Beds of Sickness and Whatnot

Well dear readers, I had every intention of resuming regular posting after my New Year's post...and then I got rather horribly sick, which has put me behind in both my classwork and the short-term jobs I had lined up. So, no promises (who knows the future?), but I really do intend to resume the regular posting, though as always there are other things that have first priority. I hope this finds you well wherever you are!

Ecclesiastical New Year

Happy New Year!

Your forgiveness for the low level of posting that's been going on! I've been "settled" in Michigan since the end of August, but life is still a whirlwind as I continue to look for part-time work and a place to live come the end of October.

All that aside, now that I'm adjusted to the general rhythms of my new life I'm working towards developing a weekly schedule that will allot time for classes, work, church, and possibly even sleep (!) while also leaving regular time to update this blog.

Your prayers are, as always, greatly appreciated, especially about the job and the place to live - I'm finding it difficult to schedule time for classwork without a place of my own to retreat to and do it. (Your editor's a remarkably settled, routine-oriented person for someone who grew up in five countries.)

God grant you every joy and blessing in the New Year!

Transfiguration of the Lord

Joyous feast! I'm still on holiday and don't have a lot of time right now to follow the news, much less post any of it (less than a week until I finish moving back to the Midwest!), but it's a great feast day of the church year and so I wanted to post a link for more information on today's commemoration.

"You were transfigured on the mount, O Christ our God, revealing Your glory to Your disciples as much as they were able to bear it. Shine forth also Your everlasting light upon us sinners, through the prayers of the Theotokos. O Giver of light, glory to You!"

Les Vacances d'Août

In line with that venerable Western European custom of keeping August as a month for holidays I will myself be going on holiday. If working half the month, moving from one end of the United States near to the other, and beginning another term of my masters classes can be classified as a holiday anyway ;-). In truth I'll have a week and a bit in the middle of all of that to travel about visiting family and friends, so it won't be a total zoo of a month (and thank God!).

Regardless, while I'm sure I'll still be posting, I will likely not have the time to monitor the news at home and abroad with the thoroughness that I normally attempt. Additionally, I will be scaling back work this fall while also taking more classes, so how that will impact my ability to maintain this blog remains to be seen.

So, your patience over this next month or so please and, as always, your prayers! God grant all of you a joyous Dormition, whether you're celebrating on the Julian or Gregorian calendars or even the Ethiopian ;-)!

Blogger and Weekend Travels

Christ is risen!

Blogger's been down and between yesterday's posts still being missing and what I need to do to prepare for this weekend's visit to the Seattle area I don't think much will get posted today....though the train to Seattle does have wireless, so we'll see :-).

In any case, I hope this finds you all well and that God grants all of you lovely weekends! Your prayers!

"By Your word, O Word of God, Lazarus now leaps out of death..."

Joyous feast! St. Lazarus' Saturday has a beautiful significance in and of itself, but its beauty for me comes from its association with baptisms and chrismations :-). It's not always the case, but oftentimes we have too many people being received to baptize and/or chrismate them all on Holy Saturday and consequently many end up being received today.

The feast and its observance at our parish aside, I'm making another pilgrimage back to the Fourth Rome to attend the Holy Week services, visit friends, and celebrate the Lord's Pascha with my church family. I would like to think I'll be too busy praying to post anything here, but it's more likely that I won't be posting anything because I'll be too busy staying up late talking and baking Pascha goodies ;-).

Whatever the reason, I'm taking time off from posting here. I hope and pray it's a peaceful and saving Holy Week for you wherever you may be! "Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord!"

"Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa..."

Dear brothers and sisters, I ask you to forgive me for any and every way in which I have sinned against you! You are all in my unworthy prayers as we prepare for the Lord's Pascha.

Despite the logistical issues involved in my getting to church here I'm going to be doing my best to continue to do my job well, get to the assorted Clean Week services, get my masters classwork done, and arrange an out-of-state trip to see an ailing family member, so my apologies in advance if that means this blog suffers as a result :-). (There's only so much that can be done in a day!)

I hope this finds you well as we begin the Fast! God help us all!

Watz Speling?

I was up till well past my normal bedtime last night grouting a kitchen floor, so I apologize in advance for any and all spelling and/or grammatical errors in today's posts :-/! I've already corrected a couple and I'm sure I'll have had to fix many, many more by the time the day is done :-)! Thank you for your patience!

Statistics and A Few Thoughts

As the New Year continues I've begun checking this blog's stats. The first time I checked them out I was struck by the range of countries represented in the Fourth Rome's readership and that's got me checking them regularly. (In all honesty, that and my vanity keep me checking :-).) In the last 30 days alone readers from Eastern Europe (Macedonia, Romania, Russia, et cetera), North America (Canada and the USA), Asia and Oceania (primarily Australia, Georgia, and India), and Western Europe (Denmark, Germany, and the UK for the most part) have checked in!

It's both a personal delight to see such a diverse spread of countries in the blog statistics and a strong motivator for me to do better at providing news from throughout the Orthodox Christian world and not just 'this country here' or 'that country there.' If you have any suggestions for how I could make this blog better or any good Orthodox news sites (regardless of language) to refer me to, then please leave them here in the comments.

I hope this finds you well wherever you are throughout the world! God help us all as we begin preparing for the Great and Holy Fast and our Lord's glorious Resurrection.

Pictured is the Tsar Bell of Addis Abeba's Cathedral of St. George. It's a good reminder of the many and oftentimes random bonds that unite the Orthodox world - a bell given by the pro-Chalcedon Russians to the anti-Chalcedon Ethiopians, who themselves indirectly gave Russia its greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.

"I'll Fly Away, O Glory, I'll Fly Away..."

As of tomorrow I'll be taking off for my winter holidays. Some people escape to the comfort of warmer climates this time of year, but I've chosen to celebrate winter in all its bleak, frozen darkness and will instead be headed to northern Alberta and the Midwest :-).

In the meantime the quotes of the day as well as the feast and saints' days will post as they're scheduled, but unless something catches my eye on an airport television screen or comes to me by word of mouth during my New Year's pilgrimage to the "Fourth Rome" (and a fifth there shall not be! ;-) ), I won't be posting until after I've returned from my travels on 2 January.

I wish everyone on the Gregorian calendar a merry Christmas, Westerners throughout the world a happy New Year, and all the Orthodox on the church calendar a saving last few days of the Prophets' Fast! Your prayers as I travel - you are in mine.

Pictured are Edmonton (upper right) and the countryside near the Fourth Rome (lower left), around this time of year. Brrr!

Expect the Unexpected

My trusty laptop recently died. It'd been in hospice for a while and I had hope that it would make it to the New Year, but alas, its appointed time came Thursday morning :-(. Thank God I was already planning on picking up my new laptop next weekend, but in the meantime my internet access might be hit and miss. (I'm using a friend's old laptop right now, but it's on life support itself, so God knows how long it will last.) In the meantime posts that I've already scheduled will continue to automatically post at their appointed times (like the quotes of the day and the interview with Fr. Pimen), but I can't make any guarantees for anything beyond that.

Your prayers, as always! 'Fasting without prayer is the fast of demons' and I fear I've already fallen into that sort of fasting not even a week into this year's Prophets' Fast :-/. I hope this finds you well in God's mercy wherever you are!

With love, The Management. ;-)

Comments

So for whatever reason I haven't been getting e-mails when visitors comment on posts and only now discovered a long list of comments awaiting reply. My apologies for that! I believe that I'm caught up and I'll do my best from here on out to regularly check for and reply to new comments.