8 Point Cross

Almost 10 years ago now I made this cross out of palm fronds in the basement of Ss. Constantine & Elena Orthodox Church with my wife (then fiancé) and our friend Karin. It was Palm Sunday and it is traditional to use the fronds that you are given at the end of the Liturgy to weave into a cross.

As we sat there together, Karin and I entered into a friendly competition to make an "8 Point Cross" in the Slavic tradition (short bar at the top representing the sign placed over Jesus' head and the bottom slanted bar representing the foot board pointing up to the "Good Thief" on Jesus' right). The pussy willow branch is what the Russian's use on Palm Sunday because of the lack of palm trees there.

Karin passed away a few years after that from breast cancer. She was a big woman with a larger-than-life personality, some might say ostentatious, but we loved her very much. I took this photo today because I realized this frail cross will likely fall apart over time and I wanted to capture it in memory of Karin. May her memory be eternal as the Orthodox say.

Going to a "Christmas Celebration"

J found an advertisement for a "Christmas Celebration" at the downtown Methodist Church this evening. It seemed promising and so we spontaneously got ourselves ready which included Kramer and I dressing alike. The church was HUGE with soaring rafters, extremely tall stained glass windows, and a pipe organ whose size beggared the imagination.

I think Kramer was a little overwhelmed by it all. There was a bell choir, then a teen choir singing from the rear, then a little kid's choir followed by the adult choir. At some point they fired up the monstrous pipe organ and Kramer's face looked a little panicky, but who could blame him? It made my teeth rattle in my head.

He asked to go home a few times in a little sheepish voice, though he did seem to enjoy parts of it, especially the little kid's choir. I don't think he really knew what to make of it all. When we got home J asked him if he liked it and he immediately said, "no". When she asked him why he said, "dat music was weir(d)".

The Whale

What causes a man to be led down a path of growing infidelity whose end is the destruction of his marriage and the splitting up of his family? It seems to me it is an insidious process that happens slowly enough that he can justify each step to himself in a way that could not occur if seen cumulatively, all at once, with the enormity of the loss fully realized. At any one moment he perceives his decisions to be non-malevolent, almost reasonable.

Someone dear to me has gone down such a path and it weighs heavily on me. I’m reminded of that line in Proverbs which reads, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” If nothing else it is a reminder to me to be vigilant in safeguarding my own family, to guard my heart. In the midst of such thoughts this week I wrote a poem.


The Whale

A magnificent creature
visible for but a moment
slips beneath the waves
troubling me
that it exists
without access
in a world
only vaguely imagined

The torment begins
a fevered pulse
a need to assess
a need to possess
I find myself again
plying those waters
in excited anticipation
oblivious to troubling signs

When at last
I draw abreast
Harpoon flung
with a furious energy
linked at last
I have it
(or does it have me?)
the slow pull begins

Calm waters turn agitated
treacherous seas
through perilous rocks
before the descent
cold, dark, deep down
crushing suffocating aloneness
far from light & life
far from love.

Für Arvo

“I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”

-Arvo Pärt

I first discovered the music of Arvo Pärt in 1996 through a happy coincidence while living in Bloomington Indiana and attending Indiana University. A Russian friend of mine had off-handedly mentioned his name and thought I might enjoy his music. This friend had studied at the Moscow Music Conservatory and was currently engaged in graduate studies at the Indiana University School of Music. His opinion in this matter had some weight with me, but I did not follow up on the recommendation right away.

A week or two later I was in Roscoe’s, a used CD shop just off of Kirkwood Avenue and a favorite haunt of mine. I spent a good little amount of time going through the Classical music section without any sightings of Arvo Pärt. And that could have very well been the last of that, but then I moved over to the Jazz music section which was my usual hangout. Somewhere in the midst of music by John Coltrane (A Love Supreme, possibly?) I stumbled upon a misplaced CD… Arvo Pärt’s “Te Deum.” If that wasn’t an Augustine-like “take up and listen” command from God, then I wouldn’t know what would be!

Over the years I have acquired many CD’s of Pärt’s music. I cannot listen to it without being profoundly moved. I feel that I somehow acquire senses that transcend the five I was born with. Dostoevsky’s assertion that “beauty will save the world” resonates in my experience of listening to this music. When our son was born we listened to Pärt’s “Für Alina” over and over again those two days in the hospital. It was a precious experience seemingly outside of time and the cares of the world. It was the perfect soundtrack to the miracle of my son’s birth.

