It’s not been the best of years to be Orthodox in the Antiochian Archdiocese. Byzantine finances, felons in official structures, a sex offender restored to ministry involving parishes. And the beat goes on…

I wish it would all go away, but it will not. I wish it would change, but it won’t, at least not for the near future. I’d like to wake up one morning and not say to myself “My goodness, what are they thinking…?” It’s push through time, slog on step by step, take care of the parish, play the game and wait for some breakthrough. Months? Years? Who knows?

I was hoping for something better. Actually, truth be told, I was expecting better. This is the Church, after all, and I know its made up of strugglers just like me but I was hoping that somehow there was a sum better than the parts. Perhaps there is in the whole of history but not in this moment.

So yesterday morning I stood in the back of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church and let the music and the liturgy wash over me. Now the rest of the story is supposed to go something like, “..and then my heart melted and great joy and peace flooded through my soul.” Well it wasn’t quite like that. I’m still tired. I’m still troubled. I’m still disappointed. Yet standing there I remembered why I came to this Faith and why I’ll stay.

That’s a start.

Where have all the Christians gone?

through Monday and offline. Folks are staying over to watch the house and the fortune cookie I had at supper told me to relax and so I’m leaving the computer at home. We’ll talk when I get back.

have you actually slept with? An interesting article from England.

Apparently I am techinically a busker, not a professional musician. I stand corrected. Actually as an Orthodox priest, bassist, and busker I just stand alot.

I’ll be back in Woodville, WI, this time as part of a trio “Ross, Martin, and John” (the bassist always seems to get last billing) because we don’t have another name yet. We have a five song set and the crowd, if there is one, will probably determine how many of them we play.

There’s something about night in a small town. Mostly dark, with streaks of light wherever people gather, the shadows are cool and inviting and so are the sounds that greet you when you step indoors. Playing at these small places is like beautiful noise in the middle of quiet and when its done everything returns to silence again. The first step out the door is always the best.

I may forget to take the interstate on the way back and take my chances with the small highways and the villages strung along them like irregular pearls. Its the smell of the outdoors as it speeds past your window and the sense of home as you pass through into the night. There is a romance in the dusk that day dwellers never seem to understand.

I have many lives all wrapped up in one body and this life, the life where music flows from my fingers for two or two hundred as night settles into the countryside is one of my favorites. I never tire of it and tomorrow as the sun sets I’ll be heading east into Wisconsin to sample the menu.

that in a crazy world the Church would be an anchor, an alternative, something better and higher. February 24th of this year changed all that. It turns out that Orthodoxy, like everything else, like me, has its moments of weakness.

So what to do?

I could descend into bitterness or cynicism and dwell on the betrayal of it all. Believe me the thought has occurred. I could pretend, from the safety of my parish kingdom, that things aren’t as they seem and just bide the time until folks go away or pass away. I could get up and leave for greener grass on the other side of some fence.

Only one thing seems certain now. I have to do my best to stay faithful. The rest is in God’s hands.

the man in the cowboy hat and his wife who stopped by and dropped a $5 bill in the guitar case where we were playing. I’m now a professional musician!