Learning to Live in England, Part 15

Tuesday, 13 June

Today Claudia came over, the woman from whom we bought this flat, with her husband, David.

Claudia is the dear who either left or bought for us virtually everything necessary to set up housekeeping in this flat, including: a Hoover, an iron and ironing board, 4 mugs on a mug tree, a dish drainboard, bath towels, various toiletries and cleaning products, pretty pictures on the wall and a clock, a radio/cd player with excellent sound, bedding, silk flowers, crochet doilies, a glass scupture, and more. We were overwhelmed with her kindness and eager to know her better; and for her part, she seemed eager to have us meet her husband, David. So almost as soon as we acquired a telephone, we invited them to tea, but she had jury duty, so today was the first day she could come.

We set the time for three o'clock, and I prepared cucumber sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, egg mayo sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, toasted buttered crumpets, and an apple crumble made from scratch at the last moment. And this time, finally, everything turned out beautifully.

David turns out to be as delightful as Claudia. He has a Ph.D. in pathology, and his specialty is the effect of high altitude upon the human body. he is co-author of a book entitled High Altitude Medicine. So of course he and Demetrios had much to discuss, and Claudia, too; she is a retired researcher in hematology, specializing in blood transfusions. She was also very much involved in the big breakthroughs in treating the Rh factor. If you've ever been pregnant, you probably know about that. If your blood type is negative and your husband's is positive, you need a prophylactic to prevent complications. Claudia was involved in the development of the treatment you need.

David, who is from Liverpool, is also a big history buff, and told us many fascinating things about this area, such as that most of it sits upon reclaimed land. That is, once upon a time it was all marshland. Then some Dutch engineers came in and drained it and built dykes, as of course the Dutch well know how to do. Our own town, Ormskirk, is an exception; we're built upon sandstone. House on a rock, and all that...

Seven-thirty came and went and we were nowhere ready to end our tea, and we were had already missed our usual Tuesday night discussion group over at Stuart's house. So Demetrios suggested we walk over to the Five Ways restaurant for supper. However, by time we got there, sometime after 8:00, it had already closed from lack of custom, although its usual closing time isn't until 9:30. We walked a bit further to the Hayfield Inn, a pub, but with the same result.

So we went back home and luckily we had some stuff in the refrigerator for supper. I put a brie in the oven and made some toast squares upon which we spread chicken liver pate. The for dessert we had the other half of the apple crumble.

What time do you suppose they left? Well, it was nearly midnight! We were extremely pleased they were enjoying us enough to stay that long, and we certainly were enjoying them equally.

We shall be very sorry when and if they really do move to Wiltshire, as they are more or less planning to do.

Things I'm Discovering in/about England

There are all sorts of foods here that are new to me/us that we are having a good time sampling.  For example, there are several brands of canned soups (in contrast to Greece, wehre we've found none so far), and there are flavors you don't readily find in the U.S.:  Spicy Parsnips, Carrot and Coriander, Oxtail, for example.  There is also a variety of local sausages with mild spices and herbs added, all of them, so far, delicious.  Cheese here is inexpensive.  Other dairy products abound:  clotted cream, double cream (double-thick), custard.  YUM!  Cadbury's makes chocolate in a jar that has the consistency of peanut butter.  I just eat a spoonful of it for dessert.  There are several kinds of pate available too, such as Duck Orange, but Chicken Liver Parfait is still the best we've found thus far. 

If you ask for 'lemonade' you will be served Sprite.  If it's a non-carbonated drink you want, made with lemons and sugar, you ask for lemon squash. 

There are linguistic things I'm learning, too.  For example, in the Scouse dialect, the short u is pronounced like the oo in look or book.  Thus, bus doesn't rhyme with pus, but with puss.  But rhymes not with putt but with put.  Also, the Brits don't so often speak of solving a problem as of sorting it (and, less frequently, of sorting it out).  'Right, then, it's all sorted.'

There is a peculiar, strong wind around here that Demetrios says is frequent, but I only heard last night, that moans and wails around the chimneys.  It's just one factor, along with Victorian architecture and misty evenings, that makes it easy to believe in ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.  (Did you know that is actually a bad translation/corruption of one of St. Basil's prayers?  Lord, Lord, who has delivered us from every arrow that flies by day, deliver us from anything that lurks about in darkness. )

Before crossing streets, you have to look both ways backwards.  That is, we keep forgetting that the traffic is not coming from the direction we expect. 

The lime scale that builds up in the bottom of the tea kettle is easily removed by swishing some vinegar around in the teapot with a brush or Scotch Brite pad.  Rinse well. 

When we go for groceries, we walk back home through Coronation Park, and we stop on a certain bench for 5 minutes and we watch the ducks and swans.  ('The swans watch ME!' Demetrios says, in correction.)  Most swans in the UK belong to the Queen.  If you end up in a fight with one, as Demetrios nearly did, you end up in combat with one of Her Majesty's birds...!

The Vatican's Latest on Women Priests

Yesterday the Vatican made it 'a crime against sacraments' to attempt to ordain a woman.  There is considerable debate here in England on whether this was intended as a warning to the Church of England.

No, not exactly.  It's aimed at putting down rebellion in the Catholic ranks, and it's also bait dangled in the face of disaffected Anglican clergy:  Come to Rome, where we do not do this. 

The document also compared the 'crime against sacraments' to that 'crime against morals', pedophilia.  They are to be regarded as equally egregious.   (See?  We Catholcis have rampant pedophilia, but the rest of you have what is just as bad, so shut your mouths.)

Obviously, the Anglicans aren't the only ones to have had their Sacred Tradition bled away.  So has Rome before, to be making this a legal issue. 

And offending most women in the process by comparing them to pedophiles.

