my tongue, to contain opinion, to suspend judgment, and to ask questions rather than prattle on and give advice. 

"Don't fix," a pastor once told a group Bible study I attended. He meant: don't try to solve others' problems, give advice, or try to help. Just listen. Just be.

Easier said than done!

It seems that in order to really listen to others, I have to unglue my vision from my egocentric navel-gazing and turn outward. Not in order to lose myself, but in order to pay attention to someone else. 

"Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother or sister," we prayed in the Orthodox Christian church over and over during Lent. This part from the Prayer of St. Ephraim is something I hope to hang onto even into the brightness of the Paschal season--and yet, doing so is a work in progress.

During the book group sharing, I found myself looking at each of the women and trying to determine who they reminded me of from my life. This involved a whole bag of comparing, contrasting, and t-a-l-k-i-n-g in my head; it involved a perspective centered around me, me, me and my life.    

"There are some people who are always quiet on the outside, and yet always talking in their heart. Then there are others that, though seemingly always talking, are silent in their heart" a friend recently told me.

My husband can be a really big talker. And yet, often when I ask him what's on his mind, he says, "Nothing." 

Nothing. Really?

I used to be critical of this--how can you be thinking about nothing?-- but now I am starting to think he is one who is quiet in his heart. That is, he doesn't have so much going on in there that there is no room for anyone else. He can be open and available to others--he can talk to someone else about what's on their heart without making everything about him.

This is harder for me. It is hard for me to quiet my inner world to really consider someone else's experience. Trying to "put myself in someone else's shoes" is an exercise that often becomes about me: what would I do if I were them? How would I feel? How would I respond or react? 

I often fail to realize that whoever I am considering is someone else altogether, outside my experience, not me. Though I may have insight into the life of another, I cannot fully get inside someone's head, heart, and life. And this is why making judgments and giving advice are often futile exercises.

I think of parents who have a child with special needs. Or spouses who married someone from a different culture or country. What a daily exercise they must practice in understanding--what a habit of letting go they must cultivate: letting go of expectations, of control, of trying to make someone else into who I think they should be.  

In truth, perhaps everyone should do this: to practice being more understanding. And yet, for me, I often fail. Especially with those closest to me. Though I may attend to my family's vital needs, how often do I try to cater our life together to my preferences and predilections while overlooking the heart of my husband and children? 

Like how I think my toddler would love to see the animals in a trip to the zoo and yet he only wants to play in the water fountains?

Or how I could give him all the toys in the world and yet he would rather play with our vacuum and eat sticks and rocks?

Or how I could try to make a gourmet meal and my husband would rather have macaroni and cheese?

Listening to others may not just be about hearing speech but opening myself to what's inside the heart of another.

Granted, I also do not believe I am meant to be a doormat, letting everyone walk all over me without being seen or heard. What is the value of sharing if I put no stock in my own thoughts, opinions, and values? And what allows us to relate as people if we don't share some common traits? 

And yet, for a talker like me, perhaps it is sometimes best to just be quiet. To just be. 

Since converting to Orthodox Christianity, I have struggled to read the lives of the saints. Their piety either seems totally anachronistic and hard to relate to my contemporary experience, or their life story seems too close for comfort. The harrowing and heroic lives of great modern souls often seem unimaginable and / or unattainable. I am afraid to consider living their sufferings--or I am hard-pressed to imagine myself being able to attain such piety.

Therein lies the problem with my comparisons. I (again) make things all about me. 

When I compare the lives of others to my own, I fail to acknowledge and appreciate the life of another for its own merit. Their lives become standards or stories I long to possess and embody, rather than people to consider by their own unique right. 

If I am able to surrender my vanity and pride, I free both of us to be who we really are. I don't have to be St. Mary of Egypt or St. Herman of Alaska (the female version) or St. Maria of Paris (or Wonderwoman). I only have to be me.   

