Here at ReadTheSpirit, we often welcome visiting writers to tell their spiritual stories.
    Poets, pastors, management consultants, comic book artists, counselors and educators, among others, have told their stories here.
    Today, David Adrian, a public relations consultant, writes about his personal odyssey from Western to Eastern Christianity. In all of our stories, we ask writers to share their memoirs honestly — not to provoke heated debate over the writers’ viewpoints, but so that all of us can understand more about the fascinating complexity of our global religious community.
    Today’s story is illustrated with sample images from an important landmark this spring in the Orthodox Church in the West: a first-ever, English-language “Orthodox Study Bible.” If you click on the images, you’ll find a review of the new Bible, which already is available for pre-order through Amazon.
    We’re including news about this Bible, because David Adrian tells us that this Bible (which he received before its public release through a church agency) has become a powerful resource in his own daily devotions. So, in sharing his story, we wanted to share this resource with you. ALSO, at the end of the story, we’ll give you links to David’s favorite Orthodox source for audio, an online Orthodox network. So, don’t miss that note at the end of this piece!

    Here is the story of a personal spiritual journey that David Adrian simply titled:

MY JOURNEY TO ORTHODOXY

My journey to Orthodox Christianity began when I was baptized as an infant at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Saginaw, Michigan in 1944 and ended when I was chrismated (confirmed) at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Detroit in 2005, a journey of less than 100 miles as the crow flies but one of more than 60 years as time flies.
    Spiritually, they were tortuous years.

    My late father and mother, Clarence and Elsie, children of French, Polish and Italian immigrants, were married at Sacred Heart, my father’s family church, during World War II. He was a bomber pilot in the Army Air Forces, and I was born on January 15, 1944 while he was flying combat missions in Europe. He survived the war physically unscathed but spiritually wounded.
    We attended Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart for a while after my father returned from the war, perhaps out of deference to his pious mother, perhaps because he loved singing in the choir. One of my most vivid memories of that time –- and a foreshadowing of my future life as a Christian –- is standing next to him in the choir loft. But, by the time I entered kindergarten, we had ceased attending church altogether, except for weddings and funeral of relatives.
    Neither my father nor my mother ever explained exactly how or why he had lost his faith and become an agonistic. He simply cited the lack of empirical evidence of the existence of God, the irreconcilable claims of the world’s great religions, the dogmatism and authoritarianism of the Catholic Church, and the corporal punishment he had suffered at the hands of the nuns in parochial school. I was raised as an agnostic, and until my conversion to Christianity in my late twenties, I considered myself one.
    Indeed, I went my father one better and become an outright atheist.

    I experienced a similar political transformation during those years. My parents were New Deal Democrats, and I became a liberal Democrat, too, only to go them one better by becoming an outright Marxist. Of course, neither Marxism nor atheism was popular among my peers in Bridgeport, Michigan, the little village where I grew up during the Eisenhower years. But I was by nature anti-authoritarian and argumentative, and therefore relished the role of rebel with a cause.
    There was a brief interlude during my junior year at Saginaw High School (Bridgeport didn’t have a high school then) when I flirted with Catholicism again. Why I did so, I cannot recall. Perhaps I was beginning to realize, however unconsciously, that atheism and Marxism were intellectual, moral — and spiritual dead ends.

