Thoughts about how things can be

 I've been thinking about

the review I did of Jennifer F's book 

and what it is that I am looking for in a book...

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I think I am really craving Kathleen Norris' book

as she writes about struggles; 

Jennifer did too but in a different way.

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I guess more on the OK, we are Christians

but how do we do this?

Not just following the general moral code,

i.e. the ten commandments or more over

Christ's commandment to love God and others

as oneself,

but how does on get on with things?

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I think a lot of these thoughts are

going round and round in my mind right now

because we are preparing to move;

more than one person has said it will be a new

start for us; not that we had a bad first start,

but that this will be new.

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And the move really will be.

But meanwhile,

I've been reflecting on how things have been since I left 

Ottawa less than 2 years ago.

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A place that I loved so deeply that I never ever 

wanted to leave it,

and only did when I married Mr. Husband.

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So here I am.

I've been loving the book Adian's song,

and Fr. Adian talks about lots of the church feasts

and I find every time I think of a feast,

I still think of it in Ottawa.

My understanding, my formation, my point of reference

for the feasts are not just how they were done

in my church in Ottawa but just

what my understanding and experience of the different

seasons and Feasts are.

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I can't, for instance, think of the late summer feasts of

Transfiguration and Dormition

without thinking of the summer light of my church.

I can't think of Pascha without hearing how

the hymns are sung there.

I can't think of Christmas without the Holy Supper

and later Great Compline.

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I am really making great strides on 

adjusting to my new world here.

And I choose to come here.

When Mr. Husband and I realized,

when were still dating, 

that Ottawa was simply not an option for us

because of his work, we 

were considering other places before I realized

it was best for me to come here to New Jersey

and begin a new life with him here,

with us still going to his long-time church

(our far-away church), and sort things out here and

grow here, start a new life together here...

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And slowly I am.

But wow, it has been a huge change.

A sea-change as some would say; a revolution of one's life,

my good Romanian friend A. said marriage is;

everything is different.

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What does being married mean?  

Well, our wedding crowns are above our bed.

We have this quilt on the bed,

that the underside is light blue... Mr. Husband

likes that side better and teases me saying

that I put the wrong side up, as the other

side, the blue one, is for the Mother of God... :)

One thing I was not able to expect was

how much my routines would alter.

Some is obvious; like sharing space, having time together

to talk and plan; but other ways were not so easy to

foresee... one of them was that our evening prayers

are done first as Mr. Husband always did it and then

with things I did and some new for both of us.

Mr. Husband and I pray very differently; he's more

methodical, disciplined and routine oriented;

I am more spontaneous, free-spirited and liking to 

change things up.

It was all so different that to be honest,

I can't remember how I even used to pray at night

when I was living in Ottawa.

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It's been a real change, and I often have struggled with

my many weaknesses in prayer and how 

hard everything seems.

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In someways, it is just a further articulation in my life

of spiritual poverty, from what I can gather.

Some of it is because the devil just wants to discourage me

in and from prayer, also from what I can gather.

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But it's also just been that I don't pray alone,

I pray at night as a couple, with Mr. Husband.

And that a lot of things have changed

and it takes a very long time to reestablish routines,

even for things like prayer at other times of day.

I've had to be so patient with it all

and Fr. Thomas Hopko's advice,

Pray as you can, not as you think you must

has been quite helpful;

his next advice of

Have a keepable rule of prayer done by discipline

is something I am continually fail at and have to work on,

some days good, some days not so much.

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I am gaining in excitement for our new home together.

Tonight I found myself thinking about

 how I want my office space to be;

we share office space and need to make it more 

organized, efficient and may I add, beautiful.

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It's going to take some time.

And boy, this summer is filling up already with plans and

potential plans... 

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I find it a real challenge these days,

with the computer, a million things to do and plans,

to spend enough time seeking God out and

seeking to stay in His Presence.

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And that's why in all of this, I am really

wanting a new Kathleen Norris book!

Something that discusses the struggle of just

being a Christian, as in growing in prayer,

growing in love, learning to really want God's will;

it's all the basics really but I find 

that I, who was always the religious one of the family,

who married a man whose been to 5 times the number of

monasteries that I, I how always was at church in Ottawa, 

who am about as Ortho-geeky as they come,

am really still at square one,

still waiting to begin what I wish I had

and see in others.

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Perhaps it is this story that is why

I so want another book by K. Norris...

Norris' relating, I think in The Cloister Walk,

 a Saints story (I can't remember now which one) 

where the Saint was a lazy distracted monastic

 but who sorrowed over it

and one day she is visited I think by Christ who

tells her that soon her salvation will come

and it truly did and she was transformed.

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I am that lazy distracted married woman who struggles with

FB, who forgets her resolve to work on her spiritual life

and finds herself reading blogs...

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But I've also read and seen this to be true:

I cannot try to be super prayer-woman like today or tomorrow.

It does not work that way and

I have read that to force oneself to something one is not

ready for is a sure fail way to never get there.

Discipline for sure is needed

but discernment is needed to understand what is discipline

and what is just plain crazy and unrealistic when

looking at the state of one's inner life.

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As a dear friend has always said to me,

bit by bit, little by little...