The rain is delightful right now. The temperatures dropped from the unseasonably high 80’s back to the jes’ fine 60’s. It’s gray and damp out now, but the showers let up from time to time and then a cardinal immediately starts singing. The lawn looks about an inch higher than yesterday and the weeds are cackling merrily as they contemplate their next growth spurt, so it’s just as well that it’s just too rainy out to go out and get control of the yard right now (oh darn!).

Inside, the dog can hardly be bothered to lift her head or thump her tail when I pet her. And though I’ve already had some tea, I can’t resist brewing up another pot — with milk, making it a small Bright Week celebration.

Maybe this is the blog entry I’d had in mind to do since mid-Lent. I read Erica’s observation here about going to confession and it feeling like was somehow too easy, and boy, could I relate. I don’t know what I expect sometimes, but I’ve definitely had times where I thought I couldn’t be doing it right because I wasn’t awash with tears. I’ve had confessions where the priest and I actually exchanged a joke or two (some years ago when I came up at the end of the long line of people who have waited until the end of Lent to confess, my priest feigned a shocked look as I came up and said, “Not you too!!” Then he giggled and said, “I’ve always wanted to say that.” I’d like to think that others wondered what about my confession was so funny.), and then I’ve tried to figure out whether to be scandalized or not. Sometimes I’ve longed to get something off my chest but I haven’t got anything on my chest, and so I feel like I must be the blindest sinner alive. Sometimes I’ve wanted to just tell the priest, “I can’t be doing this right! I’m too American! I don’t know how to grieve like I should!”

Which may all be true. Hopefully, I am continuing to learn, as we all should be. And in a year or a decade, I hope I know a lot more about my foolishness than I do now. But it’s been very helpful for me to also recall a story that Fr. Hopko told on himself (in “The Word of the Cross,” I believe). He said that when he was new to seminary, he went to his father confessor and said how terrible he was because he didn’t know the depth of his sin, he didn’t feel like the chief of sinners. And his spiritual father was amazed and upbraided him by saying something like, “Who do you think you are?” As Fr. Hopko says, there are great saints in the Church who spend all their lives reaching these states of true repentance. For us to think that we can waltz into that kind of knowledge is unbelievably naive to say the least, and downright arrogant to say the most.

And how foreign this kind of understanding is to us! We live in an age where we live like kings. Even the lowliest of us feasts on foods we didn’t gather or hunt, dressed in cloth we didn’t weave or spin (and probably won’t bother patching), driving in cars we didn’t make, using technology we couldn’t possibly understand and going through a dizzying assortment of perfectly made products imported from all over the country and around the world. If we want something, chances are somebody makes it and if we can pay for it, we can have it.

This constant and incredible harvest from the earth’s riches, from the labor of others, from the history of innovation and knowledge, can be a source of constant and incredible thanksgiving. But it’s also a constant danger. We Orthodox today have all the riches of the Church Fathers at our fingertips. The writings of St. Seraphim of Sarov or St. John of Kronstadt or St. Theophan the Recluse are available for less than most of us spend on our monthly cable. But in reading the works of these luminaries, I can start to believe I can put on their lives like a new coat. The wisdom of monks and hermits comes at a tremendous price, and thanks be to God for those that can bring back golden apples from that paradise that the rest of us can partake of.

But as for feeling like they do, how could I? Do I think it’s that simple to turn back my lifetime in a busy, noisy, nearly-godless culture, even if my heart really was in the right place? And how much does it count that I may not want the fruits of real repentance nearly as much as I just want to feel repentant?

It’s just a matter for prayer, and working with my spiritual father. And trust, which may be the hardest under the circumstances. I have to believe that God knows what I need and the Church is His instrument. The Church didn’t prescribe additional fasting for those of us who are really lame. And I hope I’m not the only one who sometimes has trouble entering in to the brightness and vivacity of Pascha because I’m still pining for big Lentenness to happen.

But as long as I’m jealous of the spirit of repentance that better men and women have found, I can at least consider that these ones also knew how and when to rejoice with timbrel and harp, dress in festal colors and feast. As the man said:

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away. Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. Let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been reealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shone forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free.

That sounds like someone who knows a lot about both feasting and fasting. Today, the strong current of our culture pulls us constantly to celebrate ourselves, and so words about fasting seem like little shocks to our system and eventually they seem like a boon to our soul. But as we grow to appreciate a rightful fast, it seems that we grow to appreciate a rightful feast as well. My Bright Weeks now are less filled with over-satiated errancy than they used to be. Small portions turn out to be fine, and they help me not miss Lent so much.

In the Antiochian archdiocese, we are fast-free throughout the whole Pascha season. That’s a somewhat new custom, and Fr. Elias told me that it still isn’t well-received by some. But it makes sense to me. Our times now are so dysfunctional that we often can’t trust our feelings. And so apparently, we have to learn the difference between true repentance and just feeling bad, true joy and just feeling good. Sometimes you fast, and sometimes you don’t.