Christ Pantocrator Icon - finished

I finished the Christ Pantocrator icon.  Here it is:

Learning karate

After I finished painting the closet in the rent house today, I moved on to the fence in the back yard. I had already gotten a good start on it, but I only get a little bit done each time I work on it. It's not that the fence is so tall, and so long, and that it takes forever to cover the boards with paint, twice, on each side; it's that there are so many nooks, crannies and crevices that I have to fill in with a tiny brush. When I first started on it last Saturday, Fr. Justin came back there to see how I was doing, and the following conversation ensued:

"So, do you feel like Tom Sawyer?"
"Yeah... I tried to explain to Alex how fun it was, but he didn't fall for it." (Saturday was a church cleaning day, and Alex had wandered over, bored out of his skull, to see what us men-folk were doing)
"Ah. Yeah, we should get him to do all the nooks and crannies..."
"Yeah!"
"...but I think they're all going bowling after the church is cleaned..."
"Aw."

Actually, what was going through my mind as I painted was this:

"Paint-a fence. Up, down. Up, down. Paint-a fence. Up, down. AH-T-T-T-T-T! Like this. Up. Down. Up. Down!"
(after several hours of Paint-a fence)
"Mr. Miagi, I'm finished!"
"Both side?"
"... Not yet."
Up, down... up, down... up, down...

Except I was using a paint roller. I don't think my karate skills improved very much.

Zoe's company

Today at Fr. Justin's rent house, while I was painting the inside of a closet, Zoe decided to be my full time company keeper. I received three grocery lists, to big ones and one little one, and the promise of another one from her 'new book' that smells like bubble gum. Here's an excerpt from today's running commentary:

"Which do you want, Miss Davis? The big one or the little one?" (referring to the grocery lists)
"Just call me if you need any more paint!"
"Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet?"
"Are you gonna paint this?"
"I have four crowns!" (opens her mouth wide to show off four silver caps on her teeth)
"My toothbrush is pink and purple. My old one was just pink. But this one is pink and purple."
"Green is my favorite color too."
"Papa has green tools. See? See? Oh, it's just this that's green." (referring to a green screwdriver)
"When I get older I'm gonna have tools too."
"Do you like bubbles? Huh? Do you like bubbles? Do you like bubbles? Do you like bubbles?"
"Do you have paper at home?"
"Where is your mama?"
"Does your mama have a house?"
"Can you and your mama come to our house and watch 'The Land Before Time?' "
"How is your mama feeling?"
"Do you like Harry Potter? We watched Chamber of Secrets."
"You saw Chamber of Secrets too? You should come to my house and watch it."
"When I get dirty I just jump in the bathtub. This dust is making me dirty."
"Ow! That hurts my ears!" (referring to Fr. Justin sawing outside)
"I like peanut butter and jelly. Do you want one? Mama, he says he don't want one!"
"How did you cross the street Thea? Papa, how did Thea cross the street?"

By the way, Zoe calls everybody Miss, regardless of whether or not they are male or female.

"Mama, Miss Rogers is here! Miss Rogers is here! Hey papa, Miss Rogers is here!"
"I'm not ever gonna go to Miss Anderson's house again. I've never been there, but I'm not going again."
"I'm kidding, I have been there. But I'm not going to Miss Anderson's house again."

And when she's not calling me Miss Davis, she's fudging it up and saying Miss Beavis or Miss Davey of Miss Ash. She would rather just call me Ash, and she does half the time; but if Matushka hears that:

"Zoe, come here."
"What?"
"Come here, Zoe."
"Huh?"
"Zoe, come here."
"What?"
"Come here right now, Zoe."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to come here right now."
"I gotta get up first."
"Now, Zoe."
"What?"
"Zoe, come over here right now!"

And at this point, Zoe reluctantly abandons her post as my closet companion sidles away towards Matushka Michelle.

"Zoe, Mr. Davis is your elder. You will call him Mr. Davis when you speak to him."
"No he's not, he's Ash!"
"Zoe! You will respect your elders! You will call him Mr. Davis when you speak to him."
"... !"
"Zoe, what do you say?"
..."Ok. Hey Miss Davis, come watch me blow bubbles!"

And on and on and on and on. Matushka Michelle noticed this and said that in the evening after a hard day, when everybody is tired and all three girls are yammering away non-stop, Fr. Justin mutters to himself "Too many voices... too many voices!" I witness all of this from day to day as I'm out there helping with the work; these people who form this family unit, bickering and chatting and giggling and palavering, bonded together with the love of God. They truly do seem happy.