Learning to Live in England, Part 14

Not a great deal to report, although there have been some highlights.  We've mostly just been enjoying being here.  We are never bored!  Our little flat is so darling and so bright that I actually enjoy keeping it sparkling.  It only takes, on average, an hour a day to do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

On Friday (July 9) we went into Southport again, that lovely town the brochure calls a Victorian seaside resort, which about sums it up.  We had intended to go to the art festival, but never found it.  Never mind; we had a great time poking around in various shops.  (No, didn't buy anything).  Afterward we went to the Nostalgia Tearoom, where waitresses in black dresses with white ruffled caps and aprons serve a traditional tea, sandwiches and scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream.

Saturday night we attended a play at the Civic Center, in the spirit of trying to support our community.  It was set in Liverpool, making it of double interest to us.  The drama club, it turns out, is in the neighboring town of Skelmersdale; hence, most of the audience (family and friends of the cast and crew, one supposes) were also from Skelmersdale, not from here in Ormskirk.  Nevertheless, the play was better than we had expected it to be, and we are glad we went.

Sunday we went back to St. Nicholas in Liverpool, arriving half an hour before the Divine Liturgy because Demetrios wanted to help sing, and to arrive in time for at least some of Matins.

His voice isn't what it used to be, lacking about half its former power; but it is still as sweet and clear as ever, and yes, it did cause the ladies near me to sit up and take notice.

Elias, the cantor, sent a message to me that he would like me to read a snippet from the fathers just before Communion.  I declined, as it seemed wrong on so many levels.  If there is to be such a reading, it should be done by someone other than a stranger and a foreigner, it seems to me.  And then there's the question of whether it would be controversial for a woman to read.  Last thing I need is to be the focus of controversy.  Lastly, I wasn't sure just when I was to read it.

We went to the coffee hour afterwards.  There was a long table set up in the narthex where a family was serving koliva in honor of the anniversary of some loved one's death.  In Richmond, they serve it in a plastic cup with a spoon.  Here, they hand you a packet in plastic wrap, done up with a slice or two of bread.  Presumably you eat it at home? 

Off the narthex is a function room, where coffee and juice and sandwiches and cake are served.  We went in there and dontated a couple of pounds and helped ourselves.  Elias came up to chat with us.  He said the reason he had wanted that reading was that there is no sermon.  The priest, he says, can't preach.  Well, give him credit for not trying, I say!  If you can't preach, have the humility to recognize that and not inflict your efforts upon the congregation. 

And yes, I found out it is controversial here for a female to read.  A girl of about 12 read the Creed in English, and I mean in the Queen's English, too, not in Scouse.  It was beautifully done, with great reverence and perfect clarity.  But Elias says some people have come to him and said, tell her not to read.  He replies, no, he will tell her to keep reading.  Okay, here's where the weaker brother principle comes in.  Don't eat meat if it offends your brother (or sister) and don't read, either, if it offends them.

So usually, when Demetrios sings somewhere for the first time, there are thank-yous and sometimes even compliments about his beautiful voice, but there weren't any this time.  I'm sure he will keep singing anyway, whenever his voice permits. 

On our way out, we had to squeeze past the priest, who was standing near the door chatting with two women.  So then he had to speak.  Not to me, but at least to Demetrios.  What did he say?  'You didn't tell us you could sing!'  Demetrios smiled and said something about how he had learned as a child.  Then I stuck out my hand, so the priest had to put out his, which I took in mine and then kissed.  Then we departed.

Elias drove us home.  Demetrios, in the back seat with Elias' son Alex and friend Zisis, carried on a conversation with them, while in the front seat, Elias and I compared notes about people we know in the Orthodox world.  Elias wants to take us to northern Wales, where his spiritual father is, Fr. Daniel.  Northern Wales, Elias says, is very beautiful, but the greatest beauty there is Fr. Daniel.  He proposes August 28 for the journey, which is Dormition on the Old Calendar.  We'll try to firm that up next week, to be sure someone else can sing at St. Nicholas that day.

Also, Elias wants to take us to his house, in a village very near Ormskirk, next Sunday after church.  He and his wife are giving a graduation party for their daughter, who is completing high school.  We shall look forward to it and to meeting more Orthodox people.

Elias is the kind of person you're so happy to meet that it brings tears to your eyes.

Another Sunday in Liverpool (Learning to Live in England, Part 13)

At last we made it - and on time, too! - to an Orthodox Divine Liturgy. It felt so good to be back where we belong.

It was virtually all in Greek.

Afterwards, we met the psaltis (cantor), an enthusiastic man about forty-something named Elias. He comes from Thessaloniki. In fact, he grew up in approximately the same neighborhood where we live when we are there.  He is also an avid student of theology, although he does not intend to pursue priesthood. So we had much in common and look forward to pursuing that relationship.

The only other person with whom we conversed was the priest, Fr. Iakovos, an elderly man with a nice smile and a short, snowy beard. He and Demetrios had been talking for two or three minutes already by time I joined them.  Demetrios introduced me and the priest asked, 'Einai dikia mas?' Is she one of our own?

Demetrios said yes, she's Orthodox, but that wasn't what Fr. Iakovos had in mind. No, no, he meant, is she Greek?

'No,' I said, in English. 'I'm American. But I'm Orthodox.'  I shrugged.  'Does that count? Eimai dikia sas? (Am I one of your own?)' flashing him my biggest smile.

'Well,' he replied, in English and obviously in some minor distress that I had understood him, 'In the case of mixed marriages, since you are married to him, yes, we still consider you one of us.'

'And if I were still Orthodox but not married to a Greek? What then?'

There was a moment of hand-wringing before he said, 'Well, certainly we never turn anyone away...'

So I smiled again, as broadly as I could, and said, 'Thank you! That makes me feel warm and good inside.' Which it did.  I'm in - more or less - should I care to be. 

Nobody else spoke to us.  Well, we didn't go there for social reasons, so we shan't mind.

