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it's out! Ten years ago this month I wrote the final chapter of "Facing East." Now Harper SanFrancisco has brought it out in paperback.
It comes with a new concluding "update" chapter, which I'll paste in below.
Also, Paraclete has brought out a Study Guide for "The Illumined Heart," about 50 pages:
here's the new Epilogue for "Facing East."
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Second Epilogue St. Symeon the Myrhh-bearer THIRTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST Blue Sky In the spirit of the Hobbits' "second breakfast" I can offer a second epilogue, on this the tenth anniversary of my beginning to keep the journal that became "Facing East." On February 11, 1995, I grabbed a notepad and ballpoint and went over to the ReVisions building before the Vespers service began, so I could make notes while the guys set up for the service. Basil was pointing and giving orders, while Frank and Jay pushed furniture around. My husband, Gary, was there to help too, and before long Rose came in with photocopied bulletins and three loaves of prosphora bread. That's how the story-telling began, and it ran for a year and then ceased when it hit the back cover of the book. But though the telling stopped the story went on, and now it's strange to look back at our little startup band. As we bustled about the old schoolroom on that February afternoon, we couldn't foresee all the ways the years were going to turn and deepen us. We could not see how they would hurtle us into an unseen future that would bring changes and challenges, ordinations and weddings, births and deaths. When I began making notes that night I had decided to follow the trail of a year in our church. I didn't have much idea what I was going to do with it after that. I didn't have a book agent, and the whole world of publishing seemed pretty daunting. It was already September by the time I addressed a fat manila envelope to HarperSanFrancisco and stuck it in a mailbox. Then, very quickly it seemed, the book was finished, out of my hands and into the world. A lot of surprising things happened after that. The most surprising, to me, was that many of the people who bought this book were *already* Orthodox. Why would they want to read it? I wondered. Don't they already know all this? I found out that, in many cases, they didn't. They'd grown up in a church where the liturgy was in a language they didn't understand, and even if they were native-born Greeks or Russians, the archaic form used in the liturgy was like Chaucer's English would be to us. Converts like me were helping Cradle Orthodox rediscover their own heritage. Many times people raised in the Orthodox faith came to visit Holy Cross and stood in worship, their eyes streaming with tears, as they comprehended the beauty of the Liturgy for the first time. Many people also wrote to tell me that "Facing East" was their first step in becoming Orthodox. That was pretty much my goal, to write a "first step" kind of book. When my husband was eager to be chrismated and I was confused and balky, I was handed many wonderful books about Orthodoxy that were too far over my head. "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" and "The Philokalia" were like grand staircases that were missing the first few steps. Once I became Orthodox I wanted to help people in my situation, by writing a book that would provide just those bottom steps. I was able to write a "beginner's" book because Orthodoxy was still so new to me that I could see a sharp contrast between it and the Christianity I'd known before. I wouldn't be able to write this book today. I've gotten too used to things on this side of the divide, and the elements that used to be startling no longer stand out. On the other hand, the very fact that I was a neophyte meant that it wasn't the book a more mature Orthodox could write. I am endlessly grateful to the priests and monks who kindly trudged through the original manuscript and offered their comments and guidance. I'm grateful for their forebearance in allowing my convert's exuberance to bloom unrestrained. What happened next? That's what people are always asking me. Well, we grew. The church building we were praying about at the end of the previous Epilogue is the one we ended up buying. In 1997 we moved in (you can read this part of the story in my subsequent book, "At the Corner of East and Now"), and the first thing we did was throw out all the pews, which made Basil happy. We sanded the floors and put down oriental rugs, and then began making it as beautiful as we could. A mahogany iconostasis was set up, and gradually filled with Carolyn's icons. We have a silver Gospel book, a gold Epistle book, and an "unsleeping lamp" that hangs over the altar in memory of The most daring addition to the church interior is a liturgical chandelier. This is an imposing brass construction composed of many slender, twining arms set with dozens of electric candles. It's big. It hangs from a rafter by a single loop, filling the very center of the worship space, to represent Christ the Light who dwells in our midst. It arrived from Now, on great feast days, the tallest person in the church seizes it by the bottom and gives a mighty swing. Around and around the massive thing goes, scattering light on the walls in little shards, the kind of effect that later inventors would attempt with a disco ball. The effect is impressive, but also a little alarming. The rafter creaks, and people step lightly out of the way. You can only imagine what this was like before