Category: Faith

Pre-Paschal Reflections – 2024

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It’s been 10 years since I entered the Orthodox church.12 years of attending the same church – something that our children probably find astounding! From the time we entered the United States, fresh off the boat from Cairo, we changed churches like teenagers change their minds. It was exhausting for all of us.

Recently in a conversation with a friend about the Orthodox Church, she said to me “You deconstructed before it got popular.” But I don’t think we deconstructed. I think we reconstructed, and it led us to where we are today.

Today as the sun set on Great and Holy Saturday, and as I prepared for our Paschal feast in the wee hours of the morning, I felt deep gratitude for the journey. It has not been easy. Like entering any foreign country, there is a rhythm to learn – feasts and fasts, sacraments, and the ascetical life of the church. It has challenged me in ways I could not imagine – and it has also offered me unexpected belonging and community. So many in our church know what it is to live between worlds, know what it is for worlds to connect or collide. The unifying thread is our collective understanding of being part of something greater than ourselves, something that, in the words of C.S. Lewis, beckons us “further up and further in.”

As I offer this year’s Pre-Paschal reflections, I’m also grateful to those of you who have been on this journey with me. For you have offered grace in your listening and honored my words in unexpected ways. I can never express how thankful I am that you continually read.

In closing, I’ll offer my favorite words from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Sermon:

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Blessed Pascha to those who celebrate – and to those who don’t – come visit some year! It is a glorious day!

Χριστός ἀνέστη
المسيح قام
Khristos voskres
Hristos a Inviat
Christo Ressuscitou
Christ is Risen

Great and Holy Friday

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In his book Disappointment with God, author Philip Yancey, tells a poignant story about a boy who shot his father. When he was taken to a residential facility and asked why he did it, he responded that he hated his father, he wanted his father dead. Later that evening as a staff member was walking down the hallway monitoring the deeply troubled and wounded kids who were there, he heard the boy crying “I miss my father. I want my father.”

It’s this story that I think about on this day of Great and Holy Friday because the boy is me. I continually do things that kill the character of God, that wound his righteousness. I sometimes want him out of my life, blame him as the cause of all suffering. But in the dark and quiet of the night, I too can be heard crying. “I miss my father. I want my father.”

Today around the world, from Palestine to Alaska, Orthodox Christians are gathering – many in the midst of unquantifiable suffering – to commemorate the death of Christ on the cross. In doing this we remember the ultimate act of love and sacrifice and will ourselves to pause for a moment; pause to remember the most horrific death imaginable. Pause to remember the suffering of Christ. We pause to remember and as we do, we recognize yet again that suffering is not meaningless but is met by a God who sits with us in our pain. Sometimes he whispers comfort, sometimes he is silent, but his presence is a reality that I will believe throughout my life.

There is much pain I am feeling these days. I find it difficult to read any news, more difficult still to comprehend the depth of suffering and pain present, particularly in mothers who have buried a child even as they watch another child suffer from malnutrition and lack of medical care. It is too big for me to bear. And I cry before God and his holy mother, knowing that on that day so long ago, a sword pierced her soul. That’s where I will sit today, at the foot of the cross, with Mary, the mother of God, and I will weep even as I rest in the “vast mystery of God, the surety of God’s power, the reassurance of God’s goodness.”

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear. We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection.

From Matins of Holy Friday

Pieces of My Heart

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It’s 8 am and from my upstairs perch in Rockport I can hear someone practicing the trumpet. I wish I could adequately describe the off-key feeble attempts at creating notes. Just know that it has me giggling and secretly glad that I’m not in front of the musician. I’m sure it’s giving them great joy, which is a good thing because otherwise it may be intolerable. But – kudos to them for trying something so obviously new to them.

Several weeks ago, one of my nephews sent me an article on the day that is Ash Wednesday for Protestants. I found it deeply challenging and have been thinking about it these last couple of weeks. Written by Nadia Bolz-Weber, the article references an Old Testament reading from the book of the prophet Joel. And then she asks the reader what is harder – fasting for Lent or returning to God with our whole hearts?

My problem…and maybe yours too is that I sort of piece my heart out to things that cannot love me back –  to the unrequited love of so many false promises – my starving little heart is doled out in so many pieces trying to get her own needs met.

Nadia Bolz-Weber in Take Another Little Piece of my Heart, Baby

She goes on to talk about parsing out her heart to social media or addiction or mindless television watching or – fill in the blank. There are uncountable ways that we can dole out our hearts to things that will not give back. They are present and they are easy, even if the things they promise will never satisfy.

