The Paragon of Animals

Yet again, we struggle with grief and pain. Yet again, we are suffering the consequences of someone else's overwhelming hatred. We reel in agony, and we grasp those we love with renewed fervor. Is this the best we can do? Is this the gutter into which humanity must continually fall?

In the last six months, we've seen things like this happen three times in the United States alone. That is not to mention the horrible news of gang rapes and suicides, of lives shattered beyond all comprehension, of veterans turned away from the help they need for their suffering because we are all tired of the war they've fought for us, of the elderly left bereft of care because of a frozen political system, of every reason for hope to crumble.

But in the midst of it all, there are other stories. Some of us look after our neighbors, or are grateful to have neighbors looking after us. We hear stories of support from unknown corners, stories of love from strangers, helping hands offered, embraces given, compassion abounding, solidarity offered even from across the globe.

Image found at Meghan Casey's Tumbler Feed

Eleven and a half years ago, when religious extremists crossed the line into madness, into sociopathology, an entire nation reeled and fought for balance. I was surfing a site called Beliefnet a few days later, and someone posed the question, "What inspiration or scripture is helping you get through this time?"

I was not Christian at the time, and I could not recall anything that had helped me that came from a religious context. What did help me then was a speech from a science fiction television show called Babylon 5 that aired in the late 1990s. The speech was written - in the context of the show - by a character who had been a freedom fighter and a political prisoner, someone who had endured torture and disfigurement, had been driven by rage through anguish, and come out on the side of compassion and love. G'Kar's story inspired me, and continues to inspire me today. And interestingly, I think his journey is pretty consistent with the values and struggles of the Orthodox faith that I now practice.

So here is what helped me then, and what continues to help me now. Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy on us all!

The text of the speech follows this clip from the episode "Paragon of Animals" from Season 5 of Babylon 5.



Declaration of Principles of the Interstellar Alliance

The Universe speaks in many languages
But only one voice.
The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim, or Minbari.

It speaks in the language of hope.
It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength
And the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart,
And the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice.
It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us,
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born.

It is the small, still voice that says, We are One.

No matter the blood
No matter the skin
No matter the world
No matter the star
We are One.

No matter the pain
No matter the darkness
No matter the loss
No matter the fear
We are One.

Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize this singular truth, and this singular rule: that we must be kind to one another.

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are One.

by J. Michael Straczynski

Star Wars and the Call to Orthodoxy

Four and a half years ago, while my sister was in labor with my niece, during a lull in the conversation, my dad asked me, "How in the world did a free spirit like you end up in the Orthodox Church?" I told him that it was as big a mystery to me as to anyone else. When he asked that question, it had only been a year and a half since my Chrismation. I was living 350 miles away from the parish in which I was Chrismated, and was floundering around trying to find a new parish home. So much about Orthodoxy was mysterious to me.

And it still is. That's one of the things I love about it. Six and a half years after walking into an Orthodox church for the very first time, the mystery of the Church deepens even more. 

I have thought a lot about my journey to the Orthodox Church since my dad asked that question. For a while I used to think that my journey to the Church began with my departure from a non-denominational Protestant church when I was 18. 

But it struck me the other day that I was initially imprinted for the Orthodox Church when I was 10, and that imprint became stronger in my 13th year. 

Because those were the years that I saw my first Star Wars movies. 

Of course, I didn't know it at the time. Or rather, I didn't know that the impact I felt when viewing those films would lead me to the Ancient Church. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I first saw a trailer on television for Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, my first thought was that it looked a little stupid. I was ten years old, and all I remembered was the image of Luke Skywalker swinging over a chasm on a thin rope with Princess Leia in his arms. It seemed unrealistic to me. But after all my friends had gone to see it, I convinced my parents to drop me off at a movie theatre one afternoon, and I saw it in a packed theatre months after its initial release. I was riveted. It wasn't stupid at all! It was wonderful and exciting and it stirred something in me: a desire to find out who I really was, and to fulfill my destiny, which I thought surely was supposed to be heroic.

Three years later, I'd become a teenager, and Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released in theatres. I saw it. And then I saw it again. And again. And yet again. I saw it seven times in its original release in theatres. I cried every time Han Solo went into the carbon freezing chamber. I laughed when Han called Chewie a fuzzball, and I watched the bittersweet romance between an outlaw and a princess unfold. My best friend at the time developed a teenage crush on Harrison Ford. But my crush was different.

My crush was on Luke Skywalker. Not Mark Hamill, whom I knew was the very real actor who inhabited his character, who was married and seemed to be crazy in love with his wife. Rather, I was completely taken with Luke and his story. It is a story outlined in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the existence of which I knew nothing at the time. But his story, I knew in my heart, had something to do with me. It resonated in me in a way that I hadn't experienced before.

Some of my favorite scenes in that film took place on the planet Dagobah, where Luke underwent Jedi training. Ever since then, I looked for a spiritual path that would challenge me the way Luke's training challenged him, and would allow me to plumb spiritual depths in the way that Luke's Jedi training encouraged him to do.

My life in a non-denominational Protestant church began right around that time, and I began to attend youth camps. They were actually training camps for young evangelists, and I attended them with small hope in my heart that I would find something there as compelling and interesting as what Luke found on Dagobah.

I never did find it at those camps. I found indoctrination, but never a real sense of who I was in that milieu. I got a very good look at who they wanted me to be, though. And I usually felt like an outlier. Eventually, the evangelical Protestant environment proved to be too rigid, judgmental, and contradictory for me to stay with it.

