Entrances and Exits

Just something quick to mention here. I had my first opportunity to serve as an altar server during a divine liturgy at seminary this week. The Conception of John the Baptist. Things went fairly smoothly with only a couple of minor problems. I find it hard to set aside my perfectionist tendencies, even knowing that I will never be perfected otherwise. I desperately want the very thing that I can't have until I stop wanting it. Or said in another way, the thing that I need (perfection) will only be accomplished in me if I will simply die. And not simply die, but let Christ do my dying for me. Madness. Can't I even do the dying myself? Obviously, no.

I have had the opportunity to serve as assistant sacristan during the daily vespers services for the past week. My first night, a bishop decided to pop in (Archbishop Job, who, in my opinion is an excellent man and a true servant of God). I suddenly had a surreal moment on my hands. Here I was in the altar with a bishop, whom I have respected from a distance for some time. The priest celebrating the service is a monk and the former abbot of a monastery (another excellent man, in my experience), of whom I was familiar with (again, from a distance) before seminary and for whom I had deep respect. And in the back of the nave was Fr Tom Hopko, who gets a large chunk of credit for my family's conversion to Orthodoxy. He had introduced himself to me earlier that day on his way into the chapel, and I almost didn't know how to respond. I wanted to say so many things to him to express my sincere love for him as someone who was so instrumental in my conversion and in the growing of my faith, but it seemed best to simply say "I am very pleased to me you, father!", and leave it at that. Maybe he could kind of guess what I had in my mind...

Classes continue, my mind is stretched. I battle the hardening of my heart and the cooling of my love. Walking to and from the divine services seems like the best remedy for these things, as it gives some open time to simply pray.

Fall is so close, but summer struggles to keep its grip.