The Sun, Moon, and Stars day of Creation

How is it I can't start writing until 9:51PM?

Sigh.

More happened today.

...Deep, I know.

It's Sunday.

One brief account before I stumble the fifteen feet from my computer to my bed:

I was more than a little nervous ascending the steps of Holy Trinity Cathedral today. After a lovely breakfast with Ruth and Cora, I walked up Van Ness wondering, "Should I wait six minutes for the bus and pay a dollar fifty or just book it for the Church and hope my six minutes of walking will get me there on time?" I opted for the walking. It must be the Scottish in me: "I ain't payin' no dullurr 'n a haf to rrrrride me no boos ta cherrrrrch."

But I digress.

Nervousness. Right.

It had been almost a month since I'd been to Holy Trinity and there had been a trip to visit my family - the ultimate 'return to your roots' tour - and I was unsure of whether Holy Trinity, much less Orthodoxy in general, would feel as Right, True, Correct as it did before I left. Also, with the Magic Theatre feeling so Church-like over the last two days I was Off. Center. Walking up those stairs and then smelling the incense, the priest's intonation, the bells, Bishop Benjamin, the candles, the icons.... I felt like a top wobbling on the table just before crash-and-burn.

But - and how the Holy Spirit does this, I will not even begin to TRY to explain - by the end of that service I felt like I was back Home. Back in Peace. Back in Tune. There were a number of small course corrections that happened to my spirit in the Divine Liturgy: a delighted smile from a friend who I hadn't seen in a month, a quick hand on my shoulder to say "I'm happy you're here," a twitchy wave from someone so as not to disrupt the service. Then the words: the Creed, the Confession, the Gospel, Father David's homily, Bishop Benjamin's blessing. In all these moments, I felt the Holy Spirit kneading, working my soul. But after Communion today, I was transported; Ian, my actor friend who runs a painting business and reads the epistle in the Service, unknowingly returned me to my first real moment of Orthodoxy: he gave me bread. I didn't go get communion (I'm not allowed to yet...), and Ian knows this. Many people in the Church know this by now: Zak is not Orthodox, but he keeps coming to service. So Ian, after he takes Communion, gets a piece of blessed bread and comes straight for me. I'm sitting in the back, praying. His hands are at my eye level, and his fingers slowly unfold a napkin hiding the bread he's brought specifically for me. I look up to his gentle eyes and goofy smile, and he says, "Have some." In that moment, Christ came to me. "This is what it's about," I thought. Feeding the family. Feeding those that come to the door and knock. Giving. Blessing. Inviting.

As Ian walked away, back toward his official post, I almost started crying.

Thanks, Jesus, for working through your Body today.

Lord, have mercy upon Christians everywhere as they do this kind of work. Give them Peaceful smiles and the open palms to do...well...what you ask us to. Fill them with Joy. And as with them, so also with me. Lord, have mercy.