But I continued my love for Star Wars. And when Return of the Jedi came out, I was once again fascinated. I was older now, and wasn't taken in by the Ewoks so much as the internal struggle Luke faced when the Emperor goaded him into lashing out at his own father, Darth Vader, who was also supposed to be his enemy. And although I smiled warmly when Leia went after Han to rescue him, nothing moved me in that film more than seeing Luke Skywalker realize that he was making a big mistake in fighting his father, turn off his lightsaber, and face the Emperor, his real enemy.

Tossing aside his weapon, Luke says, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

I got chills. Every time I saw that movie and watched that scene, I got chills. This was what I wanted. I wanted my lineage. I wanted that kind of spiritual depth. I wanted that level of challenge. I wanted to face my own adversary with that kind of confidence and defeat him by not fighting, defeat him with the strength of love and forgiveness.

For twenty-four years after the release of The Return of the Jedi, I looked for those qualities. I identified them as being religious and spiritual, and that the fighting skill was an expression of the desire to defend oneself and those we love against all kinds of adversaries, internal as well as external. I looked all over the place, seeking spiritual training that would be as challenging and meaningful as Jedi training.

Most often, I found people who were willing to train me, but who also were so very human and flawed. I met some really amazing people, who were walking their own difficult paths, who were really doing some intense spiritual work, and helping me along as well. But I also met people who were only interested in training me how to be their follower, which was disappointing. The path that was my imprint, the Jedi path of Luke Skywalker, was not a path of personalities, but a path of deep spiritual tradition, of introspection, of defending the weak and helping those in need, of compassion and forgiveness. This was the path I truly sought.

When I first walked into an Orthodox church, in Isla Vista, California, I felt something that I knew was powerful. I had been imprinted for twenty something years that I'd recognize real spiritual power when I saw it. And I did recognize it. I felt something very old and very deep in that Orthodox Church. The building itself was fairly new; this parish had used the building that had housed a different kind of church. But it wasn't the building that gave me that sense. It was the architecture of the service itself. It was a short Vespers service, but it spoke of something quite old. One could almost say that I felt in this place a real sense of The Force.

I knew I liked it, and it captured me from that very first service. But I had no idea just how deep this path would take me. The spiritual life of the Orthodox is not legalistic, but it is rigorous. It is a path that requires that we give our all, that we push ourselves to the very limits of our capacity - for forgiveness, for temperance, for love. And then it asks us to push just a little more, to extend the envelope. Because beyond that comfortable envelope of fear lies God, in all His mercy and grace. And if we keep pushing the envelope, then one day it will burst, and we'll be bathed in all of that.

It's hard. It's harder than anything I've ever done. But this is the path.

Being Orthodox every day is like being Luke Skywalker on Hoth. You know you feel something and your intuition tells you a lot. Maybe some days you can even make your lightsaber wiggle around from 3 feet away, when you're trapped in a Wampa's cave.

But Great Lent is like being dropped off on Dagobah, with only a snarky Artoo unit, a half submerged X-Wing snub fighter, and survival rations. It begins with a giant lesson in humility, just like Luke finding out that he was about to be schooled in a major way by a diminutive green non-human Jedi Master. We have to relearn how to live, how to eat, and how to navigate around this alien world. We do have the Holy Fathers to guide us, but we don't always understand what they're saying. And they perform wondrous, miraculous acts that we simply can't wrap our minds around.

And just as Yoda says, we have to unlearn what we have learned. We have to unlearn the world, and its worship of wealth and power. We have to unlearn the limitations of our capacity for kindness and mercy. It is these limitations, and our limitations in faith and love, that keep us from our own miracles. Who among us has faith enough to move a mountain...or an X-Wing?



During Great Lent, we are sometimes faced with the darkest parts of ourselves. We have to face our own Dark Sides. And when we leave Great Lent, we may not be completely finished with the journey. That's why we return year after year...to Dagobah, for more training.

When we do leave, we come out to fight our spiritual battles, armed with the weapons of the spiritual life: prayer, fasting, love, humility. We fight our battles and we are wounded. We heal, maybe get a new robotic limb, train some more, and return to the battle. We help our friends and loved ones. We battle spiritual slavery and the hostile takeover of the galaxy by greed and hatred. And if we're very, very lucky, and if we have adhered to our training, we can look past our enemies' masks, and see them for the wounded human beings they are.

So thank you, George Lucas, for the spiritual life I have today, for opening a door to a world full of anguish, justice, love, mercy, discipline, and humility. Thank you for inspiring a sense of longing that brought me to the Orthodox Church, where I've worked harder than I ever have in my life, where I've undergone difficult and rigorous training, and where I feel the Force - the force of Divine Love and Mercy - all the time.

May the Force be with you.

Orthodoxy and the Single Girl

Image courtesy of http://thegreekadventure.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/an-orthodox-wedding/

Lately, I've really been pondering my status as a single girl in the midst of several countercultural movements.

One counterculture in which I'm delightfully involved is geek/gamer culture. Granted, our outcast status has diminished with the advent of nerd chic and the popularity of video games and The Big Bang Theory, but I still think that tabletop RPGers (you know, those of us who play with polyhedrals, pencil and paper, and imagination) remain the outliers of this culture; that is to say, the people who play popular first-person shooters are a little embarrassed about us. Nevertheless, I fly the geek flag proudly, feeling a little flutter of giddiness during discussions of how Star Trek has helped shape our current and future technology (life imitating art), or at hearing references to saving throws or rolling for damage. And as a single girl in this culture, I feel rather daring and heroic, like a Paladin looking for my holy grail.