We walked from the church to Liverpool Cathedral and had a little snack lunch in the cafe there before sitting through most of Evensong because Demetrios likes that service. We couldn't sit through all of it because it lasted until 4:00 and we had to be out of there by 3:30 to find the restaurant where we were to join in the birthday celebration dinner for James, Demetrios' godson.  He turns 29 later this week.

Walk to the ruins of St. Luke's, turn onto Seel street, ask the way. A man pointed to a white stucco building a block or so away and said, that's it. That's the Alma de Cuba Restaurant

The Alma de Cuba is in the a former Catholic Church. Above where the altar once was is still the inscription: Tu Es Petrus, Thou Art Peter. Of course, I thought to myself; what else? Then I remembered it used to be the Church of St. Peter.

There is a long bar now alongside the right side of the nave, with a kitchen behind it and lounge seating across on the left side of the nave. Up the chancel steps is another seating area for bar customers, and the alcove behind where the altar used to be is all mirrored. (What an interesting idea! Mirror behind the altar!)

An upstairs has been constructed, where we sat with David and Julia and James and Kim and the younger son, Nick.

There was live gospel music for the first hour, with renditions of O Happy Day and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and such making conversation all but impossible. The food was good, though, and after the gospel choir had finished for the day, we were better able to enjoy one another.

David told the story about how he became 'Dr. Bate.' He isn't really a doctor; he's a business man. But way back when, in their youth, he was somewhere in Greece with Demetrios and began conversing with a waitress there, and made the mistake of mentioning that Demetrios was a doctor. The waitress thereupon began to unload on Demetrios her various medical problems. Demetrios listened until his patience ran out, but when she came to her female problems, he told her, 'This is really not my area of expertise. But this man,' glaring at David, 'is the leading gynecologist in Britain.' Then Demetrios stood up and disappeared into the men's room Gents while David listened to all the woman's intimate ailments.

'Well, I do know something about the inside of a woman,' David added, with a smile. Besides, he explained, he found he could never telephone Demetrios at work and get through unless he said he was 'Dr. Bate.' Then he'd get put through instantly. So he has been 'Dr. Bate' ever since.

Nick drove us home afterwards, and we were very tired and grateful to be there.

Learning to Live in England, Part 12

Saturday, June 26

There was a festival in the park today. It was billed as 'Park Praise Fun Day in Coronation Park' and was sponsored by all the local churches. There were dozens of pavillions, most of them totally boring, and there was face-painting for the children. There were puppet shows and Christian bands and speakers.

We went with Julia and David. However, apart from their meeting several old friends and our meeting two new ones, the whole thing was of little interest, and quite preachy, too. Plus, I, for one, can only take 'Christian bands' for so long.

So we took David and Julia home for dinner.

Dinner wasn't all that successful, either. The porkchops were overdone. Potatoes were delish. David doesn't like mushrooms. The lemon bars were wonderful. Except that they were intended to be a cheesecake.

Next time! Next time will be much better.

James and Kim were in our area with another young couple with whom they are very good friends, so they all dropped by for a few minutes, just to say hello, which was very kind of them.

So we did enjoy the company, at any rate.

Sunday, June 27

Another scrub, in search of another Orthodox Church. It was misunderstanding upon misunderstanding. The lady Demetrios had telephoned for directions said take the bus to the Preston station, then take a number 111 bus to the Seven Stars Pub ('Everybody knows it!') and the church was visible from there.

What we didn't realize when we decided to splurge and take a cab instead (thereby arriving more nearly on time, so went the theory), is that the church is not actually in Preston. I could have sworn (in fact, I did swear) the computer had said, 'Holy Apostles Church, Preston' but not so.

The cabbie phoned his dispatcher for directions and typed what was thought to be the correct postal code into his GPS sat system, and the voice on the gadget told us where to turn. When we came to the final 'Turn left!', however, there was no street there. No way to turn left. Nobody we asked knew any Seven Stars Pub, except one old drunk who swore it was not in Preston but in Leyland, which was correct as it turns out, but we didn't believe him.  (Note to self:  Always trust a drunk when it comes to locations of famous pubs.)  The church was in Preston! So around 12:30 we gave up because the cab fare was becoming inordinate, and we wandered around downtown Preston.

Presently, we found a bus marked '111,' so we took it and asked the driver to set us down at the Seven Stars Pub, and he nodded.  At least we would find the church for future reference.

The driver did set us down at the pub. In Leyland. 'OLD ORIGINAL SEVEN STARS PUB', the sign proclaimed. We stood on the corner of it. We walked around it, looking for a church visible from there.

And that's when we discovered the 'Seven Stars Pub' on the corner diagonally across. So we walked over there and looked around.

So make a very long story a bit shorter, the Church of the Holy Apostles is indeed visible from the (non-original) pub, but only if you know what you're looking for. There's no spire or dome and no obvious anything to let you know, from that distance, it's a church. We arrived around 2 p.m. !!!

Once we got over feeling dispirited, angry, and wishing to blame each other, we actually had a good time, back in Preston. Found a little eatery and sat outside enjoying lunch before heading home, where I collapsed onto the bed and cried a while.

Our enemy doesn't seem to mind a bit if we play Anglican, but seems determined to keep us from any Orthodox church!

Demetrios liked Evensong at the Liverpool Cathedral and wants to go back, but to be frank, I went there as a tourist and I've already been there, done that.

Massive Loss of Tradition in the Church of England

It's not just the Church of England, of course, that has lost large amounts of Holy Tradition (as distinct from plain tradition, with a lowercase 't', which referes merely to customs).

Holy Tradition is, as one person described it, footprints left in the Church by the Holy Spirit. Or to put it in non-metaphorical terms, Holy Tradition exists in the Church to promote, promulgate, safeguard and support life in the Holy Spirit. That's what Holy Tradition is. That's what it's for. And every single, small aspect of it has a specific role toward that end.