Tomorrow, Orthodox Lent begins and tonight is Forgiveness Sunday, where in a beautiful service of repentance, we ask forgiveness of God and each other before entering into this time of fasting and reflecting. As we move toward tomorrow, I am remembering this article and how much I have doled out my heart to everything but God. I find myself empty, discouraged, and wanting. Lent serves as a jolt to my heart, upsetting the status quo and asking rather than demanding that I think about giving my whole heart to God.

Deciding to stop spreading my heart to things that disappoint and returning to God is a theme woven through all of scripture. We see it in individual relationships like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and we see it in entire communities like God’s constant interactions with the Israelites as they wandered through the Sinai desert. There are few conditions associated with return. We don’t have to look good; we don’t have to be good. The only conditions of return are willingness and repentance. We move forward and, like the faithful father in the story of the prodigal son, he comes running.

Do a search and it quickly shows hundreds of verses. Return to me so I can return to you. Return to me so that you can be restored. Return to me because I’m slow to anger, full of compassion. Return to me for I am gracious, I won’t be angry forever. Return to me. We read and experience this through stories of people over and over again. Clearly, we have a lot of company when it comes to piecing out our hearts.

As I often say in this space, I don’t know what is going on in your lives today. I don’t know what has divided your heart, what pieces and fragments have been spread around in restless longing only to realize that the things you’ve given your heart to will never give you what you long for. I do know that if you are feeling this, I’m with you in the struggle. I’m with you in the discouragement of feeling like the long road is sometimes too long. I’m with you in feeling like giving up, with you in feeling like it’s sometimes just easier to join the throngs of those who seem perfectly happy with hearts that are given to other things.

And I’m also with you in knowing that it’s worth it to return. Indeed – is there any other true way to live than constantly running back to the Father, ready to release my heart, even when I’m so far away? I don’t think there is. In all the piecing out of my heart, I am sure of only one thing – when I decide to return, the Father will be waiting.

When I’m 64

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Would you indulge me as I reflect and cry a little in this space?

I turn 64 tomorrow. Depending on where you live in the world, it means I’ve either far exceeded the life expectancy, or I have many years to go. Either way, I’m feeling and thinking about many things.

I think it began this morning as I listened to beloved children’s musician Raffi sing “Everything Grows and Grows.” 

Everything grows and grows
Babies do, animals too
Everything grows
Everything grows and grows
Sisters do, brothers too
Everything grows

This song is one of my favorites and as I was listening to it the tears came unbidden, and I let them. I had just finished scheduling some medical appointments online and my body’s frailty despite fairly good health was on my mind. We are immortal beings living in mortal bodies – bodies that face all sorts of indecencies and difficulties. From ingrown toenails to brain tumors, we groan and sometimes lose hope. At 64, the “to do” list on our electronic medical charts gets longer and makes us face reality – our bodies are aging. With this, we know we have some decisions to make, and a number of those have to do with acceptance and attitude. I don’t want to be someone who gives everyone around me an “organ recital” as I age. I don’t want to hate my body or blame the God who created me, and yet I see how easily it may be to go down that dangerous path.

I want to accept my 64 years and what they have brought and taught me with joy, gratitude, and a healthy dose of humor. Because let’s face it – the aging body and process can be funny. Perhaps the funniest is that you see yourself as 24 and all your 64-year-old friends as – well, maybe 84. You can’t believe how much they’ve aged! You pat yourself on the back and then you catch a reflected version of yourself in the blackout windows of the car and you clutch your heart thinking “I thought Grandma K was dead! What’s she doing in my car?!” You think about how you should maybe take an exercise class, get rid of some of those unsightly bulges – and then you think “Nah! I look pretty good. Pass the cinnamon roll.”

Getting older is almost like changing species, from cute middle-aged, white-tailed deer, to yak. We are both grass eaters, but that’s about the only similarity. At the Safeway sushi bar during lunchtime, I look at the teenage girls in their crop tops with their stupid flat tummies and I feel bad about what lies beneath my big, forgiving shirts but — and this is one of the blessings of aging — not for long.

Ann Lamott as quoted in The Washington Post

The physical piece is just the beginning. The harder piece is emotional, for in a society that loves beauty and youth, it is easy to feel irrelevant. It comes through subtly and consistently. Unless you’re famous, like Ann Lamott, your life experience, earned fact as it were, is not seen as important or relevant to our fast-paced world. When at a public event, you can see the eyes of younger people look over or through you. There are surely more interesting people in the room to talk to. You want to connect with people, but do they want to connect with you?