In another counterculture, I frequent late night gatherings, most of which are clean and sober, dancing myself into a euphoric frenzy to the rhythms and sounds of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Indigo Swing. In this counterculture, perhaps more than the others, it seems less unusual that I am single and able to share physical contact with another human being for three minutes, each of us moving in response to the other in this ecstatic language of sound and motion. Here there is no jealousy, only freedom to have that brief embodied conversation, a conversation that is playful, but not overly sexualized. This is a counterculture of heartbeats and nostalgia and joy set in motion.

And finally, I am in a religious counterculture, at least in terms of the American religious landscape. As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I am part of a tiny minority among American Christians. And even within Eastern Orthodoxy, I feel like I'm in a tiny strange grey area because I'm a woman in her mid-40s who's never been married, even though I've always wanted to be. I felt strange when I first entered this particular counterculture six years ago, watching so many young people meet, fall in love, and marry, or seeing so many established couples who  had successfully withstood the difficulties of marriage, children, and time. My prayers had often centered around the desperate question of why I'd been denied these things. They still do, as a matter of fact.

Of these countercultural portions of my identity, I feel that being Orthodox is most important. It seems important that I not skimp on this one element. It's important because I've always, always wanted to be able to worship with my romantic partner, no matter what religion I was involved with at the time. Especially now, being involved with my Church and with religious activities usually is when I feel most at peace. It's exactly these times that I'd like to be able to share with a boyfriend (and later, a spouse). At the same time, that tiny percentage works against me. Of those already-small numbers of Orthodox in America, how many are single and in their 40s (without, of course, being a monastic)?

Among my options is missionary dating: dating someone in the hope they they'd become Orthodox. But that doesn't work either, does it? It's based on the fact that there's something very important missing from the relationship. It's based on the idea that someone is awesome except for this one very important thing, that they need to change in a very fundamental way in order to marry me. That doesn't quite seem right, either. I don't want to have a deeply involved relationship predicated on the idea that they'd have to change to see the relationship to the next level. Before I became Christian (and even for a while after my Chrismation), I didn't really get this part. I didn't really understand the importance until I experienced the conflict between myself, my faith, and my partner.

Of course, there's always monasticism, which is often viewed (in the Orthodox Church) as the other choice, the choice for someone who may not want to get married. But I'm not sure I'm well-suited to the monastic life (although it does have its attraction). I think at this time in my life, I like dogs and dancing and gaming and writing blogs too much. And I don't feel called to it like I feel called to marriage. Am I just being stubborn?

Recently, I was in a four month relationship; and it just ended. There were a few reasons for the breakup, but one big reason was his absolute refusal to even try to experience Orthodoxy. He fasted with me, although it was not for spiritual reasons. He would patiently listen to me talk about my day at Church; he even asked for a prayer rope. But he just wasn't willing to share the experience with me on a deeper level. The one thing I always wanted in a relationship, he just couldn't bring himself to do. It didn't seem like I was asking too much. It still doesn't.

As a result, I didn't go to Church as often (if at all) during the middle of the week. The peace that Church brings to me decreased in my life, and I became really grumpy. I felt like I was always divided between quality time with him, and quality time with the people and doing the activities that I loved. It became unbalanced. I became unbalanced. I began to realize, too, that Church helps me contain some of the demons that plague me the most: despair, anxiety, even loneliness. How can I feel lonely, surrounded by icons of the saints, knowing that there's a whole community in Heaven and on this earth who share my journey with me, and who pray for me? But when I was dating someone who didn't share my faith, and didn't even seem interested in it, the loneliness got even more pronounced. I'd look around at all the people I love in my parish, at all the icons of the saints whose lives inspire me, smell the incense and listen to the Divine Liturgy, and I'd wish more than anything that I'd be able to share this with the man I was dating.

I don't resent my former significant other's own spiritual leanings, and his own pursuit of spiritual peace. Far from it. What troubled me most was his insistence that the Christianity he'd known most of his life (and that had caused him so much distress) was the same as the Christianity that made me feel so peaceful. And it isn't. The Christianity in which he was raised, and which was the source of so much pain in his life, is far removed from the Christianity of the East, from the Ancient Church. It's debatable whether they can be called the same religion, the differences are so huge - not just in practice, but in theological basis. But he wouldn't know that unless he came to see for himself. Information is very different from experiential knowledge.

I realize, too, that he was contending with a convert's fervor. When I read about Orthodoxy, or experience a new layer of my faith (and there are endless layers!), I get a feeling like I've stumbled across a big secret that everyone should know about. It's the thrill of discovery, of finding a beautiful gem hidden away in a hole in the desert. I want to send up a flare to let everyone know where to find it. So, it hurt to have my significant other tell me that this gem is just another rock in the landscape, and that he has no interest in experiencing it. My treasure was seen as a flimsy piece of dust.

I know that my enthusiasm is better utilized in making my life a good example of Christian faith, and love for humanity, rather than sending up flares. My enthusiasm is better used in showing others by example why this gem is different. And although I tried that, I didn't seem to do a very good job, especially if I ended up relinquishing time with that gem.

And so I'm back to being single, as well as Orthodox, a geek, and a dancer in my 40s. I live in paradise, renting a room on five acres of beautiful land, in the company of good people and wonderful dogs. I live in a city that hosts both a major swing dance event and a major celebration of science fiction and fantasy popular culture. I have an amazing life, so amazing that I think I shouldn't have to work that hard to find someone who wants to be a part of it. This kind of sets me up as a quirkyalone, a term used to describe someone who wants partnership, who wants marriage, but who won't settle for something they won't be able to live with for long. In other words, I'd rather be single and wait for the right person - a person who will treasure all these different parts of me and want to experience them with me - than get married to meet social expectations, or out of loneliness.