People outside of the Orthodox Church don't appear even to know what that means anymore. That's why Holy Tradition also no longer makes sense. That's the only reason Holy Tradition could lose its meaning. If the life it enshrines and structures has been lost, then Holy Tradition appears as nothing more than 'doing it this way just because this is how it has always been done.' Or, worse yet, Holy Tradition appears as the new Pharisaism, a legal-mindedness.

And it would be hard to tell them what it is they've lost because the Lost Treasure, like all True Love, exists at that wordless level of the human soul.

People live pious, devout, religious lives and mistake that for life in the Holy Spirit. But no, it is not the same thing. I think perhaps the difference can be illustrated by two contrasting sermons I came upon recently, both using the text in which the man asking for Jesus' help cries out, 'Lord, I beleive; help my unbelief!'

The heterodox minister, in his sermon, asked, 'What does this mean?' Because of course at the cognitive level it's nonsense: one cannot believe and disbelieve at the same time. So if you live at the cognitive level, that is indeed a question to raise and discuss. In fact, the Lutherans are actually right that faith is sometimes irrational - they are right, that is, provided you live on the cognitive level and not the existential or spiritual or noetic.  At that level, it's all rational.

The Orthodox priest got up to preach on the same text, and asked, 'Who among us does not know what this means?' and everybody smiled sadly and nodded. We all know what it means because we've all prayed the same prayer! We have all wrestled with that issue. But to attempt to deal with it cognitively would strike us a very strange!

Or here's another example of the difference between living at the cognitive level and living at the deeper level of human personhood, the existential or spiritual level. Philosophy for the last couple of centuries has deal with the questions, 'Who am I?' and 'How do I know I even really exist?' And whether any answers have been forthcoming is still being debated, with no end in sight because no end is possible for such silliness. We all know we exist! We don't know how to prove it in words, how to demonstrate it cognitively, but we nevertheless, deep down, know we exist. And every one of us knows jolly well who he is, too!  (Granted, though, that our self-knowledge is fragmented and riddled with deception except when God grants us moments of clarity.)

I've told the story before on these pages of Demetrios' huge high school friend Vasilis (Basil), who, hearing a fellow student, an atheist, say, 'I'm not sure I exist,' decked him. Well, he lifted the boy high in the air, over his head, and then dropped him - quickly returning him from the cognitive to the existential level! - and then asked, 'Now what do you think? Do you exist or not?' Safe to say, he knew at that moment he did!

Yet another example: every toddler knows when he is being treated unfairly. He cannot analyze what has happened; cannot put it into words, has no cognitive anything with which to deal with it. But he knows it anyway. At another level.

But people by and large, at least in Western culture, just don't live at that level any more (unless they have learned from Holy Orthodoxy how to do it). 'That level'. I've called it spiritual, I've called it existential, I've called it by its Greek word, nous. But it's also just the deepest awareness of each of us, of our truest humanity and personhood. Yes, it's something natural (because of our having been created in the Image of God).  It's natural and supernatural; and it's ironic that we, who have become unnatural, only seem able to retrieve it by supernatural means, by Divine assistance. To lose touch with 'that level' is to be estranged from ourselves, in the first place, and from the Holy Spirit in the second place.

I'm not saying the Holy Spirit is absent from these people, for He is not. No, by no means is He absent! To the contrary, He is 'everywhere present, filling all things.' But what they've lost is living together a common Life in Him. They know Him only from the outside. (And some of them like it that way, distrusting anything that is not external to themselves.) They have Him boxed in by doctrines of 'means' through which alone He is allowed to operate. (Well, sure, because they aren't aware of His immediate, direct, personal operations. You can't show these cognitively most of the time.) They have constructed theological work-arounds, so His operations are never essential to anything. Some of them mistake their own emotions and/or their fantasies as movings of the Spirit. Or they live 'by the Book' because they are unaware of the possibility of living 'by the Spirit.' They tell themselves it is the same thing, since after all, He is the Author of the Book. But although living 'by the Book' is the closest they can come, it is very far from the same thing. It isn't what one Orthodox bishop, quoted in the blog Ad Orientem, described as 'the experience of the charismatic presence of the Holy Spirit in the ecclesiastical assembly' and 'the living experience of the uncreated energies of the Triune God.'

That's what is missing.  That's why Holy Tradition, to the extent the Church of England may have had it, no longer means anything to her, and devout Anglicans are in the midst of a conscientious, systematic, wholesale rejection of its remnants.

Sunday in Liverpool (Learning to Live in England, Part 12)

It was my fault. I had neglected to do my homework on the Internet. Too busy blogging and reading all your blogs. So I forgot to find out how to get to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Liverpool. Demetrios thought he remembered, but as long-time readers of this blog may have realized by now, that phrase ('thought he remembered') has frequently led to - well, not exactly disasters, but dead-ends, anyway. Take the train, he said, and walk a couple of short blocks from Central Station.

That much is more or less true, except it's more than a couple of blocks and they aren't exactly short. But it is non-helpful if you aren't sure which blocks, in which direction. We wandered around lost for the longest time. We asked several people, but nobody knew, and to make things more confusing, there's another 'St. Nicholas' that isn't Orthodox.

Eventually an Information Point opened and some nice clerk there printed us a map. By then, however, it was well past when any Divine Liturgy would be over. We didn't know when the Liturgy might have begun, but whether as early as 9:30 or as late as 10:30, it was surely over by noon. Had we but known, it was only beginning, but we didn't know.

NOON! Who begins an hour-and-a-half to two-hour service at noon, when you've had to fast from the midnight before? I mean, who does that, and why?

So, unaware that, provided we could have found the right bus, we could still have made it before the Cherubic Hymn, we ducked into MacDonald's on Paradise Street and sat in two very comfortable chairs (yes, comfortable, in MacDonald's!) enjoying our burgers and fries. Then, as it was a glorious day and we were seated right behind a glass wall, we watched what seemed to be about a third of the populace walking past, enjoying the warmth and bright sunshine.

