Sunday, December 9, 2018

I went to Church Today

I went to church for the first time in months today.
I decided to revisit St. John Orthodox Cathedral, which falls under the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America. And yes, I say revisit even though St. John's used to be my home parish. It has probably been well over a year since I last visited for any kind of services - my middle daughter did take piano lessons there, so I was there at least once a week for those.

There's a few reasons I decided to go back to St. John's today. One of those reasons is the fact that I didn't really make many friends at the Greek parish and I didn't want to feel alone when I went. Another reason being my feelings about the priest at the Greek parish. And the last reason being because I felt the reason that my family left St. John's was petty and honestly not that big of an issue to begin with.

Honestly, just being back was very nice. I'm not gonna lie, there were a few times that I was almost moved to tears. I really missed being a part of the Divine Liturgy, most especially at St. John's because the choir is amazing and they way they do things just sucks you right into the liturgy. I still don't like the fact that they use less formal language in the liturgy, but again, that is a petty thing and not something to keep me from attending.

I did see a few old friends and was able to catch up with some of them. It was very pleasant, and something that I terribly missed. Friends are good, and they are great to help beat depression.

Fr. Marc, the head priest, sat with me a bit during coffee hour to let me know that I'll always be welcome there and to reach out if I need anything. And that was a very nice touch because I don't know if he knew why my family and I left St. John's or not. To be honest, I'm not even sure why we left. 

They had a kind of Bazaar today, apparently it was supposed to be last weekend, but it was postponed due to the earthquake. I saw someone was selling some black currant wine, naturally I bought some. 

The only real downside of today is that my back was absolutely killing me. It still is, really. I was also almost moved to tears on account of my back.

Today was a good day, and it really felt good to get back out there and have a somewhat return to normalcy. I look forward to attending more often now that I've broken the ice again, so to speak. 

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