So I wait - on God's timing, on me to grow a bit more, on everything to be right so that this little dream can come true. God hasn't let me down so far. He's the One Who brought me here, to this place, to this parish, so filled with love. I can wait a little while longer.

Image from http://oca.org/news/oca-news/february-orthodox-marriage-retreat-theme-emphasizes-forgiveness

Trying to Wrap My Brain Around Humility

I recently read a blog post (dated March 13, 2012) by Abbot Tryphon of All-Merciful Saviour Orthodox Christian Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington. In this post, Abbot Tryphon talked about self-esteem, and how, in our culture, this term has really just become another word for self-importance. It also appears to have become the antithesis of humility.

I agree with Abbot Tryphon that there are times when self-esteem becomes confused with self-importance and pride. But I think that this is indicative of our culture's complete inability to comprehend the spiritual dimensions of concepts like humility and pride. It's tough to make the distinction when people simply don't think beyond immediate satisfaction, when people think that "feel good about yourself" just means "feel good right now". 

The problem with that is that feeling good about oneself - that is, feeling like we've done the right thing, like we can look ourselves in the mirror without loathing, without hiding - can take time. It takes dedication, courage, strength and sacrifice. It takes hard decisions, and difficult paths. I think it also takes spiritual grounding. True self-esteem is not the easy way out, and I think that's where we miss the boat, as a culture. 

The easy way out is to see self-esteem as being wrapped up in our image to others, which is really pride. So let's call it that. Our culture teaches us pride, not true self-esteem. And it does this by marketing products that will make us pretty/handsome and ageless, chemicals to make us smell good (i.e., not like a human, but rather like a flower or a spice mill or a chemical dump), drugs that will make us slim by 3:00 tomorrow, and endless amounts of stuff that will make us the envy of all those around us who don't have all that incredible, unnecessary stuff. 

Then, when we inevitably age and our bodies change and we smell like a human first thing in the morning, this image gets shattered and we want to repair everything, make it like new again. But that's okay. Just turn on all those electronic things and you'll get bombarded with more advertisements for products that will keep you from feeling like you're actually living. And if you act now, we'll throw in this other thing that will break in  3 days at no extra cost.


Part of the cycle is that the generations that follow us are learning these lessons, and they're learning that you are only okay if, between the ages of 14 and 40, you perpetually look like you're 20 years old. They learn that they are only okay if they are always winning, and do not know defeat. They learn that they are only okay if they are doing everything right. I think that our culture knows this on an unconscious level, so we try to promote self-esteem by ensuring that no one ever loses, no one ever knows painful defeat, and no one ever really has to struggle to win. It's the easy way out, and it just doesn't last.


Now, in some circles, people are actually talking about self-esteem in the sense of being able to wake up in the morning and still feel good about yourself, despite smelling like a human and having bedhead and being shaped differently than the model who looks like she hasn't yet hit puberty (or, for men, shaped differently than, say, Hercules). Some people are still touting self-esteem, though, by encouraging the purchase of stuff - the right yoga mat, the right exercise video, the right meditation CD, the right book to read. "This is the one! This is the one thing you've been missing that will give you self-esteem! BUY IT!!!"


Cha-ching.


And of course, if you're not getting all that you want and more, it means that you are not doing it right. It means that you aren't enlightened enough; it means that you haven't grasped the magic formula and said the right thing so that *poof* it will appear before you, as if summoned from beyond.


But wait, that's still more pride, isn't it? I have the right yoga mat, so I'm awesome. I bought that CD and I'm so much more enlightened now. I got the stuff, and the stuff makes me better than I was. So why are people still sad?


What people do miss is humility. We've been taught that humility is self-loathing, and that it will ruin us, and cause us to be abused. In our grab for power, recognition, and love, we cannot possibly risk losing it by appearing humble, by self-deprecation and loathing. Right?


If humility is not self-loathing, then what is it?


The day after seeing Abbot Tryphon's post, I also saw this video.



This, I thought, this holds one of the keys to understanding humility. At least, I think it might. I think one of the keys to grasping this elusive idea is to understand our place in the Universe. And to realize that we are all connected.

The Buddhists use a Sanskrit term - Pratītyasamutpāda - that means, in a literal sense, Dependent Co-origination. That's a really amazingly fancy way of saying interconnectness. We are all connected to one another.

Similarly, in the Orthodox Church, we cultivate humility by remembering that we are all connected to each other. Within the Church, we are connected by being in communion with one another. But even in the larger scheme of things, we are all connected by our humanity, and its need for Grace.

Who among us has not desired forgiveness from those we love? Who among us has not fallen short of expectations? Who among us has not fallen into despair, or soared in joyous abandon? Who among us has not felt the most basic emotions - fear, longing, rage, joy, and of course, love? We are bound by our common experiences of being human as we are by blood and erect bipedal locomotion.

And so I am connected to the homeless man, to the wealthy CEO, to the beautiful girl who fears she is ugly, to the man who resents his brother for being smart and funny, to all those who are struggling with fear, longing, rage, joy and love because I, too, struggle with these. I have made mistakes, and fallen short of Grace. I have run away from God and from the love He offered me in so many forms. How is it possible to try to be superior when I know that I have experienced all of this? Pride is the belief that we are separate from everyone else, and that we should be held above others because we are different from them. Humility (which comes from the term humilis (Latin) and is related to another Latin term, humus, which means "earth") is the recognition that every breathing, hoping, running, praying, playing, imagining, trembling, dancing, singing, innovating, crying, prostrating, laughing human is made of the same stardust as everyone else.