The fashion just now for women is full-length, filmy, brightly printed skirts with sandals, some quite elaborate. A lot of girls have cherry-red or mauve hair, and many sport tattoos. (Why do girls think tattoos are pretty? Or do they, really? Perhaps they wear them for other reasons?)

We must have sat there at least an hour and a half, resting our feet and thoroughly enjoying the show. 'I suppose we ought to join the show instead of just watching it,' I said, 'but to tell you the truth, I don't want to yet.'

'Neither do I!' said Demetrios.

So it was about 1:30 by time we decided to make our way to the Greek church. We were determined at least to get there and see what it looked like and be able to know for sure we could get there next time.

Demetrios kept exclaiming at the beauty of the Victorian buildings, the refreshing breeze, the beautiful this, the wonderful that; everything seemed perfect to him. He pointed to a girl skipping and kicking up her heels, and said, 'That's how I feel!'

There was no hurry by now, of course, so as our route took us right past the Liverpool Cathedral (Church of England), we decided to look in.

It's most impressive, as a cathedral is meant to be. It's of red sandstone facing, but that covers up many tons of brick and concrete and steel. It's a 20th Century edifice, using Gothic style but thoroughly modern building methods and materials. It's the largest cathedral in Britain, and the largest Anglican cathedral in Britain and/or Europe. It was completed in 1978 and opened by Her Majesty.

Oragn music was playing softly as we walked in, lending further churchly atmosphere.

Admittance is free, but you do have to pay a ticket for the audio guided tour, which we didn't, or to climb up the tower. The 'Tower Experience' is heavily promoted, especially at night, at sunset.

The artwork leaves much to be desired. The statues look like corpses stood erect. The paintings you have to see before you can properly fail to appreciate them. There's one of the Good Samaritan. All the characters are contemporary. The man beaten and robbed and left for dead is entirely naked, and you get the full frontal view. (He's well-endowed, too.) The elaborate scrollwork/statuary and whatever behind the altar is 'Cathedral Classic' and, to me, ugly.

The baptismal font is too shallow to dip even a baby. You don't even have the option of actually baptizing (dipping) anybody.

The Lady Chapel alone is bigger than an average church in the U.S.

We had been sitting in the first row of wooden chairs when the choir filed in, all vested, men in cassocks and surplices, boys with ruffled collars. (Interesting: they have women priests, but no women in the choir; what's with that?) We had been lucky enough to be there for choir rehearsal.

A nice man who stopped to chat with us informed us that Choral Evensong would be at 3:00.

So we hurried off to find that Greek church in time to be back at the cathedral for Evensong.

We found St. Nicholas, at last! It just happened to be open, too, and the clothing of the people in and about the church let us know there was about to be a wedding. We ducked behind some posing family members, in between photographs, and went in.

It was good to be back in an Orthodox Church, good to enter a house of worship where you cross yourself as you go in, and greet the saints via their icons, and light a candle to symbolize the offering of your life.

Nobody was very friendly. At least that was our first impression. Perhaps because they were desperate to have us gone before the ceremony, I don't know. Anyway, it was not the open-arms greeting one usually has from Greeks.

We hurried away and arrived back at Liverpool Cathedral just barely in time for Evensong.

Talk about traditional! Oh, yes, this evensong even retained thee, thou, and doth. As in, 'He hath holpen His servant Israel.' And of course there was the prayer for the Queen, to which we are unaccustomed.

Anglican church music has its own, unique sound. We have three or four recordings of it at home, and I've come to the point, I think, of being able to recognize it anywhere. I like it a lot. Not as well as I love Russian chant, or even Byzantine when well done, and I'd be horrified to have in in an Orthodox church because it appeals far more to the senses than to the human spirit, but at that sensory level, it's indeed lovely.

The cathedral has contemporary services, too.

The sermon was an eloquent reflection upon Fathers Day. The Church of England is doing all it can, the preacher said, to promote Fathers Day. Okay...

After evensong, we had tea in the purpose-built cafe over in the North Transept. They call it, somewhat pretentiously I think, 'The Refectory'. You can sit there and have tea and a treat (shortbread topped with caramel and chocolate!) overlooking the cathedral precincts.  (Massive wooden doors are opened, leaving only the acrylic ones to keep the weather out.)  They play light classical music for you while you eat, which heavy acrylic doors prevent being heard in the nave, adjoining. The cafe will cater to your group, too, by appointment. You can even rent the rear of the nave, according to one pamphlet, for such things as 'corporate receptions or gala dinners'.  No experience or even proper concept here of sacred space.

The cafe is right next to the purpose-built gift shop. We browsed in there, but didn't buy anything.

On the way home, we reflected on the loss of tradition and Tradition, and what it implies, but that's for another blog post.

Taking a somewhat different route to the train station, we passed the shell of a large church, St. Luke's. I asked two women sitting on its steps what had happened to the building. They said it had been bombed during the war, but was on the national list of sites to be restored.

As the conversation progressed, it turned out they were Catholics, and they wondered whether we had also seen the Catholic cathedral. When told we had not, they pointed to its top, showing above some buildings in front of it, and highly recommended it. it's very modern in style, apparently. We were too tired to see it today, but will remember to check it out another day.

We arrived home footsore and backsore but having had another splendid day in Liverpool.

Learning to Live in England, Part 11

Saturday, June 19

Today is a special day in the nearby village of Rainford, where David and Julia live. It's Walking Day.

'Do you want to come?' asked David.

'I don't know,' I said. 'What is it?'

'Oh, well, it's not walking for us...'