electricity, when the process would include flying drops of hot wax. This little stone church is getting stuffed with every loving addition we can manage, but it can't hold many more people. On a typical Sunday morning we have more than a hundred worshippers, and that's about all it can comfortably hold. As I stand on the choir risers at the back I can barely see the altar for all the dads holding babies on their shoulders; about 40% of the congregation is under the age of 18. We have a fair complement of worshippers just over that age, as our new Subdeacon, Robert, continues to bring in more college students. He leads outreach groups at the There wouldn't be room for these new members if we hadn't sent some old Holy Crossers out into the world. Margo and Musical David have been living in On a typical Sunday the church is full as it can comfortably be, and while we gladly go up to uncomfortable levels for major feasts and weddings, there's talk of starting a new mission to the south. The stone-walled church can't be expanded, and moving to a larger building is not desirable; why get fatter when you can reproduce? Orthodoxy works best when a priest knows his parishioners well, and can give them personal spiritual direction and visit in their homes a few times each year. A "mega church" wouldn't do. It's better to start another congregation, and launch a new community on its way. Soon after I finished writing "Facing East" we acquired a second Subdeacon Gregory, one my kids called "Subdeacon Sting" due to his resemblance to the rock star. He ended up going to seminary and being ordained, (becoming yet another Father Gregory), and came back to the area to found a new mission north of the city. Some old-time Holy Crossers who lived closer to him began attending up there. Basil was tonsured "the Reader Basil" and now booms out the Epistle each Sunday at Four Evangelists Mission. Father Gregory also asked our son Stephen to come be his choir director, so he and Jocelyn make the long trip each week, though we miss them very much at Holy Cross. Yes, Stephen got married last summer, at the age of 22; his bride, Jocelyn, is a graphic designer. All our children married young, I'm proud to say. Gary and I must have made marriage look inviting. Megan married Dave when she was 23, and our David surprised everyone by marrying Marcella when he was just 19. Gary and I are enjoying the romance of an empty nest again. But just as there are marriages and babies and new members of Holy Cross to baptize, there have been losses as well. Our first funeral, after seven years together as a parish, was for Lillian, our Yia Yia, is still with us, however. She is 95 now, living in a nursing home near the church, and teaching the other residents how to crochet. When I see her I think of a comment my grandfather made in his nineties: "Old age has passed me by." Old age forgot to take Yia Yia away, and I hope he continues to misplace her on his list. She is a treasure to us. But not everyone is passed by, not even those who haven't reached old age. Last October I stood on a cold and windy afternoon as a casket was lowered into a red-dirt grave. We were burying Jay, the young father who helped Frank and Basil set up the church on the first day I began this diary. He was only 49. Jay had always had a heart condition, and he and Heidi had prepared for this possibility, but how can you really prepare for it? Jay's funeral drew the biggest crowd we've ever had at Holy Cross. The nave was packed to capacity, another crowd filled the parish hall beneath, and those who couldn't fit into the building at all were grouped outside on the lawn. At the graveside Heidi stood with Jared, I stood near Megan, holding the hand of my little granddaughter Hannah; of my five grandchildren, she's the only girl. I was looking at the vast, hard blue sky overhead, and the tops of the tall leafless trees tossing in the wind. When I was in high school a friend of mine wrote a poem that had this line: "The sky like a wild blue rose opens and breezes rush out." Just when you think life is going to be cozy, something like this happens-a blue electric jolt, the black jagged trees dancing, a red pit in the earth. God isn't our pet and he isn't our pal, and when our lives are swept up into his anything can happen. He never promises us safety. He only promises himself. As I reread "Facing East" I worry that I've projected a happy-little-family image of our church, and although that's not false, neither is it best. We are extraordinarily blessed at Holy Cross; I've never been in a more joyous and vibrant church, and I give all the earthly credit to my husband's God-directed leadership. But even in a less functional church, in an inharmonious community or unhappy family, God is still fully present and still supplying all things needful to each person who seeks his face. It's not a comfortable earthly life that we are looking for but a transformed life in him, one that extends beyond the grave. At the graveside I hold Hannah's little hand tightly. It's cold, and I can feel the bones of her fingers, so small and smooth, in my own. My fingers get more knobby and bent every year. I once had a tiny, pretty hand like Hannah's, but now the thin, wrinkled skin can't conceal the orderly bones lined up beneath. Bones are the signature we leave behind, when we dive under the blanket of earth and strip down to nothing. Nobody has a choice about this dive into nothing. We can only choose who we're going with. ********
Frederica Mathewes-Green www.frederica.com |
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