And not only that, but we are also connected to those stars out there. We are connected to the Universe in its entirety, to all of Creation, as we exchange atomic material with them each day.

I cannot say if this makes me feel small or big. It's neither. And it's both. Humility isn't about feeling superior or inferior. It's about knowing my place in the scheme of things. It's about understanding that someone else's crazy behavior is no more crazy than the environment that created it. It's about looking at ourselves and seeing not only the divine image of God, but also seeing the image of the lowliest among us.

What the Church has taught me is that the result of our humility, the natural outcome of realizing our interconnectedness, is Love. We can't truly love without it. And we cannot be in the presence of Divine Love without humility, without realizing that it extends out to all of us. Grace touches each of us, just as we are each made of the dust of distant stars. 

The Depth of Tradition

Any member of my family will tell you that I am not one to follow the crowd. I've always got to do something to challenge the status quo. Sometimes I'm subtle about it, but not always. Sometimes I'm a little over the top, like the time I showed up to a Christmas Eve service at my parents' evangelical Protestant church dressed in a beautiful silk sari (an Indian garment). This was the bridesmaid's outfit from a friend's wedding (she was an America Hindu), and I wore it on this occasion complete with silver headdress. My poor parents. They acted like they were happy to have me there anyway.

There's just something about me that wants to wake people up. It's so easy to be complacent in this world, which makes us miss out on so much (and I fully recognize that I am not exempt from this). People make decisions without too much thought, or they do things because they should, not because they're called to. Also, being a sociologist, I want to look at cultural expectations and see what happens when we defy these expectations, or step outside of them.

Sunday ended the second week of Great Lent. 

In so many ways, Lent challenges us to break with societal norms, to defy the expectations of our culture. We are expected to enter this debt economy, to pursue wealth (or at least the acquisition of stuff), to work ourselves to death. We are expected to find pleasure where we can, to win all our battles, and to get what we want as fast as we can.

It's so easy to be swept away in that tide. 

The Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian is a wonderful reminder of how we should defy cultural norms during this time. It is also a reminder of the rewards of this defiance.

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages.

During this prayer, we make three prostrations, one after each line, embodying the humility that allows us to challenge how we walk through the world.

As I reflect on this simple prayer, I realize it isn't so simple. The depth of its challenge is immense. Our challenges are laid out before us, and we prostrate in an effort to humble ourselves, to receive help to meet them.

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

Emotional laziness and apathy (sloth), hopelessness (despair), a desire for control, an unwillingness to relent or to yield to another (lust of power), and our ever-present influx of sensory distraction (idle talk) surround us in our daily lives. Every one of them inhibits spiritual growth and communion with God, and every one of us has to deal with them.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

These are the gifts that I seek. I want to cherish my own body, sharing it only with the person who will commit himself to me fully. I want to stop fighting for power, and to recognize that I am just a small speck of dust in this universe, and while I carry the spark of God's divine image, I have to try to conduct myself in a way that lives up to that. I want to calmly face stillness and solitude, to rest in that place, so that I can hear God when He talks to me.

And I want to love.

As I mentioned last week, I do love - so deeply it threatens to overwhelm me at times - but I have a hard time receiving it. I know I put my guard up, and I can't imagine how that must hurt others sometimes. I want to knock those walls down. I've been working on it, but it's harder than I thought it would be. Fear is a tough habit to break. Sometimes those prostrations feel like my head banging against a brick wall.

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages.

This is real psychological gold, because it addresses projection. We are so accustomed to projecting our worst onto other people, where we can revile it in relative safety. Being able to see our own transgressions, and by seeing them, truly see their consequences and origins, can help us to have compassion for others. If I have hurt others because I was lashing out in my own pain, then how much pain have those who have hurt me experienced? Do I have the courage to face my own projections? And do I have the courage to forgive?

As I prostrate after each of those lines, as I have every day for the last two weeks, I try to let the mystery of the prayer take over, not to overthink, but to simply let the power of word and movement work its magic in my soul. I can feel it happening; little by little, I can feel this simple prayer open me up in ways I no longer thought possible.

Orthodoxy and the Spiritual Journey

We're one week into Great Lent.

I have been Orthodox for nearly five years now, and this is only the second Great Lent in which I've been fully involved in the life of a parish. And it is the first Great Lent I've experienced in which I've participated in the entire liturgical year prior to its beginning.

Why did it take me so long?

I started asking that question after Forgiveness Vespers. This incredible service is held on Cheesefare Sunday, the day before Great Lent begins. During this service, each person in church that evening asks forgiveness of every other person in church. Individually. Out loud.

Imagine walking up to around 100 people, and before each of them, you touch the fingertips of your right hand to your forehead, and then bring your hand down, palm up, until those fingertips touch the floor. While you're doing this, you say to that person, "Please forgive me." As you do this, the person from whom you seek forgiveness performs the same action, and asks you to forgive them. Acceptable responses are "I forgive you" or "Christ forgives all" or "God forgives all". There is no need to hash out the details of the transgressions. We are doing what the Lord's Prayer demands of us: "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." To feel the grace of forgiveness, we must extend that grace ourselves.

Acknowledging each person in the church that way, seeing their faces and saying to them that you recognize that you may have injured or slighted them, knowingly or unknowingly, is humbling.