It's a parade. A Parade of Christian Witness, it's supposed to be. All the local churches (which, as far as I can tell, means the Anglican, the United Methodist Reformed, and the Catholic) march under their banners. First, they assemble at the parish church, All Saints (Church of England) for a short service beginning at 2:00. Then, around 2:30, they walk down the main street of the village, along which Julia and David live, 'and then about 130 yards past our house, they turn around and march back again, rather like the Grand Old Duke of York.'  James and Nick used to march in it when they were young.

It's also Homecoming, when people who have left the old hometown come back, and families have barbecues.

So Julia and David picked us up at 1:00, to get back before the roads were to be closed off for the event, and we had tea and some of Julia's homemade cake (with chocolate filling between layers!) and tea until we heard the distant sound of a band. Oh, and Julia had a correction for something I wrote on this blog earlier: that she uses two bags of tea per cup. She points out that's two American tea bags. When we use English tea bags, one per cup is enough. Well, I'm glad to learn it!

When we began to hear the first band's music, we went to the foot of their driveway, as all their neighbors had also done, to watch the parade.

I love a parade! It doesn't matter to me if it is humble or grand; a parade is still a parade and I always get a choked-up feeling, whether it's the mayor waving, or Santa Claus.

In this case, it was various chu8rch and civic organizations: The Mothers Union, the men's fellowships, the Sunday Schools with droves and droves of small children, must've been every child in town, the Brownies, the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts. (I didn't see any Girl Scouts Guides.) There were also three bands, and they sounded surprisingly good, too.

The crosses and banners had streamers front and back, so numerous people could carry those, in addition to the marchers actually supporting the weight of them.

Most people were dressed in their Sunday best, little girls in fluffy frocks. Some of the girls were in white dresses, carrying pink flowers. The Catholic girls were in somewhat fancier white dresses, complete with veils, presumably their First Communion outfits.

The local Member of Parliament marched, too, although I didn't see who it was. I think David pointed him out to Demetrios, but I wasn't listening to them with more than one ear.

Several people waved at the Bates ('Of course, when we had the pharmacy, we knew everyone, didn't we?' said David), and some of the children waved at us. We waved back, enthusiastically.

We kept watching until the parade turned around and came back again, and disappeared in the direction of the church grounds, where a visiting fair had arrived and set up for the marchers. There no longer are real rides, for safety reasons, but there are dodgem cars and games of the 'Win a goldfish!' variety, as James said, such as coconut shies, for example. What's a coconut shy? It's trying to knock a coconut off the top of its perch on a pole.

After the parade we had a barbecue in the garden. David cooked us steaks and sausage and ground beef mincemeat patties wioth potatoes, all in a wondrous pink sauce. We added Chateau Neuf du Pape, Julia's favorite wine, which Demetrios had provided, and rhubarb crumble, which I had brought. (No, it wasn't tart. I make sure mine is sweet.)

As it was a glorious day, we enjoyed all this in the sunken garden, where David has set up a remarkable dining arrangement. It's a glass table where 6 people can sit in comfort, and probably 8. The table has a glass lazy susan in the middle, and an umbrella above, that lights up at night and has a place in the middle where you can attach a heater, in case the weather was chilly. We were warm in the sunshine, but chilly in the shade, so yes, we used the heater. In late June.

The garden is full of color, with roses and begonias and peonies and dozens of other kinds of flowers I can't name. My favorite is the little shrub that bears tiny, blue-and-white flowers shaped like five-pointed stars.

More than enough entertainment for one day, wouldn't you say? Or one week, or longer? But no, yet more fun was planned. We sat in the living room and watched a movie called Shirley Valentine. That's the name of a lady who lives in this vicinity. The movie isn't about her, just the writer liked and used her name for his main character. It's about a bored and mistreated Liverpool housewife (That alone makes it interesting to me) who goes off to Greece for a two-week vacation (That makes it doubly interesting) and changes her whole life around.

If you're about 40 or older, you'll be able to relate to this woman. You'll laugh and you'll cry and you'll be left with several things to ponder. I also liked the way various characters turned out not to be who they at first appeared to be.

The ending is ambiguous. I choose to believe Shirley and her husband stayed on in Greece and became Orthodox and lived happily ever after.

Learning to Live in England, Part 10

Tuesday, 15 June

Tuesdays are developing into a certain routine for me: Library in the morning to do some blogging, lunch in the hand downtown, knitting group in the afternoon (where today I met two new people, Rita and Jane, both in my age group), a stop by the supermarket on my way home, while Demetrios stays home and works on his book. Then, in the evening, we go together to Stuart's house in our neighborhood for the Anglican discussion group. We brought the treats this time, shortbread bars topped with layers of caramel and chocolate.

We discussed the Gospel lesson about the woman who anointed Jesus' feet, and we talked about how important it is to be aware of our own need for forgiveness.

Naturally (I use that word advisedly), it came across as the need to go around feeling guilty, whipping ourselves emotionally. How morbid. We tried to explain that the kind of self-awareness of which we were speaking wasn't about guilt! It's predicated upon the prior awareness of God's fathomless Love, of His unwavering, constant, infinite tender kindness toward us. It isn't about kicking ourselves.  It's not about awareness of guilt so much as awareness of how broken and dysfunctional we are.  (Yes, we are; and if we don't believe it, we have only to look the Perfect Man, Jesus, to see the gaps between Him and us.)  It's about growth in true humanness and into divinity, because you can't correct the distortions within until you become aware of them, can't be liberated from a chain you don't realize you've wrapped around yourself, can't heal the disease until it's diagnosed.  (And no, I am not denying it's GOD Who does all this in us, but He most certainly doesn't do it without our effort, and if He did, while we remained passive puppets, that wouldn't resemble anything the Orthodox consider salvation.) So the discussion turned to a meditation upon God's astonishing, miraculous, unbridled Love, and it seems to me we all went home rejoicing.