    Perhaps it was a matter of aesthetics.  I had also adopted my parents’ love for classical music, including choral music and opera, which led to an appreciation of Catholic liturgical music including, in those days before Vatican II, Gregorian chant. I also loved to draw and paint, and had begun studying art. Soon I was confronted by the great religious paintings of the Old Masters in the coffee table art books that I devoured in the public library. Both music and art aroused a spiritual hunger, as well as a realization that I knew very little about Christianity.
    A Catholic schoolmate in whom I confided encouraged me to attend his church, Holy Family, a large, prominent one in Saginaw. I did so one Sunday morning, walking the five miles between my home and the church because I was unwilling to ask my father if I could borrow the family car for the purpose. Despite having received no preparation nor having gone to confession, I accompanied my friend to the altar rail and received Holy Communion. When the parish priest found out, he ordered me to complete an adult catechism class before receiving the sacrament again.
    Before I could complete the class, however, I was involved in serious automobile accident. My parents, my sisters, Martha and Sarah, my maternal grandmother, Agatha, and I were driving to California on summer vacation when our car collided with a jacked-knifed 18-wheeler near Chicago.
    Everyone involved in the accident, including the truck driver and his son, was taken to St. Mary Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois. The driver and I were the only ones who escaped serious injury. The son, a youngster who had been riding with him in violation of safety regulations, was fatally injured. I watched him die in the emergency room, accompanied by his father and mother and a Catholic priest who administered the last rites.
    I was kept at the hospital overnight for observation before being released to relatives who lived in the Chicago area. During the night, one of the nurses, a Catholic nun, encouraged me to pray, handing me a prayer card with an icon of the Virgin Mary. I refused — but I can’t recall why. Nor did I resume the catechism class when I returned home, retreating instead to my familiar atheism.

    The real turning point in my spiritual life came about seven years later when I was in the U.S. Army. I had enlisted in January 1966 after spending three aimless years in college and, following the example of an older cousin whom I admired, became a medical corpsman. Unbeknownst to me until recently, I was even assigned to his old unit, the 888th Medical Company, a field-ambulance company stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, in the summer of 1966.
    In October of the following year, the anti-Vietnam War movement staged its first big action, the so-called March on the Pentagon. Because the 888th was a mobile medical unit, we were assigned to support other Army and Marine Corps units defending the building. The medical officer in charge assigned me and a corpsman from the Pentagon staff to offer relief to antiwar protesters overcome by tear gas as they stormed the barricades.
    From Friday night, October 20 to the wee hours of Sunday morning, October 22, the two of us circumnavigated the grounds of the huge building in a civilian-style ambulance with jerry cans of water, flushing the eyes and skin of afflicted protesters. Many of them cursed us for being soldiers, but no one refused our aid. Because of our status as medics and our freedom of movement, we could observe the conflict and talk with participants on both sides of the lines. And because the 888th was bivouacked in a bus tunnel under the Pentagon, I spent the entire weekend on site and missed little of the action.
    I was shocked therefore to read subsequent accounts in my then favorite newspapers –- New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun –- that bore little resemblance to events I had just witnessed first hand. Realizing that I needed a different take on current affairs, I turned to the National Review, the magazine founded and edited by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. Reading it was a revelation, soon leading me on to Buckley’s book “Man and God at Yale,” Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the French Revolution,” Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind” and other conservative tomes.
    In addition to conservative thinkers, the National Review introduced me to religious intellectuals, eventually inspiring me to read, among other things, the King James Bible from cover to cover. In January 1970, a year after I was discharged from the Army, my wife and I were married in her family’s church, First Congregational in Saginaw.

    My conversion to Christianity was not yet complete, however, and I was still searching for a church home. After considerably more study, I narrowed my choices to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglicanism. All administered the same Sacraments (Mysteries in the Orthodox Church), including Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox Church), Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick or Unction.
    It seemed to me that the Eucharist should be the central element of worship, and all of them were liturgical churches. All claimed to have maintained the apostolic succession. All recognized the authority of the first seven Ecumenical Councils and the Nicene Creed as the essential statement of the faith.
    I rejected Roman Catholicism, because of its power structure and the doctrine of the infallibility of the papacy. That left Orthodoxy and Anglicanism. My first choice –- even then -– was Orthodoxy because it seemed to me to be a direct successor to the ancient Church.
    My wife and I were then living in metropolitan Detroit where there was a wealth of Orthodox churches –- but I never found one that conducted services in English. And, about that time, I received a warm welcome at a local Episcopal church.
    As I became more and more active in an Episcopal church, I became a leader in my congregation and even volunteered in the local ecumenical community. I studied church history, liturgy and New Testament Greek at the diocesan school of theology, and I attended an ecumenical Cursillo weekend at a local Catholic seminary. Meanwhile, my wife, Rae-lynne, and I had four children, all of whom were duly baptized and confirmed at All Saints, and active in the youth group, children’s choir and other parish activities.
    But it felt to me as though my new church was changing radically –- and was moving away from me. There were changes in ordination standards, a new prayer book that suddenly required us to accept new liturgies –- then, rising debates over the church’s core theology within the ranks of the denomination itself.
    What finally sent me out the church door was the election in 2003 of V. Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two living with a male partner, as bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of New Hampshire -– “the first openly gay bishop in the history of Christendom,” as CBS News reported at the time. I promptly quit the Episcopal Church and did not darken a church door for more than a year, content to read Scripture and pray at home.