Last year, I arrived too late to participate in Forgiveness Vespers. It was my first time visiting St. Paul's, and I got the time wrong. It might have been better that way. Witnessing this intense and beautiful ceremony with complete strangers would have been overwhelming to me.

So this was only the second time I'd participated in Forgiveness Vespers; I first participated in it just before my very first Lent. Why did I wait so long to do this again?

On Tuesday, I attended the Great Compline and Canon of Repentance by St Andrew of Crete. It is a hauntingly beautiful service, divided up into four shorter services during the first week of Lent (shortened, it was still 90 minutes long). During that service, we all made full prostrations while singing, "Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me" over 50 times. And I'd come in late.

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me.

Among Orthodoxy's many mysteries is the way our faith is embodied in these kinds of services. We do not just sing of repentance, of the wastefulness of our lives, of our shame at pursuing material wealth when our brothers and sisters suffer. We sing of these things and then prostrate ourselves.

Not all of you are Orthodox, so let me go over this. A full prostration is where the worshipper, from a standing position, kneels on the floor, and then bends at the waist, resting his or her hands on the ground and then touching his or her forehead to the floor. Then, the worshipper stands back upright, completing the prostration.

You may have seen Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus do it. Most people don't associate this gesture with Christianity. Yet, Orthodox Christians have been doing it for a couple thousand years now.

In yoga, the position halfway through the prostration (forehead on floor) is a pose known as The Child. And that is truly how we should be before the Creator of all, before the most Loving Parent we could ever have, right? Humbled and deeply respectful, full of trust and wonder. In the same vein, the prostration is also a position most children adopt in the womb; in utero, we are all tucked into a ball, just like this, preparing to be born.

So we did this over 50 times. I started getting choked up sometime after 35, as I stood up and saw Fr James on his knees, reverently gazing upward. When he spoke next, his voice was rough the way it might be if he was trying to control his own emotion, and I almost burst into tears. I was glad I didn't have to speak out loud. I wouldn't have made it.

It was around this time that some things began to dislodge. I could feel it happening. I've long known that one of the benefits of dancing is that as the body gets moving, the things we store up in the body also get moving. Emotions and memories that we've suppressed or forgotten begin to awaken and come to the surface. Within any Orthodox service, all the senses are engaged: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. Adding movement to this brings worship and ritual into our bodies; there are prostrations, half-prostrations, crossing oneself, hugging, and the veneration of icons, which involves a reverent kiss on the icon. Within this sacred context, the movements seem perfect to accompany reflections on repentance and humility, and in fact mirror such reflections.

The next night (Wednesday) was the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts, which means that the blessing of the Eucharist has happened the Sunday before. During Sunday Divine Liturgy, we don't normally prostrate because it's just too crowded. But during a Divine Liturgy that happens on another day, we usually have a little more space for this. As the Eucharist is blessed, we prostrate, remaining on the ground until the blessing is finished. During the Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts, however, we prostrate during what would normally be the Great Entrance. Instead of the Little Litany, the procession with the Holy Gifts around the inside of the church (the Nave) occurs in silence.

It's actually awe-inspiring. I lay on the floor, knees tucked underneath my body, arms encircling my head, and I began to feel different, as if a breeze had wafted down from Heaven, barely touching us, and inviting us in. My brain shut down, and my heart opened.

It felt like years before I stood up again. Wordless joy filled me... but also a sense that I'd been avoiding something, and the dreaded certainty that I was about to discover what that was.

All week I'd been feeling the urge to talk to a friend about Forgiveness Vespers. Although she is not Orthodox, nor even Christian, she has been extremely supportive of my journey with the Church. I simply wanted to share this with her, because I thought she'd appreciate the beauty of the ceremony. On Friday, she sent me a text message, communicating her sense of peace in her new home, a cabin in the woods, not unlike the one I live in. In the text, she asked me to forgive her for something.

In my response, I asked her forgiveness as well. I asked her to forgive me for leaving Santa Barbara. I admitted my own self-centeredness in that decision, and my inability to realize how much love surrounded me there.

It just came out. I hadn't thought about it until my fingers were typing it into my phone. But I knew that my departure from Santa Barbara really wounded Sunny. She'd told me as much. When she first told me that, I felt ... defensive. I wanted to defend my decision. I hadn't ever apologized. It was way past due.

It was also way past time for me to examine that decision. Evidently, at an until-recently-unconscious level, it had bothered me, causing my initial defensive reaction. I didn't want to have made a mistake in my decision to move to the Bay Area. I wanted to make it right in my mind.

So not only was I confronted with this giant three year mistake - a mistake that had its graces, mind you, in the form of good friends who kept me sane - but also with the arrogance that kept me from even recognizing it, from outright refusing to recognize the error. To top it off, I then had to realize that something in me had run away from all the love that surrounded me in Santa Barbara.

I've mentioned it before. I had a thriving dance community in Santa Barbara, an amazing parish, and loving friends. I was happy. Why would I leave that?

Because as happy as I was, I was also scared of that kind of love. More specifically, I think I was afraid I'd lose it somehow, that the love would run out, or that these people would discover something about me - I don't know what - that would make this suddenly end. I don't know why, but I felt somehow...unworthy.

So I ended it first. Pre-emptive strike.

I used to always ask myself how people could be afraid of love and happiness, and yet there I was, so terrified that I moved 350 miles away.

Now, for the first time since Santa Barbara, I have a parish with which I'm deeply involved. I love my job, and I'm also doing volunteer work in my parish that I've always dreamed about - working with youth in a spiritual context. I have great housemates and get to live in a cabin in the woods. I live 5 minutes away from what has become my second family, who also are members of this parish. I have a thriving gaming community, which is about the only thing I didn't have in Santa Barbara.