Ready to inhale a massive dose of self-pity, you suddenly stop yourself and think: Hold on! It isn’t about me. Life just isn’t. It’s about something so much bigger, better, and more lasting. It’s about loving well the generations that will follow me. It’s about making sure they know that they are beloved, that they are precious. It’s about showing grace even when faced with those who are not gracious. It is about forgiving when you feel misunderstood and hurt, about forgiving when you are not being forgiven.

What do I want 64 to look like beyond medical appointments and fear? Beyond irrelevance and unsightly bulges?

I want it to be a year of peace and joy, of smiling at the future. I want to invest in my kids and my grandkids – another coming our way in May. I want to love them with abandon. I want to see more of my girlfriends, to go out to breakfast and right the world. At our age, we should be able to. I want to learn how to decorate cakes and become a better communicator. I want to write words that are full of life and grace, that point the reader to something bigger and better than me. I want to walk through crowded bazaars in places I love and drink coffee in unexpected coffee shops. I want to go to a Bollywood exercise class and laugh at my mistakes. I want to love others well. I want to grow more compassionate and meet the unexpected hard things without fear. I want to honor the struggle – mine and others. Most of all, I want others to see the God I love, to witness his work and love his world.

64. It’s a lot of me and a lot of life. Will you journey with me on this? I sure hope so!

Sharp Edges of a Round Globe

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What is it about Sunday afternoons in winter that bring on such melancholy? I remember writing a couple of years ago that if Sunday mornings are a time when Heaven meets earth in Divine Liturgy, Sunday afternoons feel opposite. They feel cold and hard, as though the warm grace of the morning has frozen, leaving only ice and cold.

Truth is, I have felt this way since I can remember. It began in boarding school. Sunday afternoon was the time for resting. The entire hostel was quiet. As I think back on this, it is quite extraordinary. How can that many children in one place be quiet? But we were, whether it be from fear of punishment or just the intensity of the week catching up with us, Sunday afternoons had us in our dormitory rooms, curled up with books, taking a nap with a favorite stuffed animal, or hiding tears of homesickness because that is when we missed our moms and dads so much. As I would sit in my room, a yearning sadness enveloped me, and it has remained that way since I was a child.

Today I feel like that boarding school kid once again, a yearning sadness surrounding me and threatening to overwhelm.

Certainly, there is enough to be sad about. I feel the sharp edges of a round globe, like shards of glass are stuck into different cities and regions tearing into people and places. It is too big for most to bear. Besides the global pain is the individual pain that each one of us knows, some of it too difficult to share with even our close friends. And yet I cannot believe that a silent and cruel giant creator is playing with our globe and us like we are toys, wanting to wound those toys like a child bent on cruelty toward inanimate objects.

I cannot believe in a cruel creator because the thread of goodness that I see, feel, and sense is still too strong. I see it in the kindness of a neighbor. I feel it in a friend putting her arm around me as she sees tears well up in my eyes. I sense it in the beauty of the hymns of the church. I see it in the bravery of men and women who are caring for the suffering around the world. And I see it as the sun rises each day in all these places – whether or not we see color through the clouds. But far beyond what I see, feel, and sense is an enduring faith that God is good, and in his goodness I can rest.

This work of faith brings me once again to pray the prayers of the church – prayers that have been passed down through centuries of faith by people who lived in profoundly difficult times. Prayers that I have gratefully received, knowing that I don’t have the words I need. Prayers that are large enough and strong enough to cover a round globe with sharp edges. I leave one of those with you today, knowing that on this melancholy Sunday afternoon they give me hope and help me move beyond my melancholy to a place of peace and rest.

Remember Lord all your servants who are in pain, who are in despair, who are sick, who are poor, who have lost a loved one, who have been wronged, who are by themselves, who have been slandered,  who are captives, who are hungry, who are refugees, who have lost their ways, who have been deceived, who are unprotected, who are in prison…Remember Lord all the nations of the world.  Keep them in your embrace and cover and protect them from war and evil.

St. Paisios

Faraway Family

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Boston is cold. This is the first thing I think as I step out of Logan International Airport, arms heavy with bags and suitcases, and head toward ground transport. The airport is busy as travelers, eager to get on their way with weekend plans, rush or amble to airport gates with their coffee, bags and kids in tow.

This morning we left sunny California where we had 10 beautiful days with three of our children and their growing families. A grandson who is definitely cuter than your grandsons (insert laugh emoji) was part of the package and the soft feel of his body falling asleep on my chest will not easily leave me. How amazing is it to witness a future generation growing? To be welcomed as a part of his life? Though I love words, they fail me as I think about this.

