[Magdalen] Facing East (long)

[ROGER STOKES]

The important thing is to find where is the right place for the next stage of your spiritual pilgrimage. It seems you have found that so every blessing. 

Roger 
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On Mon, 20/8/18, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: [Magdalen] Facing East (long)
 To: "magdalen at herberthouse.org" <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
 Date: Monday, 20 August, 2018, 22:02
 
 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.