There are times when it isn't quite that idyllic - like when I don't have classes to teach for a month and a half - but really, it's pretty amazing.

As I looked over all the faces today during Divine Liturgy, I realized my challenge. My Lenten challenge is to have the courage to remain here, to let myself take root and grow in the love of these people, and in the love of God, who brought me back to peace and happiness in spite of myself.

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me.

And this is after only one week of Lent. Five more weeks to go.

Crazy Faith: A Surprising Journey Part 5

When I last left you, Greta and I were in a log cabin in Woodinville, Washington, buried under several inches of snow. And lovin' it.

If that was the end of the journey, it would still be pretty awesome. But there's actually more. Moving here did not magically make my final settlement appear. It did not instantly give me a source of income. It did not miraculously make everything in my life alright. However, it did allow me to really see how incredible my life is, and give it space to become more so.

I grew close to my housemates pretty quickly. They were all talented, wonderful individuals, and all strong personalities (which had its issues as well). In addition, I found something that I didn't find in the Bay Area, something that I cherished, and something I didn't think I'd ever find unless I went back to Santa Barbara. I found a church home.

So much of St. Paul Orthodox Church in Lynnwood reminded me of my home parish in Santa Barbara. The people were genuinely wonderful, warm, and welcoming. Not that other churches hadn't been. There was just something...intangible. But it felt like home. I had a spiritual support system again.

My legal struggle with the insurance company for my old job seemed to come to a resolution when they offered me a really tiny settlement. Mind you, they'd speculated that I would someday need a surgery (spinal fusion) that runs usually around $100,000. And the medical coverage would have covered that. However, I didn't want a spinal fusion. I wanted preventative care that would keep me from getting a spinal fusion, because a spinal fusion should be the last resort. Right?

I don't understand the logic (if we can call it that) of insurance companies. Rather than pay a smaller amount of money to prevent a procedure, they'd rather pay 10 times that amount to actually get the procedure. It makes no sense! I'd already begun a preventative measure of my own, and was paying for it out of pocket. My work with the brilliant Dr. Matthew Howe was already healing me, but to pay for the remainder of it would take a good portion of this settlement. Part of this work - called Network Spinal Analysis - is about helping one's body heal itself, about reconnecting ourselves to our body's innate intelligence about what it needs. And part of that was recognizing that I had been so traumatized by my last job that I could not go back into a job that would take so much out of me, even if I did love the clients.

This insurance company was willing to pay me about 10% of what that surgery would have cost, and I was too sick and tired of them to argue. When I first heard about it, I thought it was 30%. A month later, my attorney explained it to me (which he'd evidently done inadequately before), and I took it anyway. I was just done.

Of course, this was not easy. My aspirations of starting a dog food company were shattered, and I engaged in a full blown, panic-induced tantrum that would have made a three-year-old proud. I scared one of my housemates, as well as the dogs. Strangely, a few days earlier, I'd gotten an email out of the blue from an organization with whom I'd interviewed, asking me if I'd be interested in a position that was about to come available. At the time, I still thought I was going forward with the dog food business, and I told them no.

After getting this news from my attorney, I second-guessed myself. Was this the right thing to do?

When my emotions calmed down, I settled into a feeling that surprised me: peace. It was the oddest thing. I had a peaceful acceptance of this situation, and I had total faith that God was still there, still working, and still taking care of me. It wasn't in the way that I'd envisioned, but He was still there.

Perhaps more than landing in a beautiful log cabin in the woods, even more than finding a church that felt so much like home to me, this is what surprised me. I felt peaceful. I had faith.

For someone who'd been a practicing Wiccan just a few years before, this was quite a shock. I didn't know I was capable of this.

Meanwhile, my mom very sternly told me that I should have taken that job, and that I needed to be sending out resumes everywhere I could.

But I'd done that. I did it for three years in the Bay Area, and had done it quite a bit in Seattle as well. All to no avail. Most people wouldn't even call me back. It had become clear to me that this was not the right way to go about supporting myself. I needed to look for a different way.

Two days after finding out about how small the settlement would be, one day after discovering this strange sense of peace, two things happened: one which would affirm my faith, and one which would challenge it.

On the morning of April 29th, five days after Pascha (Orthodox Easter), I woke up to an email from an online university, offering me a course to teach. I'd gotten this job three years ago, but they never had a course to assign to me since I completed my training just as the economy was tanking. Three years of campaigning by a good friend of mine who worked there led to this offer, just in the nick of time. I was flabbergasted that my faith, once again, had yielded such results. God really was taking care of me.

One of the things that made me move from a religious practice like Wicca/Paganism and into Orthodoxy (via a long, circuitous, and frequently painful route) was the fact that the Orthodox faith was a path of devotion. I didn't get that from Wicca. Wicca taught me lots of things, things like empowerment and personal will and strength. I needed those at one time. But when it came down to it, I saw too much personal will and much less of a deep wonder of the Divine in that environment. And also...well, I think God was waiting for me. He'd sent me on a journey that would prepare me for Orthodoxy, oddly through Buddhism and Wicca. But He was ready for me to arrive where He meant me to be. Moving into Orthodoxy was, for me, a way to move into surrender and devotion that were somehow still empowering. There are many forms of Christianity, and I do not find these elements in all of them. I have never been called to surrender my will like I have as an Orthodox Christian. I have never experienced a sense of devotion in any other church as I have when in an Orthodox Church.

