Are We Surprised?

Last night I had a rotten dream. It could have been a nice quiet happy dream, full of good friends hanging out at the usual Starbucks. But then someone else walked in and started yapping at me.

David*, your mouth is talking. You should see to that.

First, who invited him into this dream?

Second, why am I dreaming in Firefly?

One of my friends steered him away from us as another muttered a choice comment.

Yeah, but he's right, I responded.

That's where it got me. In the dream, I went outside and assaulted the nearest light pole until my commenter friend stopped me and let me cry on him.

The dream ended there.

I forgot about it, and the day went fine for a couple hours, until something reminded me. Then his words kept echoing, and I very quickly reached the point of wanting to scream and beat some inanimate object.

The thing is, if the comment in the dream hadn't had such an appearance of truth, it wouldn't have mattered. If it hadn't hit directly on a spot that's already raw, it wouldn't have mattered. If it hadn't come in such an entirely plausible manner, it wouldn't have mattered. But the whole scenario could absolutely be played out in real life, and the comment, which looks awfully true at this point, hit a very raw spot.

It didn't take long before breathing became difficult. I posted to Twitter.

GRAR!!!!!

Almost immediately, Counselor popped up with a direct message. (I heart Trillian and its new Twitter client!)

Problem?

Stupid dream last night is getting to me. I'll live.

And a few minutes later I was fine. I know she was praying for me. I also know that dream was somehow a result of my decision to end the counseling.

The offending comment was a new twist on one of the voices that's been in my head for a while. It's one that Abbess Michaila at the monastery told me might speak up. I didn't expect it to speak up in a dream, but there it was, and it rattled me pretty good.

But there were a few things that voice wasn't counting on. My friends, for example- the ones in the dream as well as Counselor. Two in the dream responded in rather helpful manners. Yes, I know it was a dream, but there are things to take from this. For one thing, my dreams have not always been quite so benevolent. Also, I could see them both doing the same thing were this to actually happen.

Once I made all these connections, the whole thing made so much sense that I had to laugh. Of course if I think I'm ready to wrap up counseling, something's going to go wonky in my mind. Of course I need to watch out for these voices. Even in my sleep I can be aware that they only have power if I let them, just as, apparently, even in my sleep I know I'm not fighting them on my own anymore.

There are still some monsters in my head, but maybe there will always be. I have the tools I need, though, to fight them.

Yes, I am ready.

*This may or may not be his actual name.

May It Be

When I started this post, I was sitting here, looking at a blank box, and my iPod, in the middle of the soundtrack playlist, played "May It Be" from the end of the first Lord of the Rings movie. I immediately got the mental image of Frodo and Sam looking out over Emyn Muil.

                FRODO
          Mordor!   I hope the others find a safer road.

                    SAM
          Strider'll look after them.

                    FRODO
          I don't suppose we'll ever see them again.

                    SAM
          We may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may.

                     FRODO
          Sam? I'm glad you're with me.

I'm not sure why that picture seemed so appropriate, but it nearly brought me to tears.

When I lost my job in August, several expenses had to go. I have not maneuvered myself out of all of them yet, but I cut counseling to twice a month immediately. So it has been for the last four months, and when I see Counselor again this Thursday, I'll cut it back again to once a month. I'll see her once in January and once in February, and then I'll be finished.

So a four year chapter draws to a close. It has been a very beneficial chapter. When I started, I could barely function through the constant panic attacks. Even as late as a year ago, I could not believe I'd ever be ready for this. But here it is, and yes, I am ready.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to cry.

Best Laid Plans

My Godmother and I recently discovered the movie Arranged. It is the parallel stories of two young women, one Muslim, the other, Orthodox Jew. They work together at a school in New York, and they share with each other the frustrations and excitement of their specific cultural matchmaking processes. While I would not want to have to function in either of those systems, exactly, I can certainly appreciate the safety net of working these things out within the context of one's community rather than individually!

I had intended to start writing regularly through the Nativity season, but the first two weeks seem to have gotten away from me.

I had expected to write about a certain young man who was rather intriguing, but that was also not to be.

A few friends and I went to a monastery in Arizona for Thanksgiving. I was hoping to have some reflections from that time, but it turned out to be not the most reflective environment. Still, perhaps there is a story here worth remembering.

It all began at the beginning of November. There was a message from some new someone on the Orthodox dating site I had joined. His message and his profile did not send up any red flags, and his picture was rather nice to look at, so we started conversing.

