Coming Home: Why I Have No Choice but to Be Orthodox

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Coming Home: Why I Have No Choice but to

Be Orthodox

Trevor Peterson

June 13, 2006

I have a general conviction about telling stories, that there is no univer-sally right way to tell them, and that this is generally a good thing. Partic-ularly in the case of telling ones own story, the process is much like memoryitselfever-changing, sometimes more lucid than others, and usually influ-enced by present circumstances. This assessment should not be taken as anexcuse for blatant dishonesty, but only an apologetic for inconsistency. Iexperienced my past as it came to me, and I experience my recollection as itcomes back. I do not stay the same, and neither do my memories. All I canpromise is that I will tell them in the most sincere way possible.

On one hand, this conviction leads me to eschew writing my stories.

Better to retell my past as I understand it at any point in time, wheneverthe need arises. Writing it all down would impose consistency that does notreally exist. It would give the impression of authority, simply by being static.On the other hand, to codify one version of my story, if understood correctly,can usefully preserve what I was thinking at the time that I wrote. It canreflect an earlier menot as early as the me that went through the events inquestion, but earlier at least than some later me that might need a reminderof what once was.

There is also a utilitarian concern, in that writing saves me the timeand trouble of articulating over and over again the same answer to the same

question. Of course, there will inevitably be follow-up questions, and thedetachment of referring an inquirer to some written text tends to suppressthe voicing of new concerns. A text that seemingly answers the major issuesmight appear to be sufficientso much so, that lesser questions are leftunasked. If no real dialog was necessary to cover the bulk of the answer, why

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bother starting one after the fact? Being a firm believer in the importance

of dialog, I want to counteract this impulse right now. If I have referred youto this text for an answer to your question (or, for that matter, if you havesimply stumbled across it somehow, and I happen to be accessible), pleaseunderstand that I want your feedback. I want this text to be a startingpoint for discussion, not the end of it. So by all means, read on. But thinkabout what you read. Critique it. Question it. And when you have finishedreading, lets share our thoughts and see where they take us.

1 Seeking a Homeland

Its always difficult to know where to start. Pick a point in timesomeevent or first thoughtand inevitably something that precedes it will showup as significant in getting there. Our lives are part of one ever-flowing riverthat begins and ends in God. Let me take as one example the wanderingimpulse that runs through my maternal grandparents and their descendants.For all I know, it might go back further than that, but this is my story, andtwo generations back is far enough. My grandparents have lived in over 100placesnot because of military or job transfersthey just move around alot. My aunt has tended to do the same thing, and so have my parents.We lived in eight different places before I was a teenager, and most of ourmoves were out of state. It seems weird to my wife, but for me it was all

I knew. I adapted well for the most part, although I cant say I was muchfor building long-term friendships. We did stay put throughout my teenageyears, but after I got married, my parents started moving again and haventreally stopped.

Im getting ahead of myself, but let me finish this out. I now look atmy parents moving around from a few different perspectives. Personally, Idont want the same lifestyle. Its possible that I may have no choice butto move around for a career or other circumstances. But if I could havemy way, I would prefer a more rooted existence. To be born, raised, liveout my life, and die in one valley sounds to me like paradise. Im speaking

here of physical location, but theres another perspective more relevant tothe matter at handin my mind, something very similar has been goingon. I have wandered far and wide, and now I am passionately searching forrootedness. Was my mental wandering my own way of living out the sameimpulse that runs in my family? Perhaps. At least, it helps me to sympathize

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with my parents and provides some beginnings of an explanation for my own

condition. The account might be cleaner if I didnt have to bring it up, butsomething would probably be missed in the process. But its time that wegot down to the real point of this narrative.

2 A Wandering Aramean

My own wandering started toward the end of seminary. Oh, there had beenother minor ventures before that. I always liked to be different. I was aboutthe only outspoken Evangelical in my high school, and I liked debating ethicsand science with my classmates and teachers. Even in church, most people

believed in eternal security of salvation, so I didnt. That changed in college,but after one of the professors was fired for holding a somewhat extremeview on a picky theological issue, I ended up adopting the same view. Ispecifically chose a seminary with a very conservative doctrinal position,but then I went and got caught in the middle of a theological controversy.Through all of this, though, I never seriously questioned anything central toEvangelical Christianity. It was only once I got into the role of an adjunctprofessor that the serious questions began.

