Bright Week 2022

Well, Bright Week has been difficult this year. Monday we went to divine liturgy and had breakfas with Fr. Basil. He makes the best buscuits and gravy I've ever had and it is his annual tradition to make them for the parish. It was a lot of fun. And all day Monday was lots of fun. But at 3 on Tuesday morning I woke up in horrible pain. I thought about not going to work but I really need the money so I went in. By the time I got home that evening I had a fever and chills and my head felt like it was beig squeezed in a vice and my abdomen was swollen huge. I really thought I might die. I took a bunch pills and went to bed. I stayed there until Thursday (yesterday) at six p.m. when my fever finally broke. I was feeling well enough to eat something (first food since Monday) and this morning I felt fine. I am back at work and earning money.

One thing I've enjoyed this week, something I always enjoy, is praying the Paschal Hours instead of the usual morning and evening prayers. All the various changes to the services, both in our homes and at church throughout the year are, really, very fun. I doubt the Apostles and Fathers who wrote the services were thinking about fun when they were doing their work. Probably, they were thinking about theosis or something but they are fun. Especially to little kids.

This morning I encountered a 6th grade boy who cannot read. I talked with him for just a minute and discovered that he doesn't know phonics, all the sounds represented by letters and their various cobinations. So I wrote down the names of some phonics workbooks that I used to teach my kids to read, and where to buy them. I also wrote down my phone number so that the kids parents can call me if they have any questions. So, why is a boy in the sixth grade it he can't even read the word 'yellow"? Here is why: No school employees are penalized if he doesn't learn how to read. They are not rewarded if he does learn how to read. They are rewarded by his attendence. (The school gets money from the state based on average daily attendence.) So all they really care about is making sure he stays in school. Oh, Also, as long as he doesn't know how to read the school gets more money to hire more teachers, special English teachers called reading specialists. But they aren't rewarded if he learns how to read. Neither are they penalized if he doesn't learn how to read. But think about what happens if all the non-readers learn how to read: The reading specialists lose their jobs! Also, kids who are behind academically, especially non-readers are much more likely to become disciplinary problems. If those disciplinary problems disappear then school security officers, counselors, and administrators might lose their jobs! So you see, from the point of view of the people who work in California public schools there is no compelling reason to teach this boy to read.

Holy Week and Pascha

Well, I think this is my first Pascha without my sons Basil and Anselm. Basil is sick with Covid and Anselm is in the Navy. It feels kind of weird.

This morning Kathleen and I attended the Pascal Vesperal Liturgy. She was totally blown away by all the Old Testament readings. After the service she read up on the Assyrians and she and I had a two hour conversation about Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, What are demons, what exatly Hades is, etc. She said she never learned any of this stuff when she was a Roman Catholic.

I baked the Kulich today. I'm worried it didn't rise as much as I was expecting. I hope it is okay.

Kathleen put together the Pascha basket. It was her first time to do it.

She just left for church. This is my first time to not go to the Pashal Divine Liturgy, but I don't think I can stand tonight. My leg and foot are aching much from this morning's service. I have it elevated now and, hopefully, I'll be in good shape for Agape Vespers tomorrow. I'd better be because I am supposed to run the grill for the parish cook out.

Vigils, Holy Week, and Cooking

As regular readers of this blog know, I was making a real effort to attend all the vigils of the Great Feasts this year. Sadly, because of the Covid exposure, and not wanting to take a chance on exposing my fellow parishoners, I had to miss the vigil for Palm Sunday. So, I'll try again next year.

I attended Matins of the 12 Gospels last night at my parish in Saratoga. It was beautiful. Fr. John Takahashi was visiting us. (He must be close to 90 years old now. I love him. When my son Basil was in the hospital he visited him and did a complete Divine Liturgy in his hospital room.) I have heard some people criticize him for his halting reading of the Divine texts but, come on, English is his 5th langage and he only learned it when he was in his 40s! Subdeacon Paul and Reader John sang all the hymns and responses as a bass and tenor duet. It was gorgeous. It was a three hour service that seemed like 10 minutes.

As far as cooking goes, I'm trying some new stuff. Of course, I am still making the epicurious Paskha cheese recipe. It's been setting in the fridge since Wednesday. Yesterday, I made three pork turines. They are also in the fridge but I am worried they might be too fatty. I could only find 1/2 of the ham hocks I needed so I substituted pork shoulder.

Right now, I am making a paté de campagne. Finding pink curing salt was a pain. No one has it for sale in San Jose. After a couple of hours looking for it in stores I called a sausage company and asked them if they would sell me some. They said they use pure sodium nitrate, whereas curing salt is less than 7% sodioum nitrate, and they can't sell it to anyone who doesn't have a license to handle it; it is poisonous. But he told me that I don't need curing salt if I keep the paté refrigerated and eat it all within a week. So, I'm on the chilling in the fridge before grinding stage so I thought I would take a break and write a blog post. I' need to start on the kulich soon.

Basil is still sick with covid so he is quaratineing at his mother's house. I am sad that he is missing all the services and the fun of cooking.

Jordan Peterson

For my birthday back in February Kathleen bought us tickets to hear Jordan Peterson lecture at the San Jose Civic Auditorium last night.

It was very interesting. He was promoting his new book (I didn't know he had a new book.) and lectured based on a chapter in the book which, I think, says something like if you want the best possible life you must abandon ideologies but the only way to do that is if you correctly think of and relate to God.