We fight not against flesh and blood...

Morning Prayers
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[].

October 30th, 2006 - I arrived at the airport with two large duffle bags and a long thin rectangular case housing an M16 A2 assault rifle. At the Northwest check-in counter an attractive middle-aged woman asked me if I had any bags to check. I said, “yes, two duffle bags and a weapon”. That last word felt so strange in my mouth. I’d joked with the rear detachment NCO who brought me to the airport that I felt like a mafia hitman lugging this rifle around in an elongated black case. The proclamation of having a weapon brought me to the attention of the male attendant who asked me to unlock the case. “Please show me that there is no ammunition in the rifle,” he said. I pulled back the charging handle and locked the bolt to the rear sensing that the eyes of other passengers were on my back. I angled the butt of the rifle towards him so that he could see that the chamber was empty. Satisfied he said, “thank you,” and I hit the bolt release mechanism causing it to slam forward with a loud CLACK! It was that sound that drove home the fact that this was not an overseas vacation I was going on, but a deployment to a war zone.

I found the curiosity of the attendant towards my M16 disquieting. “Is it true that the bullets from this rifle tumble instead of spinning in a straight line?” he asks. I tried to dig back more than fifteen years into my memory as a former infantryman and vaguely remembered something about a “tumbling” bullet and I say, “yes.” The female attendant asked why that was significant and the other replied, "it does more damage that way.” She accepted his explanation matter of factly and I quickly walked away from this conversation only then remembering that the bullet only tumbles when it hits its “target”, but I had no desire to return to the counter and clarify this particularly gruesome fact.

In one of the duffle bags I carried was a hand-carved “prayer box” wrapped inside my sleeping bag for protection. It was lovingly fashioned from walnut and banded with hammered brass to include a primitive brass latching mechanism to keep it shut. Affixed on the inside lid are three icons, the middle of which is surrounded by a carved frame. It is a thing of simple beauty, yet somehow exotic and mysterious. It is my true weapon, containing a prayer book, prayer rope, holy water, and a small sealed wooden sandbox for candles. It is a curious weapon, life-giving, unlike what is in the black case. One is hidden and the other is painfully visible, clunky, and cold. It troubles me that I am more proficient with the rifle than in saying my prayers. Lord have mercy on me…

Dream Doodle

Dream Doodle
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[].

This morning during staff meeting I doodled a dream I had a few nights ago on the back of a business card. It was the first dream I'd ever had with my son in it. As a result I shared it with my training psychotherapist and was able to make a lot of helpful connections.

In the dream I could fly (not uncommon in my dreams), but for the first time in my life I did not fly alone. I took my son up in my arms and flew with him to places where I'd grown up. We hovered over a basketball court in a gymnasium and I even flew him up high to see the lights on the scoreboard. We then flew to a house that I used to live in where an old lady was living now. She invited us in and let us look around.

The resulting doodle seems to be a Chagall/Superman/Hoosier hodge podge...

The Fifth Beatle

 

Last night I dreamt I was the fifth Beatle. It was the oddest thing. We were at a large gathering of some kind wearing white suits, the five of us, Ringo, George, Paul, John, and me. Odder still was the fact I knew John was either dead or going to die and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. 

My sense was that he was also aware of the gravity of his situation, but continued to talk and laugh as if it didn’t matter. I felt as his friend I should do something or say something. All I could eventually bring myself to do was hug him and whisper in his ear, “It’s going to be alright.”

***

"Who is My Neighbor?"

Kramer's 1!
Originally uploaded by Aaroneous Monk.

Our son turned one this past week. Unlike many extravagant celebrations I’ve seen or been aware of in the past for first birthdays, this one was very inauspicious. Most of our friends were out of town for the holidays and the one couple who wasn’t had a sick four month old on their hands and had to cancel.

The day of his birthday arrived. JB baked a birthday cake and we had some Elmo plates and hats on hand for the occasion. Undaunted by the lack of guests, JB & I decided to go knock on the door of two of our neighbor’s houses and invite them. Mind you, this was at 5:00 and we told them to come over at 6:30! One couple is in their 70’s and the wife suffers from mild dementia. The other couple is our age and they have a 5 month old little girl.

To my surprise they both accepted the invitation with little to no hesitation! At 6:30ish the older couple arrived with a card (“for your newborn baby” it read, ha!) that had some money in it. They donned the Elmo hats and settled in for the party. Soon thereafter the younger couple arrived with homemade cookies and explained that the husband had been late in coming home due to a traffic accident which he had to detour around.