Throughout high school and college, I accepted the standard Evangelicalview that right study of the Bible and right theology always go hand-in-hand. That was the point of going to Bible collegeso I could learn the

Bible better, which would lead to better understanding of theology, whichwould produce better ministry. At least, that was the logical way it oughtto have worked. In practice, it never did. We started learning systematictheology and studying the Bible in English at the same time. What biblicalmaterial we started with was less theologically significant narrativelesssignificant in Evangelicalism, that isso by the time we got to Pauls letters,where the real meat of doctrine was found, we already had a solid foundationof theological training. The last step in the process was that which shouldhave been firstthe study of biblical languages. I thought at the time that itwas unfortunate but practically necessary. Looking back on it now, it seems

more revealing of a fatal flaw. Our theology was shaping our understandingof the Bible, because it had to. I dont know how many of our teachers knewthat, but it is obvious to me now.

Perhaps the single most important lesson I learned in seminary was thatthe process could be reversed. It was possible to study the Bible intensively

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(now on a foundation of Biblical Greek and eventually Hebrew) and to draw

conclusions that didnt necessarily fit with any particular theological system.My job was simply to understand the Bible for what it said and shape mybeliefs and conduct accordingly. The lesson was idealistic, though, as I beganto see when theological controversy erupted and I found myself on the wrongside. Yes, there was freedom to follow my own reading of the Bible, but onlywithin certain rigid boundaries. These boundaries bothered me, and I beganto look outside at what lay beyond. I had decided to pursue a career inacademics, so I was looking for Ph.D. programs. I determined that I wouldnot attend another seminary but would get my degree from a university. Ineeded some fresh perspective. I also began to read outside my tradition.I had dabbled throughout seminaryenough to take pot-shots in assigned

position papers. But now I was starting to realize that there was genuinevalue to be found in the work of other scholars. As I prepared to teachclasses, I read a wider range of viewpoints than ever before, and I found init much that made sense.

There were a couple of particular issues in biblical scholarship that gotmy attention. One was the set of literary approaches referred to somewhaterroneously as rhetorical criticism. (It includes genuine rhetorical criticism,but it includes several other areas as well. The problem is in the history ofthe discipline, since literary criticism was already in use for the parsingof texts into historical sources.) The other was the so-called minimalist

historical controversy. What I think drew me to these two viewpoints inparticular was that they both ran somewhat counter to the historical-criticalarguments I had been taught to despise. The literary approaches were unifiedby their treatment of the biblical text in its final formas a cohesive literarywhole, without immediate concern for its historical development. Granted,it was generally assumed that the text was based on earlier sources, and ifanything, its date of final composition was even later and its contents evenless connected to the past events than in the theories I disliked so much. But Istill felt like I had found an ally, in that we could put aside our disagreements,sit down, and talk about the biblical text as it is. The historical minimalistcamp might seem like a less likely association for an Evangelical, but their

arguments generally required them to repudiate the standard model of thehistorical development of Biblical Hebrew. Granted, they concluded that thematerial was generally late, rather than early, but the shared opposition tofinding direct evidence of a long textual history in the language seemed tome like a good thing.

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As I read more and more about these two approaches, particularly on

the literary side (although this is a somewhat artificial distinction, sincethe minimalist position also stresses the literary quality of the texts), I wasintroduced to, and found much to like about, postmodern literary criticism. Ididnt get much chance to deal with such things in my university classes, butin my spare time I was getting acquainted with literary analysis both insideand outside of biblical scholarship. My conviction that meaning comes mostlyfrom the reader was steadily growing, and the implications were beginningto weigh on my mind. Initially, I thought that perhaps such a view could bereconciled with biblical inspiration by simply allowing that God gave us theBible to use, even if that sometimes means we learn from critiquing the Biblerather than accepting what it says. But I saw that this notion could only lead

to relativism, since ones critique would come from various personal factorsthat may or may not be from God. I realized that the reading communityhad to play a significant role somehow in the process. I could see that thishappened whether by intention or otherwise, as for instance it happenedthat most Evangelicals accepted the views taught by their church leadership,even if the Bible was supposed to be the source of authority. The sharpdisagreements between different Evangelical communities were not normallya problem, because they never bothered to look far enough outside to noticethem.