I was humbled beyond words that my clumsy attempts at faith and devotion left me open to experience this incredible sense of being cared for in ways I never would have imagined.

But then, the other shoe dropped. That afternoon, I got other news.

A good friend of mine from Santa Barbara, the lovely Erin Glaser Hall, died that day. She had a rare form of cancer that took her life in just a couple of years. She'd been married less than two years. She was 28 years old.

I went from elation to a broken heart in a matter of seconds. How could God, Who could take such good care of me, allow this incredible woman to pass from the world so soon before her time? How could He take her from all of us, from her loving husband? Remember what I said about surrendering my will? Yeah. That again. Part of that surrender is the willingness to not have to figure it all out. To (gulp) trust.

I got this news just before I was to go to the home of a family I met just a few days before, at Pascha. On Pascha morning, after waking up hours past the time for which I'd set my clock, I arrived at church dreadfully late, and plopped my basket full of meat (and other goodies I'd denied myself all through Lent) at a table that looked not-quite-full, and then bolted up the stairs just in time for the Gospel reading and the Paschal Homily. Afterwards, I discovered I'd invaded the table of the McGinnises (or, as I call them, the McGinnii), who lived only 10 minutes away from me, also in Woodinville. They invited me to stay at their table, and share the lovely Pascha morning with them.

Now, five days later and awash in grief (with the incongruous backdrop of relief and elation at the earlier news), I could have opted to stay home. Strangely, I still felt compelled to go spend the evening with this family. I pulled myself together and drove to their house.

I wish I could describe the feeling of being gently welcomed into their lives, just as a part of my life was falling away. It was an immeasurable comfort to sit in their home, share a meal, and simply watch a movie. They didn't make all the pain and confusion go away. They didn't make a big deal out of anything. They couldn't possibly replace Erin or bring her back. It's hard to say exactly what made that evening so comforting, but maybe it was just their presence. I felt safe there, as if all this struggle had a purpose, and the purpose was to heighten moments like these, where a simple show of love and support can keep faith from taking too big a hit. God really does show up everywhere, and tonight He was working through the McGinnii.

It is from this broken-hearted moment that the title of this series comes.

You see, I think having faith is just a little bit nuts.

I think it's a little bit nuts to have faith that I will be taken care of when the settlement that would have given me a cushion turns out to be only a third of what I thought it was. How is it not nuts to have faith that despite my love for the clients, the sweet job opportunity that was presented to me is not what I'm supposed to be doing? And sometimes I think I'm off my rocker to believe that God took a beautiful young woman from this Earth, but left me here, all for good reason.

But I do have faith in that. I don't know what the reasons are. I don't know where this path will take me. But I have faith that I am being guided, no matter how much my mom or anyone else thinks I'm crazy for not doing what seems most sensible, and for taking the risk that God has something else, something really cool, planned that is just right for me. I have faith that there is a reason for all of this, for my grief over Erin, for my confusion and rage when the rug gets pulled out from under me, and also for my joy and my stubborn hope. Just because I don't know the reason doesn't mean there isn't one. So I have to have faith that this will all make sense one day.

See? Faith seems like insanity sometimes.

In the Orthodox Church, there are saints known as Fools for Christ. They're called this based on I Corinthians 3:18, which states, "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise" (Orthodox Study Bible). Some well-known Fools for Christ have been Blessed St. Xenia of Petersburg, Russia, St. Basil the Blessed of Moscow, and St. Simeon of Emesa.

The thing about Fools for Christ is that people thought they were out of their minds. They did things that made no sense to the people around them, but they did them anyway. And often, this craziness turned out to be precognitive, or healing, or some other form of blessing. They were dialed in to God at a level that most of us can't even imagine. And in fact, most people in the times that they lived thought they were insane...until prayers were answered, until people were healed, until their ramblings started to make sense.

Now I'm not saying that I'm dialed in at that level, and I'm nowhere close to being holy. But I do get that in this environment where we're supposed to have the next several years planned out, where we are supposed to have reasons for everything we do, where we're supposed to be looking for jobs that are full time and provide health benefits, it is sheer lunacy to turn away from the sure thing and say, "No. I know God has something else for me."

I have not moved through this journey gracefully. Grace has happened to me and all around me, as I stagger around trying to make sense of it all.  Maybe I'm more of a Stumbling Idiot for Christ, blundering through a new habit of faith like I'm in a Molly Shannon skit (only without the armpit schtick). What I have to show for it are simple moments of joy and well-being that prove to me that I have been visited by Grace and led by God to such moments, in spite of myself. Some of these moments here in Washington have been:

• waking up to peer out the window through the trees into the morning sky (grey as it may be), a soft brown dog snuggled up against me, the sound and smell of rain filling the room
• hearing my church's choir sing The Beatitudes, and the smell of incense permeating that peaceful place
• reading a thank you email from a student
• teaching swing dancing at St Paul's
• playing Dungeons & Dragons with new friends (and some old ones)
• visiting a monastery on a nearby island, and having a long talk with a Norwegian monk over a cup of good coffee
• going to a holiday barbeque at Castle McGinnis
• laughing with my housemates
• swing dancing (and watching Battlestar Galactica, though not at the same time) with a really good new friend from church - one who's reckless enough to do aerials with me
• driving down the road and seeing the clouds suddenly break to reveal an ice-capped mountain range, or Mt Rainier looming over the city
• standing in relative silence in the rain, on the property where I live, hearing raindrops land, and noting the exquisite color of green on the cedar trees
• watching Greta frolic in the tall grass

Huh. Maybe faith isn't so crazy.