of 1975. Yes I do remember. The lesson here is whenever someone tries to panic you take a deep breath, stop running with the herd, and look for the larger picture. Knowledge changes. Wisdom endures.

was in the mail today, arriving much sooner than I expected. It was five vials of oil that had been in the reliquary of St. John Maximovitch whose incorrupt remains are interred at the Cathedral Church of the Theotokos, Joy of All who Sorrow, in San Francisco.

In his life St. John was a wonderworker, a person used by God to perform miracles, and following his death his intercessions have been coveted by many who are sick or in need of a miracle. My hope is that this oil, applied to the faithful as per the Scriptures and Tradition, will bless those needing health and restoration.

What a joy to possess even a small amount of this oil. What a blessing to share it with whoever is in need. Holy St John Maximovitch pray for us!

Grandma Ely’s Fruit Cake (Single Recipe 2 Loaves)
Pan Preparation:
Standard bread loaf pan 9 x 5 x 3

Line with heavy duty foil with extra above edges to wrap over fruitcake when done
No shortening or flour needed if you use tin foil.

Ingredients

Boil Together for Three Minutes

1 1/2 pounds fruit (citrons)
2 cups of water
2 cups of brown sugar or dark brown sugar
2 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of nutmeg
½ tsp of cloves
½ of allspice
1 tbsp of salt
2 cups of raisins (light raisins make the fruitcake less sweet)
2/3 cup of shortening or butter – needs to be a hard margarine or butter do not use Take Control, or Benecol
After mixture has cooled to lukewarm add:

4 cups of flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 ½ cup chopped nuts
Bake at 350 degrees for at least one hour
Test for done like cake with long toothpick. Clean toothpick indicates done.
Age at least one week, wrapped in tin foil, in the refrigerator before consuming.

this Sunday, something to be expected following Thanksgiving. Yet what they say about “two or three gathered together…” in the Scriptures is true and size is no indicator of grace.

It is an awesome thing to stand before holy gifts and to lead the people of God in worship. Despite what would appear to the untrained or unknowing eye as repetition and ritual there is great power and presence flowing through, in, and with the liturgies of the Church. It is a calm holiness, a peaceful sense of presence, the experience of touching larger things in a moment out of time.

When I was actively seeking out and living in the charismatic movements of protestantism my heart and the hearts of those with me were genuinely seeking. Yet I could not endure the sheer volume, the confusion I saw around me in worship. I would stand, alone, surrounded by voices in languages without comprehension and wonder why I was left out, why the music went on without me.

As I traveled on to Orthodoxy I came to realize that it was not the earthquake or the whirlwind that mattered but rather the still small voice. A heart filled with the noise of the world or replacing that noise for noise with holy intent is still not at rest. In the quiet pacing of words and action larger than the moment and greater than the people completing them is a place where the still small voice can be heard and rest comes to those who seek it.

I am most whole, most complete, most real, when I worship.

mince pie. Those who know will understand.

The Entrance Hymn from the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified…

worth reading on politics and liberty from Front Porch Republic.

and the air is cold as it should be in late November. Somewhere out there people are pushing and shoving for whatever is left on the racks. Not me. Today is a rare day when there is nothing official on the docket. I may or may not leave the house and I may or may not get out of my pajamas. Just depends on how the day unfolds.

God was wise to declare a sabbath for humans. Given our natural propensities we would fill every waking moment with something to do and develop the drugs to keep us awake all the time. Come to think of it we have. Once a week we need to have very little to do, preferably nothing, and let these mortal bodies rest and regain something of what has been lost over the prior week.

So I’m going to sit here for a while. It’s the least I can do.

We live in a culture of cultivated ungratitude. To be discontent with our lot is as American as apple pie. It’s the air we breathe, the environment we live in, and from the time we are children we are programmed to seek out whatever is next, whatever we assume is better, and to shed even the useable things we have for the coming big thing.

There’s a good side to this. Innovations brought into being by people unhappy with the status quo have brought great good to our lives. Would anyone really want a Model “A” Ford for thier everyday car again? That millions of us have never even given polio, a scourge in times past, a single thought is a tribute to those who believed we needed to do better.

But there’s a dark side as well. The kind of discontent that drives innovation can also set us on a perpetual journey, a lifetime of never being happy with what we have or where we are and a discarding of important things that have stood the test of time.

After a lifetime of watching commercials we seem to be never be able to rest, never be able to settle down and enjoy. New cars, new jobs, new people, more of this, more of that, last year’s clothes perfectly good but already out of style, and the TV says you got to have more. They want you to feel this way, the people who produce goods and services. Your boss always wants you to be hungry because then they can drive you farther and faster. The government wants you to consume and acquire so they can tax and spend. The idea is to keep the great pyramid of cards together by everyone buying into the idea that more is better, contentment is laziness, and busy people without time to think about what they have make the best worker bees to feed the hive.

No one in their right mind craves hard times but in these days when things are lean there may also be the still small voice of God calling us to something better. Perhaps God is reminding us that this mad chase we’re is just that, a kind of insanity that robs us of our happiness even as our life is sucked away from us for no good reason.

Hard times shatter our illusions, refocus our lives, and call us to see things in a different way. Their poverty forces us off from the buy, buy, sell, sell, work, work, merry-go-round and gives us a chance to catch our breath and regain our perspective. We see, perhaps only in hard times, the illusion of things, the dark side of the American dream, and realize what can transcend them all. We’re like an alcoholic one day into sobriety, we hurt, but we see the world with eyes clear for the first time in years.

No one wants hard times, difficult days, the threat of poverty and the challenge of sustaining life. But they are hear and wise people, discerning people, people who have come to their senses will see in this a precious opportunity, a call from God to have eyes of gratitude, the awareness and cherishing of all that we have, all that matters, and all that lasts.

And with those eyes wide open we can become, perhaps for the first time, free of the illusions, awake from the long dream, loosed from the meaningless chase our culture sets before us as an ideal life, and truly alive. God grant us the eyes, the heart, the soul of gratitude. Make us aware of all that we have been blessed with. Quiet the rumblings in our heart, the unease of a mind focused on that which matters little.Grant us in this day, a sense of all that we have been given and the many ways you have sustained us and in so doing help us to turn our hearts first to You and in that light see the world anew.