3 From the Desert of Paran

This focus on the community came together with some other things goingon in my life at the time. I have always struggled on and off with my prayerlife, and I had tried some different strategies to revitalize it. I tried whatessentially amounted to Orthodox Christian fasting. (My intention was tomimic Coptic Christian fasting, but I could find only limited sources on thatin particular, and the difference is somewhat negligible anyway.) I triedpraying with a Jewish siddur (prayer book). These strategies would helpfor a while, but eventually the strain of doing them on my own, with no

communal support, would become too much, and I would give up. I had alsonoticed how it seemed that Evangelicalism is afraid of traditionthat it willnot admit when it has a tradition, and often changes its strategy so as not tocreate what might look like a tradition. Similarly, it calls itself non-liturgical,but the same general set of songs is sung regularly, the service is configured

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more or less the same way from week to week, and the prayers use similar

language and themes. I thought that a community that took more seriouslythe role of tradition and its own influence on the way its members read wouldat least be more honest. So it came into my mind that if I were ever to makeany real progress, I would need to seek out and join myself to a traditionalcommunity.

Orthodox Judaism was a natural first place for me to look. I had had someinterest in Judaism from an early age anyway, and it had grown significantlyin recent years. A friend had introduced me to Chaim Potoks books, whichportrayed for me a world in which study was devotionnot entirely unlikeEvangelicalism, but with a great deal more depth. Also, I was studyingSemitic languages, so the idea of praying in Hebrew and studying the Talmud

in Aramaic appealed to me. If I had to pick some tradition, this seemed likea good candidate. I started to gather informationbrowsed what I couldfind on the Internet, signed up on some e-mail listseven concluded thatif I were going to convert, it would have to be an Orthodox conversion.But I never really took any meaningful steps. Perhaps if I had bothered todeal with the New Testament the way I had with the Old, I would haveconcluded that Jesus was probably nothing more than a popular Jewishteacher whose followers got carried away after he died. But I could notreally see myself rejecting Jesus as Messiah, and it seemed inevitable thatI would be expected to do so explicitly, since I was coming from such a

strong Christian background. I also knew that my wife would never go alongwith it, and I was not prepared to give up the expert status I had earnedwithin Christianity to start over as a convert who was expected to absorband accept, not to question and challenge.

I thought for a while that Messianic Judaism might be a suitable compro-mise. An acquaintance had introduced me to a type of Messianic Judaismthat teaches Torah obedience for all Christians. I figured I could get at leastsome of Jewish tradition, including Talmud study (since theres no compa-rable Christian source to consult for the application of Torah to daily life)and prayer in Hebrew, without giving up faith in Jesus or asking my wifeto leave Christianity. Since I wouldnt have to go through any type of for-

mal conversion, I could keep my expert status and jump right away into thedebate over what faith and practice ought to look like. The one naggingproblem that I had with the idea was the role of tradition. In this respect,Messianic Judaism would not be much different from what I already knew.It would pick and choose from Jewish tradition whatever was determined by

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individual study to be appropriate. And the whole system was based on a

reconstruction of early Christianity that depended on sufficient scholarshipand might one day be overturned as easily as it had been established. Ithought for a time that I could get past this problem, but ultimately I couldnot.

