Getting hooked

Doc Bubbles made a point to fill up her car with gas the other day, as she did not want to have to worry about filling up on the way down to the city for Divine Liturgy at 9:30: she felt proud for remembering this on Thursday and stopping, even though she had to go to the bathroom. Then, when her tank was full, she remembered that she was not actually going to the Orthodox Church this Sunday and was sad. She had to return to Egypt, for her bondage as a Sunday School teacher. Why is it that the burdens of daily prayer and twice weekly fasting (so far) seem lighter than the bondage of the works demanded of everyone at the Methodist Church? Perhaps her attitude will change in a couple weeks when she begins the Nativity Fast. But that fast, at first anyway, contains lots of fish wine and oil allowed days (not that she is really doing the no oil part) so she knows she will not suffer much except for Mr. Crackle's jokes and eye rolling. It is true: probably she will have duties at church when she becomes Orthodox, like bringing all the food for a meal after Divine Liturgy every so often, but for now, her only duty is learning and she is happy! So having only have her five minutes of driving, rather than a half hour is not consoling her. She is hooked, friends. Not to mention, she stopped in Goodwill and got a couple lovely scarves, and is already wearing one to pray at home, but can't wait to "fit in" (even though not all the women at the Orthodox Church she is going to wear them) and wear these pretty scarves. Oh vanity, girl! Are the accessories of piety so attractive now?

The gap

To sum up the last few years, she will quote from Psalm 42:

 These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
    and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my help and my God. 

Yes, she did process in and out in those stirring Episcopal Church processions back in days gone by. In and around the Church; even around the Town Common on a rogation day, not long after 9/11. There was joy and hope. She can not explain where it drained away to, but eventually, she left TEC and tried, of all things (it was Mr. Crackle's doing) the Methodists. She tried to help them take their very own sacraments and the writings of the one they were named after (Wesley) more seriously, but… Mr. Crackle's liked having a parking lot. The church is convenient, no one will disagree. And anyone watching Doc Bubbles will wonder greatly as she drives past the big shiny church with the parking lot, driving early before anyone has yet even arrived to open that church, because she is driving a long way, forty minutes, down the highway, through some sketchy neighborhoods to a city that she never has reason to visit, to another church. An Orthodox Church, where half the time she barely knows what is being said!

She's baaack

Doc Bubbles has decided to revive this blog, and write about her current spiritual journey in the third person. She finds her last post from almost three years ago creates a perfect segue way, since the journey involves moving from head knowledge about God to experiential worship. Stay tuned!