    I knew that I must find a new church home, however, and was finally prompted to do so by the marriage of our younger son, Michael. He had just graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and his fiancée, Katrina, from the University of Michigan. They were high school sweethearts.  Katrina’s mother is from Greece and their family’s church is St. George Greek Orthodox in Bloomfield Hills. Michael and Katrina were married there on June 20, 2004.
    It was the first church service I had attended in nearly a year.
    After the wedding, I began serious church shopping. I knew two things: I wanted to become Orthodox, and I wanted to find a suitable parish with a good choir. A music critic for one of the Detroit daily newspapers suggested I contact George Raptis, a prominent Greek Orthodox church musician. I called him and visited him one Sunday in August at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Troy, where he had put together an ad hoc choir because most regular choristers were on vacation.
    I had planned to listen to the choir rehearse and then attend the Divine Liturgy with the congregation, but George invited me to sing.  I protested that I had never sung an Orthodox service and didn’t know Greek well enough to sing it, but he insisted. Fortunately, the Greek text of the music was accompanied by a phonetic transliteration, but it was nevertheless the most intense sight reading experience of my life, one that I was to repeat as I visited other Orthodox churches that fall and sang with their choirs.
    I contacted other Orthodox musicians through PSALM, a national pan-Orthodox musical society based in California, and was advised to visit Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Detroit. They especially recommended the choir director, Victoria Kopistiansky. I was told the same thing by my future Chrismation sponsor, Dean Calvert, a prominent Orthodox layman and a member of the board of St. Andrew House -– Center for Orthodox Christian Studies in Detroit.

    I had gone to St. Andrew House in September 2004 to hear a talk by Frederica Mathewes-Green, the well-known Orthodox writer and lecturer whose book about her own conversion from Anglicanism to Orthodoxy, “Facing East,” I also read in my spiritual journey. I introduced myself to her, and she introduced to me to Dean, who was emceeing the event. He became my confidant and mentor.
    I visited Holy Trinity in October, introduced myself to Matushka Vickie and her husband the priest, Father Lev, and began singing in the choir on my next visit. Father Lev became my spiritual father and catechist. After several weeks of preparation, I was chrismated at Holy Trinity on April 3, 2005, the Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross, one of the five Sundays of the Great Fast of Lent.
  It was perhaps the most intensely spiritual day of my life.
    Holy Trinity was founded by Russian immigrants in 1915. It’s current building, erected in 1953-55, is a beautiful temple, full of dark icons, candles and incense.
    That’s all part of Orthodoxy’s appeal –- its appeal to the five senses, as well as the intellect. One sees the icons, the candles, the vestments of the clergy and the acolytes; one smells the incense; one hears the entire liturgy being sung or chanted by the clergy and the choir; one does physical prostrations when one prays.