4 Passing Through Samaria

This desire for real tradition, however, was not what pushed me over theedge. Oddly enough, it was a film review written by a Sephardic Jew thatled to my final break with Judaism. Like, I suppose, many others, our

church decided to capitalize on the release of Mel Gibsons The Passion ofthe Christ by scheduling a few discussion sessions for those who had seen orwere interested in the movie. As adult Bible study coordinator and residentexpert on Aramaic, I was naturally part of the group that organized thesessions. Because of my association with Judaism, I offered to prepare somematerial on anti-Semitism in the movie. I knew I would be able to gathera list of the possible criticisms from several posts that had appeared on theJewish e-mail lists that I read. By far, the most insightful review that Icame across was written by David Shasha, editor of the Sephardic HeritageUpdate, an electronic newsletter devoted to issues of concern to the SephardicJewish community. I subscribed to his newsletter and went looking on the

Internet to see if he had written anything else or perhaps had his own Website. What little I found included an editorial he had tried to publish in anewspaper but ended up instead having it posted on an e-mail list calledshamireaders. Discovering this list marked a major turning point for me inboth the political and the religious arenas.

shamireaders is a distribution list with over 1000 subscribers. It is usedby Israel Shamir to post his writings and other writings that he thinks hisreaders might appreciate. He also runs a discussion list with a much smallermembership called togethernet. I read a little bit and decided to subscribeto both. Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalista Russian Jew by birth,

but recently a convert to Orthodox Christianity. With the beginning of thesecond intifada he started writing in English to protest the policies of thestate of Israel and advocate a one-state solution to the conflict. Through hiswritings, I was reminded of some things I ought to have known. Christianityhas long been a part of Arab society, while Ashkenazic Jewry is something

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completely foreign to the region. As Shasha frequently points out, Israeli

policy is dominated by Ashkenazic, not Sephardic Jews, the latter of whomgenerally got along quite well with their Christian and Muslim neighborsbefore the Zionist venture. Shamir stresses the environmental and socialdestruction of Palestine by Zionism and the closer relationship that oughtto exist between Christians and Muslims, who at least agree that Jesus is aprophet, that he was born of a virgin, was taken to heaven, and is comingback at the end of the world. His position is exaggerated in some respects,but it seems to me that this is intentional embellishment, to counteract theprejudices of the West.

Changing sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict was a paradigm shift forme that radically re-aligned my thinking about religion as well as politics.

Shamirs preference for Orthodox Christianity over Evangelicalism (which hecharacterizes as Christian Zionist) also pointed the way to another traditionthat I ought to explore. As I came to realize that I would not fit very wellinto a Messianic congregation as an anti-Zionist, it also occurred to me thatChristianity had already been through this once before. No one denies thatChristianity and Judaism started closer together than they are now. Andthere probably were those who wanted to take the kind of path laid outby the Messianic groups. So why didnt Christianity in general go downthat road? I figured if anyone had a response, it would be in the patristictradition, which was yet another reason to look at Orthodox Christianity.

I found this answer (in the writings of Justin Martyr, for one), and I alsofound that Orthodoxy took what I considered to be a more appropriate stancetoward Middle East peace issues than most of what I saw in Evangelicalism.But the more important question was whether it could be the authoritative,traditional community that I sought.

5 A City with Foundations

What I discovered about Orthodoxy genuinely surprised me. I went lookingfor a traditional community that took seriously its interpretive role, and I

did find that. But even more, I found that this was Gods plan all along.He had established the Church, even before giving the New Testament, to bethe controlling voice for interpreting the Bible. I had envisioned the Bibleas a text divorced from its author, now irretrievable through the passageof time, and incapable of true dialog. But in the context of the Church, it

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remains part of a living dialog, because the same tradition that gave birth

to the Bible continues to speak. Because the Spirit indwells the believingcommunity, the very author of Scripture speaks in the reading communityand shapes the readers perception in conformity to Gods will. This is therole that tradition was always meant to play, and the role that it did playuntil the Reformation. I realized that, where the Reformers thought theyhad found a useful tool with which to critique the flawed tradition of theWest, they actually got more than they bargained for and unleashed a forcethat could only lead in the end to pure relativism. Liberal theology went thatway long ago, and it is only the conservative impulse of Evangelicalismthatboundary that seemed misplaced to me in seminarythat prevents it fromdoing the same. But Evangelicalism is living a contradiction; the best of

its theology it retains from a tradition it no longer accepts, and the more itembraces its fundamental notion of sola scriptura, the more fragmented itbecomes.

