Vada's Funeral

So Demetrios rose to give a eulogy, and just the sight of him brought us all to tears, because you could see his tears, and hear the strain in his voice as he spoke of Vada. "Vada had three sons," said. "But in a way, I was her fourth son." And her (other) three sons and their wives all nodded.

Yes, that about summed it up. He told how he had met Vada and Sloan forty years ago, "When I was alone, without family, without country, without future and without hope," and they took him under wing.

Later, Vada's daughters-in-law told us such things as, "Through Vada, I knew Demetrios long before I actually met him" and, "I used to wonder, 'Who IS this man my husband keeps telling me of?' but I didn't have to wonder for long."

Other people told us Vada had been like a mother to them, too, when they needed it most.

The service was surprisingly religious, given that Vada, although she went to church sometimes, was highly critical of organized religion. There was a minister who read from the Bible, and there were songs for the congregation to sing: Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, and - of all things! - my very least favorite, In the Garden. Somebody among her sons or daughters-in-law must be secretly religious. The only one I know of who is, is Claudia, and she's Catholic. Or maybe these were just songs Vada still liked.

Today, for the first time, I understood what people mean when they describe themselves as "not religious, but spiritual." I used to think, oh, give me a break! What does that mean? That's a perfectly meaningless statement. But no, it isn't. What I wrote here last night clicked into place, and I remembered, it is NOT with the cognitive mind one apprehends God. It is with the soul, a.k.a. the nous. Therefore, it is perfectly possible, in fact, normal, to be aware of God in your soul, even if you are unable to accomodate your concept of Him in your cognition. Every concept is an idol anyway.

That was Vada. If she never found God, it wasn't for lack of trying. She had read the Bible, most recently from cover to cover in French, as a refresher in that language; and she had studied Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion assiduously, both as a child and as an adult. (There was nothing else she was allowed to do on Sundays, in her father's household, in between church services.) No, it wasn't from lack of trying. It was because she rejected every religion she knew as narrow, restrictive, oppressive, and illogical.   And dangerous.

She didn't know Holy Orthodoxy and wasn't terribly open to learning about it, assuming it was basically the same as the others.

She did not accept her own concept of God, yet she sought God and prayed to Him.

Her next door neighbors sat next to us at the reception luncheon afterwards; Mr. Banks is the one who found Vada. She had slidden all the way down between the door and the steering wheel, and he firmly believes she was already dead when he found her, and stiff, too, given the enormous difficulty the emergency team had removing her from her car and the way she lay on the guerney.

She had run over one sapling, which had bent down under her car, no doubt slowing it considerably, and had run into another, somewhat larger tree, not very hard. Not hard enough to cause the airbags to deploy, much less hard enough to kill her. Demetrios said the medical examiner probably wrote, "broken neck" just to close out the case and avoid having to do a full autopsy, since there was never really any question of foul play. We all choose to believe she had a heart attack or stroke before the crash and died very quickly. She remained conscious, according to our theory, long enough to undo her seatbelt, but not long enough to remove the keys from the ignition and unlock the locks, which eventually had to be broken to reach her.

I hope she was right when she told me that although she still couldn't find God, she was sure He had at last found her.

More on the Story of the Woman at the Well

There's more I wanted to say about the story of the Samaritan Woman, before events intervened. Now that I have a few moments, I'll at least list them, although there isn't time to discuss them all.

So many striking things about this story: that Jesus should allow Himself to be alone with a woman, and should speak to her!  (Rabbis of His days did NOT do that.)  That He should speak to a Samaritan, a heretic! That He knew all about her! That he stayed in Samaria, of all places, two days, preaching and teaching them! That these heretics, in contrast to so many Jews, believed! It's all amazing, through and through.

There are liberal scholars who tell us Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. It isn't true; He does make the claim, sometimes implicitly. And here, in this incident, He is at least explicitly claiming to be Messiah. (These same scholars will tell you this hardly counts, as John's Gospel is only a "mytho-poetic" account of the life of Jesus. They don't understand what spiritual is, so all they can come up with is "mytho-poetic.")