And if I can stop writing myself into the life stories of others, I can simply appreciate them for who they are--and maybe learn a little something from them without becoming them. 

Extreme listening is about opening myself to another without losing myself in another. 

"O Lord and Master of my life, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother or sister..."

Grant me to read your life story without writing myself into it. 

Thanks for a fun morning at the zoo, pa!

Christ is Risen!

My husband and brother-in-law, back in the day

Last night, my Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters packed their Pascha (aka "Orthodox Easter") baskets, packed out their parishes, and held Vigil for Christ's Resurrection. 

We planned to go to service together as a family. We put the kids to bed around 8 so that they might sleep a little before we would take them to church around 11.

Well, as the time neared to head off to church, I found both babies still deep in slumber. I started to have the sinking realization that waking them to take them to the night service would only end in tears and travail, a scene likely to be amplified in our small church that was expected to be packed to overflowing for this Feast of feasts. After agonizing and praying, I finally made the hard decision to stay home with the boys.

Pascha is truly the Day of days, the pinnacle of life in Christ and in the Church. And, to be with others in the Church, to pray together, to celebrate, to receive the Eucharist on this day, well, there's nothing better. There's nothing else. And yet, as I realized last night, perhaps sometimes life's circumstances will prevent me from partaking in this event. 

God willing, I will be granted seasons to draw near to God in a more concerted way--to pray more attentively, to attend all the services the church has to offer, the keep watch on Pascha Eve and partake of the body and blood of Christ in the wee hours of that blessed morning. It is possible though, that this season of mothering two children under the age of two is not that time.
 

And yet, removed from the Paschal festivities this year, I was reminded that the truth and beauty of Pascha is not the service itself, but rather the rising of Christ. And that will happen whether I am there or not.

Brothers...

Outside my window there is a streetlamp. It burns throughout the night until dawn, when it switches off and the rising sun takes its place. 

In the season of Lent, we meditate on suffering, war against our passions, resist evil. Because of this, I used to think Lent was sort of like battling with shadowy boogeymen that come out at night. But now I'm starting to think that maybe that's not how it is. 

Maybe the Lenten struggle is more like turning off the lesser lights so the greater Light can shine. 

As we extinguish the shiny appeal of rich food, riotous entertainment, stimulating distraction, and all manner of time-wasting and soul-destroying vices, we see God more clearly. 

We shut off the streetlight in our heart because it is not needed when our lives are illumined by the rising sun.

My husband and bro-in-law with grandpa

 When my heart is oriented towards Christ, then perhaps when life dictates I must miss out on His presence in the Eucharist, the longing I feel for the beauty of the Church and for Communion can be as much a prayer as chanting through the Paschal service.

I say this with much trepidation, for it is easy to deceive myself. What I might discern as an "inability" to make the journey to and the struggle through church can actually be just a casual and complacent attitude toward the gift I am given in receiving Christ there. Had I not just taken my children to Divine Liturgy Saturday morning, had we not attended many Holy Week services, there is no way I could have even considered missing the Paschal service. No, the strength and love of God given through Communion is to essential to life. It is life.

And yet, when I do have to miss it, my absence can serve to heighten that gift if my heart is properly disposed to it.

"Piety, piety," wrote Saint Maria of Paris during her life. "But where is love that can move mountains?"

If I attend all the services, keep the fast, and partake of Holy Communion every time it is offered, none of it will matter unless it opens my heart to Christ's love and empowers me to live in and share that love.    

Especially for a neurotic like me, the "law of love" is hard to grasp. In Orthodoxy, there are many "rules"--rules about prayer, fasting, almsgiving, church attendance, etc., etc. Rules to help us "stay on the path," so to speak. Rules to help us, in a sense, be Christians. And yet--and yet--sometimes love requires the breaking of those rules. 

Brothers with dad...