So Orthodox Christianity provided the answer I had been seeking. Butcould I accept everything that went along with it? Remember, one of myobstacles with Judaism was that converting would require me to accept ev-erything implicitly. Not that there is never room for disagreement or inde-pendent thinking within a traditional framework; there can actually be quitea bit of freedom, and the boundaries are more logical than in Evangelicalism.But I still think its rude to convert to a belief system with a whole stack of

conditions and exceptions. Part of what had sent me looking in the directionof Judaism was a feeling that it involved less, or less offensive, baggage thantraditional Christianity. The prayers in the siddur might not have anythingabout Jesus, but they didnt have anything about Mary or saints, either. Notthat its all subtraction to get from Evangelicalism to Judaism, but at leastthe additions havent been the subject of a major protestant movement inmy own ecclesiastical background. Eastern Orthodoxy has some advantageover Roman Catholicism, in that it is not guilty of some of the specific abusesthat provoked the Reformation. It also shares Protestantisms opposition topapism and such Western doctrines as the immaculate conception of Maryand the need to pay off temporal debts for sin in purgatory. But Orthodoxy

has a lot in common with Catholicism from an Evangelical standpointtheuse of images in worship, veneration of and prayer to saints and Mary, accep-tance of the Apocrypha, priestly orders, and sacraments. Then there are thetrappingscandles, incense, liturgical format, and signing the cross. Sur-prisingly, these things were not as difficult for me to get over as I would have

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thought.

I had done some reading about Orthodoxy a few years earlier, back whenI was looking for information about Coptic Christianity and found EasternOrthodoxy as a convenient bridge to the more obscure Oriental traditions.So I had encountered explanations of some of these practices before, andsome of them had made quite a bit of sense at the time, even though Ididnt think much about changing my own practice. For instance, Orthodoxapologists argue that their form of worship involves the whole person. Not

just the mind, but all five senses are usedthe taste of the bread and wine,the smell of the incense, the sight of the icons and candles, the feel of kissingicons and relics, the sound of bells and chants. There is also more actionon the part of the congregantslighting candles, venerating icons, chanting

along with most of the service, bowing, crossing, etc. This made a lot ofsense to me, and the fact that OT worship set a similar precedent suggestedan appropriateness I had not considered before. Also, the notion that iconsstand in for persons who are physically absent but spiritually present, whichis grounded in a concept of the church that includes both the living andthe dead in a very real way, seemed to me a proper response to the beliefin an afterlife that most Evangelicals would share. I could accept that anicon represents a spiritual reality and is not an object of worship in itself,that the incarnation of the Son added a physical dimension to worship that isappropriately expressed now, as we recognize the divine and spiritual through

the human and physical.As I came back to investigate Orthodoxy again, I was reminded of thesearguments that had made sense to me before. I also recognized that the

justification of icons at the seventh ecumenical council really was a contin-uation of the Christological focus of the earlier councils. If Jesus is fullyGod and fully human, then it is appropriate to contemplate him in a phys-ical way when we worship. Also, as I have tried it out for myself, I havefound the practical benefit of adding a visual component to worship. Wherepraying with my eyes closed still allows my mind to conjure inappropriateor distracting images, keeping my eyes focused on an icon provides positivereinforcement of the task at hand.

My already strong focus on community made it easy to accept other as-pects of Orthodox practice. I can recognize the importance of the saints, aschampions of the faith, whose lives guide us much like Paul said to imitatehim, and who pray ceaselessly for Christians. If they prayed for others onearth, how much more do they pray before the throne of God in heaven?

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We honor them for the mighty ways in which God has used them, and for

their significant role in the life of the Church. If we give honor to celebritiesand political leaders for their accomplishments in this world, how much moreshould we honor those who have shown us Christ so vividly with their lives?I can also see the importance of the priesthood in the life of the commu-nity. What ministries and blessings belong to the Church belong to all ofus collectively. But distinct roles are necessary for some types of experience.For instance, private confession before God is well and good, but on a veryhuman level there is something different about confessing aloud to anotherperson who is vividly present and responsive. The priest can stand in thisrole, to receive our confession as Gods representative.