It was a very rich evening full of laughter, story telling, and shared secrets of parenting. I sat at the head of the table thoroughly enjoying the moment when I became aware of just how special all of this really was. That morning there was no indication that such a scene would be playing itself out around our dining room table. It was just such a perfect moment with all the magic of serendipity and profoundness of providence.

When they all left JB and I looked at each other like, “what just happened here?” We chided ourselves for not having invited them over sooner. It seemed such a shame that we’d lived here for over 3 years and that was the first time either couple had been in our home. We made a promise to ourselves that with our next move we will invite the neighbors over sooner and get to know them better.

Thinking about this phenomenon the next day it struck me that it reminded me of the parable of the wedding feast that Jesus told. How those invited did not come to the party. How the King sent his servants “out into the highways” to invite those they found there. It also reminded me of the young lawyer who tested Jesus with the question,“And who is my neighbor?” to justify himself and Jesus replied with the parable of the good Samaritan.

Borders Baby & Bio Blurb

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I first fell in love with Borders Bookstore in the Spring of 1995. I was a 26 year old “non-traditional” student who had previously graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with majors in History and Political Science, but couldn’t seem to find my way onto a career path that made sense to me. Between my junior and senior year at IWU I had dropped out and joined the Army during the first Gulf War and was sent to Korea for two years as an infantryman.

I finished at IWU upon my return from the Army and then spent a summer in Europe. From there I returned to Korea as a civilian. I planned on staying there for 1-2 years while I figured out what the “next step” was going to be. I was there for only 3 months in the Fall of 1994 when I decided that the next step would be medical school. So I packed my bags, traded my Won for Dollars, and set my sights on Indiana University, which brings me back again to the Spring of 1995.

I needed to take all the pre-med prerequisites which would spread out over the course of a year and a half plus a summer session. I had to pad my schedule somewhat to maintain enough credits for the GI Bill and so I took classes like scuba diving, Korean language, Hapkido, and Tai Chi. Borders Bookstore became one of my favorite hangouts to study, sip joe, and practice joint-locks/take-downs (just kidding).

The beauty of going to Borders in Bloomington is that IU (according to U.S. News & World Report) has the top music school in the country. What this meant to me was world class musicians playing in the corner of the coffee shop while I tried to figure out how to manipulate organic molecules with a pencil and paper. One of my favorites was Marcos Cavalcante, a jazz guitarist and bandleader from Brazil who was studying at the music school. He had a bald head, bright smile, and wicked bossa nova vibe.

I am a great lover of used bookstores, but Borders was about energy. There always seemed to be a lot of it there fueled by coffee and music. After I met JB in Indianapolis and was in medical school we continued to hang out at Borders a few times a month and would look forward to “Pumpkin Spice” flavored coffee coming out every Fall season.

Now I am finishing my residency in DC and I have a 10 month old son that I love to take to Borders. I hope he learns to love the books and music as much as I do. So far so good…



"Nice, pretty books..."

Waiting for Mom

Is there anything worse than being separated from those you love? And if there is, what does that say about the strangulating coils of pride and narcissism that have taken hold of me in my middle years? Maybe God has graciously given me this little guy to help me reverse this process and shed the scales of indifference.

Stairway to Where?

ShadowStairs 3
Originally uploaded by Aaroneous Monk.

I had a vivid dream last night:

I was playing basketball in a free-standing gym with some guys when I sensed something was very wrong. I pushed open the double doors at the end of the court and saw a massive funnel cloud approaching, cutting a wide path of destruction. I yelled for everyone to run across a large parking lot to a grocery store for cover. As I ran I could see the tornado out of the corner of my eye getting closer and closer, wondering if I’d make it into the store in time. I burst into the store yelling, “there’s a tornado coming, get down!” I found my wife there and we hunkered down in a small room in the dark. The feeling was like being back in my mother’s womb as I felt the room lift and begin to rotate…

I must have blacked out because the next thing I remember is waking up beside my wife on the ground. There was complete destruction all around us and the earth was blackened as far as the eye could see. I noticed a burning helicopter was resting on JB’s legs, so I put my foot on it and kicked it off of her. We both got up and found that we appeared to be OK, but our clothes were charred and we had a lot of scrapes and bruises. We somehow found our way to my parent’s house which had survived the tornado.