We had so much in common in some ways, and in other ways, we were enough different to keep things interesting. He was easy to talk with, and he seemed to really like me. Were the memory of the last guy not so clear, it would have been ridiculously easy to fall hard for this one. However, that memory is still clear, I seem to have learned those lessons well, and Fr Patrick helped with the occasional kind reminder that things online are not always quite as they seem.

I was thrilled when Fr Patrick decided to call my friend's priest to see if this might be a suitable arrangement, and when he reported that it would not be, I was fully on board. At first. As the next two days went by, though, I became confused. My friend wanted to pursue a resolution to what he perceived to be a miscommunication. I wanted to follow my spiritual father's advice, but I also wanted to not miss what looked like a very good opportunity.

God is merciful. I was handed a good amount of time to sort things out. Fr Patrick left for a pilgrimage two days after hearing from the other priest, so there was no way to pursue anything without cutting him out, which both my friend and I were unwilling to do. Then, for Thanksgiving weekend, I made my own pilgrimage with some friends to a monastery in Arizona.

It was an eight hour drive to get to St Paisius Monastery. We arrived on Thursday afternoon, just as vespers was letting out. We went directly to dinner, then to compline, then, finally to our lodging for the weekend. After settling in, I spent the next hour reading the book I had brought along.

I received the book Dorotheos of Gaza for my birthday from some very special people, and for various reasons it spent the summer and most of the fall being preempted by other reading. This turned out to be fortuitous, for I began reading Dorotheos at the monastery that first night.

The book had things to say to me, even before I finished reading the introduction. There was an anecdote on the subject of obedience and humility, the telling of which reached right into the middle of the confusion I had regarding my friend and my spiritual father.

I continued to read a bit each day we were there, in between other activities, and the decision I arrived at that first night was reinforced each time I picked up the book.

Before we went to the monastery, Fr Patrick had directed me to make time to talk with Abbess Michaila about the situation. I made my request to one of the sisters early in the day Friday, though by then we knew what was in store for Saturday, so I was not at all sure the meeting would happen.

Saturday. Wow. So, one expects a trip to a monastery to be a quiet, reflective time. One does not necessarily expect to accidentally arrive the weekend of the monastery's patronal feast. When the liturgy thereof is to be celebrated in the new church for the first time. Which prompted nearly two hundred people to show up for the occasion. Many things were on the schedule for the day. Quiet was not among them. However, there was a good dose of Slavonic in the liturgy, and during the ginormous lunch afterward, there were many people speaking Slavic languages, some Russian, others Serbian, or with good strong Slavic accents. Mmmmmm. This did make for a happy spider. Adding to the noise of two hundred people, and at the same time quieting it, was the dust storm that lasted most of the day. The winds were loud, but they encouraged the crowd of visitors not to linger, meanwhile driving us into the shelter and relative solitude of the trailer we were staying in. I continued my reading.

Finally, I received word that the abbess would meet with me during vespers Saturday afternoon. We had decided to head home at four Sunday morning, so I had nearly given up on seeing her at all. As it turned out, I got to spend about an hour talking with her. She managed to affirm my decision and even gave an answer to my last internal argument on the subject at hand before I had asked the question. This is most excellent. Much was said in that time, and when we wrapped up, she sent me to the class that Fr Dorotheos (the priest, or at least monk- not so clear on that- at the monastery, whose patron I had been reading all weekend) was teaching in another part of the building. She told me to introduce myself to him and let him know that she would be speaking with him regarding me.

It would seem that I, inadvertently, now have the abbess and the monk thinking in matchmaking terms.

In addition to a number of people in my own parish.

There is still a fear-of-the-unknown factor.

This is somewhat alarming.

And a bit unnerving.

And fantastic.

On Journey and Destination

The 2003 Russia team decided that rather than break the thirteen hour flight from LA to Moscow into two pieces with a layover, we wanted to try the direct flight. We mentally girded ourselves for a thirteen hour non-stop flight across eleven time zones and all the fun physical and psychological adventures that would entail. One never reaches a destination unmarked by the journey.

Two weeks before departure, we found out that the lovely, trustworthy, and incredibly reliable airline had neglected to actually book our tickets. Two weeks before departure, we were unsure whether there would be a departure, but through a bit of fancy footwork, we managed to secure alternate arrangements. One never reaches a destination unmarked by the journey.

We did not have our non-stop flight. In fact, the flight home was a two day tour of five airports in four countries. We left Moscow for Frankfurt, spent the night there, continued to Heathrow, then Dulles, then LA. The layovers in London and Washington were three hours each. By the time we boarded the plane to leave England, not one of us had a filter remaining between brain and mouth. By the time we took off from DC, we were emotionally fried. One never reaches a destination unmarked by the journey.

