Common Prayer

At the left you see a depiction of St. John Chrysostom from Hagia Sofia, which for centuries was the most important church in Christendom and still endures as one of the most important architectural wonders of the word. The church was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 588, but was rebuilt, and is still standing today.

The mosaic you see here on this page was discovered during a 20th century renovation of Hagia Sofia. (Many of the original mosaics had been covered with plaster after the Ottoman invasion in 1453, due to the Islamic reluctance to depict godly images.) One of only two copies of this mosaic beautifies the wall of St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church here in Chicago, and that is where your Daily Officer went this morning for Morning Prayer.

Interestingly, they chose the readings from the Sunday Lectionary and not from the Daily Office; so although I technically said morning prayer, I had to make up my reading of Esther on my own. A simple sacrifice. I'm gald that the Anglican tradition embraces such different styles of worship. We're better for our tolerance of diversity.

After church, I watched the Bears win a tough game against Minneapolis and then I took a nap. I woke up an hour later after a vivid and frightening dream in which I was on the phone to my father, complaining that I had expected to feel something different when I became an adult; while in reality my childhood kind of merged into grownup-ness or whatever is is that I am experiencing now, and it's hard for me to say I feel any different than I did when I was sixteen. If you watch Leave it to Beaver, or even the Brady Bunch, the kids were silly kids and the grownups were all adults who wore suits and ties and made Responsible Decisions and did Correct Things. I guess I always thought that sometime I would stop feeling the way I did when I was sixteen, and start feeling like Ward Cleaver must have felt. But in truth, I can't say I feel any different.

I my dream I was yelling into the telephone, crying, with tears running down my cheeks, saying "I have to be a grownup now, but nobody told me how to do it! How do I do it ?!?" I honestly don't know. Probably I was thinking when I was sixteen that someday in the future I would be able to face the world with total confidence. That is, after all, what Ward Cleaver's gray flannel suit projected: confidence, stability, and the self-assuredness that comes from being a grownup. Except that it's a bunch of baloney. If my life has taught me anything, it's that the things you count on the most can shift and change, and betray you, and disappear. I feel drawn to the ancient liturgical tradition for the ongoing stability that it offers. But what does that say about my faith? That my faith is strong only because the world is weak? That's depressing too. I don't know. I just pray, as usual, that my own mind and body can be empty and contain God and be used by God to serve and worship him. What does that mean? I have no idea. Your Daily Officer, as usual, is clueless.