Icons

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling very cold and empty. No particular reason, just the early morning gloom that I sometimes wake up with. I got out of bed and dressed and went into my prayer closet (I do literally have a prayer closet, or rather I have my icons and prayer books on a bookcase in a closet) to do the Morning Prayers.

I wasn't really thinking about it, but at the end I reminded myself to kiss the icons that are on the top of the bookcase and hung on the walls. As I did so, I realized that I'm not all alone. The icons reminded me that there is the cloud of witnesses St. Paul talks about, the Church Triumphant, which prays for us if we ask it. I literally felt so warm and joyous! It was such a remarkable change from what I had been feeling just before.

It strikes me as interesting that I needed that physical contact with wood and paint to remind me of the Scripture. I needed my cloud of witnesses there. I think that is one of the reasons I love the Orthodox church. It recognizes that we do live in a fallen world and need our senses raised up to heaven.

My "prayer closet"

A blessed day

Today is the Old Calendar beginning of the Nativity Fast AND St. Herman of Alaska's feast day AND St. Paisius Velichkovsky's feast day! It ought to be a blessed day if any of them are!

St. Herman

Troparion, Tone 4

Blessed ascetic of the northern wilds/and gracious intercessor for the whole world/teacher of the Orthodox Faith/and good instructor of piety/adornment of Alaska and joy of all America/holy Father Herman/pray to Christ God that He may save our souls.

Kontakion, Tone 8

Monk of Valaam and beloved of the Mother of God/new zealot of the desert-dwellers of old by thine ascetic labors/having taken prayer as thy sword and shield/thou didst reveal thyself as terrible to demons and pagan darkness/wherefore we cry to thee O saint Herman/pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved.

St. Paisius Velichkovsky

Troparion, Tone 4

O Paisius the joy of Russia/the boast of Athos and the wonder of Moldavia/by thy divinely inspired teaching, thou dost direct us to the found of wisdom and salvation./And now enjoying in heaven the vision of Christ God,/entreat Him to grant us His great mercy/and save our souls.

Kontakion, Tone 1

As a patristic bee, O Father Paisius,/thou didst gather the precious pollen, collecting and preserving the teachings of the Holy Fathers,/ and the golden honey of sanctity produced in thy hive/thou didst bequeath by God's Providence to the last Christians/to guide us in leading a God-pleasing zealous life./Therefore let us struggle while it is still day/with the time and weapons which God has given us.

St. Herman on Orthodox Wiki
St. Paisius on Orthodox Wiki

I did it!!!

50, 015 words and I'm not done yet! But I'm an official winner. The proof:



And you know what? I can't wait for next year. Even though I have no idea what I'll write about.

Almost there

I'm at 49, 659 words. And I'm not going to bed until I'm a winner. Actually, I think there's a little more story left to be told, so I may be more than a winner.

I'm excited, but a little sad to think that soon I'll be leaving my characters for awhile. Oh well, I have other characters just languishing for a little attention.

Ramblings

I just decided that I wanted hot chocolate even though I've had tea several times already today. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to go fill up the water pitcher, which meant walking down the hallway again.

Drat.

Well, it's filled now, so chocolatey happiness will be arriving soon. And I won't be able to drink it after Wednesday, when the Old Calendar Nativity Fast starts. And if you don't know any of those capitalized words, it's all right.

I hate feeling like I have so much to do! I also strongly dislike those helpful people somewhat older than myself who, when I express that feeling, respond, "It'll only get worse." Not really what I wanted to hear, although I'm sure it's true. But I still haven't written anything in NaNo today, I need to continue my study abroad essay, I need to write a poem which is different from all the other poems I've written for that class, I need to do Russian homework, I need to do laundry, I need to return books (honestly, that one's not happening), I need to write up my Christmas gift/card list STILL, I need to post about the novel we're reading for my literary theory class, I need to finish the prizes for the giveaway winners (no, I haven't forgotten, yes, they're almost done).

And it's 7:00. I'm procrastinating. But I also want to update this blog, so I don't feel this is a waste of time, especially as I had to wait for the water to travel through the water filter anyway. But it's done now and I have (proverbial) miles to go before I sleep. So au revoir!

Art History resources

These are a few resources that have come up recently in my Art History course (Medieval Art and Architecture). These would be helpful for homeschooling, or for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

Turning the Pages: A British Library website where you can look at a number of original manuscripts online and turn the pages with your mouse. It is amazing. The Lindisfarne Gospels, The History of England by Jane Austen, and Mozart's musical diary are a few of the possibilities. Did I mention how cool this is?

