House Updates and a Sunday School Reflection

Good Morning!

Thanks be to God, everything surrounding our purchase of a new home has gone miraculously smoothly. From the inspection (wonderful) to renegotiating the price (problem-less) to packing (almost done! Thanks Mom and Dad), Frank and I can only thank God for this wonderful opportunity. Added to that the interesting information that Frank's Godfather used to own the house a few years back, each day we grow more confident that there is a greater plan behind this purchase. We do not as yet know what, but it is exciting.

At the link below, you can find some photos of the interior of the house:
http://picasaweb.google.com/julianadancer1/NewHouse02?authkey=Gv1sRgCP3K_Z2d4eakUA&feat=directlink

As the dual-title suggests, I also have a Sunday School reflection :) This Sunday, I had the opportunity to sub for my mom as the High School Sunday School Teacher at church. The class is currently reading "Who is God? Who am I? Who are you?". While a bit dated, I still enjoy the book and its honest and age-leveled discussions on the root of all passions - pride!

This Sunday, we discussed the common phenomenon of self-justification and its ability to keep us from repentance (for how could we repent, if we cannot even admit we sin?) In the process of our discussion, I recalled the hymn sung at Orthros only an hour or so prior, so very appropriate to this period in the Church's year, and so applicable to our discussion:

Open to me the doors of repentance, O Life-Giver, for my spirit rises early to pray towards Thy holy temple, bearing the temple of my body all defiled. But in Thy compassion, cleanse me by the greatness of Thy mercy.

As we cannot do anything without God, neither, I believe, can we even truly repent without Him. He opens to us the "doors of repentance" by helping us see our sins, by giving us the strength to be humble and admit to ourselves first of all that we sin every day, and sometimes quite gravely. How easy it is to blame an argument on our parent or sibling or friend or enemy, and absolve ourselves from any guilt? And yet, did we not perhaps forget to do what we were told, or raise our voice, or call names, or gossip about that person sometime in the course of our interaction with them? We are never free from responsibility in a conflict, and this is what our book was teaching us this Sunday. While I know I was assuming the role of teacher, I feel that I came away from our Sunday school class even more cognizant of my own short-comings and hypocrisy in this area of my life. May the gift of Great Lent which God is giving to us help all of us in our struggle towards becoming "perfect" as our Father is Heaven is "perfect", and may He continue to open to us the doors of repentance, by showing us our imperfections.

Unless the Lord builds the House...

The latest news in the Dancer household is … a house! Yes, Frank and I are embarking on the new adventure of becoming homeowners. It is a lovely 4 bedrooom 2 ½ bath ranch house with a finished basement (and a fireplace!) and we are both very excited.

Aside from the unavoidable learning curve involved in purchasing a home (realtors, closing costs, loans, home owner’s insurance, etc.), I have been doing a great deal of reflecting on how this whole adventure came about, and the necessity of following the Will of God in all of our endeavors in life.

You see, we were not in the market for a house. Our apartment, though smaller and slightly smokey, is certainly comfortable. There's plenty of space, our pictures are up, and we even have room for two cars (though admittedly not inside the garage).

However, I'm beginning to learn that Life is definitely not about "comfortable". It seems that, whenever we finally reach that point where we are ready to settle down into the groove of things, (however long that takes us) God decides to throw something new and exciting our way, just to keep us on our toes.

That's kind of how it worked with our house. Our friends have been house hunting for more than 6 months, and Frank has been talking with them about the different things they're learning and going through with that. On January 14, Frank was looking through some home listings just kinda for fun, and saw one he kinda liked. After giving me a call at work, we decided it wouldn't hurt to check it out. "Just for fun."

That house was very nice, but smelled of covered up cigarette smoke (not something I could see myself living with for the next 5-10 years). However, the realtor told us that she had three other houses in that same price range if we wanted to look. Again, "just for fun", though slightly more interested, we signed up for a Saturday showing.

Saturday was a lot of fun, and we found a house that was in our price range, big enough for a great many of our home owning dreams, and lacking any major problems. We went to the open house on Sunday, had it "professionally inspected" by my father on Monday, and made an offer on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Frank's birthday, our offer was accepted.

