happy when my mind is free, when I hear the old, old stories gritty. Pedestrian, if you will. When I see harsh sun reflect off the Sea, taste dust, and move weary feet. Finally, resting on a cushion in the home of old friends, straining to hear his words to her. I want to embrace her expectant interest, her loving gaze.

“Are you saying,” she asks, “it’s not about taking over? I always thought…”

And he smiles. “We have a small role to play,” he says. “Like the tiniest seed in your garden. Insignificant. At least, that’s how it will appear. But think of those who came before you. Was David always on the throne?”

She shakes her head, eyes bright. “He was the youngest. No one considered him worthy of anointing…Then he was hunted.”

He nods.

“Oh,” she says. Her fingers twist her robe’s hem. “I see.”

“Waiting,” he says. “You will wait a long time. On the run. Misunderstood. But you’ll always have what’s here and now. No one can take it from you.”

***

Here is where others land:

whole selves embrace the morning, wriggling one might guess, if one hadn’t any reference. But the stylized movements are cryptically ethnic, patterns of bowing, prostration, hand to head, to belly, one shoulder, the other. The painted, haloed visage on the stand is kissed by some with weary faces, with lines from suffered years, in which the eyes are tender.

Their minds release care through words like well-worn beads. The chanting tone, the repetition. Glorification believed. Holy God. Holy mighty. Yet woven with echoes of long centuries hunted; waiting: “Lord have mercy.”

They recall his teaching, the stories are tradition. Mystical the elements they grasp. They rise above the gritty world, the prisons and beatings and tearing of the lions’ jaws.

***

I tell Victoria it was good for me to visit St. John’s again, to visualize meanings in the liturgy. And love. My, but there are ancient seeds of love beneath this ground.

Tim asked if I would come with him to the Theophany service at St. John’s Tuesday morning (7:00 a.m.). I looked at loss – of writing time, of a weekly Bible study at a friend’s home where deer graze outside the windows. I told Tim I didn’t have the energy to stand for hours reciting liturgies with hunger pestering my tummy.

But I revised my answer, recognizing he wanted to take a vacation day and spend it, not only with our Orthodox daughter but also with his ever unorthodox wife. As I’ve mentioned here recently, each Sunday Tim attends two very different church services, giving to God and family in his energetic fashion. He is my draw – my happy thought – in a season when the two of us pull together more gracefully, perhaps, than in many before.

Yesterday as gloom turned to late morning gray we stood under the dome at St. John’s. Candles glimmered against the icons’ reds and golds. Our daughter’s voice chanted harmony in the choir, and when she went solo, I marveled at the quality she’s developing. Their story of this celebration gave me substance to ponder.

According to tradition (whether handed down from an apostle or supposed by an early Christian, I don’t know), the day Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, the river stopped flowing. This would have made the New Testament Messiah’s baptism mirror the event from the Torah of the Israelites crossing the Jordan on dry ground into the promised land. This consecrated the Jordan’s waters, the Orthodox believe.

And so yesterday we participated in a ceremony where the priest blessed a lot of water, some of which people then carried a few blocks away to our River Willamette. And the river was blessed with great blessings. And some people jumped in it, consecrating themselves.

I enjoyed the day. I see nothing wrong with blessing a river – and by inference the people living around it – with prayers for salvation from God. As the priest remarked yesterday, Orthodoxy calls people to plunge into a life of faith in God. To give all, withholding nothing. With this I’m in complete agreement.

The apostles called for nothing less. I think they were describing an event which happens inside me – a blessing of the waters of my mind. A total interest in and intense following after the “one thing necessary” Jesus spoke about to his friends. I see my daughter doing this joyfully, outwardly and from within.

She and Tim both refrained from a river swim yesterday, as of course did I. Watching with them on the shore, I asked from the heart of my inner life for more willingness to be part of outer actions like these.

“Figured out” is maybe a stretch, but I had made a leap in my thinking process. It’s fantasy vs. realism all over again.

From the first, our daughter, Victoria, loved fantasy stories. Through all her years she’s encouraged me to read more of them. On the other hand, while I’ve appreciated high fantasy, especially, and seen a lot of truth shining through Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling, I don’t gravitate to the fantasy genre.

Realism’s my joy. For reading, I’ll grab a novel set in this world, thanks. I’m always after good nonfiction narratives. I wish to relate, to taste the beef jerky chewed on the mountainside while smelling the blizzard approaching and not knowing how slippery the rock face will become in snow. I don’t so much care to listen for dragon’s wings overhead or ponder the king’s edict or become invisible.

Fantasy is artistic, the mind and spirit extolling epic perhapses. Realism is less graceful, but no less imaginative. And it’s the road along which I encounter worship. Victoria and I agree we’re worshiping the same being, though she soars in ancient liturgical chanting while I embrace adding up pieces within ancient texts.

We’re after similar things through very different means. And if we’re sincere, we’ll keep evaluating what drives our differing stories. All in all, this is a more interesting endeavor than I imagined a couple of years ago, when Victoria first said, “You know, I’ve been looking into Orthodoxy…” And I thought, “Oh, no.”

After I related to Tim my morning ponderings yesterday, he left for St. John’s to do the liturgy with Victoria. Then he came to church with me later in the afternoon. As usual when it comes to him, I can’t figure out exactly how his journey’s unfolding. But you might say he’s becoming well-read.