The Bayeux Tapestry on Youtube: An animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry. Honestly, the music is my favorite part. I got Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, and O Fortuna.

Make your own Bayeux Tapestry.

Thankfulness

Molly tagged me for this meme, so I guess I'd better do it. I actually didn't even notice that she'd tagged me until now, and unless I finish it I'll forget. So here goes:

5 Things I’m Thankful For Meme:

1. Write down five things that you’re thankful for.
2. Tag five friends who you’d like to see participate in this meme.
3. (Optional) Include a link to this post and encourage others to place a link to their completed meme in the comments section of this post so we can keep track of the thankfulness running around the blogosphere.

I am thankful for:

1. My parents. You may all say, "Aw, how sweet" if you wish. It's true. They gave me so much that I cannot even imagine life without. I mean, Orthodoxy, homeschooling, writing...man the list just keeps going on and on.

2. Books. No, seriously, this isn't a frivolous one. I should just make a collection of all the wonderful quotes about books there are out there. But here's one of my recent favorites, from a movie version of Arabian Nights: "Stories tell us how to live and why." And that's so true. There is a reason I am an English major. Books are so much a part of my life, it's slightly ridiculous. As you can probably tell, if you spend any time around this place.

3. God. Well, maybe this should have gone first. I mean, yes it should. It's first in importance. But I'm typing these as I'm thinking about them, and so often we start with the mundane (not that my parents are mundane, but you know what I mean) and move up. I don't have a conversion experience, or a time when I accepted God into my heart. He's just always been there. And now I work at deepening and strengthening my relationship with Him, growing and learning ways to serve Him. But I hope and pray that it will always be there.

4. Chocolate. Okay, this one is frivolous. But I am also thankful for it. Dark chocolate, of any sort...so amazing. I'm done.

5. Hmmmm.....I guess this one would really have to be friends. I don't know how I would make it all on my own! So many times my friends have given me the encouragement and guidance I've needed desperately. Thank you all.

And I'm never sure who's reading this exactly, so if you'd like to, you're tagged!

What ho!

I know I said I wouldn't be online, but guess what? I found wireless in the living room. Evidently it doesn't go all the way back to my bedroom, which is where I'd always tried it before.

Thanksgiving was nice. We had a few people over for dinner from church.

I've been enjoying the Alexander McCall Smith books. My mom and I have been reading them. My family tends to pass books around to each other. Anyway. That be my book update.

And I'm at 43,000 words at NaNo. If I write 2,000 words a day for four days, I'll win. I hope it works!!

Time for lunch!

Bye for now

I'm going home for Thanksgiving, so I'll be off-line until sometime Sunday. See you then!

Thinking about language

I've been taking Russian for the last three semesters. It's an interesting language to study because it's so much more subtle than English. Russian makes all kinds of distinctions that English doesn't bother with, or at least doesn't bother with anymore. For instance, if you're going somewhere on foot you use a different verb than if you're going somewhere by transport. And then there's the imperfective/perfective question: is this a repeated action or are you going to/have you done it one time and one time only? English really only uses "to go" in these situations. Well, I guess you can count "to drive" and "to ride," but that gets a bit iffy.

And then there's "where." English uses "where" for "Where are you?" and also "Where are you going?" and "Where are you coming from?" Russian uses a different word for each of these. My professor explained it in terms of where, whither, and whence. Which is interesting, because suddenly I understand so much better how both the Russian and the English words function. This is true of whom as well. Before I studied Russian I couldn't point out the direct object of a sentence to you and I don't know if I had even heard of indirect objects. But because Russian uses different cases for the subject, the direct object, and the indirect object, I can now figure out what they are in English. Most of the time.

Which leads me to this: sometimes the things we study make strange connections to entirely different areas. I mean, who knew that studying Russian would clarify English grammar for me? I guess there is some correlation there since they are both languages. But I just wrote a paper from my art history class which relied heavily on the ideas of the historian of religion Mircea Eliade, whose work I had first read in my Celtic Spirituality (Christianity, although it didn't say so) class first semester.

And leads me finally to this: let your mind make connections. We usually get our education in discrete packages: this is art history, this is math, this is English, this is Russian. We don't have to leave them in those discrete packages. Cut the string and let them be friends. Okay, yes that metaphor was a little strange. But you get the point. There are interdisciplinary connections. Explore them and see where it takes you.