Thursday, June 03, 2004
Error: The Network Cable May Be Disconnected
Last night was the first Orthodox service I had been to in more than two weeks. Just to fill you in on context, we almost never miss a Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday. So this was a sort of unintended experiment with my soul. This probably couldn’t have occurred at a worse time. The death of my friend Devron and my grandmother; graduations for Sara and my mother; the approaching wedding of Ben and the responsibilities of being his best man; coupled with a highly stressful time at work all added up to a dizzying spin cycle. Perhaps, I may have faired better if my prayers at home consisted of more then 3 or 4 Trisagions a week. Certainly, better I would have been, but not nearly the same.
The “experiment” served to prove my hypothesis correct, without Vespers and liturgy my head was a mess. I experienced what a computer undergoes when the network cable is disconnected. I was dead in the water, drifting and in need of rescue. As I told Chance, “I feel like an alcoholic, a desperate alcoholic who needs to go to every AA meeting they can get to just to feel normal.” Like an alcoholic I have a disease that if left unchecked, untreated, quickly wreaks havoc upon the soul. There’s a great phrase in the film O’ Brother Where Art Thou, referring to some spiritual music as “Salve for the soul”. This is the Liturgy of the Church, salve for the soul. There is so much going on in the liturgy that works to reorient us, and keep us on the path. So much of this one cannot even put a finger on and say, “Well, it is definitely this or that”. No, it is something that runs deep and has saturated the services and for the moment I am content in knowing that what ever it may be, it is there and it is powerful.
Glory to Thee who has shown us the Light!
Last night was the first Orthodox service I had been to in more than two weeks. Just to fill you in on context, we almost never miss a Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday. So this was a sort of unintended experiment with my soul. This probably couldn’t have occurred at a worse time. The death of my friend Devron and my grandmother; graduations for Sara and my mother; the approaching wedding of Ben and the responsibilities of being his best man; coupled with a highly stressful time at work all added up to a dizzying spin cycle. Perhaps, I may have faired better if my prayers at home consisted of more then 3 or 4 Trisagions a week. Certainly, better I would have been, but not nearly the same.
The “experiment” served to prove my hypothesis correct, without Vespers and liturgy my head was a mess. I experienced what a computer undergoes when the network cable is disconnected. I was dead in the water, drifting and in need of rescue. As I told Chance, “I feel like an alcoholic, a desperate alcoholic who needs to go to every AA meeting they can get to just to feel normal.” Like an alcoholic I have a disease that if left unchecked, untreated, quickly wreaks havoc upon the soul. There’s a great phrase in the film O’ Brother Where Art Thou, referring to some spiritual music as “Salve for the soul”. This is the Liturgy of the Church, salve for the soul. There is so much going on in the liturgy that works to reorient us, and keep us on the path. So much of this one cannot even put a finger on and say, “Well, it is definitely this or that”. No, it is something that runs deep and has saturated the services and for the moment I am content in knowing that what ever it may be, it is there and it is powerful.
Glory to Thee who has shown us the Light!
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