He started out by talking about different kinds of truth; scientific, historical, psycholoical, maybe more. But he concentrated on psychologicial and showed the psycological truth of several stories from the Bible:

Creation - Yes, God is He who is above all and behind all and calls order out of chaos, and if you do not acknowledge that you have no principles by which to understand the world or by wich order your life. And there is a cost to this: you ave to admit you aren't in charge.

The sacrifices of Cain and Able - Yes, the pursuit of God, He being who is above and beyond all things is worth sacrifices. And sacrifice, by definition is costly, but you have to do it or you don't attain what is better.

The Tower of Babel - Don't try to make anything as high as God because if you do horrible things happen. Here he mentioned Communism as the most deadly ideology ever.

The call of Abraham - Yes - leave your father's tent and get out and live your own life, even if you are 80 years old, its not to late to embrace adventure, and if you don't you will never develop into a whole strong person. And there is a cost to this. You might have someone try to take your wife. You might never have a place to live. You might spend your whole life as a wanderer but that is better than living your whole life in your father's tent.

Finally, after a few more stories, Peterson ended with the story of God sending the plague of snakes after the Israeiltes but then telling them to erect the brazen serpent and that lead to the Crucifixion of Jesus.

It really was a very good presentation. Actually, calling it a presentation might be wrong. It was more like he was trying to figure out what all these stories mean and how he should regard them and how he should live but unlike most people he was doing it in public. But Peterson is still not a Christian. He talks about our God. He talks about our book. He says it is true. But he is not baptized. I know he has been talking with a few Orthoox Christians, among them Jonathan Pageau, the iconographer and youtuber. I think Pageu is very patient. I am sure I would have tried to close the deal by now, whereas Pageu is just a caring friend to Peterson. I have a lot of admiration for him.

GNOSTICISM AND THE LGBTQ+ MOVEMENT

I saw something interesting posted on facebook by a friend of mine. (I won't name him because he is a friend and I want to keep him as such. Also, he is not a Christian so what I'm saying in this post is not directed to him. This post is intended for my fellow Christians to think about.) Many years ago, when I was eleven or twelve years old I heard and believed a heresy from Sunday school teacher. What he taught us, with the help of lots of snazzy charts and diagrams was this: We are spirits That have souls and live in bodies. Of course, any Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christian, and most Protestant Christians, should easily recognize this heresy as Gnosticism. But here is what my friend said, and again, my friend is not a Christian and, to the best of my knowledge, is unfamiliar with the Gnostic heresy; he was merely seeking to explain the sexual ideas that are popular in the larger Western post-Christian society. So this is what he said: a persons identity (whether he thinks of himself as male, female, or other) is located in his mind which, if one is not a materialist, usually means the spirit, while who a person is attracted to (e.g. wants to have sex with) is determined by his heart/soul, and a person's sex is determined by his body. When I saw what my friend said I was astounded. As Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun. Of course, I knew before I saw my friend's Facebook post that there was some kind of link to Gnostic anthropology but I hadn't thought it all the way through. Now that my friend explained it I see it clearly. There is nothing that can or should be done to try to convince a non-Christian (they won't believe us) that this idea is an error, but we can and should strive to show Christians that the whole LGBTQ+ movement is merely the most recent iteration of the Gnostic understanding or human personhood. Of course, the Christian understanding of a human person is that we are a spirit and a soul and a body, created by God to be such, in unity without confusion, and forever. But there is a deceiver who does his best to make people think they are not one being, who tries his best to think there is and ought to be confusion between the spirit, soul, and body. It is the demonic idea, the lies the enemey puts into people's minds that must be combatted through prayer and fasting and a liberal application of holy water.

Son #4 and the Maritime Academy

On Friday of last week (this is Sunday night) Kathleen and I took my youngest son, Basil to the California Maritime Academy. We went on a tour of the campus, we saw the TS Golden Bear, looked out over San Pablo Bay, talked about majors, and met some cadets. Basil is sold. He wants to be a Keelhauler and study to be a maritime officer. It is too late to apply for the semester starting in Fall 2022 so he will take some more CSUGE classes at a community college then apply for fall 2023 admission to the academy. He'll still only be 17 so I'm fine with waiting until then. We also went by St. Contstantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. It is just a couple of miles from the campus. And just a little bit to the west of the campus is some of the best waterfowl hunting in California. I think it is a good plan.

Anne Lamont is 68

Today is Anne Lamont's birthday. She is 68. I have been aware of her for most of my life. I think I first heard of her in 1991. I used to listen to her when she was on a radio show called West Coast Weekend. Back then, every Saturday I listened to two radio shows every Saturday: West Coast Weekend and A Prairie Home Companion (Aired from 1974 to 2016), both on KQED. In the early 1990s West Coast Weekend was dropped by KQED and I thought it ceased production. I remember when Anne's son Sam was born. I remember when she stoppped drinking. I remember when she became a Chrisian. And then she was gone. The radio show where I heared her was no longer. But one day in the early 2010s I was driving through Marin County and came across another radio station (I don't remember the call letters.) that was broadcasting the show! The radio show has changed it's name to West Coast Live. There was a singer in the 1990s named Wesla Whitfield who was on the show almost every weekend. When Garison Keilor brought his show, A Prairie Home Companion, to San Jose back in 1993 he booked Wesla for his show. I thought it was very funny when she greeted the audience with the words, "It's good to be with you on this beautiful West Coast Weekend!" Wow! Anne Lamont is 68 today. I must be old, too.

In other news, my youngest son, Basil spent the night last night. We played two games of chess (We each won one) and he, Kathleen, and I played Ticket to Ride. He beat both of us at that one. We prayed the 9th Hour, we ate dinner, we prayed the evening prayers.