Eggs and Pure Prayer

On the Wednesday following the Sunday of the Pharisee and Publican, your breakfast might look something like this:

Have I ever told you how much I love my cast iron griddle?  It has a "grill line" side too.

And your spiritual reflections might be fed by something like this:

Three Characteristics of Christian Prayer
(a meditation on the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, by Fr. Patrick Reardon)

Sink Wall Love

Like Mother Like Daughter is having a linky party today.  We are beautifying the wall or windowsill or whatever it is that you have behind your kitchen sink.  I love it!

Mine used to look like this:

Boring, right?  I've wanted something up there for a while now—a specific something.  But I put it off because notice I use that space for drying large flat things like cutting boards and cookie sheets.  That pretty much covers up that little wall.

I haven't been using a dish drainer lately because I find that I empty it and put away the stuff even less frequently than I get rid of this pile.  At least when I get rid of this pile, I have the option of an extra square foot of counter space, which adds up in a Chicago apartment kitchen!

Notice the towel my stuff is drying on?  Go to this post on Kitchen Flow and scroll down a ways.  Leila does the same thing!   (I'm so validated!)

Mercifully, my iPhone camera is not high-enough quality to show how dirty the wall back there actually is.  And I'm not showing you the rest of the kitchen either.  I took some photos of it though... maybe I will show them to you when I have something clean to put with them!  Let's just say that since we added child three and homeschooling a kindergartener to the mix, I've been a little out of sync with my kitchen cleanliness.

I didn't have a chance to examine the "flow" in my kitchen.  It's a little odd since our dishes are stored in the dining room in the china cabinet to leave space in the kitchen cabinets for food since our pantry is our utility laundry closet.  (Whew!  That was a long sentence.)  And there's only one way the dishes can be stacked and flow which is not very efficient because of the placement of the stove and dishwasher.  But it's fine.  This is the most counter space I've ever had!  (Not showing you the rest of it, though, remember?)

I didn't even have a chance to clean the wall.  Shame on me, I suppose.

Instead, I made one change.  Just one!

 

 

OK.  Maybe that counts as two.  Although, I'm not sure that anyone else will put my cutting boards up there.  In fact, I think my husband actually moved one down from up there thinking it was probably an accident that someone balanced it up there and that it would fall if not moved.

The important change is that little framed Bible verse.  For a long time now, I've wanted to have various verses posted around my home that apply to the task at hand.  It's similar to what I've seen when our Orthodox priests vest.  For each piece they put on, a Bible verse (usually a Psalm verse) is prayed.  Naturally, the psalm that comes to mind when I am at the sink is this:

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

~KJV, Psalm 51/50

I spent a little time reformatting a file I'd already made for another framed verse on the opposite wall.  I think I posted it here somewhere, but I can't find it, so I can't link to it (I think it's still in draft).

This is what I came up with:

(To save, click on the image to enlarge it, then either click and drag it into a document and print, or right-click and save the image and then insert into a document.)

I printed it, trimmed it, and framed it with an inexpensive black IKEA frame.  If you like it, feel free to follow the instructions above and use it!  I'd like to come up with a few more of these for other places in the house.  It's one way I can remind myself to pray throughout the day, especially during the less-than-exciting household tasks.

Thanks to Leila for the nudge to get this up there!  Go visit her post and see some more Sink Wall Love or join in yourself!

Intercede for us, Holy Nicholas!

A friend of ours has recently found out that their unborn baby has passed away at just over 12 weeks gestation.  His wife will have surgery today.  If you are inclined to pray for them, the baby's name is Nicholas.  Pray for him and for his Mommy and Daddy.

Our Baby Constantine's grave, St. Tikhon's cemetery

I know I am incredibly blessed to have (now) three healthy children here with me.  When we miscarried a couple of years ago, I was comforted by the thought that if I only ever had my two baby girls, that I would still be blessed and happy with our little family.  And as any regular readers know, God continued to bless us with another baby this summer.

But my heart goes out to those families who have to endure the miscarriage or death of their first baby.  To have your innocence shattered by the loss of your first child would be one of the most difficult things I think a parent could go through.  And the questions!  Why didn't my baby live?  Did I do something wrong during my pregnancy?  Will I ever be able to carry a baby to term?  Why wasn't I allowed to meet my little one?  Why me?

Any time I hear of the passing of an unborn baby, I am reminded of what my sweet doctor told me after my own miscarriage.  He mentioned that some women, for every baby they are able to meet in this world, they have several babies praying for them in heaven. How comforting!

It is entirely possible that I, too, have several unborn children in heaven keeping Constantine company.  I have no way of knowing whether we've had just the one miscarriage or if I've had a few very early ones too.  It is possible that I may have more in coming years.

What a heart-swelling thought: All the unborn children I have had or may have in the future are a great cloud of children praying for me, my own personal army of tiny saints, perfected and taken before the temptations of this world.  How we ache to meet them, but how they rejoice with our Lord!