    Then, of course, there’s the spiritual discipline: personal daily prayers; confession and fasting before Holy Communion; four periods of rigorous fasting during the liturgical year, especially the Great Fast of Lent before Pascha (Easter); the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom that can last for hours during which worshippers spend most of their time standing or kneeling.
    Orthodoxy has been called the Marine Corps of Christianity.
    I could intellectualize about all these elements of the faith before converting to Orthodoxy, but only through direct experience –- worship and the sacraments of Chrismation, Confession and Eucharist -– could I begin to understand and appreciate them.
    For my Chrismation, Rae-lynne and our two daughters, Elizabeth and Catherine; Elizabeth’s husband, Mark; Dean and his wife, their two children, and his mother and father were in the congregation for the service. As I took my vows, I listening with such concentration to Father Lev’s questions and my own responses that entire experience approached the surreal. I then received Holy Communion for the first time.

    I was officially Orthodox.

    That’s my journey to Orthodoxy. Someday, I may write a book-length memoir of this journey. If so, I would retitle it: “My Journey Into Orthodox,” because it is a spiritual journey that continues day by day –  and shall not end until I fall asleep in the Lord.

(Thus ends David Adrian’s story of his spiritual journey.)

Want to “Listen In” on his Orthodox World?

    David Adrian strongly recommends Ancient Faith Radio, a 24-hour Internet audio network, especially developed for Orthodox men and women here in the West.
    Following his advice, as Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I sampled Ancient Faith’s many offerings and — he’s right. It’s a great resource in exploring this religious realm, especially if you zero in on the best parts of the many Ancient Faith offerings.

    Personally, I was drawn to audio Podcasts by Frederica Mathewes-Green (shown at right), one of the most influential new-Orthodox writers working in the U.S. today. Her pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Sojourners. Her journey into Orthodoxy, eloquently described in her books and essays, has paved the way for many others to follow.

    I also know that readers love stories about saints!
    Many Web sites now offer a “Saint of the Day,” mainly Catholic-related sites — but this Orthodox version offers insights from the Eastern church that most Americans have never encountered. Some saints are shared by East and West, but — even in those many instances — the Eastern versions of the saints’ significance offer us new spiritual insights.

    That’s all in addition to the main Ancient Faith Webcast that’s available 24 hours a day. Check it out!
    While Orthodoxy stretches all around the globe, today — in the United States, many people involved in promoting the church comprise a pretty close-knit community. For example, Ancient Faith is part of Conciliar Media Ministries. Conciliar, in turn, is under the auspices of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America — and another part of Conciliar’s work has been the production of the new “Orthodox Study Bible,” which the Thomas Nelson publishing house now is distributing.

    Want to know more about David Adrian’s professional life? With most of our spiritual memoirs, we include a link to the author’s home page. So, click on his name — and you’ll jump to his site.

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    WANT TO READ MORE about Great Lent?
    We are setting aside this special week, here at ReadTheSpirit, to celebrate
Orthodox writers. This is Part 4 in this series. If you missed the earlier pieces, you can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
.
    With all of our ReadTheSpirit stories, we ask our readers: Please, tell us what you think. Email me ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, or leave a Comment for other readers on our site.

    OR, click on the “Digg” link below and add a very brief “digg” comment — even a phrase — to this story’s listing on Digg-It, which will tell even more folks worldwide that it’s worth reading:

    Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, known in some parts of the world as “the Green Patriarch” for his outspoken activism on behalf of the environment, steps onto the world stage in a new way next week for Great Lent 2008. His eloquent voice is embodied in his first-ever book for a global audience, “Encountering The Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today.” The book hits bookstores on Tuesday, but you can click on the book cover below and jump to our review of it (where you could pre-order the book from Amazon, if you wish).

