You go girl(s)!

This ‘cast was a surprise to me. The ladies were so candid, so grounded and down to earth.

God bless them all.

Thanks Grumpy Old Man, we had so much fun doing it, and hopefully didn’t sound as nervous as we felt.

I’m with Jennifer – unorthodox is lame!!! I enjoyed listening, and had a few thoughts of my own, So he’s another newly illumined woman’s response☺

I’ve spent so much time in the “music ministries” of protestant, then lirturgical protestant charismatic churches, and had become so disenchanted, with (among other things) the performance aspect of a service. I knew how to put on a good show, I knew how to move an audience with music, how to build excitement and bring them to their feet, but more and more it just felt like it was me on the stage, a voice on the microphone, a guitar playing a solo that brought the “revival” feeling, the warm fuzzy jumping up and down, not an honest true expression of the church. I wanted to know how this connected with the church Christ began, and I knew that the “spirit” leading it all was often not the Holy Spirit, but something different entirely. It was about doing something “new”, a new word, a new song, a new expression, on to the next best thing, and there’s an emptiness there.

Now I had visited Orthodox churches before (in Los Angeles, as well as in Greece) but like Father said, I couldn’t experience it really as a casual observer, even an interested one. The change that occurred in me before my first service at St John’s was a complete departure from everything I had assumed to be true, and even in my first visit, the questions and cries inside me began to be answered by the honesty of the Divine Liturgy, in the songs that were sung with focus on Christ not just performance and musical excellence.

Like you said, we knew that if this wasn’t it, then there was nowhere else to go, this was the final step, it had to be home or there was no home. I had this strange mix between fear and hope that this was what we thought it was, what we needed it to be, and amazingly enough, it was. For once it wasn’t a clever sermon, a great band, or even interesting and fun people (I miss you guys!) that spoke to me, but something altogether different. It wasn’t all easy and fun, all user friendly, but when we drove home from a service there, all I could think of was how I loved it… not how difficult Misha was, or how I wish I knew the songs better, but just a peace, like coming home.

There is a new simplicity too, like Mary said. A holistic approach to church affects the way I look at everything, from prayer, to eating, to education and politics. Everything looks different now, and humility, not large diamond and designer clothes that is the true treasure.

It’s hard to place the feeling, but having left everything that was once familiar, and coming into Orthodoxy, I felt almost a hunger that I didn’t know was there begin to be satisfied, and now, that hunger is what drives me forward to learn to live this amazingly counter cultural and inspiring Orthodox life.

Elina, I totally agree. For me it was really and truly like coming home for the first time. I’m so glad that I’ve made this journey with some very close friends, but it is something that I truly feel I could have done even without a huge exodus. love you and miss you guys!