The sacraments were also easy for me to accept. Of course, God wants

to sanctify our whole existence, including the material world around us. Ofcourse, the incarnation shows this intention most clearly. Sacrament is noth-ing more than an extension of the incarnation, as the Spirit of God worksthrough things in the world around us, allowing us to experience grace withour whole persons, both spiritual and physical. Where Evangelicalism tendsto separate the spiritual events from the physical, Orthodoxy keeps themtogether as a mystery, without analyzing them to death as in scholasticCatholicism.

6 The Gate is Narrow

So on the belief front, I moved pretty rapidly to a point of complete accep-tance. I can say now that I know of nothing in the dogmatic teaching ofOrthodox Christianity that I would disagree with, and I am fully preparedto accept whatever the tradition might have left to teach me. In terms ofpractice, however, I am still just getting started. Initially, I followed some-thing like the same strategy Id used with Judaism. I picked up an Orthodoxprayer book and began to use it as regularly as I could manage. For quitesome time, that was about as far as it went, but I was getting good expo-sure to the core ideas of Orthodoxy and growing accustomed to things like

crossing myself and prostrations. My wife had not thought much of my ideaabout becoming Messianic Jewish, and although she was glad to hear that Iwas giving up on that idea, she was even less enthusiastic about Orthodoxy.I understood her prejudices, because Id had the same objections myself foryears without ever giving them a second thought. I had been highly moti-

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vated to learn otherwise, but she was not. She was quite content with her

faith and spiritual life, and to a certain extent, I was reluctant to upset that.While I had drifted far and wide in my thinking about Christianity, desper-ately seeking some peace and fulfillment, she had had these things all along.No matter how much I felt that I had found the truth, I could not shake thesuspicion that it might not be what I thought, and I would have to go on tosomething else. I did not want to ruin what she already had for the sake ofwhat I might or might not find.

I knew I had to attend an actual service, so I found a nearby parish and,with my wifes consent, I visited one Sunday morning. It was unfamiliar anda bit awkward, but certainly more palatable than I had expected. I had novisions, no realization that this was exactly where I needed to be. It was

just a so-so, vague experience that didnt seem to mean much of anythingone way or the other. I continued reading and praying occasionally, but notmuch happened for the next few months. I didnt want to pressure my wife,but I also didnt want us heading in two different directions. More and more,though, I felt like I had to do something, so eventually we had to revisit theissue.

On the advice of an Orthodox acquaintance at school, I had been focusingon the cross during prayer, and it seemed like it was time to see about gettingsome icons. I had read somewhere about people carrying diptychs when theytravel, and I thought that might be the best option. Since I knew my wife

would find it offensive to have a full icon corner, this way I could put theicons away when I wasnt using them. I asked her about it, and she endedup going along with the idea (although reluctantly, and with the stipulationthat she didnt want to see them), but she admitted that shed been hopingI would just lose interest in Orthodoxy. I explained that that wasnt likely,but we left it at that.

It happened a little later that Id lost track of time while thinking aboutwhether I would fast for Lent or not, and when I realized that Orthodox Lentwas about to begin, I figured God was giving me a second chance. (If youdont know, some Orthodox still follow the old Julian calendar, which putsall of their feasts out of sync with the West, but pretty much all Orthodox

observe a different schedule for Pascha and the holidays that are linked toit.) When my wife went away for a week to visit some family, I figured itwas a good opportunity to attend an Orthodox service again. This time,I prepared by reading through the liturgy and listening several times to arecording. It ended up being a much more fulfilling experience, and I felt

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comfortable even with prostrations at the end and going up to venerate the

cross. I also got to hang around afterward and talk to some people. Severalof them had gone through periods when one spouse was Orthodox but theother was not. I found it encouraging that my experience was not unusualand that there was some hope that my wife would eventually come around.When I talked to her about it later and said it had given me some hope, shesaid there was no hope, and that led to further discussion. I tried to explainhow serious I was about this, and how shed at least have to accept that thiswas what I was doing. It was obvious, though, that we had to start findinga way to communicate better about the situation.