Trouble

Tonight I was having some trouble. I almost succumbed to it, I was very close to letting it consume me, feelings of self pity and doubt and vitriol. Then I got a grip on it. No, that's not right... a grip was gotten on me. I stopped, sat down, and prayed. And prayed and prayed, forgive me Lord for this, forgive me, have mercy on me, forgive me.

Then I went outside into the beautiful, still night with my cigarette, leaned up against my car, and saw a young mother and her toddler. She was slim, petite, a tiny little blond thing, with an even tinier charge depending on her for everything. As they explored the neighborhood, hand in hand, I thought, this is the love that Jesus, the lord God, has for me. I am the toddler, depending on Him for everything, He is my sole source of comfort and protection. I watched this pair, the child exuberant in his innocent abandon, not yet exposed to the darker things that exist, and the mother, never letting go of his hand as he explored his new and mysterious world, full of possibilities, the lawns of my neighbors. It was dark out, the sun had just set, just a little light. But enough light to see by, to see this demonstration of love displayed before me, so that I might know it. Just enough light to see it. Only such a little bit of light... but enough.

It doesn't take much light, just a tiny bit, for us to see and appreciate God's love for us. We can be so blind to it, that light can be so easily ignored, but it persists if we only choose to let it. Oh Lord God, my Lord Jesus, I am not worthy of such recognition, that you should let your Light be visible to me, such an unworthy thing, who deign to call myself Your servant. Continue to have mercy on me I pray, do not forsake me. Save me from evil thoughts and emotions, let me be a worthy vessel for Thy Spirit. I say this out loud, so that others might see it too.

A sad movie

I watched a movie tonight after church, it's called 'The Wrestler'. Mickey Roarke plays a professional wrestler who was a big star in the 80's, and now he's pretty much down and out and doing small time gigs, working at a grocery store, living in a trailer, and estranged from his daughter. A lot of the movie is from a point of view just behind him, following him as he goes about his life. This to me symbolizes everything in his past... everything that is gone for him, all of his hopes and dreams and intentions, always just behind him, inaccessible, haunting him.

His character is so sad and I feel so sorry for him, even though he's not even real. He's so lonely, and he nurtures a friendship with a stripper who he might have had some kind of history with. In one scene they are in the club, talking intimately, as friends, and it is such a surprise when she asks him for payment. It was really a bummer.

It is a sad portrayal of getting old and living in the past, with nothing in the present and no hope for the future. So many people probably end up like that, and this movie makes me grieve for all of the lost hopes of the people of the world.

Paths

I will be so relieved when this emotional confusion has run its course. Many times a day I find myself fluctuating between righteous indignation and regretful guilt. Which emotion should I be feeling? Which is right? I suspect that neither are correct, and my healthy state of mind occupies a middle ground which, unfortunately, lies about 30,000 feet below and shrouded in mist, while way up here in the Alien Jet Stream, I'm hang gliding back and forth from a live volcano to a frozen glacier. I'll be glad when the seasons finally change and the katabatic winds finally fail, so I can plummet down into those misty depths. A soft bed of grass in a protected meadow awaits me, with many myriad paths leading towards an infinite number of sunrises, and my only obligation will be to choose which one to take.

Christ Pantocrator Icon

This is my second try at painting an icon. I used oils on a 7" x 9 1/2" pine craft panel. The panel is beveled on the front, so I painted on the back instead. This particular icon was supposed to be done on a much larger piece of wood, but since I wanted to save my big boards for when I'm more experienced, I used a small one. As a result, I had to really cram the details in there... but it was good practice.

I've had a book checked out from the St. Maximus library nook for... oh, I don't know how long... months, many of them. I should probably turn it back in so somebody else can have a chance to look at it. Anyway, this book is called 'The Technique of Icon Painting' by Guillem Ramos-Poqui. It's basically a complete course in icon painting, or writing, as the art is referred to when done by a bona-fide iconographer. I'm not an iconographer yet, so I'll just say that I painted a copy of a real icon.