 At the beginning of Great Lent our priest told us a story. To preface, it is customary in the Orthodox Church to keep a strict fast on Holy Friday, for this is the dark day Christ was crucified. Anyway, there was a certain time in history when there was an intense persecution of Christians. A bishop appealed to the Emperor to spare the lives of several imprisoned Christians. "I will fulfill this request," the Emperor agreed. "On one condition: Come have dinner with me at my table." Well, the Emperor's table was sure to contain a feast of gastronomical proportions. And, with the day of the bishop's appeal being Holy Friday, the Emperor was sure he had him. The bishop surely would not indulge in such sumptuous fare on this day. And yet, the bishop agreed. For he knew in so doing would be for the salvation of the imprisoned Christians.

Love is strange this way. The "rules" lead us to love, help us to love. And yet, sometimes love happens best when we "break the rules."

And yet, I cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. I must keep the tension between "keeping the rules" and heeding the "law of love." If I lose the latter, my Faith is dead. And yet, if I forget the former, I become a slave to my selfish wiles and cannot really love anyone.

Brothers with mom...

Last night, I may have kept the Vigil with only a streetlamp and internet radio. And yet, having received Christ earlier in the day, my heart was open with longing, eagerly awaiting the rising sun. And the resurrected day is not lost on me. I feel the sunlight and I know, "Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death! And upon those in the tomb bestowing life."

The Resurrection is not contained inside Church walls, but spills out in the Liturgy of Life and the Law of Love, have we only eyes to see it. 

Christ is Risen! 

Here, there, everywhere on earth. 

May He rise in our hearts, clear and bright as dawn. 

My husband

Thank you to my father-in-law, Marc, for these photos!

(Thank you Ancient Faith Radio for keeping me remotely connected to Paschal Festivities!)                       

Beautiful Lamentation

"Beauty word of God
Nor yet charm was Thine when Thou didst suffer
But Thy risen glory is light poured down
Shedding beauty on all man with rays divine."

--From the Orthodox Lamentations service of Holy Friday, Stasis 2

Our family participated in the Lamentations service of Holy Friday in the Orthodox church this evening. Having been crucified, Christ is placed in the tomb, and we are there to lament His death. 

I am compelled by the beauty, the mystery of this service. 

"Today He who hung the earth upon the waters
is hung on the tree,
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails.
The Son of the virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
Show us also Thy glorious resurrection" 

We sing this 15th Antiphon as part of this Lamentations service, contemplating the Crucifixion, the death, the suffering of Christ. Through fasting and prayer, we enter in to Christ's suffering in a mystical way, becoming co-sufferers with Him. 

I was in a dark mood earlier, perhaps appropriately for this terrible day. I suppose my weakened body, inconsistent prayer life, and two little boys in perpetual motion didn't help things. Yes, by this point in Lent, I am in a state of earnest expectation, waiting for Resurrection.

Oddly enough, the sun shone brightly this Holy Friday. The day was brilliant blue and warm with the sounds of lawn mowers and light laughter carrying on the May breeze. Hardly the scene one might imagine for Christ's passion. Where was that faithful Ohio rain? 

Our boys played outside this morning; later we drove past shoppers in paisley blouses, skinny jeans, and sandals strolling the streets of the small town outside our church; cheerful neighbors tended flower beds and I found pastel coupons for a clothes sale in my mailbox. Spring delight and contentment seemed palpable everywhere. 

And yet, as an Orthodox Christian journeying toward Christ's crucifixion and burial, all of this seemed but a desert, the beauty of the day so effervescent compared to the beauty of the church where I longed to be when services were not going on. In this pivotal moment in the life of the Church, what else was there to care about? What beauty could the world possibly have to offer?

"Fairer He in beauty than are all mortal kind, now a corpse we see unsightly, bereft of form, he who beautified the nature of all things"  

We sing this as part of the Lamentations service. 

How can God, the author of all that is beautiful be taken by such Ugliness as death? 

The truth is that ultimately, He cannot be. 