At this point I am not sure how the transition transpired, but I found myself in an elevator with several other men who all looked like they’d been through what I’d just been through. We were all a little shaken and apprehensive about being in this elevator. It began to descend and as it descended it started to pick up speed. I heard someone say, “it’s taking us to hell!” With the elevator in freefall, I began praying to the Theotokos to protect us. I felt myself trying to mentally detach myself from the situation in order to speak clearly to her and plead our case. I believed with all my being that she could hear me, even in the depths of the earth in such a hopeless situation.

The elevator eventually stopped and a sense of trepidation seized us. An unbearable few moments later the doors slid open and I saw a red flickering glow playing on the other’s faces in profile. The next thing I knew we were in what appeared to be a small cage-like room made of beautiful cut crystal suspended over a glowing reddish-yellow sea. Other such rooms hung suspended around us like fabulously coruscating chandeliers. We were slowly being lowered down and I could just make out huge fiery serpents and dragon-like creatures glowing bright yellow as they swam in the sea. Some of them would intermittently rear up out of the sea towards the suspended rooms and then fall back in. The faces of some of the others were of complete and utter horror, but the terror I felt was more like a feeling of overwhelming awe and wonderment…

When I woke up I thought about the tornados that used to threaten us in Southern Indiana when I was growing up, the recent hurricane disaster in New Orleans, of being assigned to the 101st Airborne next year and the possibility of eventually being deployed to Iraq, but most of all I thought about The River of Fire.

***

Green Tea Frappuccino

I had my first taste of the strange concoction known as “Green Tea Frappuccino” at Starbucks last night. Hidden in the icey sweetness was the faintest trace of green tea. My Asian friends may cringe at such a thing, but I’ve never been able to resist green beverages, culturally sensitive ones or otherwise. :^)

Speaking of green tea, I had a wonderful visit with my cousin a few weeks ago while visiting the in-laws in Ohio. He is a professor of history at Wittenberg University specializing in the “Meiji Period” of Japanese development (19th century). We talked for 8 hours straight while drinking tea, eating pie, and going out for Mexican. It was one of those rare bubbles of time that only seem to last the briefest of moments.

Continuing along this stream of consciousness… I need to find another copy of "The Book of Tea" by Okakura Kakuzo. I think I loaned it to a friend in medical school and have not seen it since. The author was a Japanese scholar who wrote it in English at the turn of the last century as a sort of apologetic for the Japanese way of life. The peculiar language usage and Taoist/Zen philosophy make this one of the most intriguing books I’ve ever encountered. The poetic description/explanation of the Japanese Tea Ceremony is breathtaking. The flavor of it is very much like the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and other services of the Eastern Orthodox Church, ie, the importance of aesthetics, ritual, the sense of awe and mystery, centrality of the “cup” (tea/Eucharistic), among other things.

As I disembark from this stream I’ll leave you with my favorite excerpt from the book:

“The Taoists relate that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning, Spirit and Matter met in mortal combat. At last the Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth. The Titan, in his death agony, struck his head against the solar vault and shivered the blue dome of jade into fragments. The stars lost their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the night. In despair the Yellow Emperor sought far and wide for the repairer of the Heavens. He had not to search in vain. Out of the Eastern sea rose a queen, the divine Niuka, horn-crowned and dragon-tailed, resplendent in her armor of fire. She welded the five-coloured rainbow in her magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament. Thus began the dualism of love--two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace.

The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar.

Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things."

A Good Death

When I leave this world I want to be sitting in a bookstore at night, an old man in a big chair, crumpled sweater, baggy corduroys, & wire spectacles. I’ll have just read a beautifully melancholic passage from Kundera, feel warm and sleepy as I lay the book across my belly and nap.  The rise and fall of my chest will remind me of being on a boat out at sea rocking me to sleep. And with one big sigh the waters will calm and my soul will detach and continue on its journey, no longer sailing but flying.  If I’m lucky no one will notice. But if someone does, I hope it is a fellow booklover who may even work there. I won’t mind if her hair is a strange color or she has rings in her nose, brow and ears. I just hope she has the presence of mind to keep it to herself until after closing time when the arrival of the ambulance will not upset anyone and I’ll be long gone.

Apropos of Padrehood

Well, this year Father's Day corresponds with the Feast of Pentecost. EK graciously decided to take a long nap at the end of the Liturgy today so that we could stay for the Kneeling Vespers.

Afterwards, JB let me decide what we'd do today since it was "my" day. I thought it would be nice to wander around Kensington and check out some of the antique and used bookstores. The weather was cool and breezy and we sat outside for lunch at "The Tea Room."