We left as a beautiful sunrise made its way across the western sky, flaming colors transforming an airport into a blaze of otherworldly beauty and light. We left and an ache settled into my heart and body.

Ten days does not feel like enough. I felt the same when I left my oldest daughter and her family in early December. Those grandchildren are older but still young enough that they are wide-eyed with wonder, challenging any cynical or weary adults. Life is a daily adventure of exoskeletons, seeing the stars with their naked eyes, and digging down to the water table (these are their words, and they are way, way too smart for me.)

And I think about how Boston is cold, and Boston feels lonely. I ask myself as I’ve done so many times before – are families really supposed to live so far away from each other?

I come from a long line of movers. My paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather both arrived as immigrants in the United States – one from Leeds, England and the other from St. Petersburg, Russia. They were both children and they left extended family in their countries of origin. My mom and dad were first generation Americans, born and raised in Massachusetts. Unlike their parents, they left Massachusetts as adults, a young married couple with one baby. They traveled eight thousand miles, entering into a completely different way of living than either of their parents, raising their children far from extended family.

Yet, the people who stepped in as proxy uncles and aunts were as much a part of my life as any relative could ever be. Dr. Mary, Auntie Hannah, Auntie Bettie….the list goes on. I think about them every day. They reflected grace, love, humor, and care to me and my brothers. It is hard to find that same dynamic in the United States. As much as I want to say that a church, faith community, or a chosen family fills in those gaps, I have to search hard to see it reflected in the same way. I don’t see people dropping everything to cuddle a baby or make a meal. I witness more apologetic requests, asking for help with hesitancy and a side order of guilt. Guilt that we can’t cope on our own, guilt that we are needy, guilt – dare I say it – that we need people to step in when we are sick, or sad, or have a baby, or just because. We are created for community, created for more than a solitary life. Monks give up the world to live apart and pray for the world, but they know the importance of community and they live it every day.

Are families really supposed to live so far away? I pose the question to a few friends and the responses are quick. No. No – they aren’t. My friend Brit adds to that “I think no, but also it is just a part of the brokenness of the modern world.” There is much truth to that statement.

Faraway family has become normal in a world of displacement. There are those of us who have chosen to move, and those who are displaced through force, not by choice. I think of the massive displacement and death that Palestinians are facing daily and my heart settles into a dull and constant ache for these faraway families. I think of those still held in captivity, taken now months ago and feel an equal ache.

Despite seeing more of this in the modern world, my faith tradition tells me that none of this is new. Families have been torn apart for centuries, some by force, some by choices both good and harmful, and others following a God whose ways are mysterious, whose purposes often show up in future generations not in the generation that makes the move. I think of Jesus, whose birth Western Christians have celebrated, and Eastern Christians celebrate tomorrow. His birth was a transition from one home to another. He left a home where he was one with God the Father and entered a place where he would be both worshipped and mocked; adored and rejected; believed and killed because of disbelief.

He knows what it is to have faraway family, to feel forsaken and alone, to long for the day when he would be reunited. And somehow, he will continue to use faraway family and those close by to remind us of who he is, and who we are; to remind us that we belong, and that family is bigger than we can imagine; to remind us that we are not alone and that our griefs and joys matter; to continue to work out the miracle and mystery of salvation and redemption.

As we move into our Orthodox celebration, we will sing a Nativity hymn “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels, with shepherds, glorify Him! The wise men journey with the star! Since for our sake the Eternal God is born as a little child.” And in singing, I will remember this journey from heaven to earth, so that family and all of creation could be redeemed and healed to the glory of God.

Advent – Meaning in the midst of Suffering

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Beginning last night into this evening, fierce winds and rain have blown across the Northeast. Weather news people with their characteristic catastrophizing have talked about a “bomb cyclone.” I don’t know exactly what that means but in easy terms it is a winter hurricane. In my world it means that I want to be home. I want to be warm. I want to be safe. Aren’t those the cries of all of us at so many points during life and the cries of so many at this moment throughout the world?

It seems fitting then to talk about suffering, and that difficult question posed so often throughout history. Why would a good God allow suffering? How can we believe that God is good when life is not? From ancient texts to modern day influencers, we see people attempt to tackle and explain the impossible. It turns many away from religious faith altogether, it makes cynics out of believers, it crushes those who used to walk with a lightness to their steps and life.

Those of us who continue to embrace our Christian faith have no less questions. Ask my friend Brit, whose husband died just weeks after the birth of their first baby. Ask someone with debilitating pain who still chooses to believe. Ask the Palestinian woman who has lost children in the recent attacks. No – we still have questions. Lots of questions.