    BUT, first, let me tell you why you should care about this spiritual milestone, whether you’re a member of an Orthodox church -– or not.
    Having traveled in eastern Europe myself in 1990, as a journalist for Knight-Ridder Newspapers chronicling the tumbling of former Communist regimes, I understand that this is, indeed, a rare moment in world history.
    Now, nearly a decade into the 21st Century, Orthodox leaders and congregations finally have had a good chance to develop their ministries without fear of imprisonment or, even worse -– physical violence and death. In several areas of Eastern Europe in 1990, I had a chance to meet Christian leaders emerging, scarred but hopeful, after years of imprisonment and, in some cases, after extended periods of torture. This journey of restoration continues to this day in many Eastern European countries — and the nature of that restoration as it continues to unfold is important to all of us as global citizens these days.
    Bartholomew himself was not imprisoned -– but he understands that, even though nearly two decades have passed since revolutions swept across many Orthodox nations — we still are in this critically important rebuilding phase.

    In his new book, he writes that throughout much of “the 20th Century, the greater majority of Orthodox Christians throughout the world lived behind what was then known as the Iron Curtain. Many millions of these, together with many thousands of others elsewhere, experienced several decades of either persecution verging on martyrdom or else precarious toleration. Several millions encountered –- and some continue to encounter –- a religious intolerance that limited and even isolated them as minorities through social and economic pressures.”

    That’s why a rising voice from the Orthodox world in Great Lent 2008 is such a gift to the rest of Christendom.
    Especially in the United States, we’ve long been polarized in many ways within our Christian communities: sometimes due to divisions between Protestants and Catholics, or between evangelicals and progressive Christians, or between groups staring at each other across other theological chasms. We tend to forget that there is a voice of spiritual wisdom from the East with its own distinctive approaches to the Christian faith.
    That’s what I like best about Bartholomew’s new book.
    It embodies a prophetic voice for our times that will resonate in new ways in the West, if we give Bartholomew a chance to be “heard.”

    Now, a word of warning is in order: There is a whole lot of background information that the patriarch’s editors have chosen to lay before us as a kind of crash course in Orthodoxy 101, embodied in a roughly 70-page prelude that appears in this book before Bartholomew’s voice finally is able to reach its full eloquence. I suppose this was a wise choice, given that many American Christians, according to annual polls, cannot name the four gospels in the New Testament -– let alone describe the distinctions of the Christian world. So, a lengthy “Foreward,” then a “Biographical Note” about Bartholomew, then Bartholomew’s own summary of “Historical Perspectives” are perhaps all helpful orientations for readers.

    But, the true power of this book lies deeper between these covers. It lies in the way that Bartholomew knits together his Christian faith, his Orthodox tradition, his concern for the environment, his cautionary teachings about globalization –- and even his interfaith hospitality toward Jewish and Muslim communities.
    All of this, he tells us (once he really gets rolling in this book), are deeply rooted in the Orthodox understanding of our lives as part of a global community created by God. We are not alone –- nor are we alone with God as an isolated pair in the cosmos, as some spiritual seekers try to tell us today. In truth, he argues, we are part of a vast Creation, each responsible for the community that God calls us to form within that Creation.
    My summary of his teachings here may sound fairly abstract. If so, it’s because I’m summarizing more than 100 pages of Bartholomew’s book in a few sentences.

    Within the scope of his book, he moves chapter by chapter from very basic, tangible elements of daily life to the larger connections we must make in God’s world. For example, there’s a beautiful little passage in the book about his childhood home on the small island of Imvros off the coast of Turkey. He writes about how his mother arranged icons in one small corner of a room to connect their home spiritually with the larger sacred community.
    But, as he writes about where this basic upbringing and traditional faith have taken him in his life’s pilgrimage, he reaches farther and farther in making his connections. For example, he writes about the growing awareness around the world that we must protect the environment from irreversible damage.
    And, there’s so much more that we must do, he writes prophetically. Here’s a sample of his eloquence from later in the book:

    “We have to admit that while we have become more sensitive to environmental issues, we continue to ignore some fundamental issues of human welfare. This, however, amounts to an unbearable contradiction. In reality, extending our concern toward created nature implies and necessitates a change also in our attitudes and practices toward our fellow human beings. The world is a gift from God, and it is offered to us for the purpose of sharing. It does not exist for us to appropriate selfishly, but rather to preserve humbly. The way that we relate to God in heaven cannot be separated either from the way we treat other human beings or from our treatment of the natural environment on earth. To disconnect the two would amount to nothing less than hypocrisy. Whoever can discern this simple truth will no longer be surprised that the Christian God chose to be born in a manger.”