After lunch we popped into my favorite used bookstore in Kensington and found they were displaying works from a Castilian artist. There were pencil drawings, etchings, wood carvings, sculptures, and watercolors all dedicated to that knight errant, Don Quixote, who just so happens to be my literary hero. Not having several hundreds of dollars to spare I had to content myself with just imagining what the various pieces would look like in my house.

Fatherhood is "quixotic." My role as a new dad seems full of impossible tasks to conquer in order to fulfill an ideal in my head, much like Don Quixote. I would extend this metaphor to include my wife, but comparing her to Pancho would be unflattering and to Dulcinea flattering, but in the wrong way.  Eventually I serendipitously came upon what it was I was meant to find in the Russian literature section, a 1916 edition of Turgeniev's "Fathers and Sons." A nice memento for my first Father's Day.

And if all that weren't enough, the day ended in the most perfect manner possible. Jennifer and I went to bed with Elias between us. He was still moving around a bit and opening his eyes intermittently when Jennifer got up to go to the bathroom. He typically rolls towards her to cuddle and/or suckle. On this particular night he heaved up a sigh, rolled over towards me, threw his little arm around my neck and promptly fell asleep with his face not two inches from my own.

A Happy Father's Day to all Fathers out there and may God grant you many many years.

Mother & Child

This year was JB's first Mother's Day! I was on my way home Sunday morning from being on call and stopped at Safeway to get flowers. It was around 8:30am and the florist section was abuzz with activity.

I found the perfect bundle of multi-colored roses and headed for the checkout. The express lane had about 5-6 guys in it, all with flowers in hand. We all had sheepish grins on our faces, mildly embarrassed as only a bunch of men can be while holding flowers in the presence of other men.

The stop for flowers was not pre-planned. I'd had three black & white photos framed together as a kind of shrine to Motherhood along with a card. The flower idea had hit me at the last minute and seeing so many other men w/the same idea I knew I was on the right track.

She loved them and I'd managed not to bumble this very important day!
 

Awed by the beauty...

Awed by the beauty of thy virginity
 and the exceeding radiance of thy purity,
Gabriel stood amazed and cried to thee,
O Mother of God.
What worthy hymn of praise can I offer unto thee?
 By what name shall I call thee?
 I am lost and bewildered.
 Wherefore as commanded, I cry to thee
 Rejoice, O Full of Grace!

from the Theotokion at Matins

Nice Bark

Abba Xanthios said, "A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge."

The first time I heard this quote it cut me to the bone. I was newly Orthodox and had begun to familiarize myself with some of the writings of the Desert Fathers. Reading their words was like taking a spotlight down into the dank dark basement of my soul and finding all kinds of terrible rotting stuff there.

A self-righteous attitude covered the walls like mold. The stink of judging and condemning others hung heavy in the air. St. Seraphim of Sarov said, "We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves." And Mother Teresa, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

The picture is of my dog, Greta. In the persistent immediacy of her canine experience she loves without restraint. When I lose my temper with her she does not look to reciprocate, but only to try and make amends. Trying to change others is hard misguided work which oftentimes simply ends up embittering us. The freedom of love is the freedom to accept others fully while working to clean out one's own basement.

Spinach Pies & Whirled Peas

My Brother-in-law was in town this past weekend and made the most scrumptious Spinach Pies. He has a strong affinity for Arabic food and culture. With all the bad publicity regarding the Arab world these days I'd like to affirm them in this little bit of culinary genius. May good food warm our hearts and make the world a more peaceful place.

En 'shallah

***

the list

the list
Originally uploaded by Aaroneous Monk.

Received a call at the clinic from my wife with a 4 item "honey do" list. Seems simple enough, but each item was at a different location and I was supposed to get them on my way home from work, during rush hour, in DC.

The only way to NOT lose the list was to write it in my palm. The list reads:

[] Dry Cleaning
[] Camera Batt
[] Subs
[] Diapers

Of note is the fact I capitalized each word (anal-retentive nature manifesting even in hastily scrawled palm-note) and the top of my index finger is sewn on from a shattered glass incident a few days prior.

This is my life, full of exciting challenges and high adventure. :^)

Peace to All,
Aaroneous

blue window

blue window original
Originally uploaded by Aaroneous Monk.

Standing in the warm glow, peering into the cold blue,

of my soul...
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.
.
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Dedicated to Shok.