Needless to say, this last week has been a whirlwind as we now need to buy appliances, apply for our home loan, and buy home owner's insurance, not to mention schedule the real inspector and begin the arduous and despised process of packing.

At various points, I would ask myself: "What are we thinking? We don't need a house!" And sure enough, the next day I would hear about Zaccheus and his hospitality or about "Holiness becomes Your house O Lord forever!" and would have to rethink my goals for home ownership in the first place. Is a house a timely investment meant to offer financial security, a stable environment for family building, and a way to impress family and friends? Or rather, is it a gift from God meant to be used for His glory, by hospitality and prayer, and for the building up of the Church of God? I would continuously come back to the realization that we (Frank and I) had almost nothing to do with initiating this entire process at all. God was definitely at work here, and we are continually humbled by the many blessings He has bestowed on us. We also realize that this new home is His gift to us to be used to glorify His name and further His work.

I'm still not entirely sure how this new home fits in with His Will for our lives (though I do take it to mean we will be living in Cedar Rapids for many more years to come), but I am very excited and pray that we will use it appropriately as good stewards of the talent He has given us.

Please check back soon for photos of the new house and updates on the packing/moving process (I will

Ecumenical Patriarch on 60 minutes

Sunday night, CBS aired a special on the Ecumenical Patriarch on 60 minutes. While there was some clear misunderstandings in the reporting (for the record, the Ecumenical Patriarch is NOT equivalent to an Orthodox pope!), there were some interesting facts that were shared. Personally, I am always ambivalent on seeing Orthodox in the news...while the publicity is definitely beneficial in one sense (people now know we exist), it can be harmful as the Truth of Orthodoxy is distorted by reporters and media with a violently anti-traditionalist agenda. I hope that the few clips shared below are more beneficial than not:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6001624n
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6001620n
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6001622n

To watch the entire 60 minutes clip on the Patriarch (it's actually only about 20 minutes long), see the link below; but again, there are numerous factual errors, so please take it with a grain of salt:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6001717n

Good intentions

I know I promised to update this blog regularly, in the hopes of sharing new married life inspirations, as well as happenings and pictures. Well, I guess better late than never!

Married life has, at least for the first five months, been a blur of one fantastic (and sometimes, not so fantastic) revelations after another. Like the fact that I no longer have to walk to class in 12 inches of snow (thank you Tuesday night blizzard); or the fact that if you leave all the lights on in the apartment all day like I used to at school, it's gonna cost you $92 for your electric bill (yikes!!). Thankfully, experience is proving the fantastic revelations are increasing and the not so fantastic ones are decreasing (at least, I hope).

I must just say from the start that I have married the most amazing man in the world. Who else would drop me off at school, drive back home to pick up his lunch which his wife left on the kitchen table, and then drive back to work to start his day - all the while avoiding expressing the immense annoyance I'm sure he felt, but never told me about??

Anyway, enough random ponderings. To the good stuff - the wedding and the honeymoon! Sometimes it seems like so long ago, and other times like only yesterday. I just finished going through our 2000+ pictures (for the fourth time) to send to our photographer so he can begin work on our wedding album, so I feel like my memory is sufficiently refreshed. As I recall, nothing significant whatsoever went wrong on our wedding day. Great weather, fantastic choir, amazing family and friends who pulled together all day to simultaneously organize, cater, and usher our wedding. Thanks to a fantastic last minute wedding gift from my uncle, they were able to take the evening off as our cleaning service picked up the mess :)

If you are interested in pictures, you can find them here.

Following the wedding, Frank and I began our honeymoon. This was also a near-perfect experience, if you don't count the quick trip to the ER or the near 3rd degree sunburn. Pictures from that lovely week can be found here along with captions detailing our daily exploits.

Finally, as we continue moving forward through the season of Christ's Nativity, I am excited to say we have thoroughly decorated our house (picture here) and have been diligently (though not always as diligently as I would like) reading through Fr. Thomas Hopko's, "The Winter Pascha". Definitely worth the time/money if you REALLY want to get into the "Christmas season".

I hope I can be more faithful in my updates in the future. I know that my life has much more in store for me than I can foresee at this point, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts.

