To be or not to be?

With Gregg and Pete moving on to other things, it seems only natural for me to say goodbye too. I haven’t had the time to write a thoughtful post since March or rather I haven’t made the time. With so many other commitments in my life right now, regular posting just isn’t feasible. I would hate to see this wonderful project die, so my proposal to you, dear readers, is please let me know how to spend my energy. What topics would you like to read about? Maybe we can get some guest bloggers to keep things lively.
So while this is goodbye for now, hopefully a sabbatical and your interests will spark this blog to continue.

-Olivia

Goodbye

I’m afraid that the time has come for me to leave this blog and start out on my own! Holy Protection was a huge step for me and an amazing experience that I will never forget. I’ve met many friends and amazing people through it and I’m sad to see it go. I’m not leaving the blogosphere altogether though, you can continue to follow my journey over at http://www.eleisonblog.org. Eleison Blog I hope will be a resource for me to write with greater focus on sexuality and continuing that discussion within the Orthodox Church. You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/eleisonblog. I wish you all a blessed Pascha!

Christ is risen!

-Gregg

Heaven, hell, death, and Lent

In Orthodox theology we believe that heaven and hell are actually the same place. We all go to be with God after death. For some of us this is pure heavenly bliss and for others this is eternal hell and torment. Though there are many unknowns about what eternal life is actually like, we know that Christ is risen and death is conquered. According to the last line of St. John Chrysostom’s Paschal homily, “Christ is risen and the demons shutter, Christ is risen and no one is in the grave. Christ is risen and life reins.” Those dead to us are alive in Christ.
My grandmother died recently and her death has left me a lot to ponder. She was Christian, but she was not Orthodox. In fact, only my immediate family is Orthodox. I have been to my share of funerals and have now grieved the loss of all of my grandparents. The more people profess Christ during their lifetime, the more those left on Earth feel certain that they went to heaven. All grieving family members want to have certainty that their loved one is experiencing heaven. We console ourselves that the deceased’s suffering is now over. We would like to think that we too will go to heaven some day to be with God and our departed loved ones. We are all going to the same place, but the unknown is if we will experience it as heaven or hell. The death of a loved one makes us ponder our own mortality. This is also timely to ponder as Lent approaches.
As we start Lent, it is helpful to ponder our sins and make a contrite repentance. The gospel reading for the past Sunday was Matthew 25- The Sheep and the Goats at the Last Judgment. We all want to be sheep. In Matthew 25 we are given three parables that help us to understand the preparations we must make to experience heaven. Reread them while you ponder the coming celebration of Christ’s resurrection and your mortality. Please comment with your thoughts!

-Olivia

Resignation: Abdicating the “seat of Peter”

It has been a long time coming that I have considered doing this, but circumstances being what they are, now is probably the time to put my authoritative and editorial seal on it.

I am formally exiting the stage of this humble blog.

Holy Protection has been a place for me to be with my Orthodox family around the country (and Canada), and I am so blessed to have been able to be a part of something that grew from a bit of a random Facebook post, asking who would like to start an Orthoblog with me.  Well, the Orthoblogosphere looks a tad different than it did back then, what with most of our fathers who have gone before us retiring or hiding dormant as far as the internet is concerned.  But it has been fun for me.

Emotions and Suffering

A few months ago I had a sort of emotional epiphany. Emotions that I’d never experienced and a greater overall emotional awareness happened. There were a couple of very positive things that might have triggered this but much of its origins remains a mystery. I thought I’d share a few of the consequences, good and bad, that have come from this recent emotional awakening.

Tears are beautiful. The last time I can remember truly crying, was when my grandmother died. Her death was sudden and rather unexpected; in the blink of an eye I had lost one of my closest friends and family members. I sobbed for a while outside of the emergency room where she had been rushed after suffering a brain aneurism. Since that day, tears had been notably absent from my eyes. I could get choked up at an intense movie or a heart wrenching story but tears never seemed to come. I don’t remember what story I was reading or what movie I had been watching, a few months ago, that I realized that I was shedding tears once again. The emotional barrier that had been erected in my life, impenetrable to everything except the greatest pain of loss, had begun to fall. For the last three months I’ve enjoyed this new found ability to express powerful emotion.Tears come more easily now, prompted either from reading a powerfully beautiful book like Gilead, or from a shocking and traumatic story like the recent school shooting. I’m glad for their presence because they mean that my body and my heart are on the same page and my deeper emotions can find relief physically as well as verbally.