God is not messing around with Doc Bubbles. No sirree. You want to submit to tradition and wear a pretty head scarf, you say you accept that women cannot be priests since, after all, the purpose of Divine service is not "career fulfillment," let's see how you react to the embodiment of that reality.  In the Orthodox Church, she is learning, all truth is embodied (and she loves that).  Three weeks ago a baby was churched. She had never seen this before. Father took the baby so gently in his arms, smiled lovingly, and carried her through the nave, said prayers, and finally, held her up as high as he could in front of the royal doors (and as he is tall, that is quite high!). The baby took it all in silently. Doc Bubbles thought, what a wonderful look she is getting. A peek perhaps of the holy of holies? But certainly, a bird's eye view of this place where God is worshipped. Doc Bubbles felt deeply touched.

Yesterday, another baby had been baptized on Saturday (she has yet to learn why baptisms don't take place during the main Divine Liturgy and has no doubt that Father can fully explain that) and this baby too was embraced by Father (did she hear him call him a "new warrior for Christ"?--it sounded like that, but she does not hear everything perfectly) and prayed for him through the places. Then this baby, a boy, was not just held before the iconostasis but carried in through the South Doors (she learned their name here). A shockwave rippled through her. Not because it meant boys and girls will have different roles in the Kingdom of God but because it felt like "you are excluded: you are unclean: you are inferior." Surely this is a remnant of that sense that women are unclean? Wouldn't you know, Pravmir has an article up on its page on just this topic of gendered churching that assures her that women are not 100% excluded from entering the altar: Archpriest John Whiteford writes "First off, it should be pointed out that there is not an absolute prohibition against women entering the altar. No one should go into the altar who does not have a blessing to do so. Normally, the altar servers are in fact all male, but in convents, nuns often serve as altar servers…" She can probably accept this and is praying for that. Meantime, she can peek behind the screen by watching Fountain of Immortality.

(She forgot to get to the point. Here it is.) What story does the fact that she rejoiced when she saw girl baby's churching but then, later, said, wait a minute, remind her of? Hmm, it's on the tip… oh yeah, the workers who all got the same wage whether they came late or early. The workers who came early got as much as they agreed on. They got a fair wage.  They were fine with it until they compared themselves to the late comers. Lesson: do not compare. Rejoice in your assigned joy.  And here's another point. The book she's been assigned to read, Mystery of Faith by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev  mentions this about angels: "According to tradition, not all angels are equal in dignity and closeness to God: there is a hierarchy" (45). And yet, they are happy (or the ones that didn't fall for perhaps this very reason) are.