365 Memories

It's Sunday. For reasons I will not go into, I spent two hours in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral this morning, for the second Sunday in a row. Yes, two hours. Orthodox services are long—double what I am accustomed to. My mother was baptized in the Orthodox Church, but I was not. I was raised, baptized, and confirmed in the Presbyterian denomination . I was married in a Catholic church but did not convert. Because I am not Orthodox, I am not allowed to take communion in the Cathedral. So, I watched the others in their solemn procession up the main aisle, watched them cross themselves, watched the priest administer the sacrament on a spoon. No individual shot glasses of sacrament here. My Protestant and very American mind kicked in: Was the spoon being wiped off each time someone used it? I couldn't tell, but I suspect not. Hygienic neuroses are a relatively modern thing, and the Orthodox Church is definitely not what I'd call modern, though they've progressed. Maybe I...

The final panel in a Greek Easter triptych: Friday, Saturday, and now the wee hours of the morning, officially Easter Sunday. "Christos anesti !" " Alithos anesti !" He is risen indeed. Leaving church past midnight, through the smoke of celebratory explosives, my mom and I found ourselves following George Kanellopoulos , my grandmother's cousin on the paternal side, a man who was probably a good twenty years younger than Yiayia , but who now looked the spitting image of my memories of her in her old age. He was, for an evening, a surrogate Greek papou . We went with him to his house over the protestations and histrionics of another cousin of my mother's (on her father's side); she wanted to know why we weren't going to her house, although we only had learned of her existence moments before. She carried on about how she'd found us and now we were being taken away, and po po po  . . . the Greek tragedy continued behind her own closed doors, whi...

Darkness, thick and warm on all sides, enveloping us. Standing in a crush of bodies, shoulder to shoulder at the back of Saint Athanasios —the very same church where, a century ago, my grandmother attended Easter services. 2007 now, the pilgrimage made, a dream realized: to attend the resurrection service in the town of Filiatra ; to go to church with relatives, whom we had found only that afternoon (a story worthy of its own posting) thanks to the owner of one of the town's many kiosks. Expectation in the air, candles—this time white; those of children adorned with ribbons and trinkets—held unlit in eager hands. The lights in the sanctuary were extinguished just before midnight. Only the luminous canopy of this church's epitaphios , the bier of Christ, now reaches out its gleaming fingers to the congregation. The priest disappears behind the iconostasis . When he bursts back through, it is with joy and no longer grief: he is holding aloft a candle lit from the holy flame of Je...

It's Easter—at least in the non-Orthodox world—and, setting aside the commercial lure of bunnies and bonnets, creme eggs and Peeps, I consider it a day for two visual symbols: it's a day for crosses and lilies. I saw both in church this morning. A processional cross and candle announced the beginning of the service; potted white Easter lilies stood front and center, amid an explosion of springtime color in bloom (an embarrassment of floral riches at the foot of the pulpit). I have to say, I don't pay much attention to lilies at any other time. There is something about the most popular varieties of the flower that I find a bit showy, though the beauty is undeniable. In terms of lilies, I prefer to think of lilies of the valley. And I think of them because they were named once, long ago, by my mother as a favorite flower. I was older than five, younger than ten. We were living in Chicago, bordering Lincoln Park. Daily at this time, my mom and I would walk along North Lakeview...

I have never understood why, in English, we call today's religious event "Good Friday." It is most counterintuitive . Yes, we know how the Christian story ultimately ends; we know that Easter Sunday is around the corner, and with it new life. But today, Friday, is somber in tone. It commemorates what exactly? Humiliation, pain, death. What's so good about that, other than the fact that it had to happen in order for the rest to follow? In addition to this explanation of why the crucifixion of Christ might be called "good" (his sacrifice being for the greater good of humanity), there are other theories that are less theological or philosophical and more linguistic. I have come across references to the word "good" having archaic meanings of "holy" (giving us Holy Friday, as the day is in fact called in other languages) and also "God," such as in the word "good-bye," which is a way of saying "God be with you" upo...

In the summer of 1999, while I was still in grad school pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing, my father and I planned a brief getaway—a bit of time for the two of us to change the scenery, to reconnect, to share simple meals, and to write and read and talk together. My father selected the destination out of a guidebook to monastery guest houses: we were to stay at Mount Saint Mary's Abbey, a community of Trappestine nuns in Wrentham , Mass . Mount Saint Mary's, it turns out, was the first monastery of Cistercian nuns in the United States. The first sisters had arrived from St. Mary's Abbey in Glencairn , Ireland, back in 1949, so our stay coincided with the Golden Jubilee anniversary year of foundation. We arrived, checked in, and were then shown to our rooms in the retreat house by the "guest sister." I remember two interesting things about the guest sister, though I don't remember how I learned them. Did she just volunteer this information? It would be unli...