Church was really really really good this weekend. Between Vespers last night, a late night dinner of chicken soup with the family, pre-communion prayers, and a quiet, smooth morning, it felt like a retreat.
We were in the zone!
I think that's what it's supposed to be every week. Normal Orthodox worship: No distractions. A space for quiet. A build-up to the Eucharist.
Thanks-giving and fellowship afterwards.
Now, how do I, as MOTHER(aka family puppet master), make this happen every week? Or at least more often?
I think the thing that made it all happen was just letting Saturday night be set aside as a time of prayer, and not for anything else. No movies, or books, or games. Just prayer.
I so needed that.
We were in the zone!
I think that's what it's supposed to be every week. Normal Orthodox worship: No distractions. A space for quiet. A build-up to the Eucharist.
Thanks-giving and fellowship afterwards.
Now, how do I, as MOTHER(aka family puppet master), make this happen every week? Or at least more often?
I think the thing that made it all happen was just letting Saturday night be set aside as a time of prayer, and not for anything else. No movies, or books, or games. Just prayer.
I so needed that.
Comments
If you were me, then yes, it is supposed to happen every week. You would have control of exactly one person, and you would have exactly one person to blame for your home not being the epitome of a little eremitic monastery.
However, when things do not turn out so nicely, you do not always have yourself only to blame. Often it is because life happens. The Real interrupts. DH or DD or DS inexplicably resists your attempts to cultivate a space for silence, for participating in the life of the holy Trinity.
And this, too, is part of the journey. I think --- though obviously I have no hard experience to back this up, only what I have seen --- that these consoling experiences will happen more often as your children become older and see the ideal that you are incarnating for them. And of course, it will happen a lot when they are gone --- and you will long nostalgically for the days when they were not gone.
These consolations are great when they come, but they are not the whole story. Peace to you, dear sister.