Reflection on my upcoming marriage

There are exactly 3 weeks until my marriage to Frank. I think back on our relationship, and am so thankful for the many blessings we have received. Frank is a zealous, God-fearing man who is able an willing to lovingly help me on my path towards the Kingdom of God. He is also humble enough to admit he is wrong, even when a majority of the blame actually falls on me. We share many interests in common, such as reading, history, classic film, healthy living, and science fiction (a bonus for me :) ) and both enjoy living simply. I am also greatly aware of the struggles that we have both been through these last four years - both of our familial upheavals, both of our academic pursuits, my study abroad in Chile, all on top of trying to discern the attitudes and behaviors appropriate in true Christian courtship have both strained and strengthened our relationship. I know the future holds many more joys and challenges for us. I am thankful that, as we will symbolize (in the Schmemmann sense of the word) at the service on July 12, we both have the Gospel of Christ's victory over death as the very center of our new life together. If we remind ourselves (and each other) where we are headed, I pray that we can avoid the petty disagreements and grudges that can eat away at a marriage. This sacrament (mystery) that we are bout to partake in will last much more than the 45 minutes we will stand in church that day. We are going to be ordained in the vocation of husband and wife, to bear each others' burdens, raise our children in God's holy Church, and help each other and those around us on our journey to the Kingdom of God. We will be renewing this ordination each and every day for the rest of our lives.

At times I worry what I would do if anything ever happened to Frank and I were left alone. Pain grips me just imagining my sorrow. However, I know that come what may, he and I will have been united by God and will remian united throughout all of eternity in our shared love of our Creator. In God's holy Wisdom, I am hopeful that in the age to come, when all the dead are raised and every knee shall bow and worship the One True God in Trinity, Frank and I will be kneeling side by side, singing in unison our hymn to God. May He grant us such a blessing! Amen.

Christ is Risen! Hristos Anesti!

For the first time in my life, I attended Pascha at a Greek church. Coming from a very Russian tradition, I was admittedly hesitant about what my experience would be: no four part music, no Pascha baskets. Would it even feel like Pascha?

Boy, did I receive the greatest surprise (and blessing) of my life! Even without a procession and half of the service in Greek, I had never been more "present" in the ultimate miracle that is Christ's resurrection.

Perhaps it was because the lack of everything familiar forced me to focus more on the words of the hymns instead of their melodies; perhaps it was because the community I have slowly begun to become a part of at that parish (where I will be attending full time after Frank and my wedding in July) felt so much like celebrating with family; or perhaps it was simply the Grace of the Holy Spirit showing me the true reality behind all externals - this Pascha I truly grasped the eternal significance of words I have sung thousands of times over my lifetime:

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"

We sing this so often and in so many different languages and melodies that I think we Orthodox often take the words themselves for granted.

Christ is risen! THIS is what makes Pascha, and if I sing nothing else, or if I have to wait until tomorrow to eat what was in my Pascha basket, or anything else - THIS is what encapsulates the fullness of the Feast.

This realization was truly humbling - after years of learning music for Pascha, learning recipes for Pascha, learning the rubrics for Pascha - all that truly matters is the first thing I ever learned about Pascha as a young child:

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

Pictures from Pascha: http://picasaweb.google.com/jkhouri87/Pascha2009?feat=directlink

Capturing vs. Permeating

A note from Frank...

I just realized something very important I want you to help me always to remember.

I have been focused so much on trying to collect and capture Orthodox sayings, thoughts, and books, that I have not allowed it to permeate me.

This comes from my habit / job where I collect and capture requirements.

But what the danger is .. is that I could collect all these ideas and capture them down on paper and it becomes a science, a formulae, and a madness of trying to describe God within a box.

What I refuse to do is to ...let it go. To let it enter my heart and not be anxious about forgetting the saying or writing it down so I don't forget. God gives me bread crumbs when I need them.

I have a habit of saving everything... thinking that if I don't save it now what will I do in the future?... I have forgotten about God's provision to spiritually feed me... to provide those coincidences of finding spiritual morsels when I am struggling with that exact same issue.

Anyways.. just thought I would share that with you.