[Magdalen] Facing East (long)

[Ginga Wilder]

May you continue to feel a belonging in your new church home.  This is a
wonderful story of your life's journey, Jay.  May you be blessed forever.
Ginga

On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 5:02 PM Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> As you all probably know, I have for the past year been attending a tiny
> Old Rite Russian Orthodox church in Mt. Jackson, Virginia. I wandered in
> one Sunday and had the immediate and very strong feeling that this was
> where I was supposed to be. I had been "wandering in the wilderness" pretty
> much ever since I got to this area. The only Episcopal church I felt even
> remotely welcome in was really too far away to be practical for me to
> attend with any regularity and was in what appeared to be a very long
> interim at the time I went there. I went to the nearby big Lutheran church
> for nearly three years and although I really liked the pastor, I never felt
> like part of the congregation and there came a point where I just couldn't
> "Lutheran" any more. I even tried the Anglican church, but though I loved
> the people there, I couldn't quite deal with the theology, and frankly, the
> music gave me a headache. I was pondering checking out the Russian Orthodox
> Church in south Harrisonburg, which is ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church
> Outside Russia) when I happened to drive by Sts. Joachim and Anna in Mt.
> Jackson on my way back from the optometrist and decided to check it out the
> following Sunday. I felt like I was where I should be.
>
> My pull toward Orthodoxy started in my teens when I was introduced to the
> music of the Russian Orthodox Church through my high school choir. The
> first service I ever attended was a vespers service in the new/old Greek
> Orthodox Church in Madison, WI, in which my dad sang in the choir. IIRC it
> was the first service in that church as an Orthodox Church (it had been a
> Methodist church for many years) and it was attended by bishops and whatnot
> from Milwaukee and Chicago. I remember clouds of incense so thick you could
> barely see the iconostasis. (The Greeks were kind of surprised that they
> had to deal with all the other Orthodox in the area coming into their
> church as they were the only Orthodox around for a number of years, but
> they got used to it, I think.) Anyway, for a number of years I had little
> contact with Orthodoxy other than reading, listening to music, and
> attending Pacha service at the Greek church in Knoxville with my friend
> Sheila. I was always more attracted to the Russian branch, primarily, I
> think, because of the music but also there were aspects of the spirituality
> that attracted me. All this is by way of explaining where my path has led
> me.
>
> I will be chrismated into the Orthodox Church on September 18. There is
> some significance to the date we have chosen, as the following Tuesday is
> the Synaxis (coming together) of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and we are
> celebrating it on that Sunday. Elizabeth is my middle name, was my mother's
> name, and is the name of a saint that in recent years I have felt close to.
> Mary's older cousin has a motherly aspect that appeals to me and that I
> also try to emulate.
>
> It is not that I don't love the Episcopal Church that I was born and
> brought up in and that I raised my family in. I do. It is more that I have
> found what I need at this time in my life in Orthodoxy. I will continue to
> worship in my old church whenever I go back to Tennessee. And I'm not
> leaving here either. We have a number of folks of several religious stripes
> (and even a few of none!) and nobody seems to mind.
>