    To that, I must say: Wow! Amen!

    That’s prophetic weaving of major theological themes in a way that even the casual reader will get the full impact of Bartholomew’s argument. We can disagree with him –- or we might offer counter arguments on individual points –- but we are dealing here with a Christian visionary who sees a vast mosaic of meaning in the life all around us. That mosaic is not complete until we glimpse the links between the tiniest flower in a field to a bird in flight –- to the poor person on the other side of town -– or a needy family on the other side of the world –- to the people sitting around our dinner table each night.
    One might say it’s rather like Jesus’ own vision of these lessons, which we’ve been pondering on another area of the ReadTheSpirit Web site, called Our Lent, in recent weeks.

    I’m glad that Bartholomew and Doubleday have chosen to mark Great Lent 2008 with the release of this terrific new book. Many are preaching similar messages these days.
    But, I think millions may be able to hear this message more clearly –- coming, as it does next week in “Encountering the Mystery,” from someone with the global authority of a Bartholomew, speaking from a 2,000-year-old tradition that, only now, is getting solidly onto its feet again.

    AS AN EXTRA TODAY, you may want to visit the English-language version of the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Web site. Specifically, considering some of the themes mentioned today, you may want to read some of Bartholomew’s annual messages on the environment. Of course, this is only a small part of his public teaching on this issue, but it’s a nice sampling of his talks. At the left side of that page, you’ll also find links to other intriguing resources from his headquarters.
    NOTE: The final photo with today’s story (below) is from the Patriarchate Web site, capturing a visit in 2005 when Bartholomew returned to tour the tiny island where he was born.
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    WANT TO READ MORE about Great Lent?
    We are setting aside this special week, here at ReadTheSpirit, to celebrate
Orthodox writers. This is Part 4 in this series. If you missed the earlier pieces, you can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
.
    With all of our ReadTheSpirit stories, we ask our readers: Please, tell us what you think. Email me ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, or leave a Comment for other readers on our site.
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An Orthodox Christian writer shares with us, today, how Fasting and the spiritual disciplines of Great Lent contrast with so much of our contemporary culture, producing a Joyful Sorrow that prepares us for renewal.

    But what exactly is involved in the Orthodox fast of Great Lent? These Orthodox traditions are tougher than almost any other Christian custom of fasting. So, I asked Father Gabriel Jay Rochelle, who wrote today’s piece, to explain a little more about his church’s customs.
    Currently, Father Gabriel is developing the Orthodox Mission in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but he’s also got a strong background in interfaith dialogue, because he served earlier with the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Muhlenberg College. He was happy to tell us more about Orthodox customs:

    “With occasional exceptions, the Lenten fast is basically a vegan diet: no meat, no dairy, no wine — nor alcoholic beverages of any kind.  We do not consider shellfish ‘meat,’ so people do indulge in shrimp and clams during Lent. We work our way into the fast by saying farewell to meat two weeks before the First Sunday of Lent, then farewell to cheese (and dairy in general) one week before the First Sunday.”

    This is a remarkable spiritual commitment in our era of nearly constant consumption, so we hope you’ll be inspired by today’s meditation by Father Gabriel, which he headlined simply:

“JOYFUL SORROW: ORTHODOX LENT”

    I was in a store the other day and, after making my purchase, the young woman at the counter said the perfunctory: “Have a nice day.”
    I replied that I was having a wonderful day. Yet here I am, in the midst of Orthodox Lent!
    We Orthodox maintain more ascetic discipline than other churches. The Lenten fast is tough: no meat or dairy. No one pries into your eating habits, however, to make sure you keep the fast.  The aim is not abstention but athleticism. This is training for the soul, carried out through the body.