Anyway, I love this book. It contains step by step tutorials for several different icon versions, with this one being a Christ Pantocrator icon. I going to try the Virgin Hodigitria next, which is a version of Virgin with Child.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my progress:


All I have to do now is paint the cross/circle behind His head, and add the Greek identifying inscriptions. This is how it will look when it's finished, basically:


I've painted one other icon before this one, a St. Mary of Egypt on canvas using acrylic paint. I learned a couple of important things in the process... I DO NOT LIKE ACRYLIC PAINT. It is very difficult to paint with in my opinion, because it dries so fast. Normally, you'd probably think that was a good thing... but when paint is dry, it's impossible to mix colors directly on the canvas in order to blend the edges of two differently colored elements. Oils, on the other hand, take days to dry, sometimes weeks. This makes oils very forgiving to me, as I can always go back and repair mistakes by blending in a new color. However, since they do take so long to dry, it's a lot easier to really screw up an entire painting by dropping it face down on a dirty floor, spilling something on it, brushing up against it and not knowing, thus smearing wet paint all over the good parts of the painting, etc. I prefer oils now, but have yet to try the egg tempera technique. That should be interesting.

When I finished the St. Mary of Egypt icon, I was basically pleased with the result, but I could have done a lot better if I'd had a quality reference. I didn't, so I had to size up a low resolution picture on the internet, blow it up to about 8x10, print it, and use that for a reference. Also, I wish I had painted it on wood, but that icon was the first thing I'd painted since 1996, and I wanted to stick with what was familiar, so I used canvas board. Anyway, it's framed now and behind glass and it looks good, and it's hanging on Leah's wall.

Accepted

I got a letter in the mail from UNT yesterday. It said that I've been accepted, so I can go ahead and start school this summer. All I have to do now is talk to an adviser, get enrolled, and wait for my financial aid to clear. It also turns out that I have a 3.25 GPA when my NTCC and Art Institute transcripts are averaged. So that's good, I guess.

I figure I'll just work towards a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree, and once I have that, I can decide whether or not I want to go to grad school for counseling, or maybe just go to seminary. I'll have that figured out when I actually graduate. I've thought about going to seminary before, but I realized fairly quickly back then that I was in no condition spiritually or even physically to commit to something like that. However, my faith has been growing constantly since then, and there was a time a couple of weeks ago when I thought I might consider it again.

The Jazz Fest

Yesterday I went to the Jazz Fest. I wasn't in a very good mood when I started walking, and I was doing a lot of negative self-talk, like 'I'm hopeless, I don't know what the hell I'm doing', self pitying crap like that. Well, I was in the middle of nice, long indulgence when I slipped and fell on my arse on a random grease spot on the sidewalk, breaking my immaculately long thumbnail that my mom had painted. "What was that God? Stop the self-pitying crap? Ok."

At the Jazz fest, the first thing I saw in the first booth I glanced into was this huge Christ Pantocrator icon, amidst all of these other secular prints. It was HUGE. Wow. God talking to me again. I don't deserve such mercy and comfort but I sure do appreciate it.

Anywho, so I spent a lot of time walking around and watching people, which is what I like to do when I'm not walking around reading, and there were a lot of people at the Jazz Fest. As I passed people I overheard snippets of conversation:

"...didn't ask you to use me for a..."
"...Where did you get that big turkey leg?..."
"...these port-a-potties are so clean, the ones in Austin were so... uh..."
"Clean?"
"Horrible."
"...hey, that's my daughters chair..."
"...one huge bag of popcorn..."
"...marry the drummer!..."

And as I was using a series of stones to cross a water filled concrete embankment:

"Hey man, smart!"

I eventually found my way to where my two sisters were keeping a space for us near the stage and settled into somebody else's chair. Well, inevitably the owner showed up and claimed it, so I just went ahead and walked home. I wasn't feeling 100% that day... next year the Jazz Fest will be fun again, like it was last year.

Flirt?

Just about every day I walk down to the Howdy Doody for sundries and what-nots, and lately there is this lady who lives down the street who has been waving to me a lot as I walk by. I say a lot... ok, she's waved at me twice in the last week.

So anyway, right before the Jazz Fest, I walked to the Howdy Doody to grab a beer. On the way back I round the corner and there was this same lady again. She was in her yard facing away from me, her feet firmly planted far apart in a wide stance, wearing short shorts, and bending WAY over to plant some flowers. Upon seeing this, I automatically stopped in my tracks. It was quite involuntary, the stopping, more like a reflex. I just stopped, like in a cartoon or something. I'm sure it was probably pretty comedic looking... me rounding the corner and coming to a dead stop in mid-stride, with this spectacle planted firmly before me.