Thursday, 17 June

We've spent a quiet couple of days at home,and enjoying every minute of it. Our big achievement was yesterday, when we put up the larger of our two new bathroom cabinets. All by ourselves. Now our toiletries have a place to live. Anastasia's Law: Everything takes longer than you think it will. Corollary: Everything is harder than you think it will be. It isn't perfect, for sure, but it looks okay and we're more or less pleased. It's LEVEL, anyway. We used the new bottle of Listerine for our level!

We also spent some evening time exploring English television.  It's overall considerably better than American (or Greek, which is even worse).  We've enjoyed some detective shows, such as re-runs of the 'Poirot' series with David Suchet, and Inspector Frost. , and 'Springwatch,' a nature show that has webcams in birds' nests and foxes dens and such, and tracks specific animals.  There are also rip-offs of American shows.  There's an English version of 'American Idol,' and 'Big Brother'.  'Desperate Housewives' is also on.  And of course the World Cup matches are on.  England hasn't been doing very well.

Fr. Stephen Hits the Jackpot yet Again

Check out his post here.  It's on the use and limits of reason and how we do/don't know God.  It's another gem of wisdom, easy to read, simple yet profound.

Learning to Live in England, Part 09

Monday, 14 June

James took me shopping this morning. Specifically, he took me to the same furniture store where yesterday we saw the loveseat we wanted, with the two recliners. We hadn't had time to order it yesterday, as our restaurant booking had imposed a time constraint.

James actually took me to two shops. It's always well to shop at at least two, according to his philosophy, which is no doubt correct, because then you can threaten to walk out on one, in the course of your bargaining. 

He did the bargaining, and got the price down some, but the sales clerk, a girl with cherry red hair named Phillippa, was also being hard-nosed about it, so I think James was disappointed he couldn't get the price down further.

It certainly raised some eyebrows, having this handsome young dude doing my bargaining for me. Finally, one shop clerk came right out and asked, instead of the ruder question, whether we were related!

The sofa won't be delivered before we leave, but James says he will accept it for us. We'll leave a set of keys with his parents.

On the way we had a discussion about marriage; I don't remember how it came up, but anyway, he told me that in England these days, people don't much bother with marriage. When I asked why not, he said it was because it didn't mean anything to people, so they didn't see the point. What they did see was the risk, as divorce is expensive. (So is splitting up from a live-in partner, however!) He said that if people do marry, they certainly don't do it before the age of thirty. 'If I were to marry before thirty,' he said, 'everyone would think me completely daft!'

Isn't that sad? Marriage, not meaning anything. No clue that marriage is for helping each other and your children toward theosis (deification). Even the social benefits of marriage aren't apparent to this generation. I say it's my generation's fault; we're the ones who pioneered 'free-love' - openly, at least, as something socially acceptable.

He also had two bits of news. One was that he and Kim, who both work for the same company, both have a chance to trade their current company cars for new ones, Volkswagen Sciroccos, a £25,000 car they both admire. The other news is that Kim's mother had a burglary at her house last night. Kim's little brother and sister recognized the offender and her mum has reported him.

So the sofa is ordered and just as we got back home to where Demetrios was awaiting delivery of the new bed(s), it/they arrived. It's a single bed with a trundle bed below, that unfolds to the same height as the top bed, making either one large or two single beds. We're going to use them when Nick and Sharyn come, and give them the master bedroom. (That's firm, Nick!)

So James helped us get all that set up before he went to pick up Kim and go have a look at two brand new Sciroccos!

Learning to Live in England, Part 09

Sunday 13 June

David and Julia had offered, earlier in the week, to go to church with us at their home church, St. Michael's, Aughton. They hadn't been for a longish time, David said. He wasn't sure whether it would be the happy-clappy version of the service or not, so we took our chances.

Well, there was just one happy-clappy bit (and yes, it did involve clapping), and that was that song about, 'Shine, Jesus, shine!' Shine on me. Sounds good; what does it mean? 'Blaze, Spirit, blaze, set our hearts on fire.' That also sounds good, but tell me what it means.

The Gospel of the day was the story in Luke about the woman who poured perfume on Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair. And I must say, and we did say to the Vicar, that his sermon on the Gospel was excellent. He spoke of how being forgiven much creates in us much love, and he brought in the phrase from the Lord's Prayer about 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' (The Orthodox do not pray this if there is anyone we haven't forgiven.) He spoke of the difficulty, yet the necessity, of forgiving each other, and of how much easier that becomes when we are aware of our own need for forgiveness.

The Vicar read the Scriptures in beautiful, proper English, and then preached the sermon in Scouse!  That's the local dialect.

Here I have to interject one of my favorite stories about becoming aware of sin. One time when Demetrios and I were shopping, we were in a huge hurry, for reasons I have long since forgotten. Anyway, the girl at the checkout till was not in a hurry at all. In fact, she was tired. She was also black and had some sort of a chip on her shoulder. She served us as slowly as humanly possible, and very sullenly. The whole process took a full 10 minutes. As we walked away, Demetrios turned to me and said, 'And how many times have you sinned in the last 10 minutes?' I was aghast. Hundreds? Thousands? There was no counting the number of uncharitable thoughts I had entertained. Countless sins, in ten minutes, and I would never have been aware of them, had not Demetrios pointed them out!

How many sins in an hour, a day, a week, of which we remain mostly unaware?

We stopped for coffee in the parish hall church house later, where a very amiable woman named May came and chatted with us. She is from Liverpool, and entertained us with stories of life there. Especially fun was her description of New Year's Eve in Liverpool. She said at the stroke of midnight, everyone comes outdoors with hugs for all and greetings of 'Happy New Year!' and 'All the best!' and in the harbor, all the ships blow their horns, and all this commotion would go on for about 20 minutes.  Or at least, that's the way it used to be, in the old days.

