Cheese Week, John the Baptist, and a Ph.D. (maybe)

Dairy week is going full steam ahead. (Orthodox said goodbye to meat last Sunday.) I tend not to eat a lot of dairy food other than heavy whipping cream in my coffee, so I have been enjoying all of the cheese. Tonight I had fetta. In the fridge is still gouda, feta, a mild chedar, a small wedge of maytag blue, a raw milk blue from France that is pretty good, a hunk of something hard and white, a hunk of something soft and white. I'll make pancakes for the boys in the morning to use up a lot of butter. I guess I'll make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. The blues are good spread on baguette and accompanied by a martini. I am no fan of gouda. I guess Atanasia bought it for the boys. I anticipate all the dairy being consumed by bedtime Saturday night. Sunday will be either pancakes or blini or fondue at Church and that will be it for dairy until Pascha.

One of the things I've been doing, lately, is reading aloud the appointed scriptures at the dinner table. Our schedules are such that we are unable to do it any other time. It seems to be working. Today was the commemoration of the first and second findings (Now that it is found, I hope someone is keeping an eye on it. I bet if Cossacks were watching it it wouldn't keep getting lost.) of the Honorable Head of the Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John so part of what we read was this passage from the Wisdom of Solomon in the Old Testament:

The Righteous man, though he die early, will be at rest. The righteous man who has died will judge the ungodly who are living. For they will see the end of the righteous man and will not understand what was said about him; for the Lord will cast down the ungodly speechless to the ground and shake them from the foundations; they shall become desolate to the end; they will be in sorrows, and their memory will perish. For they will come to fear at the thought of their sins, and their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them. The the righteous man will stand with great boldness before those who have afflicted him, and those who have made no account his labors. Having seen it, they shall be troubled with much fear and they will be amazed at his most glorious salvation. They will say within themselves in repentance, in anguish of spirit they will groan and say" "This was he whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach - we fools! We accounted his life as madness, and his end to be without honor. How is he numbered among the sons of God? And why is his lot among the saints? Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness did not illumine us, nor did the sun shine on us. We took our fill of the paths of lawlessness and destruction, and we walked impassible pathways, but the way of the Lord we have not known."

This reading and the others were oft interrupted by Anselm Samuel wanting to know how this was written about St. John centuries before St. John was born, why the king killed St. John, what exactly is a prophet, why did they keep losing St. John's head, who exactly lost it and how, what does perish mean, why did God let the Herods get to be kings in the first place, and more besides.

In other news, Athanasia is thinking about beginning a Ph.D. program in Human and Organizational Systems. If she does, it will be difficult. I might have to forgo my own grad school if she does. Our marriage almost did not survive the last time we were both in school. We'll see how it goes. What is interesting is that she has the greater gift for academic pursuits while I have the greater desire. In a way, it makes us a good team.