So, yeah. It was quite a shock to be presented with this woman's blatant backside upon rounding the corner on the way home. After I had recovered a little of my composure, I continued walking, feeling almost embarrassed to keep going as she was bound to notice me as I passed her. Surely she was aware of her... posture? And how it would look? To random passers by? Did she have no modesty at all, or was she really just not aware of herself? It really seemed exaggerated, this wide stance, and bent all the way over like that, with shorts that almost looked intentionally too small. I glanced to my left as I passed her and she immediately noticed me. She stopped, looked at me, and smiled real big smile and said a real big "Hi!" I'm sure I was blushing by that point, so I quickly said "hi" back to her and hurried on.

Ahem... wow. That definitely didn't look like the easiest way to plant flowers. Was she contorting herself that way purposefully? If so, and based on her earlier friendliness and the way she stopped digging right when I passed her and greeted me yet again, then that's twice in the last week that I've been walking along and some lady in her front yard has flirted with me. And it's the third time that particular one has greeted me. Do I somehow exude "I'm single now" pheremones? I wonder if either of them are Orthodox? Yeah right... but getting flirted with is always flattering.

Finally

Now is the time to either put up or shut up. The final test is devestatingly obvious. Am I strong enough? Can I endure this? At catechumen class today Fr. Justin was reading from a book talking about the catechism, and the points that were brought up directly reflected what's going on. It wasn't just a coincidence, it was God saying...

"This is it, are you really here? Do you really care? Is your entire heart in it? Because you know it's been leading up to this, you've known that for quite some time, haven't you? Well, here it is, and you have My Grace to help you, but it's up to you, your own will to choose what will happen. Listen and love and accept forgiveness and accept My Love and come forward."

That is what God was telling me.

Joke's on me

Ok, the joke's on me I guess.

What a stupid, naive, foolish idiot I have been. About two weeks ago, a friend of mine at church tried to warn me, in a very serious manner, that I might be in danger of losing Leah to a particular someone who had his eye on her.  Namely, Nick.  Here is the message I sent to my friend as a reply to that warning:

"If you happen to be talking to this person who has designs on my girl, and if he happens to ask, you can tell him that I said this:  I do understand how other guys could be attracted to such a beautiful, smart, witty, and desirable person as my Leah, with whom I've shared a relationship for the past 17 months. That being the case, for the impossible predicament in which you may find yourself... I sympathize; as unrequited love can be a painful experience.  Unfortunately for you however, the relationship which exists between myself and Leah is of a nature which precludes any possibility of hope that you or any other gentleman might have of garnering Leah's affection. In other words, we love each other. Therefore I must offer my condolences to you, as any designs that you might have toward acquiring a relationship with my girlfriend - with the obvious side effect of dissolving the relationship between Leah and myself - will have to remain forever unrealized, as it just isn't going to happen, ever."

What a delusional collection of retarded ramblings. How blind I was when I composed that steaming pile of bullshit.  And do you know what's really funny? I actually believed all that garbage I wrote about Leah and myself. I mentioned unrequited love, and how it must be hard for people to deal with when they just can't have the girl... specifically, my girlfriend, Leah. Unrequited love... wow, such irony that it now lands on me.

I trusted Leah. I actually trusted her with all my heart. What an idiotic fool I was. We had been talking about marriage as recently as Lent. She told me how Fr. Justin had asked her about how things were with the two of us, and she said, "Good." Fr. Justin then mentioned how, after my baptism, it might be a good time to start thinking about marriage. Leah told me all of this, and the implication was that we were going to talk seriously about marriage after my baptism.

As it turns out, I guess everybody knew about Leah and Nick except for me. What a gullible shmuck I am. On the day she broke up with me, that night I had believed everything was so good with us. We visited places where we had shared our first realization that we loved each other. On that day, the day she broke up with me, she made a joyous deal out of finding three of my rings that I had given her, special rings of mine that she had left at my house for a while. Those rings were the first things I'd ever given her when we first started seeing each other, and she reclaimed them with an authentic display that added to my unshakable certainty that she actually cared. On that day, we took a long walk together, talking and laughing, and she was being affectionate. I was so damn confident. Of course, after walking and laughing and enjoying each others company, she suggested that we should go visit Nick. Hey, why not? I like Nick, he's a friend of mine.