But what I wanted to point out especially, in view of recent posts and comments about the nous, is what the townsfolk told the woman: Now we believe not because of what you told us, but because we ourselves have heard Jesus. The Apostles also said this.  What we have seen, heard, handled, is what we proclaim to you.  Orthodox Christians also say this. At first, we believed for assorted reasons, but now, we do not believe upon anybody else's word or authority. We do not believe "for the Bible tells me so." Nor because a pope tells us so, or a patriarch or bishop. No, now we believe because we ourselves, in mystical, spiritual, and very real fashion, have been made first-hand witnesses of Grace and Truth. The revelation is not merely stories or doctrines or confessions or Bible verses passed down to us (although passed down to us they are), but revelation granted, knowledge bestowed, directly by the Holy Spirit in us, in rather the same manner as He gives us to know that we exist and that God exists. That is why we can never be Sola Scripturists; our faith comes not from the Scripture, but from the Source of the Scripture.

Latest News

I've arrived home. We are going out to supper with Vada's family this evening. Demetrios has known her three sons since they were small boys.

Meanwhile, my daughter-in-law, Katherine, is still sleeping virtually all the time, being awakened only long enough to eat and drink. For now, it's a blessing her medications make her so groggy. Erin (my daughter) is taking supper to their family.

I did get to see Katherine and Mark's children yesterday. Their other grandmother, Gail, picked them up from school and brought them to her apartment, where I joined them, and we all got to play for a couple of hours before they had to go home.

Kelly, 8, is going to be in her second-grade play tomorrow night and has a speaking part. I am very sorry to be missing it. Oh, well.

Sydney, 4, watched me knitting my latest blanket and said, "That's VERY BEAUTIFUL, Grandma! Who is it for?"

"Well, I don't know yet."

"Could it be for me?"

"You want it?"

"Yes, I DO!"

"Okay, sweetheart, it will be yours when I finish knitting it."

"I want to help you knit it!"

So into my lap she climbed, and with my hands guiding hers, she knitted about a dozen stitches. This morning she was all eager to knit some more, but there was no time; I had to get on the road. I promised to send her some knitting needles and yarn of her very own. I will buy her some fatter needles than she was using yesterday, and of wood or acrylic, because the metal ones are so slippery, and I'll rummage around my stash for some heavyweight yarn for her.

Another knitter! Prospectively, anyway. I'm so thrilled!

P.S.) Erin asked me, "Do you think that, except for you, I mean, Vada was the person closest to Demetrios?" and I thought about that a moment and realized, yes, she was - among Americans, anyway.

Update

Events have made my course clear.

First, Katherine does not need surgery. She is, in her mother's words, "in the arms of Morpheus," groggy day and night from her pain medication.

Her mother, Gail ("Gigi," to our common grandchildren), who lives 5 minutes from Katherine and Mark, has canceled her trip to Florida, and will stay here to care for Katherine and the little ones. Mark's regular day off is tomorrow, so he will be home all day to give Gail a break, and my daughter, Erin, has offered to help with the children, as well.  (She lives 15 minutes away.)

So I'm going home tomorrow morning. Vada's funeral is Thursday; I don't yet know what time.

It turns out that the early information about her death was incorrect. She did not fall. She lost control of her car while pulling into her driveway and smashed into a neighbor's tree. We do not know whether the crash killed her or whether she died first (from, for example, a heart attack or stroke) and then crashed. Perhaps she put her foot on the accelerator when she meant to put in on the brake; nobody knows. It does appear that her neck was broken, although there was no autopsy to confirm that.

She was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

We will miss her very much.

The Living and the Dead - and the Living

The living: Saturday night at a party, my daughter-in-law suffered a bad accident. Leaving the details and cutting to the chase, Katherine was sitting under a granite shelf when it fell. It came tumbling down, end over end, and the first end struck her hard in the head. She ducked, and the second end struck her hard in the neck.