"Weep not for Me, O Mother, as you see your Son, whom you conceived in your womb without seed, lying in a tomb. For I will rise from the dead and will be glorified; and as God, I will unceasingly exalt in glory those who magnify you with faith and love"

This is among my favorite parts of the Lamentations service. 

As a mother, I am cut to the heart by the Ugliness that plagues this life. Violence, disease, war, famine and all manner of Death and Destruction whirl around in my worried mind too many times on a daily basis. And yet, Christ promises: 

"For I shall arise..."

Tomorrow night, God willing, Orthodox Christians will greet each other in this way: "Christ is risen!" "Indeed He is Risen!" 

Yet, sometimes, this Resurrection is easy for me to forget. 

When the torrent of life's unabashed destructiveness threatens to overtake me and I am overwhelmed by the floodgates of bad news reports and problems, I find it helps to narrow my field of vision. When I can let go of what feels like the weight of the world and focus in on the particulars of a moment, I can find Christ's Resurrection. 

Death can usher in an odd beauty, and our service of Christ's entombment in the Orthodox Church is no exception. The church is inundated by sights and sounds that give me something to cling to, something to pull me out of the darkness of the Crucifixion with the promise of what is to come: 

Like delicate necks of petite lavender flowers stretching out of Holy Friday black; Like white lilies standing like alert troubadours ready to ring out Resurrection; Like little voices tinkling like bells among Lamentation sighs and dirges; Like incense mingling with aromatic freshness of spring beauty breaking forth. 

Through these reminders I can touch and see and smell, I am brought back to Life. I once again discover in the moment: 

Christ will be resurrected. All things will be renewed.

I hope to experience this in fullness in the future. For now, I cling to these lifelines offered to me in a moment. I cling to the unique, particularities of beautiful life to save me from the bland, garden-variety, steam-rolling Ugliness of death.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then for those who behold Christ, I believe it may be impossible to behold beauty outside of Him. A beautiful day without Christ is nothing but desert, nothing but longing. Nothing but... nothing. Where Christ is, there is beauty, light, joy...even when conditions outside are torrential.

"But Thy risen glory its light poured down / Shedding beauty on all man with rays divine." 

May Christ's Resurrection illumine our lives!

(Thank you to my husband for letting me use your beautiful pictures!)

The Power of Habit

“At the Last Judgment I will not be asked whether I satisfactorily practiced asceticism, nor how many bows I have made before the divine altar. I will be asked whether I fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, and the prisoner in his jail. That is all I will be asked.”

--Mother Maria of Paris

In a recent Voice from the Isles podcast, Fr. Christopher discusses Mother Maria of Paris.

In brief, brief sum, Mother Maria is a modern saint who lived in the World War II era. Though her life was somewhat controversial, as she was divorced twice and spent some years as an atheist, as Fr. Christopher notes: “Her life, replete with mistakes and shortcomings, is one with which we can identify.” 

In the end, Mother Maria is an exemplar of repentance, which she demonstrated through her years of radical service to Christ and to the poor. She went to such lengths as smuggling Jews during the Nazi occupation of France, which led to her imprisonment in a concentration camp, where she died on Holy Saturday in 1945 (reportedly in taking the place of another who was sentenced to a gas chamber). 

Regarding the above quote from Maria of Paris, Fr. Christopher adds,

"These are some words of hers which sum up Christianity in action. It also sums up Great Lent, which is not just a period of abstaining from some foods but a preparation for service. They take us back to the Sunday of the Last Judgement. They take us also to the life we are called to live in the light of the resurrection." 

What is the deal with Great Lent?--One not familiar with Orthodox Christianity might ask. 

Why all the fasting? Why all the services? Why all the long prayers and prostrations? Why the different calendar?

Isn't it all a little intense and rigorous and extreme?  

Isn't it all a little too religious?

I suppose my answer to that question, at least in part, would be this: Tell me what you believe about habit.

