March 15, 2022 

 An article this morning in Slate by Abraham Riesman had an interesting reflection on Job, based on a new translation that comes up with something different for the lines that the King James Version renders as “Wherefore I abhor myself / and repent in dust and ashes.’” The new translation by Edward L. Greenstein draws on the fact that the only other time “dust and ashes” appears in the Bible is when Abraham argued with God about Sodom, so he translates it as 

That is why I am fed up: 

I take pity on “dust and ashes” [humanity]! 

 Riesman finds it wonderful that God rewards Job for speaking the truth. As a Christian, this is even more wonderful as it points to the viewpoint of God Himself who so will demonstrate how much he takes pity on “dust and ashes” by clothing Himself in them to save it.

St. Isidora

 It occurs to me, this morning, that I chose very well when I picked St. Isidora of Tabenna to be my patron saint. I didn't know much about the various saints yet, and chose based on the fact that her feast day was close to the day (Holy Saturday, which was May 1 that year) I was chrismated  (her day is May 10) and her name sounded good with my last name. Of course, being a fool for Christ was an appealing factor for me, as was the fact that she was holy but unrecognized in her monastery. Once she's outed, she goes off into the wilderness, something which always appealed to me as well. I felt her humility and desire for lack of recognition would be good for me, who seeks it so. 

Now I am in the wilderness. I went to church once, the Feast of the Dormition, since it would be a small service, but my husband is so terrified of contagion that we had to try to distance from one another for the next two weeks. Those are finally ended, but it was terribly difficult and miserable. If I really was infected, we didn't even do it well enough for it to have kept him safe. Now the two weeks are past, but I know I can't put us through that again. Something shifted when I realized that I am in this wilderness for the long haul. St. Isidora, pray for me! You know what it is like to have others--your sisters, my friends and priest at church--think I am too weak to risk my life for church. I would gladly go if I lived alone. 

Confession and sexual assault

I have not watched the testimony today, this amped up rerun of the Anita Hill versus Clarence Thomas scenario, having moved from mere harassment to assault, but all over my social media people are expressing that they are being retraumatized, remembering assaults they experienced in their lives. They speak of the 80s, but the 70s were bad too, and frankly, probably every era since the 50s when we decided chaperones were old-fashioned and women could take care of themselves. Maybe not. But rather than get into that, I want to reflect on my own lack of emotion while my mind does recall the times I had to fend off boys and men who wanted something I didn't want to give. Once I had to threaten to scream. Another time, I was trapped and just had to endure until morning. In all of these times, partying was involved. I believe I can look back (if I must) on these memories without pain not only because my meds are dialed in, but because I made a life confession when I joined the Orthodox Church. All my sins were forgiven. My sins, the crowds may ask with horror? How can an assault upon me be my sin? But I ask, how can anything in which I, a sinner, participated, not in some way involve my culpability. As I said before: I was seeking pleasure, a high, whatever, and I got more than I wanted. Even then I took it in stride: a price to be paid, a mistake I wouldn't repeat, nothing that horribly irrevocable. (I was never violently or painfully assaulted.) But I don't think healing from these memories can occur until we (and of course I don't mean include victims who were young children or victimized by family members) admit our own responsibility, admit that we were wrong about the whole sexual revolution/sexual freedom thing, that the license to pursue pleasure has not panned out. When we admit it, everything become much plainer and healing can occur.

More applicability from Dr. Strange

Conversation from the Marvel Universe or a home where a person has converted to Orthodoxy?


Christine: are you in a cult now?
Dr. Strange: it's not a cult
Christine: that's what people in cults say.


This conundrum has ended many a conversation between Isidora and Mr. Crackles…

Isidora goes to the movies: Dr. Strange

If you ignore all the New Age theory that serves as a quick explanation for how people can wield powers that are really awesome in 3D because they keep turning cityscapes into something out of M.C. Escher drawings, the actual meaning of Dr. Strange is quite o(O)rthodox.

• Death is the enemy 
• But death is good for us: it teaches us that life is meaningful
• Time is a problem (related to death)
•  There is a being beyond time 
• (in this story, it's Evil but the thinking clears a path for that being as Good as per St. Augustine - see below)
• Evil beings want to trick us and use the promise of eternal life to do so

My understanding of God being beyond time has been enhanced by this recent article in First Things, which presents what Saint Augustine thought on the subject: 

So what was this eternal God doing before he made the world? On Augustine’s reading, there was no such “before.” There was no “then” then. Eternity is the dimension of God’s own life. It has no beginning and no end, no parameters or margins or boundaries outside of God himself.  On the other hand, time was willed and created by God as a reality distinct from himself. In his treatment of the world, Augustine again proves to be original in his thinking. He says not only that time and the world were created by God but that they were at once created together. They were co-created, so to speak, for time is coextensive with the world. This is how Augustine puts it: God created the world not in time but with time. What this means is that time is not some primordial container—an infinite bucket of moments—in which certain events happen. Time is not a receptacle; it is a relationship.

As for Dr. Strange's time loop solution to the problem of the Big Evil, don't try that at home.  

Science and fasting

I was wasting a little time and searching for topics within the scholarly database at one of the universities where I teach, and found some interesting information.

One study, conducted in 2007, found that

Conclusions: The periodic vegetarianism recommended by the Greek Orthodox Church contributes to the favourable profiles of several biomarkers of health among this sample of monks. The fasting rituals described are an important component of the traditional diet of Crete and should be emphasised in nutrition education programmes promoting this Mediterranean eating pattern.


Papadaki, A., Vardavas, C., Hatzis, C., & Kafatos, A. (2008). Calcium, nutrient and food intake of Greek Orthodox Christian monks during a fasting and non-fasting week. Public Health Nutrition, 11(10), 1022-1029.

 And

The Orthodox Christian diet is unique in regularly interchanging from an omnivore to a vegetarian-type diet, and no study to date has focused on the impact of this on Fe status….

Adherence to the Orthodox Christian dietary guidelines does not have a major impact on Fe status and is not associated with a significantly greater degree of Fe deficiency.

Sarri, K. O., Kafatos, A. G., &; Higgins, S. (2005). Is religious fasting related to iron status in Greek Orthodox Christians?. The British Journal Of Nutrition, 94(2), 198-203.


Sounds like the regimen is good for us. Not surprised.

Happy New Year

Forgive this newbie for my Church New Year greetings being a day late.

I had started reading The Year of Grace of the Lord this past  Lent, picking it up and reading it from that point. So I have just now come to its beginning and I wanted to share some of the monk's observations about the significance of the liturgical year. 

In addition to the cycle of feasts that bear directly on our Lord, the liturgical year includes the cycle of feasts of the saints. These two cycles, however, should not be thought of as two strands that run parallel to, or separate from, each other, for the saints are the glorified members of the body of Christ. Their sanctity is but an aspect, a shining ray of the holiness of Christ himself. To celebrate the feast of a saint is to celebrate a special grace that flows from Christ to that saint and so to us: it is to celebrate that aspect of our Lord which is specially evidenced by the saint, it is to enter (for our profit) into the relationship of prayer which unites that saint to Christ. It is still more. In the same way that the feasts of our Lord in a mysterious way renew the events of his life, so the feasts of the saints make their lives, their merits and their deaths mysteriously actual, in as much as they participate in the life, the merits and death of the Lord Jesus. ... The liturgical year has but one and the same object, Jesus Christ; whether we contemplate him directly, or whether we contemplate him through the members of his body.

Good stuff!