Now Katherine was already in constant pain, day and night, from her neck. She has degenerative disk disease. She's still in her thirties, and this is an old persons' disease, in which the disks of the spine degenerate. So her already-damaged neck was the last place in the world she needed to be injured.

X-rays have revealed no fractures; that is the main thing. Her muscles, though, are all knotted up and traumatized, and she is in a great deal of pain.

I came down to North Carolina today to help her with the three children.

The dead: Tonight Demetrios called me to report that our dear friend Vada is dead, just a few weeks short of her 93rd birthday. Apparently she took a fall in her back yard yesterday afternoon, and died yesterday evening. It's ironic, because falling was something she always feared, and about which she was always extra careful. Her motto was, "Safety first."

She was definitely not a Christian, but in her own fashion, she did believe in God. She told me not long ago she had always tried to find God, and never had, but now she felt certain He had somehow found her. I think she knew Him in her spirit, although she could never reconcile Him with her cognitive thinking.

She has been a close friend of Demetrios' since the early 1970's. When Demetrios first came to America, it was Vada met him at the airport, drove him to his new home, lent him $200 until his first payday. When we became engaged, Vada and her husband were the very first people we told.

I need to be at my husband's side at her funeral. (I couldn't make her husband's funeral, due to family obligations.) AND I need to be by my daughter-in-law's side...

Advice gladly accepted. Prayers requested, for wisdom in this double emergency.

The Woman at the Well

When I lived in Texarkana, in my mid-twenties, and hung out with the very small, huddled-together, liberal crowd there, I knew a woman with a name very similar to my own, who often entertained us. She belonged to some church that had been formed from a mixture of Presbyterians, I think, and some Missouri Synod Lutherans. They met in some bare room with folding chairs and their minister used to wear a stole with, well, you know, modern art on it. We attended a couple of times. At parties, that minister used to play, "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well" on his guitar (sung above by Peter, Paul, and Mary) and he and the hostess would sing it. We all used to sing some of the old-timey Evangelical hymns, too, mainly, I suppose, from nostalgia but partly, God forgive us, as a sort of mockery.

Well, one bright morning, the town of Texarkana awoke to find that minister gone, leaving behind his wife and small children. And our frequent hostess had gone with him, leaving her husband behind.

So I always associated her with the Woman at the Well.

It wasn't until much later in life I learned to see myself in her.

And every year, it seems, something else strikes me about this story, which was our Gospel lesson today. Last year it was how the woman left her water jug and went back into the city. She left her water jug. In her excitement, in her joy, she had forgotten all about why she had come to the well in the first place.

This year, what struck me is what happened after Jesus told her, "You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband." That's stripping her naked, spiritually, exposing the full truth about her in a few words. What would you do, in her place? Melt? Fall at His knees in repentance?

What she did was begin a theological conversation! Where ought we to worship? A theological conversation! Changing the subject. Yup. I know all about that...

Of course, she repented, too, joyously, and ran back to tell the whole town. And she went on to become St. Photini, Equal to the Apostles. A woman, Equal to the Apostles! (Not that she's the only female bearer of that title.) A Samaritan woman, yet. Amazing. And her sons were bishops and saints.

There's hope for all of us.

TROPARION Hymn in tone 3
All illuminated by the Holy Spirit, you drank with great and ardent longing of the waters Christ the Savior gave to you; and with the streams of salvation you were refreshed, which you abundantly gave to those athirst. O Great Martyr and true peer of the Apostles, Photini, entreat Christ God to grant mercy to us.

A Whole New Upstairs

Well, the new carpeting was put in yesterday. It's like moving in, AGAIN, second time in as many months, since we had to do much of the same stuff the painting required, moving furniture around, removing drawers to make the furniture easier to move around... We are very tired.

Hint from Helen: If accuracy of color is important to you, do NOT buy carpet on the basis of a tiny sample.

