I am the priest at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Cedar Rapids, IA. It took me twenty six years and a long and fairly succesful incursion in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to start on this road, but here I am, hoping to learn how to pray, how to live, and how to love. These are my thoughts, questions, musings, wonderings, as I try to serve God.
posted by Virgil Petrisor at 11:05 AM
I was born in Bacau, Romania a fair while ago. After moving around - first within Romania, then to Nigeria and back to Romania - I came to the US a millennium ago (or thereabouts). I have a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Midwestern State University, and an MSCSE and PhD from the University of Notre Dame. I was the intramural champion at one mile at MSU and our team won the intramural championship in soccer at ND. I have studied voice for eight years (tenor). Now I have reached what I believe to be my true place in life as a servant of the Church.
6 Comments:
Yes, but if you end up selling your car to a non-Orthodox, you have to burn 'em.
Now that you mention it, Father, Magda likes to name her cars. This one has accumulated three so far. We finished our transaction with the dealer on the evening of the 12th (after Vespers and thus, liturgically, the 13th) so we started calling it Lucy (her, Magda insists).
The next day Magda went shopping and was afraid she wouldn't find the car, so she started singing "Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?" And the car became Lucy Scooby-Doo.
Since we had the blessing this morning after the Liturgy, Magda decided that the name of the car will be Lucy Scooby-Doo Ioanna Ford. So it's all tied up in Orthodox references. I'm not sure we're allowed to sell it to a non-Orthodox. :)
in Christ,
vp
I may not have the following story exactly right but you will see the point easily enough: Two monks have a question for the abbot about smoking and prayer. The first monk goes to the abbot and a few minutes later comes back looking chagrined. "What did you ask?" said the first monk. The second monk replied, "I asked if it was okay to smoke cigars while praying and the abbot seemed to be annoyed by my question." "Hm. Let me go ask the question." said the first monk. A few minutes later the first monk came back smiling while lighting up a cigar. "What did he say? Do you ask him the question about prayer and cigars?" asked the second monk. "Yes" said the first monk, "I asked him if it was okay to pray while smoking a cigar."
See the point?
So, consider what your wife said the other way 'round: Is it okay to use holy water on wipers? Answer: For a blessing for the car and its occupants, sure it is.
I think I've heard a similar story at some point. Nonetheless, it was quite enjoyable. Thank you.
As for the use of wipers on holy water, I was just amused by my wife's question. The way I see it, all of creation needs as much blessing as it can get. At the beginning of the school year we have a blessing of the waters and then go around campus blessing the trees and flowers. So using the wipers on holy water would just be an opportunity for another little patch of ground to be blessed, wherever the water happened to fall off the car.
in Christ,
vp
Exactly right (from my point of view). Humanity is hurting and the more blessings and subsequent raising of attention is a good thing.
Additional note: Perhaps you could encourage the GOC to put your seminary's classes online as OpenCourseWare like they do at M.I.T. (see http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html & http://www.opencontent.org/ocwfinder/) and other universities. Also, iPod casting of the lectures at your seminary wouldn't be a bad thing either.
Just a thought or two.
It's a good thought and I'll suggest it to the people in charge here. Unfortunately for now (and the foreseeable future) they are rather swamped with fairly critical things (network problems, semi-functional website...).
in Christ,
vp
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