It was after that visit, during which she had spent all of her time talking with Nick, laughing at his wit, and listening with captivation as he played his guitar, that I began to suspect that something might be amiss. I asked her about Nick, and at first she said that there was nothing between them. I asked her to please tell me the truth, and that's when she admitted that she was attracted to him. At that moment, it was over between us. All the "I love you's", all the talk about marriage, all the good times we'd had together, everything I had done for her, all the love I had poured out to her... all of that was just a nuisance to be swept away so that she could be free to run to Nick. The last year and a half we spent together, as it turns out, was completely worthless. She threw me away like a piece of garbage, without so much as a "Thanks for the memories."

I trusted her, I believed her, I loved her. We were talking about marriage. She said she loved me, and I thought that meant something... but with no compunction whatsoever, without a stitch of real regret, she tossed everything we had together into the garbage without even a glance back to see if it landed in the trash can.

I'm not saying that everything was perfect between us, but I just didn't expect this at all. We were going to work through our problems. We were going to figure it out. We had been together for a year and a half. We were talking about getting married.

I feel like such a pathetic, idiotic loser believing all those things I professed, and for believing, with absolute certainty, that my relationship with Leah was rock solid, and that anyone who had designs on her should just forget about it. I actually believed that, because I trusted her. I wonder about her now. How easy it was for her to destroy me... and without a second thought or a moments hesitation... and for another guy she barely knows. What does love mean to her? Anything? I grieve for my lost naivete, when I actually thought that love between two people had value.

A dream - cell death

I used to have a dream diary that I lost, about 200 dreams. I miss it...

Another post apocalyptic dream. Actually, not post but just about now apocalyptic. I think this dream came from watching 'The Informant!' last night. That's a good movie by the way, a true story and the way they made it was funny. I'm sure it wasn't funny to the actual people as it happened, only after the fact... maybe that's what it was about, an 'after the fact' kind of, lets laugh about this, now that we've all been to prison and are out and everything's kosher and all is forgiven. Anywho, I digress...

There is a virus, like in that movie, I think. At least, I think that's why I dreamed about a virus. Anyway. A virus is infecting the whole world, like in 'The Stand'. It's sexually transmitted so it threatens the survival of mankind. If we reproduce, we get sick. That kind of deal. Everybody is depressed because the laws that were passed to limit having sex aren't getting anywhere. It's basically impossible to stop the entire world from trying to reproduce. So, the population is getting lower and lower, and people are crying and everybody is mourning for loved ones who have died.

I find myself in a dark hallway of some kind of institution. There are children following me, as if I am supposed to take care of them. They are all very scared and I don't know what to do with them. I come to a door that opens upon a darkened corridor. Thankfully, somebody comes along to gather up all the wee bairns and I don't have to take them with me into this abyss. I go through the door and it's more of the same, long corridors that are now darkened. There are doors to the left and right, and as I peek into each room, it is dark except for the glow of a solitary computer monitor, where in each room a single person is standing vigil, hoping for word on the internet of a cure for the virus. I don't feel welcome in these rooms, and I am looking for a place of comfort. I continue down the hall and each room is the same, until I arrive at the end. I turn around and walk back in the opposite direction. I hear a distant phone ring, and then others, and then doors fly open all down the hall as the guardians of the internet all flood into the hall, answering their own phones. It is good news! The virus has been isolated, and a cure has been found! Families are phoning these people, telling them to tune in to a certain channel...

I follow several of these people into a single room where we crowd around a computer screen to listen to the webcast. The commentator describes 'cell death'. This is what the virus does, it kills individual cells, and I see this as a quadrillion murders as each of these cells in all of the infected people die. We are all happy that this killer of cells has been contained, but then we learn that the current generation, the babies, children, hope for our future, they are not immune. They will all die. They were infected before the virus became active... we transmitted this killer to our children without knowing, when the virus was in a dormant form. How could we have known? We will lose an entire generation to cell death. Our victory is squashed.

A dream - vibrating void

It starts out in a house. I'm staying there temporarily, as if I'm resting from a long trip. A pretty blonde lady lives there. She has a husband, but he never appears. I think he might be at work, or on a trip or something. There are others with me, at least one other, but it isn't clear. I spend time in this house and feel welcome. The blonde lady describes her children to me. She does this by showing me a pane of glass with stick figures painted on it, about four or five, all in a row. Where the line of figures ends, there is a gap of about 5 inches, and then another stick figure holds a gun which is firing downwards. Bullets are represented with black painted dashes, all flowing down towards the bottom of the glass. There are a couple of other figures after this one. She puts the glass in the empty window, and a light shines through. I see an image projected upon the wall opposite the window. The light moves from left to right, and in doing so, animates the figures on the glass so it appears that they are moving from right to left. The blonde lady describes it to me as if it is a story. "This is how my children told me that they didn't need my support anymore. They wrote me a letter saying they would never again ask me for money."

