Bright Friday and my wooden heart
April 13th, 2007 ~ Orthodox perspectiveI was looking for something to finish out my breakfast this morning when I remembered I still had a couple red Easter eggs in the fridge. That’s what I get for having a husband that doesn’t like hardboiled eggs. If he wins the “egg game” — where two people crack the eggs together and whoever’s cracks first wins the other egg — I get the spoils. And apparently he had a hard egg this year, because even after having one for breakfast today, I’ve got two more sitting in the refrigerator door.
I can only guess at how many eggs one of the parish wags has in the fridge. He was winning every round of the egg game by virtue of a wooden egg he had painted red. It’s all good fun until you’re looking at a dozen red eggs or so.
But thinking about the wooden egg reminds me of something I read earlier this week, so I go look up the quote for Wednesday in “Daily Lives.”
Do not look only for delight in prayer; do not become despondent when you don’t feel joy. Sometimes you stand and stand in church, and it seems that you do not have a heart within you, but a piece of wood — rough and coarse. And so what? For the piece of wood, thank you Lord! it means that this is how it should be. By experiencing sweet delights, a soul can become puffed up; but such a state of ’stony insensibility’ humbles it.
– Saint Barsanuphius of Optina
For the piece of wood, thank you Lord! What a wonderful thing that was to read. I’m sure it falls squarely under the heading of things that you should ultimately go over with your spiritual father, because one could use these calming words to justify complacency and indulge a torpid spirit.
But still, how good it is to consider that even this woodenness of mine won’t keep me from the love of God. When I read words of wisdom from Orthodox laborers or chant the poetry of the Church in services, I feel sometimes like I’m the wooden egg tumbling about, cracking the more blessed and more fragile real ones, my coarse thoughts and unfeeling heart left standing when the echo of their words has gone. I feel like a bit of a cheater when I read the penitential psalm 50 and my eyes are still dry. As St. Barsanuphius says, I feel like I don’t have a heart in my body at all.
But it’s Bright Friday, and there’s hope. The red eggs, false and true, will go away soon and the Church year will begin to go back to “normal.” But hopefully, good words like this make a dent even on my stony disposition, and maybe eventually, they find the egg of new life inside me too.
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April 13th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Grace,
I so enjoy your words and insights. Thank you for such an encouraging perspective on the “wooden hearts” from which we can’t, at times, wring out a single warm thought. To think that even this hardness is a gift… how beautiful!
April 13th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Wow. What a great post, thank you.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Molly,
High praise indeed, considering you’re like my hero! (heroine?) I know that sounds like something I had to say, but I’ve got your “Indeed He is Risen” post open in another tab as I speak. I was trying to figure out how to blog it, but to be honest, I have nothing to add whatsoever. Except maybe just to say (again), “Thank God for Orthodox parents!”
April 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Mimi,
This is also going to sound like something I had to say, but I’ve got the Paschal Greetings from around the World post open in the other tab. I’m always glad when someone finds a way to print a list of those. Not that a Hawaiian is likely to give me a “Christ is Risen!”, but if he does, I can rush home, bring up the list, rush back and give him a hearty “Ua ala ‘I ‘o no ‘oia!” (What is it with Polynesians and all the vowels? Was the climate so temperate they couldn’t be bothered with consonants? Couldn’t they have borrowed a bunch from the Germans?)
April 13th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Thanks for your post, and the thought about the wooden heart. This has been a good Bright Week, but a difficult one as well as I prepare for something that will both be good for me AND difficult to do.
I still have a dozen red boiled eggs in my fridge - it’s good I LIKE eggs :)
April 13th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
ummm, somehow I pasted an incorrect web address in my comment - I heard something strange about a movie called Golden Compass that seems to be coming out next year so I copied the link and went to the site - and didn’t notice that I didn’t paste my blog address properly.
BTW, I wouldn’t advise going to see the Golden Compass, apparently it is very, very anti-Christian. Then again, I rarely go to the movies at all, so you may not want my opinion anyway :)
April 13th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
What is it with Polynesians and all the vowels? Was the climate so temperate they couldn’t be bothered with consonants? Couldn’t they have borrowed a bunch from the Germans
Bwahhahaahahahahahahha.
There is a mission on Kona (right now without a Priest) and a Church in Honolulu, so you may have the chance after all!
I think that when the climate is temperate, there’s no need for consonants.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Of course Greg would paint a wooden egg red. He’s that guy.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Carrie,
Au contraire! But he knows that guy. Just a church funnyman.
This is the same guy, BTW, who was designated to be the one inside when we processed around so he could ask the “big question” (”Who IS the king of glory?” — not sure if the OCAer’s do this part) and also incidentally open the door up for us all, since we had to do Pascha in a hotel and the doors were closed by that time of night.
Except that he went to the wrong door, discovered his mistake and came rushing up saying “Who IS the king of glory??!!” Which would have been excellent (if a little William-Shatner-esque) except that Father hadn’t said his line yet. We did manage to get it all done three times, but there was a lot of giggling.
April 14th, 2007 at 5:05 am
Mimi Said: I think that when the climate is temperate, there’s no need for consonants.
But another place they have a dearth of consonants is Finland! I have always wondered about that since they are so near vowel-challenged Eastern Europe…. I agree - why can’t they share the alphabet? It makes its almost impossible for me to pronouce words in languages that are overburdened with either one or the other.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Anam cara,
I know the type of thing (though I may never have heard Finnish, now that I think of it). I love speaking French, but it is this sort of gliding flowing language interrupted by abrupt little stops like an ice skater sliding along with many short braking movements to change course. I’m reminded all the time of Nenry Higgins’ comment that the French don’t care what they say exactly as long as they pronounce it properly.
And I listen to the Arab-speakers in church and think that Arabic would be a hard language to learn. It seems like there are a lot of glottal stops and hard consonants with hardly enough vowels to glue it all together.
I suppose you get used to the mix you’ve got in your own language.
April 15th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
In my almost-50 years I’ve been around a LOT of languages - both before and since I became Orthodox. I’ve never had any problem picking up a smattering of whatever language it happened to be… aside from Arabic. Russian, French, German… no problems - but Arabic has been a totally different experience. I guess that it is just different enough from the European languages that few similarities exist.
I know what you mean about French - I love that long continuum of sound that is French (except from those little stops and braking movements you mentioned), but Arabic is a different thing entirely. Back when I was in the choir of an Antiochian parish, I was totally unable to learn the Arabic Holy God (we did it in 4 different languages each week - though Arabic was always one of the four).
April 15th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I’m not nearly so proficient with languages, but I have found similar difficulties with Arabic. This is my second year of trying to get the Arabic “Christ is Risen.” You would think as many times as I hear that one in a Paschal season, I would have it. The Arabic-speakers in church can’t usually pronounce it slowly for me; they just have to sing it, and when they’re doing that, I can’t make it out as clearly. And it’s not exactly like the phonetic pronunciation in the books I’ve seen — there are some extra little mini-syllables going on. Oh well, I’ve got all the way till Pentecost to try to get it.
I’ve got some language tapes that teach a little Arabic, but I don’t know how useful they’d be. I understand there are different dialects that vary quite a bit. One Sunday I tried out the little snippets of Arabic I acquired from a little time spent with my folks in Saudi Arabia. Father understood one of the phrases but not another. When I told him what it was, he said. “Oh. Well, that’s Bedouin Arabic, you see.” So I’m not likely to try to get fancy with learning Arabic.