Bright Week

During Lent I concentrated mostly on the services of the Church instead of the many books in my many stacks around the house. I did get a couple of chapters of The Hobbit read to the kids though. As I ponder what to write about, I feel inadequate to describe Pascha. I don't want to focus on my personal experience, and I don't want to try to explain the services in general or the theology behind them. I just want to say that Orthodoxy is not so much about intellectual understanding, though that has its place, but about participation. If you want to "know" how the Orthodox Church "views" Christ's Passion and Resurrection then you are going to have to spend the rest of your life in the Church open heartedly listening and doing everything, skipping nothing, including how to repent when you do skip something. One of the coolest things is that there will be opportunity next year to keep practicing the same skills. Becoming Orthodox is an art.

When I mention "open-heartedness" and the many roads on the blank page, I remember Derrida. Writing and Difference happens to have remained on the top of my closest book stack these many weeks. I fear a collective groan, but I must remain true to my instincts during my free time.

Ok, one experiential note. Yesterday was a transition day between the intense Pascha and pre-Pascha services, and the attaining of what we had been preparing to receive - our Resurrected Lord. I was sad to leave the "work" behind and became a little worried about, "now what?". I don't know how to party very well. Am I Eeyore or what? Maybe I'll take that which-Pooh-character-are-you test afterall. No, I don't want to be defined by my current mirror reflection.

I'll take a leap of faith and say,

Happy Bright Week to all!

If we mourned, let us embrace being comforted,

If we sorrowed, let us receive Christ, who is our joy,

If we were poor in spirit, let us accept the richness of Christ, the source of all,

If we were hungry, let us remember that we who communed are filled with Christ, and hopefully not in an unworthy manner.

Dare to be happy.