My journey to Orthodoxy was no different. Bumps in the road left dents and scratches. Various forks in the road, in retrospect, pointed me in this direction. Series of dramas forced me to evaluate things. Three specific friends directly influenced my thinking toward the Orthodox Church. I did not come to Orthodoxy as a blank slate. One never reaches a destination unmarked by the journey.

Except it turns out there were more than just the three. This morning, we had a visitor in matins. It was Big Brother Pastor, from the church I used to go to. It had been way too long since he and I had had a chance to hang out, so he came to visit. We- everyone present- were talking after the service, and some of the thoughts coming from my brother were somewhat surprising to me. Had he not made his comments as one in the Protestant milieu, he could easily have been mistaken for Orthodox. I have known this man in a pastoral context for over sixteen years. It was surprising to hear him expressing so many things that I had discovered as I first encountered Orthodoxy. But was it really that surprising? Not so much.

I have talked before about disconnects between belief and teaching. I'd like to come at that again, though from a different angle. I suspect that some of the training I received growing up was many of the right thoughts packaged in the wrong words. This is not necessarily the fault of any of my teachers; the cause of this mispackaging lies deep in history.

Neither is it merely a question of semantics. Words have power, and the words we use to speak of God things shape our beliefs regarding those God things. Yes, we use words to give expression to what we believe, but the reverse is equally, if not more, true. So truth, expressed in the wrong words, can be missed or misunderstood or confused in the hearing.

I suspect that there are people outside of Orthodoxy who have a very Orthodox understanding of things, but they are unable to rightly give that understanding expression. It would be like trying to speak Latin with a Spanish vocabulary. The languages are related, indeed one came out of the other, but languages change over time. Words that look the same may sound wildly different or carry very different meanings. Juan down the street is going to have trouble expressing what he reads in Virgil unless he first learns to understand Virgil's language and context.

So there I was, hearing an Orthodox understanding on certain things being spoken by my friend, the Protestant pastor. But, as I said, I knew him as my pastor for a very long time. I am fairly sure I had never heard him give voice to many of those thoughts, but I am absolutely certain that they have long been present in the subtext of who he his. And in fourteen and a half years, I could not help but pick up on these ways of thinking.

It may be that, with him as my pastor, it was nearly inevitable that I would become Orthodox. After all, one never reaches a destination unmarked by the journey.

Catching Up

I wasn't expecting September. I tried to keep up with the summer as it marched along, but a few weeks ago -THUD- I ran headlong into September.

First there was June, with Nora the Exuberant's wedding. It was my first Orthodox wedding experience, and my first time inside the Greek church just a few blocks from where I grew up. And I got to be part of the choir for the wedding! How cool is that?

Before the wedding, I discovered that Nora's new parish in Pennsylvania is the same parish where my good friend Why has been attending since Pascha. So my two friends are now friends with each other. How cool is that?

July was particularly determined to outdistance me. I started and ended the month house sitting, with several other jobs in between. I was rarely sure whether I was coming or going or where I was going or even where I lived! But it was a bit of an adventure, and in the process, I learned a few things about myself.

Somewhere in the dust of August was a reunion with my two bestest friends from grade school days. We went to church together. Two of us went to school and celebrated our birthdays together. The third was homeschooled, so when we had events, we tended to bring her along. Our parents liked each other and our brothers were similarly aged, though the youngest boy was and remains fairly anti-social. We were the inseparable trio until we were ten, and we got the three of us together for the first time since the early 90's.

There was a road trip a few days later. The day after I lost my job, I drove to my aunt's house in Central California. After a couple days there, I headed north again to my grandpa's relatives in the Sacramento area. My great uncle, his wife, two of their kids and their families live within a half mile of each other. I knew no one from my generation in that branch of the family prior to that trip, but now I've met several of them.

Yes, you read that right. The job, it is gone. As a result, August closed with this spider relocating once again, this time to her Godmother's place. Whee! That makes four moves in three years, for those who are keeping track. But this time around, it really has turned out well. I won't be here long, and I have no idea where I'll be next, but I do know I'll be fine.

September has been interesting. I built a web site for my priest. It's not quite done, but nearly. There is another web site for another priest in the queue, though I have not heard back on that one yet. There has been some discussion regarding what I want to do with my life, and I think I finally know.

In fact, I need to make the phone call that will give me a starting point for that direction...