Until We Meet Again
This Memorial Day, I want to offer my gratitude for all those who serve and to those who have given their lives in behalf of our country. Its the kind of gratitude that mere words diminish, as it is felt in the deepest and most sincere way. The happiness and peace and safety of my family is in part due to your sacrifice. I hope my heart is heard when I say thank you thank you thank you.
Also on this day, I honor the inherited legacy of two of my father's uncles. Their gold stars hung in their family home many years ago, but I see them in my mind's eye today. I hope that in my own way, I can show respect for what they did for our country. I will be the best mother I can be. I will be active and honorable in my community. I will love and serve where I can and thank God that I live in a country where I can worship as my conscience directs, and that my neighbors are free to do the same.
To those who have lost, here is a little picture of the hope I am certain of:
Happy Memorial Day!
Also on this day, I honor the inherited legacy of two of my father's uncles. Their gold stars hung in their family home many years ago, but I see them in my mind's eye today. I hope that in my own way, I can show respect for what they did for our country. I will be the best mother I can be. I will be active and honorable in my community. I will love and serve where I can and thank God that I live in a country where I can worship as my conscience directs, and that my neighbors are free to do the same.
To those who have lost, here is a little picture of the hope I am certain of:
Happy Memorial Day!
In anticipation of Trinity Sunday
Until a month or two ago I had forgotten that I'd written this piece! This is Year C in the lectionary, not Year A as it was when I wrote the essay highlighted in the previous sentence, but perhaps some of you will find this helpful as you prepare sermons for Trinity Sunday or as you prepare to celebrate the feast.
(Cross-posted on Facebook, but without the icon.)
The state of the hydrangeas
Some +Maya photos from early spring
It's been too long and you have been waiting patiently for the latest photos of the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire. Enjoy.
In the late winter especially, +Maya was very fond of sleeping on the desk chair in my study.
It was a long, cold winter. Flannel sheets, anyone?
The house is all right, but not half as pretty as our old place, the one on which the tree fell. No more pretty windows with wood trim. Cement walls, windows cut out of the walls with no window sills, a bit of peeling paint, a bit of rust. But it's still cozy: a cat lives here.
The author of the definitive pastoral letter on naps continues to be very good at zonking out.
She's also good at waking up.
She's not bad at balancing on the mantel, either.
And here we have Lady Radar Ears (who made an appearance on Facebook recently).
This is when we were working on a sermon about a passage from the book of Revelation...
She likes to help me write.
+Maya has several sleeping places. This is a perch in the bedroom. The pillow is all hers.
Of course, one has to clean up after naps.
This is +Maya seen from outside through the living room window on a sunny day in early May.
Alert, wise, thoughtful, and lovely. The perfect feline bishop.
She is a good Anglican with an inquiring mind.
These next two photos, taken with my BlackBerry, have already made their appearance on Facebook:
Get me away from the paparazzi!
Yes, Your Grace. For now.
Slightly edited --two photos added-- 15 minutes after initial posting.
As always, click on photos to enlarge and see detail.
As always, click on photos to enlarge and see detail.
In the late winter especially, +Maya was very fond of sleeping on the desk chair in my study.
It was a long, cold winter. Flannel sheets, anyone?
The house is all right, but not half as pretty as our old place, the one on which the tree fell. No more pretty windows with wood trim. Cement walls, windows cut out of the walls with no window sills, a bit of peeling paint, a bit of rust. But it's still cozy: a cat lives here.
The author of the definitive pastoral letter on naps continues to be very good at zonking out.
She's also good at waking up.
She's not bad at balancing on the mantel, either.
And here we have Lady Radar Ears (who made an appearance on Facebook recently).
This is when we were working on a sermon about a passage from the book of Revelation...
She likes to help me write.
+Maya has several sleeping places. This is a perch in the bedroom. The pillow is all hers.
Of course, one has to clean up after naps.
This is +Maya seen from outside through the living room window on a sunny day in early May.
Alert, wise, thoughtful, and lovely. The perfect feline bishop.
She is a good Anglican with an inquiring mind.
These next two photos, taken with my BlackBerry, have already made their appearance on Facebook:
Get me away from the paparazzi!Yes, Your Grace. For now.
Apollonia, the toothy saint
I had oral surgery a few days ago and have been meaning to write this post since last week, but life has been busy, first with a little road trip out of state to a family Bar Mitzvah (photos on Facebook for those of you who are FB people) and then a wedding of two young Guilford alumns (ditto, smaller album), then getting ready for the surgery, and finally the surgery and recovery. I am doing fine, healing slowly and being creative with liquid and soft foods, but the point of this post is the saint for tooth trouble and dentists, Apollonia.
Apollonia was a Christian woman from Alexandria, Egypt, in the 3d century of the Common Era. Part of her martyrdom involved getting her teeth smashed and/or pulled out; hence she is often represented in Christian iconography with pincers and a big tooth.
Apollonia's torturers threatened her with death by fire if she did not renounce the faith. In her zeal for the faith she threw herself on the pyre before they could take her there.
One of my old friends says she bets that it had nothing to do with zeal for the faith and much more to do with the fact that the tooth pain was so horrid that anything was better than enduring it any more! She's got a point... The fact remains, though, that Apollonia had already lived a long life of holiness and service and that she was a woman of deep devotion and determination.
The image above is from an English church. You can find it on an interesting website on Norfolk churches.
Both Orthodox and Catholic Christians observe Apollonia's feast day (February 9). I think we Anglicans should join them. After all, she is an ancient Alexandrian martyr.
Note: Alexandria was a virgin but probably also a deacon. parthénos presbûtis, the phrase used to describe her in the martyrologies, does not necessarily mean "an older virgin" but more likely, according to the scholars, an ordained deacon/ess. There is plenty of scholarship on women deacons, not just as deaconesses as an unordained order, but as ordained deacons.
Did you know there has even been an international Orthodox conference on women in the diaconate whose proceedings, published in 1998, have been endorsed by His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch?
Here's a rather dreadful 15th century painting of Apollonia's torture. I mean the torture is dreadful, not the painting.
And then there's this (Heilsbronn Cathedral, Bavaria, 16th century):
This is likely a modern facsimile of medieval iconography. It is the illustration on a dental office called "Apollonia House" in the U.K.
This is a serigraph from the 1980s.
This is probably the best known representation, a painting by Francisco de Zurbarán (early 17th century).
I am rather more fond of the English one at the top of this post.There are images of Apollonia all over Europe.
There are also reputed pieces of her in several countries including Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal.
Saint Apollonia, pray for us!
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