Paschal Reflections

No posts lately because it's the insane time of year.

Holy Week and Pascha (what's sometimes called Orthodox Easter) are a whirlwind of activity, with 23-26 (depending on how you count) church services, each 1-3 hours long, crammed into ten days.

Since I'm the protopsaltis in our parish, I take the week off from gainful employment and work instead for the benefit of my church family and my own soul. This year, Lent, Holy Week, and Pascha were a study in stark contrast.

We've been without a permanent priest for several years, but our bishop has always provided extra services during Great Lent. Until this year. We started Lent with no priest and we struggled through Lent with no priest. We had exactly one Liturgy during all of Lent. My family and I intended to go to services during the week at the local Russian church ("local" meaning it's only a half hour drive away), but we got terribly sick for three weeks... half of Lent. This, by far, was the hardest Lent I've ever been through. At first, we had a light at the end of the tunnel, because a priest from California that we know and love was planning to come up and be with us for Holy Week and Pascha. Then, half-way through Lent, his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given six weeks to live. Even still, he told the bishop that he would still come to Alaska to serve us, but the bishop told him to take care of his mother. As much as I completely agreed with the bishop's decision, I have not felt so stunned and dismayed except twice in my life: one was the first time a close friend was killed in a car accident, and the other was when a family member revealed they were fighting a terminal disease.

I was going to post something about the trivium and quadrivium...

...but I decided against it. Instead, I stoked up the fire in the woodstove and made our (the kids' and my) favorite comfort food for lunch: mac & cheese with hot dogs. Yep, that's right: mama is out and about, and papa is feeding the kids. Sadly for them, my culinary repertoire is primarily grill-centric.


I say "sadly" only from the perspective of the parent that realizes the lunch he just made for his children is not exactly what those skinny dieticians would call "healthy" -- but then again, I can't recall the last time I looked at a dietician and thought, "You know, she looks really healthy." Nope. Every dietician I've ever known or met looked like an extra from one of those "Feed the Poor African Kids" commercials Sally Struthers used to do on TV when I was a kid. I look at them and immediately think, "This person will not do well in an economic collapse." They've got no stored body fat, so if they start going hungry, their body will immediately start consuming muscle mass instead of utilizing the body fat that God designed for exactly that sort of situation.