7 The Road is DifficultI suggested that it was probably time to consult with our pastor, both so hewould know what was on my mind and could determine what he thought itwould mean for my ministry and presence at our church, and so we couldget some guidance on our situation with each other. I figured my wife wouldappreciate having someone on her side and might be more willing to discussissues than in a situation where she felt like she was alone. I was also willingto take whatever advice we could get about working through this kind ofdifference, since wed never had to deal with anything similar in our rela-tionship. Opening up to him was a big step for me, because although I had

considered conversion before to differing degrees, until this point I had nevertalked to anyone in my Evangelical sphere, other than my wife. I didnt wantto introduce the problem by phone or e-mail if it could be avoided, so I set upa brief meeting with him to explain the situation and give him some time tothink about what we should do next. He agreed that the three of us shouldmeet and advised that we start from what we had in common, which wasstill quite a bit.

Our pastor also mentioned that two visits wasnt much to go by. Im notsure what he meant by that, but I took it to mean that if I was serious, I oughtto be visiting Orthodox services more often. Before the three of us could meet

together I got another opportunity when my Orthodox acquaintance fromschool invited me to join him for a Good Friday service. It was a wonderfulexperiencestill no epiphany, but this was my first time in a real Orthodoxchurch building, which made a significant difference in the effect. The musicalso had a somewhat more Eastern flavor than what Id heard before, and

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there were no rows of chairs to obstruct movement. I had thought before

that I would prefer these elements, and I was glad to find that I in fact did.

8 The Road Goes Ever On

So there you have it. Thats where I left off, apparently about a year agonow. A lot has happened since then. I attended Pentecost Divine Liturgyand Kneeling Vespers back at the first parish Id visited. (I think that wasa Fathers Day treat that my wife allowed.) That summer, while we wereat the beach with another couple, we all visited a small mission parish forSaturday Vespers, which was my wifes first Orthodox service of any type.

It wasnt a great experience, since there were more of us than there wereOrthodox people. Ive managed to get her to two other services since, buther impression hasnt changed much. Over the past year, Ive tried to catchspecial services. Ive also met with Fr. Gregorythe priest from that parishI visited on Good Friday last yearperhaps every couple of months. Eachtime weve met has provided another opportunity to visit a service.

I met a guy at work whos Russian-American and attends a ROCORparish. Ive managed to visit there once, and a smaller ROCOR parish thatscloser to where I live on a few occasions. They had an open house severalmonths ago, so I went to that and stayed for Vigil afterward. I went backthere during Lent this year while my wife was out of town and met with Fr.

George. Im torn between the twogood people and good priests at both,each with its unique characteristics. But thinking about my wife tends topush the balance away from the ROCOR parish. Its quite small, which shegenerally doesnt like in any church, the services are longer, and if I could gether to meet with a priest, I think shed probably butt heads with Fr. George.For now, though, I like the fact that I can often catch a holiday service bypicking from two options, with one parish on the Orthodox calendar and theother on the Western.

Ive done a lot of reading, a lot of praying, got to know some good Or-thodox people, and I now have no doubt that I would convert as soon as my

family situation allowed it. Ive asked both priests about converting on myown, and theyre pretty reluctant. So I press on. Ive talked to quite a fewEvangelical friends about it. There was the couple we vacationed with lastsummer, two different small groups at churchone last year, and one thisyearone-on-one conversations with two or three good friends, and another

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scheduled for this Friday. Ive brought one friend to a regular service, and

three other friends came with me to the Pascha service this year. In general,our conversations are positive. They might have some personal reservations,but for the most part they dont have much objection to my interest. Imstarting to feel more comfortable about bringing it up in various circles. Justthis week, I bought a few icons for my station at work.

One way or another, I still have a long road before me. But Im encour-aged by the way it has gone so far, and I look forward with hope that Christwill lead me exactly where he wants me.

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Coming Home: Why I Have No Choice but to Be Orthodox

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