In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg (p. 271) quotes the late psychologist William James:

"All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits--practical, emotional, and intellectual--systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be."

It seems that the sins stopping me from loving well come in patterns. They come in habits: running my mouth, lashing out, judging people; choosing TV and internet over real human connection and all manner of bodily comfort over love. 

"Habits, [William James] noted, are what allow us to 'do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all'"

writes Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit (p.273).

Thus, Lent is a time to change my habits. It is a time to make a conscious choice for love--in the form of ascetic discipline: prayer, fasting, almsgiving, etc.--where I would normally be comfortable, complacent, and downright sinful. 

When I first became a mother, it was a horrible shock to my system to have to drag myself out of my warm and cozy bed two, three, ten times a night to attend to the needs of a little babe. And yet, though doing this is still not easy, I can do it better the more that waking up in the night becomes a habit. Sleep deprivation becomes an "ascetic discipline" necessary for love.

In his introduction to Mother Maria of Paris: Essential Writings, Jim Forest (p.17) attributes Mother Maria's two year endurance in the concentration camp in part to her "long experience of ascetic life." 

If I cannot fast from meat, dairy, sugar, etc.; if I cannot stand through long church services; if I cannot relinquish the comfort of a good night's rest, then how can I ever really love someone else? To be in a situation that is even remotely as dire as what Mother Maria experienced, where love requires sacrifice (such as nursing a baby on a cold night), how can I do that when I cannot even give up my cookies for a forty day fast? How can I expect myself to act in a manner that is completely outside my habits?

At the Great Judgment, Christ grants life to those "sheep" who He says fed Him when He was hungry, clothed Him when He was naked, and so on, as we read in St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25. And yet, in that passage, those who do this are taken aback by Christ's righteous judgment, asking Christ when. When did they feed, clothe, visit Him, etc.?

And He replies,

"...'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’" (St. Mtt. 25:40). 

It seems likely that even the saints who knew they served Christ by serving others might have a similar reaction at His judgment. They will be surprised by Christ's judgment of their good deeds because they didn't see them as anything but habit. Their loving kindness will have been so natural, so habitual that the good they do will not even resonate consciously. 

"Once we choose who we want to be, people grow 'to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds'"

writes Duhigg, quoting James, in The Power of Habit (p. 270). 

Perhaps it makes sense to say that we are given the Great Fast so that we can keep the commandments of Christ, and not the other way around. For the saints, it was, in part, their ascetic efforts that folded and shaped them into vessels of habitual love that allowed them to become a mighty force for God. 

For a slow pilgrim like me, my process of repentance may be a process of folding and unfolding; of getting up and falling down; of struggling to turn back to God one little habit at a time. With each unspoken insult, uneaten cookie, and unindulged impulse, I iron out the deep creases of old selfish habits, then smooth them over with prayer, fasting, almsgiving: of love that is tangible.  

Lent is not given for proud religious showmanship, but rather is is a time to bring to consciousness what needs work, so I can struggle to change it. And with God's help, this IS possible. As Charles Duhigg writes (p. 273):

"If you believe you can change--if you make it a habit--the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs--and becomes automatic--it's not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing, as James wrote, that bears 'us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be'"

May this Lent be not an interlude to "normal life", but a boot camp. May this Lent be a preparation for service to Christ that most of us fall short of the rest of the year. May God grant us strength to iron in new habits that go against the creases of our selfishness. May God help us to better bear the crosses that lead us 'irresistibly toward our destiny'--which is Life and Love in Christ.   

A hankering for Matter

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes about a bus journey through heaven and hell. In describing an exchange in the phantasmal world of hell, he writes (p.16):

 "And that passion for "real" commodities which our friend speaks of is only materialism, you know. It's retrogressive. Earth-bound! A hankering for matter. But we look on this spiritual city--for with all its faults it is spiritual--as a nursery in which the creative functions of man, now freed from the clogs of matter, begin to try their wings. A sublime thought."