The sample we had was about 3x5 inches. You cannot get a proper idea of the color from such a small swatch.

So how did our colors turn out? Well, the color called "Chateau White," which in the store looked creamy, almost white, looks beige in our house. I'm so glad we didn't get one of the slightly darker shades I had preferred! I didn't want a beige carpet, but if I must have one, this is about the prettiest, being relatively light. And of course it's a huge improvement over the dark, pine green we used to have. So I'm content. Demetrios loves it.

As for the red, it turned out not to be that Chinese color at all, when installed in our house. Neither is it one of those dark, rose reds or wine reds. Nothing subtle or muted about this; it's pure, bright, cherry red. And it's smashing! It looks even better than I had hoped it would; in fact, much better. It's as deep a color as the old, pine green, but unlike that, this one isn't gloomy; this one glows. So even though it's by no means a pale color, it lights up the dark hallway. In fact, it makes the white walls look pink at the bottom, an interesting effect. It looks great on the stairs, too, adding spark to the downstairs hallway, with its white walls and white, tiled floor.

We feel we have a whole new upstairs, all freshly painted and carpeted and tidied, all clean and bright.

Now all we need is curtains in one room and bedspreads (counterpanes) in each room; we don't have a single one. I think I'll crochet or knit lacy ones!

More Upcoming Projects

These are two doilies by Herbert Niebling, a 20th Century German designer of lace, of "Art Knitting". If you are a knitter, don't they rather radically revise your notion of what it is possible to achieve in knitting? And even if you aren't a knitter, don't these images rather stretch your idea of what lace is? They do both of those for me, which is why I am eager to knit them.

They're intended to be doilies, but by knitting them with baby fingering yarn instead of crochet thread, and on normal needles instead of toothpicks, I'm going to make baby blankets or afghans out of them.

The one reminds me of jellyfish, and I already know how I'm going to attach it to a background in a color very close to the one shown here, a deep, ocean blue.

The other is gladioli or some such flower, not sure. Haven't figured out the color(s) for it yet.

I've acquired both patterns and can hardly wait.

Off-line for Awhile

Later this morning, the installers are coming to re-carpet our entire upstairs, which as of now, still has its original carpeting, about 30 years old. New carpet is to be off-white in two of the bedrooms. The other two, plus the hallway and stairs - bright red! The name of the color is "Chinese Lacquer," and it's apt. As most of the rest of our house is white, this should add a much needed, if eye-popping, splash.

Anyway, I must now disconnect my computer and move it to another how soon when I shall be able to get it back onl-line.

You Go Back to your Prayers and Let Us Handle It

or, If I were Irish, This Would Make me Scream

But as I'm only part Irish, and no part Catholic, and the letter is therefore not addressed to me, I merely sigh.

This is the concluding section of Pope Benedict's recent letter to the Irish concerning the mostly-homosexual, pedophile scandal. It outlines, as you see, how the Pope proposes to deal with it. My captions inserted, in blue, so you can see a quick summary of How to Deal With This Crisis.

14. I now wish to propose to you some concrete initiatives to address the situation.

I'm setting aside Lent this year as a time when you should pray.

At the conclusion of my meeting with the Irish bishops, I asked that Lent this year be set aside as a time to pray for an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church in your country.  You should go to Confession and do penance and try to obtain mercy for the Church.  I now invite all of you to devote your Friday penances, for a period of one year, between now and Easter 2011, to this intention. I ask you to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland. I encourage you to discover anew the sacrament of Reconciliation and to avail yourselves more frequently of the transforming power of its grace.

You should make reparations for the sexual abuse by adoring the Eucharist.

Particular attention should also be given to Eucharistic adoration, and in every diocese there should be churches or chapels specifically devoted to this purpose. I ask parishes, seminaries, religious houses and monasteries to organize periods of Eucharistic adoration, so that all have an opportunity to take part. Through intense prayer before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.

