Keeping house

[The] sense of being at home is important to everyone's well-being. If you do not get enough of it, your happiness, resilience, energy, humor, and courage will decrease.... Being at home feels safe; you have a sense of relief whenever you come home and close the door behind you....Coming home is [a my edit, jbb] major restorative in life....

What really does work to increase the feeling of having a home and its comforts is housekeeping. Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home.

From Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson, p. 7.

Now I am marching straight into the kitchen to wash dishes, after which I will pick up at least one pile of papers on the living room/study floor.

St. Spiridon's

Orthodox Church in America

I came across the website of the Orthodox Church in America, which has its roots in the Russian Orthodox tradition. A book about the history of Orthodoxy in America, beginning with the arrival of Russian missionaries to the Aleuts on Kodiac Island in Alaska, is published at the website. There is also a page of stunning icons.

I attended an OCA church in Seattle, St. Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral (complete with brilliant blue onion domes!) for about three years. I was very drawn to the high liturgy that encompasses all the senses: the smell of incense and candles burning; the colors of the icons and brocaded vestments; the brightness of the lights and candles glinting off polished brass candlestands; the sound of the chanting; the touch of crossing oneself or kissing an icon; the physicality of standing for the entire service, as well as the freedom to move about with no pews; the taste of the Eucharist (but only if you were Orthodox).

Bright sadness

A very long quote from Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, by Alexander Schmemann, about the experience of somber Lenten services:

On the one hand, a certain quiet sadness permeates the service: vestments are dark, the services are longer than usual and more monotonous, there is almost no movement....[N]othing seems to "happen"....Thus, for a long time we stand in this monotony—in this quiet sadness.

But then we begin to realize that this very length and monotony are needed if we are to experience the secret and at first unnoticeable "action" of the service in us. Little by little we begin to understand, or rather to feel, that this sadness is indeed "bright," that a mysterious transformation is about to take place in us. It is as if we were reaching a place to which the noises and the fuss of life, of the street, of all that which usually fills our days and even nights, have no access—a place where they have no power. All that which seemed so tremendously important to us as to fill our mind, that state of anxiety which has virtually become our second nature, disappear somewhere and we begin to feel free, light and happy. It is not the noisy and superficial happiness which comes and goes twenty times a day and is so fragile and fugitive; it is a deep happiness which comes not from a single and particular reason but from our soul having, in the the words of Dostoevsky, touched "another world." And that which it has touched is made up of light and peace and joy, of an inexpressible trust. We understand then why the services had to be long and seemingly monotonous. We understand that it is simply impossible to pass from our normal state of mind made up almost entirely of fuss, rush, and care, into this new one without first "quieting down," without restoring in ourselves a measure of inner stability....

Thus, as we experience this mysterious liberation, as we become "light and peaceful," the monotony and the sadness of the service acquire a new significance, they are transfigured....What at first appeared as monotony now is revealed as peace; what sounded like sadness is now experienced as the very first movements of the soul recovering its depth. (pp. 32-33)

Always more to think about

Yesterday afternoon I attended another workshop on integrating the study of Islam into religion courses. The workshop leader, Mehrzad Boroujerdi, is a political scientist who participated in the Iranian revolution in 1979 when he was a student. He had many fascinating insights into the appeal of the revolution and its failure to fulfill its promises once in power. Another topic of discussion included analysis of some of the factors contributing to the September 11 attacks. The broader theme was the intersection of modernity and Islamic societies. (I missed the previous evening's lecture on that subject, though.)

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly magazine is very generous about posting its articles online, although they now require payment for access to certain current articles. However, by the next month, the articles are free. Also, the paper magazine arrives before it is online, and thus I have to hold off commenting on interesting articles. So here are a few articles I've enjoyed recently:

• February's cover article, "Oh, Gods!", about new religious movements and those who study them;
• An essay on the joys of getting up early;
• A review essay of de-cluttering and housekeeping books. The author is somewhat skeptical of the "anti-clutter movement." "The sneaking suspicion I often get from reading such books is that the real purpose of cleaning out the closets is simply to make room for more stuff."

Whoops!

No, Britain is not invading Spain. This news article, via a link on "Best of the Web Today" at OpinionJournal, made me laugh; the writing is, well, so British!