Okay, this is going to seem like an abrupt departure, because I’ve been on a serious tack of late. But whenever Greg sends me anything that makes me laugh till I cry, I figure that I’m doing us hard-working Christians a favor by letting us lighten up.

So behold your easy-to-follow instructions for producing your own news segment for British television. (Could adapt easily for American television by changing the accents.)

Mature audience warning: We’ve got one f-bomb in there, and one crude-but-not-obscene word.

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When praying with people, we sometimes have to pierce through with our prayer as if it were the hardest wall — human souls, hardened and petrified by earthly passions — to penetrate the Egyptian darkness, the darkness of passions and worldly attachments. This is why it is sometimes difficult to pray. The simpler the people one prays with, the easier it is.

– St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”

I couldn’t help wondering as I thought about this honest reflection of a godly man, how would it be for him if he was praying with me? Sensing innately my soul’s condition (as I imagine all priests begin to do in time), would he feel as if he were trying to break down a wall? And what are the things that fight and fester in my own “Egyptian darkness”?Lent is coming again. Am I ready to wade in, ready for the stench and all the rest of what comes when you take on your passions, however weakly?

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Finding out that there was an annotated “Wind in the Willows,” I just had to put it on my Christmas wish list. I had been assuming that even though other annotated classics have turned out to be disappointments, there was no way anyone could ruin “Wind in the Willows.” Right?

Wrong. But the book did give me two insights and one rant-y screed. Being me, I’ll start with the screed.

(BTW, I don’t think any of the following will make sense if you haven’t read the “Wind in the Willows.” But if you haven’t, stop reading this right now and go read that. Only, y’know … without annotations.)

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Brief intro: A Facebook friend chided me for my blogging laxity (shout-out to C. Sue, who is stangely fond of getting mentioned in the blog) — and I told her I had been busy. That’s only partly true. I wrote this entry over a week ago, but for some dumb reason I decided it really needed to be illustrated. And that’s what has taken all the time. (Have you ever tried drawing Moses?) I really should’ve just skipped it, but in some little way, these little doodlings might be my bowl of sheep’s milk. That sentence will actually make sense if you read all the way through to the end. Enjoy.

Some recent developments have made me realize how little and shallow my faith is, and how false my foundation is. I suppose we all go through little epiphanies like this, but this one has made me wonder at the audacity I have had to read and chant the theology and hymnody of the Church when a wiser woman would’ve known enough to keep her mouth shut.

But then, I realize that that’s not quite the right response to a troubling onset of humility. Retiring yourself from service because you’re a sinner isn’t a good precedent — who would be left if we started that ball rolling?

And besides that, am I really the most qualified to say whether God would accept my puny little offering of service? There is, after all, the issue of Moses and the fox.

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Well, if my New Year’s Resolution had started off with better church attendance, I’d have been thwarted right off the bat. More snow fell last night and this morning, and our intended trip to church became a very quick trip with a very slow U-turn in it. Not an entirely wasted effort, because if I had stayed in the house, I wouldn’t have gotten to see that it was so cold out that the snow didn’t melt at all after it landed. And so you could make out individual shapes of snowflakes on the windshield. It’s the kind of thing that makes me squeal, and then grab the camera to see if there’s any way to capture it. You sort of can … and that’ll have to do.

And I have no way to segue from the weather report to my boring little observation about patristic reading, other than to say that I had been meaning to blog this and now have a Sunday morning unexpectedly free.

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Had a bit of unintentional humor just now, and I had to send it along. When first-timers comment on the blog, it goes into a queue that I have to approve, which gives me a chance to get rid of all the tender offerings of commercial opportunities to buy herbal remedies and generic Viagra.

I’m used to seeing comments like “Aws ome Post !! i’ll be back again!” and realizing that the whole thing is just a vehicle for carrying a URL that takes you to a place to buy timeshare or whatever.

What I wasn’t used to was the enthusiasm of this comment I found in the queue:

Well, the post is in reality the sweetest on this notable topic. I agree with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your future updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the fantasti c clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Fabulous work and much success in your business endeavors!

And then, of course, the URL that takes you off to buy events tickets. But look at that top-grade baloney they thought would stroke my ego. … thirstily look forward to your future updates … thanks not sufficient … fantasti c [sic] clarity.

Wow. Sort of goes above and beyond, doesn’t it? Are there bloggers who really believe this crap? Well, whoever wrote that spam-comment inadvertently made my day by suggesting to me that I’m more humble than I knew. Maybe that’s how they should pitch the next one of these. “I had to resspond to your post because I cn see what a humbel person you are …”

Now THAT one might work on me.

Ugh! Who ordered in the blizzard?

I told Greg to take a picture for blog-sharing while I got ready for the day, and he took this one:

But I felt like that didn’t tell the whole story, because this storm has been notable for the high winds. So consider that THIS is what our porch looks like:

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My third help out of some recent bad times was a book I came across by accident. “Out of the Depths Have I Cried ** ” by Mpn. PHILIP and Fr. Joseph J. Allen is a book that everyone should keep in one of those glass cases you see fire extinguishers in. There should be a little hammer next to it, and it should read, “Break glass in case of despair.” I was hoping to try to present a good overview of the book, but I’m afraid I’d never do it justice. And so I’m going to change gears and pass along Mpn. PHILIP’s poem entitled “Meditation on the Incarnation” that serves as an introduction. It’s entirely seasonal, and as for all the other help “Out of the Depths” has to offer, you’ll just have to take my word for it:

Lord,
What shall I offer at your Incarnation in return for your infinite love?
I have neither gold nor silver, neither myrrh nor frankincense.
My house is without a roof. I have no room for you; not even a manger.
My soul is even darker than the clouds of my passion.
My eyes are too dim to look beyond the horizon of myself.
Help me behold your bright star; “For in thy light we shall see light.”
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As I said last time, Greg and I are trying and make it through our own little perfect storm. And so I continue to try to capture the things that have helped. The second one is something I read in a book in high school, about what an ethnographer learned from African pygmies. I can’t say exactly  why it keeps coming back to me, other than that it has to do with how you call out to God (or, in their case, the gods.)

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Finances are suddenly a cause for major stress in our household, as they are in so many families these days. We’re in a period of relative calm right now, with the next storm already on the horizon.

The point of this is not to get sympathy, because it seems like almost everyone is going through something like this these days. The point is to use this interim time to write down the things that helped me. Because I may need them again, and maybe they’ll prove helpful to anyone else going through tough times.

The first one may sound incongruous, but I was constantly aware of the need to keep doubts in perspective, by way of what Mpn. Anthony Bloom called ‘being a scientist.’

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