I am confident that this programme will lead to a rebirth of the Church in Ireland in the fullness of God’s own truth, for it is the truth that sets us free (cf. Jn 8:32).

A Papal Visit

Furthermore, having consulted and prayed about the matter, I intend to hold an Apostolic Visitation of certain dioceses in Ireland, as well as seminaries and religious congregations. Arrangements for the Visitation, which is intended to assist the local Church on her path of renewal, will be made in cooperation with the competent offices of the Roman Curia and the Irish Episcopal Conference. The details will be announced in due course.

I'm ordering a retreat ("mission") for clergy and monastics, to review conciliar documents and papal teaching on priesthood.  I also propose that a nationwide Mission be held for all bishops, priests and religious. It is my hope that, by drawing on the expertise of experienced preachers and retreat-givers from Ireland and from elsewhere, and by exploring anew the conciliar documents, the liturgical rites of ordination and profession, and recent pontifical teaching, you will come to a more profound appreciation of your respective vocations, so as to rediscover the roots of your faith in Jesus Christ and to drink deeply from the springs of living water that he offers you through his Church.

Always keep in mind that you are dependent upon us (priests) for your salvation.  In this Year for Priests, I commend to you most particularly the figure of Saint John Mary Vianney, who had such a rich understanding of the mystery of the priesthood. “The priest”, he wrote, “holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of his goods.” The Curé d’Ars understood well how greatly blessed a community is when served by a good and holy priest: “A good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy.” Through the intercession of Saint John Mary Vianney, may the priesthood in Ireland be revitalized, and may the whole Church in Ireland grow in appreciation for the great gift of the priestly ministry.

In some countries, we've already taken steps to protect children.  We just haven't applied them in Ireland until now.  Never mind why; the important thing is, now we have begun to work on it.  What, specifically, we are doing, we needn't mention.  I take this opportunity to thank in anticipation all those who will be involved in the work of organizing the Apostolic Visitation and the Mission, as well as the many men and women throughout Ireland already working for the safety of children in church environments. Since the time when the gravity and extent of the problem of child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions first began to be fully grasped, the Church has done an immense amount of work in many parts of the world in order to address and remedy it. While no effort should be spared in improving and updating existing procedures, I am encouraged by the fact that the current safeguarding practices adopted by local Churches are being seen, in some parts of the world, as a model for other institutions to follow.

Here's a special prayer for you, opening with a very tactful reminder that you'll go to hell unless you remain a faithful Catholic.  I wish to conclude this Letter with a special Prayer for the Church in Ireland, which I send to you with the care of a father for his children and with the affection of a fellow Christian, scandalized and hurt by what has occurred in our beloved Church.  And, finally, to deal with this sorry situation, here's my papal blessing.  As you make use of this prayer in your families, parishes and communities, may the Blessed Virgin Mary protect and guide each of you to a closer union with her Son, crucified and risen. With great affection and unswerving confidence in God’s promises, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of strength and peace in the Lord.

From the Vatican, 19 March 2010, on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph

Not that I particularly recommend it, but you can read the entire letter at the Vatican website, together with the prayer.  You'll find nothing about policy change or concrete reforms or disciplinary steps or safety measures to protect children, not a word.

More Mutterings on Evolution

"Thousands or millions of generations, that's how long it takes for one species to branch out from another. So where are all the fossils? They lived for millions of generations, and we don't have a single fossil for so many so-called intermediate life forms?"

"If life just happened by chance, and if the changes happened by chance, then there's no need for further explanation. In fact, there's no possibility of further explanation; it's just chance. In other words, it isn't scientific; there's no science involved, any more than if we say God created life, to which they object because it isn't scientific."

"I'm reading this whole book on how vision works in the human brain, and even a whole, thick volume can only give us a rough outline of all the processes involved. Vision alone is so complex it would take forever for it to evolve by chance and natural selection - and vision isn't even a billionth of what all goes on in the human brain! No, literally nothing short of infinite wisdom could create that."