This church has a rooster at the top of its steeple. I do not know why a rooster instead of a cross, but David and his brother used to take pot shots at it with their rifles. Target practice, it was. 'When you hit it, it spun around,' David said, adding that every once in a while the parish would have to replace it, and nobody ever understood how, from time to time, the rooster would come to be in such bad condition.

He and Julia took us shopping in between church and Sunday dinner. We found two bathroom cabinets in a store very much like Home Depot, called B&Q. Two cabinets, because we can use all the storage space we can get in such a small place. One will be for our toiletries, the other for bathroom tissue and extra boxes of Kleenex and the like.

We also found the sofa we want. Currently, we have two loveseats two-seaters and that's really all that fits. Still, Demetrios wants to be able to stretch out and nap in the living room. So we were hoping to find a three-seater that wouldn't overwhelm the room, or make it look like what it was: an attempt to cram as much furniture into the room as possible.

David had the solution, and demonstrated it: a two-seater, each side of which is a recliner. The dimensions are only 62" long by 34" deep, and it comes in white, perfect!  We can both stretch out!

We didn't have time actually to order it, as we needed to rush to get to the restaurant on time, where David had booked a table.

We had a beautiful meal at the Swan Inn Restaurant (not chosen, presumably, to tease Demetrios about his recent misadventure with a swan). A locally famous TV chef is half-owner, Marco Pierre White.  (What's with the italian first name, French middle name, and English last name surname?)
Kim and James joined us. Nick, the younger son, had planned to, but he became all involved with moving into his new apartment, and ran out of time to shower and shave and such. So we missed him, but hope to see him again soon.

We almost all had the lamb, cooked beautifully in a yummy sauce, served with mashed carrot something and vegetable medly.  Two of us had beef instead.  David and I had sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

After the meal, it was back home for a much-needed rest.

Learning to live in England, Part 08

Saturday, 12 June

James and Kim had his parents (David and Julia) and us over to their house for a barbeque. It was steaks with oven-roasted potatoes and a pasta salad, all very yummy. (I suspect Chef David may have been surprised at how good that steak was. As good or better than in your typical American restaurant. Julia had brought an apple crumble with custard, to top it all off. (Custard here is a thick liquid, usually served warm and poured over your dessert.) Kim, who was slightly under the weather from having been out boogeying until three or four this morning, served us some of her homemade wine, and it was good, too, if you like fruity, sweet wine, which we do.

We sat out in their small back lawn in the warm sunshine to enjoy our meal.

It served as a dress rehearsal for the larger party they are giving tonight. this is the night of the much-anticipated World Cup match between the USA and the UK. They have having about 14 people over, including children.

How they are going to accomodate so many people I do not know, as their apartment is as tiny as ours ir not tinier. As you come in the front entrance, you see stairs on your left and the living room on your right. In it are a huge, curvy sofa and a huge, flat-screen television, and that's all, or if there's more you don't notice it. Behind the stairs in the space with the sloping ceiling is a lighted terrarium housing a female Bearded Dragon named Torres, after James' favorite soccer player footballer. To the rear is the kitchen, newly remodelled, with black coutnertopsa nd black tiles, and past that, the sliding doors to the back yard.

Upstairs are two bedrooms, one serving as a home office for James, the wall of which Kim has painted in black, red, white, and yellow geometric shapes to look very much like a Mondrian painting.

Like young Elpida and Pantelis in Greece, James and Kim like decorating in black. The carpeting on the stairs and upstairs is black, as is some of the wallpaper, and the bathroom tiles.

In the bathroom is a square basin atop a wooden block, giving the whole thing a modern look.

Okay, just thought you might enjoy a description of one English home.

After about three hours or so, in the mid-afternoon, David and Julia took us to their house. We moved some light furniture from the conservatory out to the garden in back, and sat there in the warm sun and cool breeze, open fields ahead of us, and the sunken garden to our right,

At 5;30, David announced 'drinking time.' I had a nap instead. I stretched out on a sofa plus a footstool in the summerhouse and dozed a solid hour.

Supper was another gourmet affair, with shrimp and tiny scallops in a rich lobster sauce of David's concocting. This was followed by a surprisingly very good moussaka bought frozen from the grocery store supermarket. Dessert Pudding was a cream torte with raspberries. Yum!

It was nine minutes into the World cup match before we remembered we ought to watch it. Traitor that I am, I had come intending to support the UK, but I just couldn't do it. I would've been pleased had the USA won, but the tie draw probably the best outcome for us all in the circs. Actually, it was wonderful that the USA managed to hold its own, being the underdog, and widely expected to be trounced. The English goalkeeper is now the subject of much conversation. One commentator said, 'The only ones I feel sorrier for are the British soldiers in Afghanistan, who were forced to watch the match with American soldiers!'

Hint from Helen: It doesn't help for you Brits to play God Save the Queen at a football match against the USA.  It's a patriotic tune for us, too, called America.

Learning to Live in England, Part 07

Demetrios went to the store today and came back limping.

'What happened?' I asked.

'I had an encounter with one of those swans.'

It seems he was passing too near the seven cygnets. 'And one of the parents hissed at me.'

'At innocent you?'

'At me.  Hissed! I didn't even know a swan could hiss.'

'These ones can vocalize, too. "Mute Swan" appears to be a bit of a misnomer.'

'Well, anyway, I thought I was about to find myself in a ridiculous situation. I mean, the last thing I wanted was to find myself fighting, publicly, with a swan!'

'That swan would've won, too.'

'Or even worse if I had injured those poor cygnets' mother.  No doubt there'd have been someone in the park with a camera in his cell phone, who would have caught the whole disaster on video.'

'I can just see you on Youtube. Swan Decks Man.  Or, heaven forbid, Man Wrings Swan's Neck.'

'So I got out of there. Twisting my ankle in my haste.'

Hint from Helen: Well, you don't need Helen to tell you this one.  Around here, there's a proverb that says a swan can break your arm.