At the end of a life, every single human being has a reason to believe God is not good. But the opposite is also true. At the end of every life, there is evidence of God’s goodness in every breath we’ve been given.

How do we say that God is Good when Life is Not?

While each person’s circumstances are different, what all who suffer (yet continue to have faith and belief that God is light and love, that God is present in the midst of suffering) have in common is the belief that suffering is not the end of the story. In the mystery of faith, suffering, when accepted instead of resisted, has the power to transform us and increase our capacity to see others through a lens of compassion and love. Instead of being meaningless, it can be meaningful. In Man’s Search for Meaning, author Victor Frankl says that “life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” It’s a bold statement and one that I often want to argue against. And yet – over and over I have found it to be true.

This year as we journey through the season of Advent, I am entering into it not only as a season of preparation, anticipation and waiting, but also as a reminder that our suffering, that our world’s suffering is not meaningless, not the result of an absent deity who wound up the world and watches without thought or care as we struggle through it.

For in the midst of terrible suffering around the world, we press on during Advent. We press on during the time of the year when the nights are longer than the days. We walk in the shadows longing for the light. We try to make sense of a story that began in a world so different, yet so similar to the one we live in. A world of occupation and suffering, a world of disease and sadness, a world that was waiting for a Savior. We watch as a young woman named Mary, the “Theotokos” (God-bearer) and someone of no significance to the occupying empire, enters into the significant and eternal salvation story, willing for a sword to pierce her soul. We remember a story of internally displaced people, a man and wife heading to a foreign city, trying to find a place to stay, a place that is warm and safe for the woman to give birth. We enter the timeless mystery of the birth of Christ and the first unlikely visitors to the Christ child. In truth – everything about this story surprises us. Nothing is as it seems.

Perhaps during this Advent too, nothing is quite as it seems. We search for joy, and we somehow find it in the midst of suffering. We persist in the face of our own and others disbelief. We press on in our belief that God is good even when life seems so awful, and we pray the words “Lord I believe – Help my unbelief.”

Shielding our Joy During Advent

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This past weekend I had the joy of celebrating my oldest daughter at her pinning ceremony acknowledging her completion of a master’s degree in nursing. In a sea of white coats, my daughter wore gold satin, and I couldn’t have been prouder. Annie has worked long and hard for this degree. Prior to even applying for the program, she had to complete a number of prerequisites and she consistently excelled despite the demands of parenthood and more. We celebrated joyously both that day and the following with a party in her honor.

It’s a tricky thing to enter into joy when the world is on fire. There is a sense of guilt and wrong about it, a ‘why do we get to celebrate while others are suffering?’ question in our heads and hearts.

And yet…refusing to enter into joy does nothing for the suffering. It does not bring about a ceasefire. It does not help bury the dead or comfort a mother whose grief is too big to bear. It does not stop the humiliation of men stripped to their underwear and blindfolded and it does not bring back any hostages. Refusing to enter into joy may seem like a martyred response of solidarity, but I would propose to you that it is the opposite.

It was in Pakistan and the Middle East where I learned about joy through suffering. It was in that part of the world where important lessons were lived in front of me, where I first learned that entering into joy during a hard season was not an act of betrayal. There was Alice who lost a baby girl at the hands of a stray bullet. Yet Alice knew how to laugh, knew how to live well in the midst of suffering. There was Dr. Carol Hover whose husband died in her arms in a head-on collision on a dusty road in Pakistan. He was a gifted doctor and they worked together providing medical care to those most in need. Dr. Carol’s joyful spirit in the midst of learning how to live as a widow with four children was a hallmark of her work and life. Even as I write this, I think of my friend Joanna who has been going through experimental chemo treatment that hurts her body in unimaginable ways, and yet every word, every post is written with an overarching theme of joy. There were and are so many others who lived joy out loud in the midst of some of the hardest things in life.

The service of compline in the Book of Common Prayer specifically speaks to this in a line that I’ve written about before. These words are said toward the end of this beautiful service marking the close of the day.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, page 124

Shield the joyous. The words shout at me this Advent season. For despite all that is going on around the world, joy will still be lived out, often by those who are suffering the most. It is a taste of the goodness of God and a testament to the strength that God gives. This joy is a gift to our world, and we are invited to respond by entering into God-given Advent joy. Practicing joy this Advent could be the one of the most important things we do in a world that is burning up with sadness and suffering.

So, I pray for all of us this season, that we will trust our joys and our sorrows to a God who is big enough to take on all the suffering in the world and yet still shield the joyous.

Author’s note: You can read more details of these stories in my book Worlds Apart: A Third Culture Kid’s Journey