"I've discovered the Missing Link! The Missing Link between the apes and Homo sapiens! It's these mad, so-called scientists!"

Cardinal Levada's Interview

Tonight on The News Hour (PBS) we watched Cardinal Levada, an American, being interviewed. The interview will be posted on the News Hour website by sometime Wednesday; for now, there's only a preview, here. 

Cardinal Levada is the man who now has Pope Benedict's old job.

He evaded or otherwise failed to answer several of the questions. And once or twice, you just couldn't help feeling he wasn't being truthful, as when the interviewer (Margaret Warner) asked whether the current scandal had taken the Cardinal by surprise, and he said it had. And then a few minutes later, he said, yes, he had dealt with child abuse cases in his diocese when he was a mere bishop. "Many," he said. And then we remembered that this man has been in charge of handling them all, worldwide, for the past 5 years. And the scandal took him by surprise?

He also, albeit less vigorously than some others, tried to blame "the media." It is of course true that there is child abuse everywhere, not just among Catholic priests; in America, the accepted statistic is that one of every 4 girls is the victim of incest. One in four!! But no, the press did not cause this scandal, and to try to change the subject and shift attention to the press is not a good way to deal with the scandal.

Come on, Cardinal Levada! What your people desperately need now is some straight talk, not to mention action, from the Vatican. You know, something to lend credibility.

Or maybe not; what do I know? Perhaps, what they should have, painful though it be, is a lot more exposure to you and the others like you.

Nous and Concepts

If you show an infant three balls or three apples or three anythings of interest, and then when he isn't looking, you remove one of them, that infant's eyes will look around for the missing one. He knows it's missing.

He can't exactly count. He doesn't have any words ("one, two, three...") or any symbols (1,2,3) so he cannot rightly be said to have numbers. Yet he knows if something is added or subtracted. He plainly sees it and understands what he sees.

That's his nous operating, and it strikes me as a pretty cool example of it.

Nous is the spiritual faculty you so often hear spoken of in Orthodoxy. It truly knows without necessarily having any concepts. Or words. And we see big trouble when a religion becomes a system of concepts. That would be like the child memorizing: "Three minus one is two," without having any experience of what that's all about, without ever having seen it demonstrated, but just taking it on faith, just blindly subscribing to the formula.

Of course, if it's just a formula, that fact also opens it to debate. Upon what authority is the answer two? Is this answer binding upon my conscience? Is it heresy to claim the answer is three? Isn't it narrow-minded (and/or uncharitable) to insist the answer is precisely two and not, say, two and one-tenth?

Orthodoxy is not like that because it is not a system of formulae. Orthodoxy is more immediate, more direct, than any concept; it is like the baby recognizing when something is missing, or added. The words/concepts are just the molds into which we try to fit the Church's Life in Christ and His in us, for the purpose of expressing it, so imperfectly. They are not themselves the objects of our belief.

Why Evolution is True

That's the name of the book Demetrios picked up at Barnes and Noble this evening; he's been wanting it some time. It's supposed to be the best on that subject, better than Dawkins' book, according to Dawkins.

This should be interesting, as Demetrios thinks evolution is perhaps the biggest lie in the world. He's busily underlining passages and scribbling microscopic notes in the margins. Once in a while he can be heard to mutter something like, "Self-replicating molecule! Show me one!" Stay tuned.

Upcoming Projects

At long last, I've decided how I can use that lovely "Print o' the Wave" pattern, above, that I've been hankering after for weeks now.  I was inspired by the gorgeous "Harebell Lace" at right.  I'm going to adapt both patterns to make runners for furniture in two different bedrooms.  "Table scarves," as it were, for dressers, nightstands, and chests of drawers.  In real wool, fine wool.  Most of our bedroom furniture needs the tops covered, on account of the finish being, um, imperfect, shall we say.

I  calculate that I have another three or four weeks to go on my current project, depending upon how much knitting I decide to do each day, and then I'll be ready to tackle one or the other of these.

YES!!!