A hankering for matter.

That is what I am feeling as Lent draws to a close this year and Holy Week is now upon us.

Not just a hankering for cheeseburgers, ham melts, and chocolate chip cookies, but real, salt-of-the-earth relationships with people in the flesh.

C.S. Lewis' vision of hell in The Great Divorce is one that is sprawling and ephemeral. It is continually expanding because people can't get along; it is also more ghostly than Earth. 

By  contrast, heaven is more substantial. To the man visiting, the flowers are heavy as diamonds, the grass sharp enough to pierce his feet. Heaven is not FREED from the "clogs of matter" but rather becomes more material, more substantial, more "solid." Perhaps it might be best said to be life more incarnate than earth in its present state. 

In this age of smart phones, iPads, and all manner of virtual "connections," sometimes C.S. Lewis' vision of hell seems more like a reality here on earth. I am as guilty as anyone of opting to play on my phone instead of with my kids; to check a blog or a Facebook page instead of picking up a phone or arranging a date; to watch TV with my husband instead of engaging in actual conversation. And yet, for all of the "noise" I let into my life via electronic devices, none of it seems to fill the void I have in my heart for tried-and-true human connection.

As I journeyed through the fast this year in my state of stay-at-home motherhood in a new town yet to be broken in by familiarity, the end of that forty-day "climb" seemed to offer me a view of what--and who-- has gone before me in my life. During Lent, I've often found myself asking, I wonder what happened to so-and-so... and actually aching for people I haven't seen in a long time. I've also found myself aching for people I have seen recently...

It seems that in many of my best relationships, I have limited opportunity to actually see those people in the flesh. I think of the 10 minute phone calls I have with my mom in the morning, the precious few minutes I spend with my husband at night after the kids go to bed (before I crash), the walks and talks I have with my wonderful friends that come in brief, shining moments as the breaks in our busy lives allow. 

When I start to feel that "hankering for matter," that ache to have more frequent contact with the people I love so dear, yet from a distance, I sometimes want to manipulate my circumstances. I wrack my brain and my calendar to figure out a way we can connect more often. And yet, Lent has brought about a slow realization that the limited time I have with these dear ones only serves to enhance our time together. 

I hang onto these precious moments of connection like a lifeline to the heaven I long for--the heaven that is breaking forth on this earth but is not yet in its fullness. Distance, time, and circumstance are only a fire trying and refining love: burning away wasted words, lack of appreciation, and a sense of taking-things-for-granted-ness that seems to only come when death is forgotten.

And every relationship we have in this world suffers death, whether it is bodily death or the death which comes with space between us. 

As I anticipate Christ's Passion and Resurrection this week, I am seeing it this year in light of this "hankering for matter." Christ will go to the cross, will suffer and die to reconcile fallen humanity to God. 

And He will arise, trampling down all manner of Death that comes between us. 

One glorious day, by the grace of God, we will be together: in that heavenly state, bound together in such a way that perhaps many of us cannot even understand in this earthly life. I so look forward to that--that togetherness, that fullness of Love made possible by the death and Resurrection of Christ. Until then, I am hankering for matter. I am hankering for the foretaste of heaven I find in this life in bits and pieces, in moments with loved ones that light up life like fireworks in the night. 

And I pray for the grace to stop wasting words and opportunities...and to have my eyes--and heart-- wide open when our paths cross. For it seems the more I remember that every meeting with you could be my last, the more I savor the treasure I am given in you. Right now. Today.        

May Christ's passion stir up in all of us a "hankering for matter"--for a thick, heavy, binding, incarnate Love--that comes to us in its fullness through His Resurrection.        

Thin Places

My kitchen and bathroom floors are sticky, even though I mopped them yesterday.

Another round of beans--this time black--sits soaking in my big blue "bean" bowl for tomorrow's soup.

My seven month old baby is screaming in his crib--our attempts to let him "cry it out" seem more and more futile with each passing night.

