There is a brief intermission (we are doing something) while our Alice and our Hebe do their washing up and make some tea. So I will try to be quick.
What I wanted to say to you is this.
I have been exploring into the Orthodox Church, and oh my, it is so complicated! Today I was reading about fasting, only to discover that (as a kind of killer blow) not only do you have to eat vegan on a fast day (easy) but also not have olive oil. Oh. That changes the frame, does it not? So I was thinking about the Orthodox Church and how tricksy it is and all the things you have to learn and know and how lofty and rather . . . er . . . dismissive and lip-curling are the things they typically say about the seeker who tries to make sense of it. To teach us humility, I know. And possibly to make it hard to get in (successful, if so, I should think).
What follows is not unconnected.
Have you seen (you'd need Disney plus) or read The Mysterious Benedict Society? No? I so recommend it.
Well, today we were watching it on Disney +, having loved the books. It is all about truth, and tests, and empathy, and being there for one another, and resourcefulness, and the tests that life puts in front of you.
This Covid year has been like that for me. One test after another — church, family, health, finance (in no particular order).
If I look it straight in the eye, I have to acknowledge, I failed them all. Now what?
But there on the floor (as I was mulling this over), oddly (our house is like this; we have artists who restore ecclesiastical artefacts) there lay a very large crucifix with a very dead Jesus with bleeding knees. It hurts my heart to look at him.
But I did look at him, and I thought about all my failed life tests, and confronted the reality — he carried all that; for me (and for you too, of course).
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
And I thought . . . He's the Liver! That's what he is! The Liver!
Because right there, slap dab in the middle of you and pulsing out serenity and peace, your liver day by day patiently and constantly cleans all the toxic rubbish out of your circulation and binds it up and keeps you safe. He is like that. He is the Liver. That strikes me as absolutely perfect. Resurrection. Eternal life. Healing. Hope. Restoration. And of course, the liver can make itself again.
That is the only insight I have for today.
They have made the tea. Catch you later.
I suppose you can always fall back on coconut oil.
2 comments:
There are fasting days which allow oil, or wine or even fish. It can be complicated if you let it be and try to remember all the this and that but for me, I just do the best I can. some folks who can't fast fast from social media or television or some such other thing.
Hello Michelle — waving! For patches of my life I have been vegan, and once I looked up the fasting calendars and got my head round what the rhythm of fasting is, I found it welcome as a concept — I see its discipline would create a kind of pulse of recollection to keep the mind of a believer focused on the way of faith.
I was going to ask you about it, and about what you and Jack do, but then I came across a couple of things that are verboten in Orthodoxy that would mean suppressing or denying things I do believe, so I drew back from my exploration of it. xx
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