At this time, I was transported to another place, somewhere I'd been before on my journey. It was a large room, like a theater, very large and open with seats and balconies. It started to rearrange itself into something foreboding... pieces of the floor separated and were thrust upward into sharp peaks, and fires were lit beneath. Candles appeared and the stage curtains became like huge bat wings. An evil presence announced that the playing field was ready. I turned to the pretty blonde lady and told her that if she wanted to play, it could be deadly. She understood, and we all took to the air into this open space where the game would be played, accompanied by the evil laughter of whatever it was behind it all.

The game didn't start immediately. I was separated from my friends and floated down into a seat, and was joined by other friends whom I had once accompanied on this strange journey. We were now all in the uniforms of our team. More teams entered the theater, and they all descended into seats. We had to make room for them, there were so many. As we waited for the evil to start the game, we chatted with each other and joked. Then an announcement was made... we all readied ourselves. We were told that reality had to be adjusted, just for a moment, and to brace ourselves. We looked at each other in fear and at that moment, we felt a vibration down to our atoms. It increased and my vision blurred. Everything I saw became like scanlines on a TV, and resolution decreased. Eventually I was imprisoned in a blurred, vibrating void that was intolerable. Then everything was brought back to normal. I exhaled in relief and remarked to my friend next to me, "That must be what hell is like, if you imagined having to stay like that forever."

Then we were all on a bus, driving on a winding road through mountains. One of my friends was standing at the front and was leaning out of the door. He was hanging on with one hand and leaning way out with his other arm extended, touching the tips of passing brush with his fingers as we rounded sharp turns. Then he let go, and I turned around and saw him land and transform into an alien animal. I wondered how he was going to get to the games. Before he disappeared behind the next turn, I heard him shout, "It's a short cut!" His wild laughter trailed off.

Now I am watching my friend in his animal form. He is trying to scry his way through brush and brambles, and he comes upon a fence. He is confident that he can jump it, but when he tries, it is too high. A bigger, fiercer alien animal is stalking him and also tries to jump the fence and gets caught in it. The barbed wires wrap around the beasts mouth, and he is immobilized temporarily. My alien friend makes his escape and arrives in a medieval town. Upon closer inspection, he is a really cute little alien. Almost like a puppy, with long eyestalks moving to and fro, and some of the townspeople stop to pet him. I see this and am frustrated. A few locals adopt him and take him on their own journey. I see them in the cupola of a hot air balloon with propellers and wooden cabins attached. I wonder how they steer this strange contraption, and then the field of view widens and I see that a large crane is swinging this thing in circles and that is it actually just a carnival ride, and that their journey is only taking them in circles.

I find myself in a house, in a strange between sleep existence. There is a knock on the door, and somebody answers. Then I am brought fully awake by someone shaking me insistently. I am told that my dad was just there, looking for me. I jump up with a purpose, and get ready to depart. I open the door and see a big old model Cadillac there waiting for me, filled with black people. At first I think my dad is in this car, but he isn't, so I get in and we peel away into an area thick with trees and shadow. We come to a stop and are approached by someone in an immaculate suit. Now I'm in the drivers seat, and I sense danger, and I hit the gas and peel away from him. He chases us, and I quickly lock all of the doors and roll up all of the windows. We leave him behind, but he is shooting at us. Glass shatters and bullets impact the car, and I scrunch down really low to avoid getting hit.

Metropolitan Jonah's visit

Metropolitan Jonah visited our church the other day. Apparently this visit has been delayed for about a year and a half, because... and lets see if I have this right... Met. Jonah had just been promoted (is that the right word?) from abbot of... a monastery somewhere, to bishop... of a diocese or something (I know I sound retarded, but I don't know the specifics or details). Anyway, the current metropolitan, at that time a year and a half ago, was Vladyka Dimitri (vladyka means archbishop, I think). He decided to retire, and at that time Jonah had just been made a bishop... or an archbishop. Is a metropolitan the same as an archbishop? I don't know. He wasn't metropolitan yet... Jonah, that is. So he was probably just a bishop. And then Vladyka Dimitri retired...

Ok I'm probably royally screwing it up, so suffice it to say, Jonah took Dimitri's place as Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, Locum Tenens of the Diocese of the South (I don't know what locum tenens translates to but that's part of the official title). Somehow, because of that, we lost a bishop but gained an archbishop. And also because of that, the scheduled visit had to be delayed until now.

So, this past Sunday Met. Jonah visited our tiny little parish, St. Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Mission here in Denton, TX. It is quite an honor for the head honcho of the Orthodox Church in America to visit our little church, and everybody was pretty excited. Dax, the subdeacon and choir director, had been preparing the music for quite a while, with parts of it being sung by the men's choir, and other parts being sung by a trio. It was pretty cool how it all came together, and the best part... for me, anyway... was that I got to sing with the choir too. Let me take a minute to describe how that happened.

First off, as everybody who knows me already knows, I'm pretty shy by nature and don't talk much... I usually hide behind Leah anytime there is a social situation at church, such as after the liturgy during coffee hour. I had never gone out of my way to talk to anybody at church except for Ben, who I kind of knew already because I used to see him frequently when I worked at 7-Eleven, and Fr. Justin, which was usually through e-mails. So I was surprised when one day, a few months ago, Dax approached me and started talking to me about music. I reacted by looking around for Leah, but apparently she had abandoned me, so I resigned myself to slogging through an awkward conversation without getting the shakes and hyperventilating. We started talking about our musical experience and I mentioned that I had played euphonium in high school. As it turns out, Dax had also played the euphonium. I was still feeling mostly like an outsider at church, as I hadn't warmed up to many people yet, so I was heartened to learn that Dax and I had something in common. With this new feeling of camaraderie in place, I warmed up a little and began to feel more confident. I decided to brag a little (at church, no less) so I told him that I had taken piano lessons for about 20 years. Oh, really? Yeah, my grandma was a teacher for the National Guild, so I got free lessons while growing up. I have a social music degree in piano and received the Paderewski Medal, and I'm qualified to teach if I ever decided to. (this is where all the bragging backfires) Dax says, I assume you can read music pretty well, then? Oh yeah, sure, I can read music. Treble and bass clef? Sure, treble and bass clef - I'm more comfortable with treble clef, but sure, I can read bass clef. Cool. I'm putting together a men's choir, do you want to be in it?

...what did he just ask me? If I wanted to be in a men's choir, here, at church? After all that bragging about my musical qualifications, all I could say was, yeah, sure that would be cool... and that's how I was abducted into the men's choir. And it really was cool; as it turns out I LIKE being in the choir. I even get to help with vigils sometimes when they need an extra person.

Anyway, back to whatever it was I was talking about before I digressed... the visit by Metropolitan Jonah. So, Dax had put all of this music together and we had been having extra choir practices so that we wouldn't sound like crap on the big day. There had been some discussion as to where to put the choir, as everybody wanted a good view of the proceedings. The choir usually stands in a little nook located to the right of the altar, which would be just fine if it weren't for a part of the wall near the back of the nook which juts forward. Anyone standing in that part of the nook wouldn't be able to see anything, really... so I felt lucky to be situated near the front of the nook, where I would have a good view. At least, that's where I have always stood when we practiced before, so that's where I stood on Sunday when the choir was getting ready. At least for about 30 seconds, after which Dax had me switch places with Adam. Now I was in the far corner of the nook, and I had a clear view of... my music. I looked up at the shiny brass where the ceiling fan was mounted, hoping that I might be able to catch a reflection of the upcoming action. I sighed and gave Mark, the other tenor standing next to me, a look of resignation. I guess we would just have to watch the video.

So, the liturgy progressed and I missed all of it, but the choir sounded good and we only screwed up once, when we tried to sing on top of the clergy, who were supposed to be chanting by themselves. And one other time when I don't really know what happened... the choir was tooling along fine, and then we got to a part that we weren't sure about and everybody just kind of 'gave up' because Dax wasn't looking at us. Other than those two little tidbit nitpicks, I think we sounded really good. Met. Jonah even complimented the choir after the liturgy. I wish I had more to talk about pertaining to the liturgy, but being stuck in the corner and concentrating on singing, I pretty much missed all the cool stuff, like the vesting (Leah had described it to me beforehand as a practice in which Met. Jonah would be 'vested' by the rest of the clergy... that is, they would attire him with his vestments). I'll know what else I missed when I watch the video, which I'm looking forward to. I am extremely glad that I got to sing in the choir on that day though.

Afterward, we all had lunch like we usually do after the liturgy, and then Met. Jonah answered questions for a couple of hours. I have to admit that I didn't pay as much attention as I would have at another time, because I was extremely nervous about talking to Vladimir the iconographer. I had e-mailed him earlier in the week asking for his advice on how best to proceed if I wanted to be an iconographer, and he suggested that we talk about it today, after the liturgy. I mentioned to him in the e-mail that I had painted an icon, and he said to bring it and we'd talk about that, too. This came as a great surprise to me, as I hadn't counted on actually seeing him in person so soon, but since he's a deacon, in retrospect it's obvious that he would be attending services that day. I pretty much spent the entire Q & A session building up more and more nervous energy at the prospect of approaching Vladimir and talking to him. The longer it went on, the more nervous I became, and I began to wonder if I would ever get a chance to talk to Vladimir. Inwardly I was almost hoping that I wouldn't... that maybe he would get tired and leave early without my noticing. Finally the Q & A ended however, so I built up my nerve and approached Vladimir and introduced myself. He remembered the e-mail and we talked back and forth for a bit, but I don't remember a thing about what was said. I do remember mentioning that I had sent him a link to the icon I'd painted, and he said that he wasn't able to view it for some reason... and to try sending it again, and that felt very much like the end of the discussion until I informed him that I had brought the icon with me, and that it was in the car, and that I could go get it if he wanted to see it. Sure, he replied, go get it. He turned away briefly and then turned back again... give me 5 minutes, ok? Then he disappeared into the library nook.

I was somewhat discomfited by the encounter so far and wasn't feeling at all confident about showing him the icon, but I retrieved it from the car and then waited in the bookstore for Vladimir to return. I really didn't like standing there with all of those people around, icon in hand. I felt very self conscious... I guess I didn't want anyone else seeing it. No, it wasn't that... I posted it online for people to see, after all. I didn't want people thinking that I'd brought it to church to show it off. I'm somewhat self conscious about it as it's the first thing I've painted in almost 20 years, and to top it off, here I am actually trying to pass it off as a holy icon to the guy who decorated the St. Seraphim cathedral in Dallas. So, I kept it pressed against my chest, back side facing outwards. Leah stood there with me and we exchanged nervous smiles until Vladimir appeared. I showed him the icon. He examined it with a dispassionate eye and remarked that I should concentrate on old Byzantine icons, not this 'new stuff', or maybe he said 'modern stuff'. I assumed he was referring to the style of the original icon which I had reproduced... or maybe he didn't realize that it was a reproduction and thought that it was original, and that my style was less desirable than the old Byzantine style. It was a little difficult communicating with Vladimir, being that sometimes his accent baffled me, and also because my powers of speech often fail me in anxious situations and I wind up stuttering until I finally expel a adjective or synonym completely inadequate to my purpose. Next he asked me what medium I'd used, and I said acrylic. "No, acrylic is awful. Terrible medium." I agreed... I didn't like acrylics either. I told him that I was used to painting with oils. "No, oils are even worse than acrylic... terrible." Ok... Well, I thought to myself, it's either one or the other, for now anyway, as I know diddly squat about painting with actual egg tempera. Vladimir continued to examine my icon. Finally, he said to not use so much dark... "don't pain so much black." He pointed out dark areas on the painting. Then he said that I should study life drawing. I told him that I had taken lots of life drawing classes and had quite a bit of material done with pencil and charcoal. He nodded and then told me basically that there weren't any good art schools in America, and wrapped up our conversation by suggesting again that I concentrate on old Byzantine icons, not to use to much black, to stay away from oils at all costs, and to paint on MDF (medium density fiberboard). This last part completely befuddled me, as I have specifically read in the icon book I checked out from the church library NOT to use MDF, as it was an unsuitable surface which would not absorb the gesso.

I walked away from that experience pretty much perplexed. I guess I was kind of hoping that he'd offer to take me under his wing and teach me everything he knew... not that I really thought that would happen. However, as far as getting some good knowledge from a good source goes, Vladimir is pretty much it as far as I know. Iconography isn't exactly a popular practice in America, and I don't know of any schools or classes that teach it. However, I'm extremely lucky to have gotten the chance to talk to an iconographer like Vladimir. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to learn more from him.