Icon of the children being brought to Christ, located in a rock outcropping at St. Tikhon's Monastery

I thought it especially joyful and appropriate that these parents chose the name Nicholas for their baby.  Of course, the timing is right, being that St. Nicholas's feast day was on Monday.  But don't some of the hymns and prayers to St. Nicholas refer to him as a special friend of children?  Imagine him surrounded by our lost little ones, their heavenly surrogate grandfather praising God with them and leading them in interceding for us.

Holy Saint Nicholas, special friend of children, pray to God for us!

Silence

On the way home from my parents' house on Wednesday morning, I actually drove almost the entire two-hours-plus trip home with no radio playing.  It was nearly silence.  My five-year-old was talking to herself in the backseat, my three-year-old had conked out early, and my nearly six-month-old gave the occasional coo or fuss—at which point, his awake sister would ever-so-helpfully start singing rather loudly and crazily, to his big-grinned enjoyment.  Total silence, it wasn't

I noticed that I hadn't turned on the radio about an hour into the trip.  A reflex twitched inside of me.  Reach for the knob?

It dawned on me that I was perfectly content with the lack of auditory entertainment at that moment.  Why not enjoy it while it lasted?  I continued on in that relative silence of my minivan, sailing along the highway, trees and farms whizzing by, thin eddies of dry snow swirling on the road in front of me, then breaking up as we flew through them.  Did they reform behind me?  I tried to glance in the mirror, but I couldn't tell.  My mind moved to other things now forgotten.  But the hushed momentum of the moment sustains me.

Molly has a great post up about silence.  During this busy, loud season, she's been reflecting on Fr. Hopko's list of 55 Maxims for Christian Living.  Her hushed words posted on her refreshingly simple online oasis sustain me too.

A Faithful Saying

We Orthodox pray this prayer of St. John Chrysostom just before each time we receive communion:

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I believe that this is truly thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly thine own precious Blood. Wherefore I pray thee, have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance; and make me worthy to partake without condemnation of thine immaculate Mysteries, unto remission of my sins and unto life everlasting. Amen. Of thy Mystic Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy Mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief will I confess thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom. Not unto judgment nor unto condemnation be my partaking of thy Holy Mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body. 

I've had that bolded phrase in my head for a few weeks now. 

It's from the 1 Timothy:

15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (KJV)

St. Paul just zeros in at the end there, doesn't he?  All of a sudden, he's not talking in generalities.  In his mind and before God, he is the chief of sinners.

Improbable?

Yes.  But the Church grabs those words and gives them to me to say every time I receive communion.  Every time.  Doesn't matter what's going on in the world.  Online.  Next door.  Upstairs.  Doesn't matter.

When I come before God to receive the gift of His Son's body and blood, mine is to examine my own sins. While not bringing myself to complete discouragement over my flaws, I should simply be concerned with my own salvation.

I cannot claim this to be my first reaction to division or disappointment, not remotely.  In fact, more often than not, I reach that line and I simply fail to comprehend it.  But through its presence at every liturgy, Christ in his mercy allows this phrase—this prayer—to penetrate my mind and heart.

Eventually, I remember.  And though I don't understand, I pray it as the Church directs.  I rest in her judgment.

Two verses after that verse in 1 Timothy, I find this:

17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (KJV)

Amen.

Holy Hesitation

We yield all too easily to what we think we know and do not hesitate sufficiently before what we do not know.  That hesitation is often a moment of faithfulness or, at least, the moment in which faith can be born. The content of the Orthodox Christian faith is not an argument, it is not something to be compared to other things that we can say, "This is better!"  It is the continual life of God lived and known by his people, who through the ages, when confronted by manifold opportunities for more convenient options have been able to say, "and yet...."  When pressed by their enemies even to the point of torture and death, they have affirmed, "Nevertheless!" and in so doing have preserved the knowledge of the true and living God and kept intact the treasure of tradition that is nothing other than that true knowledge.  May God give us all such holy hesitation.  Glory to God!

~From Fr. Stephen Freeman's Glory to God podcast at Ancient Faith Radio.  Listen to the beginning of this episode here (choose "Knowing What We Do Not Know").

Water of Life

Ann Voskamp's Guatemala experience with Compassion International is beautifully written.  Drink up.

A Place for Prayer

Ann Voskamp uses a prayer bench and often prays hours during her days.  She initially wondered if this could be "confining God" by designating one spot for prayer.  But certainly, doing that does not mean we do not pray in other places.  We have a bed for sleep, but we nap on the couch.  We have a table for eating, but we have coffee in a favorite chair.
  

 
Prayer happens at a multitude of locations throughout the day, but setting aside a place in one's home for prayer continually reminds one to return and pray.  It honors God with a place, not only in the heart, but in the home.

Additionally: Some explanations of the Hours as prayed in the Orthodox Church can be found here.