Month: April 2020

What I Learned From This Year’s Great Lent During The Coronavirus Lockdown

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Christmas and other Holidays, humanity, Inspirational, Musings, ReligiousLeave a comment

sunset shining over clouds

Reading a friend’s experience of Great Lent this year and his experience of Pascha (that was this past Sunday for us Orthodox Christians), I could relate.

I answered him with my own experience:

Definitely felt depleted in the midnight service when the Light of Christ came out. It was not close to being the same as experiencing it in person. I also realized what a terribly weak and slothful Christian I am throughout this Great Lent and even Holy Week. I believe it was a test for all of us this season, and I’m thinking I may have just crawled over the finish line, dragging myself along.

Having said that, I know that I learned a lot from this experience. To grow stronger, to work harder at keeping connected to Christ God, and to live with sober awareness of Him and focus on Him every day. It showed me, even more, how important He is in my life. How much more I need Him than ever before.

Out of every difficult time comes a lesson and a ray of light in those darker moments. God is good.

 

~*~*~*~

 

From a Shrew’s Point of View

On By dotluvs2writeIn Beauty, blogging, College Cares, Essays, Fiction Writing, Musings, Past Life Activities, Playwriting, Writing Techniques2 Comments

shrew photo

 

Below is a creative writing exercise I wrote in my university’s Shakespeare class a few years ago.

Journal piece on Taming of the Shrew from Katharina’s perspective in first person. Hope you enjoy.

[Baptista’s house and street]

            As I gaze out of the window onto the cobblestone streets below, there are a gaggle of knaves and gentlemen, all of whom are weak in heart and body.  They fear me, which I take pleasure in because I do not wish to marry if all men in Padua are in this state or manner, nor do I enjoy being forced into marriage.  I will not obey my father in marrying whomever he wishes to join with me into foolish matrimony.   Besides, he favors my delicate sister, Bianca, who has no backbone, who bends her will to nearly every man, believing her obedience is proper and in good female fashion.  Ay, but how does this act serve her in the end?  Will she marry one of the weak fools stumbling eagerly about before our father’s house?  For she bears her tender heart to those knaves, who will lord over her, I suspect.

No man is able to trick me with their trembling knees and wan faces into having me believe they are stronger than I and love me more than a hundred crowns.

Hark, who goes there?  Father is conversing with a rogue who calls himself Petruchio, who is crooning flowery proses and elaborate orations about me.  Oh, but he is relentless, keeping to me like a persistent hunting dog.  How clever he thinks he is!  And grossly tactless in his threatening to strike me if I were to slap him again!  Alas, he says he will marry me next Sunday, and he leaves my presence and my father’s house, giving me reprieve for a time.

I sit in wonder.  He hath the strength of an ox and the cunningness of a fox, flattering, lovely words that elevate my person, whilst at the same moment, spurts forth violent words with his acidic tongue.  He must be mad!  Yet, he is dedicated and determined with the deliverance and appearance of a rogue lord.  I am overcome with confusion and a swelling heart.  Father gives his blessing for us to be married.

The following Sunday, I’m robed in a beautiful wedding gown, but Petruchio not is he here.  Hath he made a fool of me?  After the efforts I’ve produced to be present for this farcical marriage, the brute has no tact, no feelings.

[Enter Petruchio in gaudy garments on a tattered horse]

            He hath arrived in garments meant for a jester, but he is present.  He and I marry before the priest, God, and the townspeople, and my new roguish husband wishes to leave our wedding banquet because of business.  Pray, what business?  He says not what business.  My heart beats obstinately, and I will please myself and stay with family and friends to feast and dance.  But he forbids my staying and carries me out, sets me on a donkey, and we travel to the long trek to his home in the cold, wet day and evening.

When we arrive, exhausted and famished, he gives me no meat, no food, no rest.  My strength has abated, and I am desperate for sustenance, but none is given to me for a day and more.  What knavery, what heartlessness!  Why hath my husband done such horror?  He does not love me as he incessantly declares.

He tears up my dress for my sister’s wedding before we are to leave to go to town.  I am more sorrowful, hopeless than bitter.  But a dress I do at last have.  I realize I cannot get what I want without obeying him.  I must agree with all he says for he, his servant, and I to go to the wedding.  In doing so, he softens a bit, and I, too, have softened my heart…although my heart did become tender toward him in that first encounter in which he visited my father’s house and wooed me in strange, unique ways and declared he was going to marry me.  I am pleased that my obedience has brought about gentleness from Petruchio.

It was fate that brought Petruchio and I together, inasmuch as he’s tamed my stubbornness and pride, I, too, have tamed his.

 

~*~*~*~

 

 

It’s Easter for Some and Palm Sunday for Others

On By dotluvs2writeIn Beauty, blogging, Christmas and other Holidays, Cultural and Political, humanity, Musings, Past Life Activities, ReligiousLeave a comment

daffodils 3

This Great Lent has been the most difficult one since I became a practicing Orthodox Christian in 1996. The routine of fasting, almsgiving, attending church services, and prayer were and have been incredibly disrupted for my family and me.

I don’t think any of us was prepared for this pandemic and what strict steps would be taken to keep us all as healthy and safe as we could be.

As each week passed by, with more and more distancing from my church and problems with keeping the fast, it has caused my faith and practices to be shaken, and feelings of sadness and anger visited me too often.

Fellow Christians understand the need to gather together to worship God, but I believe, as one of the priests in my church said in one of his homilies, the liturgy is to be lived, and we are to participate in the service and unite with Christ, who gives us life, forgives or sins, and grants us strength through His Holy Body and Blood. But these encounters were not and cannot be accomplished this Paschal year.

And well… without having this Life-Giving Mystery for so many weeks, I’ve struggled with keeping focused during Lent, even with reading spiritual books, watching my church’s livestream services, and keeping up with nightly prayers and prayers before meals.

My spiritual father always told me throughout the years that during Lent, just add one small discipline to my daily Orthodox Christian practice. So, I did continue to do this for this year’s Great Lent. I made sure to do my morning prayers and tried to remember to have a sip of holy water afterwards. I’ve managed to do pretty well with this so far.

Therefore, I suppose I’ve made some effort. Although I feel crushed and beaten by the enemy this lenten season, I know God only asks for us to make an effort. He’s so merciful.

Today is Palm Sunday for us Orthodox Christians, while it is Easter for my fellow Christians.

I wish my friends a Happy Easter. While we’re all confined to our homes at the most holy time of the year, I pray your day is full of joy and God’s blessings.

To my Orthodox Christian brethren, I wish you a blessed Holy Week, where we can somehow join Christ’s grueling journey to Golgotha and witness His Crucifixion and Resurrection with palpable sorrow and joy.  God be with you all.

 

~*~*~*~