News about terrorist attacks, environmental crises, kidnappings, wars... death and destruction... flood me from all manner of electronic devices. 

I feel weary and tired, the cries of my son a reflection of my own haggard and fraying nerves. 

The season of Lent seems to be sinking, weighing into me--the world and its problems, my own sins and inadequacies--a heavy burden. 

After a small break down this evening, my husband said to me, "Just two more weeks until Pascha (aka Orthodox Easter), push through it." 

My husband watched a recorded episode of Rick Steves' Europe this evening, which I couldn't help but join in my tired state. Rick Steves explored northern England--a land, I discovered, which is still ripe with natural beauty.

From green rolling hills to clear rushing rivers, I felt a little encouraged simply seeing images of a place where nature's beauty still seems to be respected and appreciated. The camera panned across a steep, verdant hillside seemingly untouched by man--one that was misty, as though the breath of God was palpably present in that place. Such a place as this, I thought, seems likely to have inspired the Celtic concept of "thin places": places where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds are "thin." These are places where the spiritual is more easily apprehended.  

"God is everywhere present and filling all things," we often pray as part of our Liturgy. And yet, sometimes it's hard to perceive God--or what we believe God should be--in the suffering, tragedy, and death that plagues us as part of our common human experience. Though I'd rather encounter God in the rolling green countryside, my suffering, it seems, can be a "thin place" too. 

In Christianity, we believe in God incarnate. Taking on human form, Christ lived and suffered; He sweat blood in a garden and died on a cross. God incarnate suffered. And when we suffer, we often can find God there with us--Emmanuel-- closer than ever, transfiguring our suffering into a "thin place." 

I've been reading the book Everyday Saints by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov. In it are stories of contemporary Russian saints, many of whom experienced profound suffering in their lifetimes. 

The story of one such person, the late Archimandrite John Krestiankin, is recounted by Archimandrite Tikhon in the book. Archimandrite John lived out the final years of his earthly life in a monastery; he was a beloved Elder continually bombarded by pilgrims seeking guidance. In his earlier years though, the Elder John was held captive in Soviet prison camps. 

In relating Elder John Krestiankin's experience in the camps, Archimandrite Tikhon writes (p.40):

"As for the history of Father John's years of imprisonment, what always struck me most about his story was the way in which he described the time he spent in those truly awful camps, so full of cruelty and suffering and callousness. Believe it or not, Father John would say that these were the happiest days of his entire life. 

'Because God was always close by!' With joy Father John would exclaim this, although without doubt he realized that there was no way we could possibly understand him." 

 I can't understand him either.

When it comes to "thin places," I'd prefer the breathtaking English countryside to the Gulag. With my comfortable American upbringing, I don't suffer all that well. Or even weather the thought of suffering all that well. And yet, it seems the Elder John found a "thin place" even in the prison camps of the godless Soviet regime because he experienced Christ as being "so close by". 

"God is everywhere present and filling all things"--this is the mystery of the Christian life in this world ravaged by beauty and tragedy, heaven and hell, death and resurrection.

During his visit to Northern England, Rick Steves made the rugged trek up a steep English countryside. Though the hike was intense-- as he notes working off the whole of his big, fried breakfast-- at the top of the mountain the view is spectacular. He seems to touch the piece of heaven he worked so hard to reach. 

In this final leg of the Great Fast, it can be hard to put one foot in front of the other: to make one more bean soup, one more batch of hummus, endure one more service, or shut my mouth one more time when fatigue, hunger and weariness compel me to lash out. And yet, the end of the climb is in sight, and, God help me, I can't give up now. 

Christ has come, transfiguring the whole of life into a "thin place": both the English mountaintop and the harrowing Gulag. It is only my sin, my selfishness, my shortsightedness that thickens things--blocking my view of God. 

May God grant us the strength to "...throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (Hebrews 12:1). May we find "thin places" in the whole of life.