понедельник, июня 19, 2006

Yellowstone

I'm going to Yellowstone tomorow. Well, starting the journey, anyway. It's a little more than a day's drive from here. This is great because I get time in the woods fishing with my dad. This is bad because I haven't heard back about the aprtment I applied for on Thursday around noon OR have I heard anything from Horace about my ESI acount. I emailed him over two weeks ago (and again three or four days ago) about getting my money back but something's not right. Probably something to do with their server being down but... still... stressfull.

Church in English is still weirding me out. Going to services in Russian and Old Slavonic every Sunday made me give up some of my fundamental assumptions about going to church. I had to give up being fed, for example. I never got ANYTHING from a sermon, nor was I able to sing the songs very well. I also had to give up participating. I can't very well teach Sunday school if it A) doesn't exist and B) is in Russian. I even had to learn the flow of the Orthodox liturgy, how to cross and how to bow. I never did take communion, mostly because it would require a confession of sins to the preist, who, you guessed it, speaks Russian. I suppose I could have muscled my way through it with a simplified list and a dictionary, but that's a whole new level of intimidation I wasn't ready to face this past year. I also had to give up belonging, knowing I would never, truly, belong to this body. I would always be a foreigner to some degree.

So what was left if my primary reasons for going to church were gone?

Quite a suprising lot, actually. I had plenty of time to monitor my thoughts, ask questions and wonder. Am I reverent? Is my heart singing? Where is my mind? (Pixies ref) Why am I here? Why am I judging them? Isn't this beautiful?

It was a lesson in being with God instead of getting from or doing for God. He doesn't need me, but he loves me. How does that work? Can I let myself be loved like that, like a father loves his child (ideally) apart from what I have to offer? Giving up the need to be needed... hmm...

1 Comments:

Blogger Hillary said...

As usual, thanks for your thought-provoking and hilarious blogs. Thank you also for visiting my blogs and being faithful to leave comments...especially after seeing that hideous picture of my sister and me from Father's Day. You're a true friend. :-) Hope Yellowstone is (was) fabulous. Enjoy life!

12:41 PM  

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