    St John Chrysostom (4th Century) warned against hypocritical fasting: “It is possible for one who fasts not to be rewarded for his fasting. How? When indeed we abstain from foods, but do not abstain from iniquities; when we do not eat meat, but gnaw to pieces the homes of the poor; when we do not become drunkards with wine, but we become drunkards with evil pleasures; when we abstain all the day, but all the night we spend in unchaste shows. What benefit is abstention from foods, when on the one hand you deprive your body of a selected food, but on the other offer yourself unlawful food?”

    Orthodoxy is an ascetical church. Askesis is the Greek word for training, say, to win a race.  St Paul used the image in I Corinthians 9.
    Marie Henein, a Coptic (Egyptian) Christian, reminds us that the church asks some form of fasting on two hundred days out of the year.
     Two hundred! 
     We also keep the Lenten disciplines of prayer and charity. Additional worship services give the faithful opportunity to pray, to examine our lives in light of the Gospel, and to receive sustenance for training.  We look outward with intent; we offer extra gifts of work and money to special charities.
     This contrasts to the ease with which many people approach religion, in two ways.  First, much American religion is do-it-yourself, a blend of interests and values, many of them self-determined and self-centered as well. This shallow approach ends if you realize that you are making up not only the way but also the truth. Orthodoxy sings, “We have seen the True Light… We have found the True Faith…”
    How refreshing is this attitude, when we see so much pandering in the name of religion.

    Secondly, Lenten discipline goes against the grain of that motto: “Have a nice day.” I may be joyful, but not because the road is easier. I don’t have nice days.
    Lent is “joyful sorrow.”
    The sorrow comes because my sin makes my road rocky, dangerous, and steep. The joy comes because God paved a new Way to love us in and through Christ, and our first step is repentance.
    Orthodox learn the meaning of repentance through the daily Lenten prayer of St Ephrem (a 4th-Century saint pictured in the icon at left):

    “O Lord and Master of my life, do not give to me the spirit of laziness, faintheartedness, lust for power, and idle talk.
    “But give to me, Your servant, the spirit of purity, humility, patience, and love.
    “O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother, for blessed are You unto ages of ages.

    “Amen.”

    Faith has more to do with being than with thinking. Many people approach faith as an intellectual exercise. Orthodox exercise is different: We train body and soul in order to reach the prize, transformation in Christ.
    By training the body to let go of evil passions, we hope to release the godly passion of love toward others, the created order, and God who is “the lover of mankind.”  We are in a period of intense exercise, so we say: “Have a good Lent.”

(THUS ENDS Father Gabriel’s story.)

    WANT TO READ MORE about Orthodox Great Lent?

    We are setting aside this special week, here at ReadTheSpirit, to celebrate
Orthodox writers. This is Part 2 in this series. If you missed the earlier pieces, you can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

    As an ADDED BONUS today, we’ve got a link to visit Marie Henein, who is mentioned above, who has contributed to an online resource for vegetarians by offering some great recipes that reflect her Orthodox background. This web page includes recipes for Stuffed Grape Leaves, Lemon and Dill Potato Salad — and Fool Medemmas, made with Fava Beans.
    All avoid the foods that Orthodox families give up for Great Lent and yet: Mmmm-mmmm, they’re tasty.
    Plus — in her Web page of recipes — Marie gives us a little taste of her family’s Orthodox culture as well.
    She writes: “My family is Christian — Coptic Orthodox to be exact. This
was one of the earliest forms of Christianity … Many of the
following recipes have been passed down from generation to
generation.”

    With all of our ReadTheSpirit stories, we ask our readers: Please, tell us what you think. Email me ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, or leave a Comment for other readers on our site.

    OR, click on the “Digg” link below and add a very brief “digg” comment — even a phrase — to this story’s listing on Digg-It, which will tell even more folks worldwide that it’s worth reading: