Moose on the Loose

Last Sunday, I was visiting the Dunaway’s greenhouse and talking to Kh. Betsy about my garden plans for the summer.  When we ventured outside for a minute, there was a baby moose with his mother not 30 feet away.  They were contentedly munching on some brush and were fascinating to watch.  Well, evidently, they liked what they found to eat, because the next morning on my way to school, Mrs. Moose and her calf were hanging out in the trees as I was on the path to school.  They were also there Tuesday . . . and Wednesday . . . and Thursday!  They are sleeping in our neighbor’s yard and enjoy taking their morning repast between our neighbor’s yard and the school.  Wednesday I decided to take my camera with me and lo and behold Mrs. Moose was right there on the path to school

 

The Annunciation

What a beautiful example Mary set for us in her perfect trust in and submission to God’s will.  How difficult it must have been for this young woman to put aside her plans, fears, and desires to cooperate with God’s in his plan for mankind.  I am so thankful that the Church teaches us to venerate her and follow her example to say a humble “yes” to God’s will.  Blessed Feast!

BEARRY GOOD!!

   This is a bear we encountered on our way to Alaska last June.  In light of the story which follows, I just couldn’t resist.  Plus . . . I moreless uploaded it myself, so hopefully now there will be more pix to come!  Now, if I could only get the spacing right.

Stewardship

Recently, as part of our Alaska Studies unit at St. John’s School, Fr. Michael Oleksa, author of Orthodox Alaska, came to speak to the students on Alaskan culture and history.  He gave a brief history of how the native people came to be in Alaska and told several traditional native stories.  Not only were the stories interesting and entertaining, but Fr. Oleksa also used them to teach Christian truths, much in the way I imagine St. Herman and St. Innocent and other orthodox missionaries used the native culture to spread christianity to the people they met here.  I was so encouraged by the way he used the stories to inspire the children (and me) to better things that I thought I would include them, to the best of my ability here.  It will, in all likelihood take a few weeks to get them posted, and I can in no way do justice to the way Fr. Michael told the stories, but I will do my best.  The Creation The Yupiks believed that the first humans washed ashore in a clam shell and Raven, who was their god, came across these humans as he was strolling along the beach.  He had never seen such strange creatures before, and he slowly walked around the clam shell wondering what to make of them.    “These creatures are cute, but they don’t have much fur . . . and no feathers,”  he thought to himself. “and they don’t have any claws or fangs”  he puzzled.  “These creatures are never going to make it through the winter!”  Raven called the other animals together to decide what to do with these odd and ill-equipped creatures. When the creatures arrived on the beach, they stared in disbelief. “They don’t have much fur,”  said the walrus. “And no feathers!” said the eagle. “They have no teeth and claws to catch food,” said the bear.  “Yes, and look at their legs!  They are too short for them to catch anything.” “When winter comes, they will surely die,”  the animals murmured amongst themselves.  “What should we do with them?”  Raven questioned.  The animals then held a council and  returned to the raven.   “Though they are not fit to live and support themselves,”  Bear began, “they are so cute that we have decided that we will let them kill us and eat our flesh so that they might live.” “Yes,”  the others agreed, “and they may use our fur for their clothes.”  “You are willing to die so that these men might live?” Raven replied.  “Yes,”  they all joined in unison. “On one condition,”  Bear cautioned.  ”If we do this for them, they in turn, must be respectful, humble, thankful, and not wasteful with what we have given them.”  And with that mankind came to dwell in the land.   I was so touched by this story.  As Fr. Michael continued to enumerate experiences he had witnessed of how the natives were truly respectful of the animals they hunted and how their traditions honored the creatures they used for their survival, I was struck by the beauty of God’s love for us and how Fr. Michael was able to set a foundation for the young scholars of St. John’s to understand that truth.  He reminded the students that if an animal doesn’t want to be caught, it won’t be.  He illustrated this by telling of  whale hunt he saw televised several years ago.  The fishermen headed out to sea in noisy motorized boats in search for a whale, and when they spotted one, he pointed out that the whale seemingly “waited” for the fishermen.  He could obviously hear them coming and was aware of them surrounding him, yet he didn’t submerge or attack the boats.  He just waited patiently to give himself to the hunters.  As Fr. Michael told these stories, I understood why so many of the native people were able to receive the evangelistic message of the orthodox missionaries who came to Alaska.  The concept of One giving His life so that others might live was already an intrinsic part of their belief system.  I was also struck by the gratitude and responsibility inherent in the native culture.  So often in our modern world there is a tendency toward entitlement and a careless, if not exploitive, attitude toward the natural world.  How many times have I thoughtlessly taken more than I needed or wasted what I have so graciously been given.   During this lenten season as we are encouraged to practice chastity (which Fr. Schmemann calls whole-mindedness), I found this call to gratitude and stewardship quite encouraging, and I was so glad to hear Fr. Michael’s words of wisdom as they call me back to the One who gave Himself so that we all might live.   

Forgiveness

Last Sunday (Forgiveness Sunday)  Dn.  Brad/Joseph gave the homily at St. John’s.  I think he did a really good job, and he received several appreciative comments about his remarks on forgiveness.  So, in Fr. Michael Reagan’s tradition, I thought I would go ahead and post his homily as an encouragement for others. 

         Years ago Fr. Thomas Hopko gave a talk at a secular university.  He packed the place out.  After the talk, during the question and answer time one student stood up and asked Fr. Hopko this question. 

        ”Do you really believe what you just said?”  Fr. Tom who is quick-witted and down to earth responded, 

        ”At least someone actually heard what I said.” 

        If we think about it, the teachings of Jesus are radical and revolutionary.  The dictionary defines radical as ” going to a root or source, fundamental, basic.”  The word revolutionary has as it`s root the idea of turning, or revolving. The teachings of Jesus are radical because He is always calling us to the fundamental basic things. The teachings of Jesus are revolutionary because He is always calling us to turn back to God and away from the ruler of this world – away from,  as Paul puts it,

“the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”.    We were all born into a world that is oriented away from God.  As Christians, as followers of Jesus we are called to be revolutionists.   I am not talking about social reform in this temporal, fallen and dying world.  I mean that we are to revolt against Satan and turn back to God. The only true  revolutionist is a saint and by saint I mean that person who takes their faith seriously at all times.  There is no issue on which Jesus is more radical- more revolutionary-or more demanding than the issue of forgiveness. 

Let`s take a minute to review some of His words about forgiveness.  “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”  Peter asked Jesus,  “Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?”  Jesus said,” I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Again, “Whenever you stand praying. if you have anything against anyone forgive him.”  And again, “I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you also not have had compassion on  your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?”  

Well, to me this is extremely difficult.  To be honest it is not my favorite part of being a Christian.  To be forgiven yes.  To forgive, that is another matter.  If you are anything like me when you don`t like something you look for loopholes.  How about this one.  Why listen to Jesus anyway?  We might say to ourselves,

“I am so angry at so and so for , fill in the blank,” we might ask, “why do I have to listen to Jesus anyway?”  Simply put, the answer is, if we look at this world, all of its problems, pain, misery, suffering and death we are driven to look for a solution.  Frankly, the only one who has a solution, the only one who is the solution is Jesus.  He is the Resurrection and the Life.  He is the great reconciler.  Jesus prayed for us that we would be one.  Paul put it this way,

“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God thru the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by His life.”  There is no one like Jesus.   No one who has ever lived can be  remotely compared to Christ or be called His equal.  So if Jesus says that I have to forgive and He came to destroy  the works of the devil and to restore all things, then I have to forgive.  What is forgiveness?

Maybe I can find a loophole here. The dictionary says,” to excuse an offense- to pardon without

harboring resentment.”  Well maybe we don`t like that definition.  We might go back to the Greek word and see if we can tweak it more to our liking.  Maybe we have some friends who are lawyers and we talk to them in order  to find a technicality.  Eventually, however we will find that the only satisfactory definition is simply, “whatever we want God to  do for us.”  When we ask Him  for forgiveness that is what we must give to others. We can OPT to do this or not. 

I would like to use the word OPT to make  three points:

O = offer judgement to God. 

P= power. 

T= time. 

“O”  offer judgement to God.  I think one reason people have difficulty forgiving is because we feel like it violates our sense of justice.  We want justice to be done to the person who has offended or injured us.  We are made in the image and likeness of God.  God is just, and we derive our sense of justice from Him.  I think we struggle when we want to judge.  We might think that God needs help judging.  He might forget something and we want to be sure to remind Him. Emotionally it seems that if we let go of the anger we are excusing the wrong.  The  truth is,  when we let go of the anger we are offering judgement to God and keeping the door open for reconciliation.  In a few weeks time we will sing,

“Let us call brother even those that hate us.  Let us forgive all by the Resurrection.”  James the brother of the Lord was nicknamed “camel knees” because he spent so much time  praying  that his knees became very calloused.  He helped me when he wrote,

“There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy,  Who are you to judge another?”  And

Paul,  “Each of us shall give account of himself to God, therefore let us not judge one  another any

more”…”because Jesus Christ will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His Kingdom.” 

There will be justice.  Has some one injured or offended you? Or worse yet, injured or offended

someone that you love?  Peter said,

“They will give an account to HIm who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”  In the meantime we should pray for them. Why?  Because we follow Jesus and He prayed,

“Father forgive them.” 

“P” Power.  I have a friend.  A beautiful young woman who has two failed marriages. She was and as far as I know is still extremely angry with her father.  Her father did some bad things.  She held on to that anger and turned it on her first husband and them her second.  She would agree, and both of her ex-husbands would agree, that her resentment toward her father ruined both marriages. By holding on to her anger  and not placing it at the foot of the cross,  she gave her father`s sin power. She did far more damage to her life than her father ever  did  simply by not forgiving.  Fr. Hopko teaches

that all of us without exception must forgive our parents, because there is no such thing as perfect

parenting.  If you are engaged to be married I would encourage you to make sure to forgive your parents before you wed because you will have a better marriage.

“T” for time.  Forgiveness can take time.  We need time to work through things.  My parents were divorced when I was nine.  At fourteen I became a Christian. About five years ago I was talking with a friend of mine and he said,

” You are still mad at your old man aren`t you?”  I was somewhat embarrassed and shocked by my friends comment, but I had to tell the truth that I had not completely forgiven my father. I thought to myself, Dad lived through the great depression, his father was an alcoholic who died of liver disease, he fought in two wars, he had a rough marriage, as an a adult he converted to Christianity and he is doing the best that he can to follow Jesus.  Just let it go.  To be honest I took too much time.   I should have dealt with it sooner.  The point is, that some things take time. Forgiveness is serious.  I in no way want to trivialize anyone`s pain or injury. It is so serious that Jesus endured the cross for the sins that we have committed and for the sins that have been committed against us.  The good news is that we are not on our own.  We have help.  Paul wrote,

“The Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered”  “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”  A wise priest said ” In order to

enter Paradise, one must have a heart as wide as the heavens, a heart that embraces all men.  If a heart

excludes just one person it will not be accepted by the Lord because He will not be able to dwell there.”

Fr. Schemann wrote,

“The triumph of sin, the main sign of it`s rule over the world is division, opposition, separation and hatred.  Therefore the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness; the return to unity, solidarity and love.  To forgive is to put between me and my enemy the radiant forgiveness of God Himself.  It is to reject the hopeless dead ends of human relations and to refer them to Christ.

Forgiveness is a” breakthrough” of the Kingdom into this sinful and fallen world.”

As we begin our journey to Pascha let us offer judgement to God, stop the power of sin by forgiveness, invest the time it takes to forgive. Let us OPT to forgive all by the resurrection.

 

A Walk in the Park

Friday Brad and I celebrated my 44th birthday with an afternoon ski around the high school trails.  It was a simply beautiful day with fresh snow and a balmy 15 degrees (yes – I mean it that’s a nice skiing temperature!).  There was a thick layer of new powder which made for lots of control and no ice.  We had just started in earnest, when off to the right I noticed a large horse grazing beside the trail.  “That’s odd,”  thought I, “I didn’t think they allowed horses on these trails – that could be a bit dangerous.”   . . .   Then it came to me  I was not glibbly skiing toward a horse.  That was a fat moose butt!  Needless to say, I quickly banked left and took another trail. You can take the California girl out of California, but you can’t take California (horses) out of the girl. Thank God there were no mishaps.   

Frost (Morozko – “Frost” in Russian :))

Ok, maybe it’s just because I have lived almost all of my nearly 44 years in sunny California, but I am absolutely fascinated by frost – especially hoar frost.  For those of you who are also newbies to the whole frost experience (now I’m not talking about that wimpy stuff that lightly coats the grass on a chilly morning or graces the insulated roofs after a nippy night –  we’re talking about full-on fern patterns on the glass and crystalized coverings on every branch and twig). This kind of frost is borne from what we affectionately refer to as “bitterly cold” weather (its a quote from weather.com when it’s describing single-digit and sub-zero weather.  Anyway, the frost truly transforms a dead, brown, frozen wilderness into a winter wonderland (I know that sounds cheesy, but it is oh so true!)  Not only is this whole frost business breathtaking, but it is such an image of the hope of the resurrection.  The world is dead and “bitterly cold,” yet even in death the hope of the resurrection cannot be hidden.  It’s as if all of creation is proclaiming, “Just wait; it’s coming; have faith.  God has not forgotten us and has triumphed over death.”   I contemplated writing “Ode to Hoar Frost,” but alas, I am not a poet.  I carefully searched the internet and found an odd, and at times disturbing,  array of related sites, but nothing was satisfactory.  So dear friends, my random ramblings and this picture must suffice. Oh, and one more thing . . . evidently Bob Dylan used Jack Frost as a psuedonym in his 2001 album Love and Theft.  You know when Bob Dylan chooses something as a psuedonym, it’s got to be good   P.S.  As soon as I wrote this – in classic alaskan weather pattern – the frost disappeared, so the picture will be added when Mr. Frost returns. 

The Learning Curve

Well, I have now cross country skied TWICE without falling!  I even went down hills! The first time I went I would fall for no apparent reason and then had trouble getting up after falling.  It was pretty embarrassing.  Nevertheless, we kept signing up to embarrass ourselves – poking along on our classic cross country skies – one pair we borrowed and the other we inherited from some folks who moved (they got them at Salvation Army), so yeah, we are definitely the most stylish folks out there.  It’s pretty fun though, and there are miles well maintained  free trails less than a mile from our house, and we’re able to go out several times a week.  Nathanael says the ski equipment at REI starts going on sale in February, so we’ll be checking the ads and hopefully he’ll let us know if a really good deal comes along.  The first thing we’ll be getting though are some good mittens, because when you’re out there skiing in 2 degree weather, it takes awhile for your fingers to warm up if you’re wearing gloves.  The other evening we went out, and my fingers got so cold it took two days for them to lose the achyness (ok, no matter how I spell this word, the auto spell-checker says it’s wrong, so you know what I mean).   Anyway . . . uh . . . so . . . that’s all I can think of to say about that.   

Fact Versus Fantasy

Recently Grace asked how living in Alaska compared to just visiting.  Was it what we expected?  So here are our thoughts: Reality versus Reality:  (What we expected)

• It IS gorgeous! 
• It IS cold – but not unbearably so.
• It IS sweet living 5 minutes (walking or driving) from church.
• It IS awesome living living in a walking distance church community.
• It IS a drag to drive into Anchorage (I hate to drive).
• Life IS slower – Yeah! 
• It IS easier to go to church midweek. 
• Snow IS Amazing!  

Fantasy Versus Reality:  (We had no clue)

• Ice IS the devil!  Severely inhibits locomotion.
• Car heaters actually work if you plug the car in when its not in use – no plug, no heat for at least 15 minutes, and well we just don’t drive that far unless we’re going to Anchor Town – see above.
• Chinook Winds stink!  They blow all the snow off the trees, wreck the snow, and make everything icy when it gets cold again.  Lose, lose, lose situation.
• Everyone here has dogs – many outside wishing they could be inside . . . at night . . . enough said.
• Folks play lots and lots of games here.
• Strangers are friendly, and people look each other in the eye.  When I first got up here I felt like I was antisocial or something.  Excursions to me were search and destroy missions, but folks are more relaxed here.  A friend got in an auto accident and 5 people immediately pulled over and offered assistance.  Maybe it’s the us against the elements mentality; regardless, it’s refreshing.
• NO RUBIOS!!!   Oh so sad.  One major coping mechanism obliterated from my arsenal.  
• Exceptionally BAD T.V. commercials.  Take your worst Cal Worthington commercial from the ’70’s and expand it to every commodity imaginable.  That’s Alaskan commercials.
• Cheesy “B” Newscasters – on every station
• Odd Alaskan “nationalism”  as evidenced by people describing visiting any other state (or country) as visiting “the outside.”  The “B” newscasters even use this phrase on the air.  In addition, almost every area of commerce has a business entitled “Great Alaska ________”  or some variation thereof (ex. “Great Alaska Pizza Co., Great Alaska Tobacco Co., Great Homes of Alaska, Greatland Foods, Greatland Handyman Services, Greatland Bush Mailer, Greatland Christian Cache – Property Manager).  These are true examples out of the Eagle River phone book.  Remember this is only for Eagle River with a population of 22,000!
• Pink Skies
• 1 1/2 hour sunsets
• When the weather is good you rearrange your schedule to be outside.
• The odd darkness stuff doesn’t affect us much – depression etc.  It just makes you sleepy, BUT
• I do appreciate sun a lot more!  It makes me happy and want to go play.

Well that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.  I can always add more later.  New things are popping up all the time.  Besides its noon and the sun just popped over the mountain – so I’m off . . .