Holy Wednesday, Chickens, and Garden

As we're in the middle of Holy Week, we are very busy doing nothing but going to church. Church in the morning, church in the evening--each at least 1 1/2 hours, and tomorrow's service is between 3 and 3 1/2 hours long. But we're loving every moment--except for that moment when Zac wakes up and says "I don't want to go to church!" and then he gets over it. :-)

I've been doing my share of chanting for the services--the morning Presanctified services I've been in charge of, with a great group of women helping me. The evening services are bigger, of course, and I've been helping also with the chanting there. The women from the choir came last night and sang the Hymn of Kassiane. But you know what? All that chanting leaves my voice very tired. And again like last year, when I was singing the hymn of Kassiane this morning (we do it for the evening service and the morning service) I couldn't do it without my voice giving out. I was glad for Paul helping me out this year. I'm not sure I'd have gotten through it. It's a long hymn.

Tonight is the Holy Unction service, or the annointing with Holy Oil, or healing service. All the hymns focus on the healing ministry of Christ and the church. At the end we are each annointed with Holy Oil. We pray for the healing of soul and body. Now, we don't try to define how that healing comes, or what specifically it will look like. We come, with the understanding that each of us are wounded people and we need the healing of the church and the community. We need more opportunities to come together for healing, like the Forgiveness Vespers I wrote about at the beginning of Lent.

When we were first thinking about becoming Orthodox, only a few weeks after our first service in the Orthodox church, we came to the Holy Wednesday healing service. I was personally looking very much forward to it for a specific reason: I was in a deep depression that I was in counseling for. I really felt the need for the healing powers of the church, for those prayers, for the people around me to buoy me up and bring me closer to God. When we got to the church, we found that Holy Unction is a sacrament and as such, it is reserved for Orthodox Christians. Since we had not converted yet, we were not allowed to be annointed. We left early because I was so upset about this. There was a power there, something to that oil, that touch, that community. I can understand why it is only for Orthodox Christians, but it was something that I desired at that moment. When we became Orthodox, our priest performed an annointing just for me. And I think of that every Holy Wednesday.
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On to a report on our chickens! While we were in Mexico, we asked a neighbor to take care of the chickens. When we returned, she told us that they laid about 20 eggs while we were gone! That was more eggs than we'd gotten from them the whole time we've had them. And we've been getting two or three a day after that! We are finding out why eggs are such an integral part of Easter (and I believe they are also, maybe not as much, part of the Passover meal). Chickens, as I did not know before I had hens of my own, lay eggs seasonally. In the winter months when there's not much light they slow or stop laying altogether. At this time of year, they begin to pick up with the laying. Thus, if you have eggs this time of year, you add them to your celebration!
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One good Holy Week thing to do, I think, is to weed. Thank goodness for that, we've got lots of....well, not exactly weeds, and we actually inadvertently planted them. Remember when we converted our lawn to garden bed? One of the layers was straw. Or hay. I'm not sure which. But it was the one that has seeds in it. So, we now have zillions of oat plants coming up. Since we don't really care to have a bumper crop of oats (a small amount would be fine, but I really wanted other things too...) we are finding ourselves pulling up little oat grasses. Talk about reaping what you sow. I did some of that today, and also noticed all the plants that are coming up! I need to get out the chart I did for what's planted where, so I can identify all of them, but I think I've got chard and beets, radishes for sure, and basil. Also artichokes and mint and a bit of lettuce. Someone, I can't remember who or even if it was someone who would know, told me that artichokes grow here, but they produce woody flowers that aren't edible. So, they're beautiful but you can't eat them. Which explained why there was an artichoke plant that we'd pass all the time that grew beautiful artichokes, but the owner of them never harvested them, and they went to seed. But I'm not inclined to believe that I can't grow edible artichokes without a try, so I did plant them. Anyone have any more info on that?