Or: These twenties aren’t roaring

Or: Why it’s been hard to write humor lately

Most articles on The Daily Podvig are told in third person about fictional people. This one will be different with me, your editor, (Eric Thomas Ruthford) telling you a story about real people whose names have been changed. I’m doing this because I want to explain why I haven’t posted anything in a long time.

When I was 27, my fiancée and I traveled several hours so we could meet my very good friend and his wife. He was recently ordained a priest. I’ll call him Father Polycarp. That’s not his name, but I’m calling him that to avoid identifying a person who appears at the end of the story. Years earlier, before he was a priest, Polycarp had introduced me to Orthodoxy. Then he left and went to seminary and met a young woman – I’ll call her Paraskeva – and they married two years before he was ordained. By the time of this story, they were assigned to their first parish, a small parish in — I have to leave out that detail, too.

My fiancée and I had set a date in September of that year, and in April, we made a trip to stay with Father Polycarp and Mat. Paraskeva for several days so they could get to know Miri (and that is her real name). Miri and I had met in San Francisco at a church where her father was serving as a guest priest at a vigil service. Upon arriving at Fr. Polycarp and Mat. Paraskeva’s house, we had plenty to talk about. Miri, having grown up with her mother as the choir director of a small church in Boise, knew the structures of the services quite well, and could talk about being choir director with Mat. Paraskeva, who had been pushed into that role in their assignment. Father Polycarp and Mat. Paraskeva’s daughter was 14 months old, walking fast and into everything but with no concept of consequences of actions. She would open cabinet doors and tear through plastic food containers like a tornado.

Over the first two days of the visit, their favorite topic of conversation was the priest and matushka who had preceded them in the parish. I’ll call them Father Nicholas and Matushka Amelia.

Father Polycarp explained that the church had pews before Father Nicholas arrived, but he removed them immediately without asking anyone, saying that pews weren’t Orthodox. And while it’s true that Orthodox churches in the old country don’t have pews, you don’t just come in and take away senior citizens’ favorite places to sit, especially when they’ve been sitting there for 60 years. This choice was one of several that made the congregation want a different priest.

Mat. Paraskeva told another story about things Father Nicholas told parishioners. One day, Mat. Paraskeva said she had found a 91-year-old lady, the eldest granny of the parish, staring off into the distance with a worried look on her face during fellowship hour. Mat. Paraskeva asked her what was the matter, and the old woman said, “I’m not going to like it in the aerial tollhouses. I’d been whistling at home for years before Father Nicholas told me that whistling indoors invites demons into your house and that you have to pay for things like that at the toll houses.” Over the course of Father Nicholas’ tenure at the parish, weekly attendance went from 40 down to 8.

For two days we heard stories like these about Fr. Nicholas and Mat. Amelia and laughed along about the nutty things they did. But then, Mat. Paraskeva added in one tiny detail that revealed both the smallness and fervor of the Orthodox community in North America.

“And when I was talking to Melissa Wasilko, she said that she had stopped coming to church because of head coverings,” said Mat. Paraskeva. “She has three daughters, and they sometimes wore little triangle scarves during the services, but Matushka Amelia May told them that they ought to be wearing tablecloth-sized scarves that covered all of their hair and half of their backs.” That was the first time she had used Mat. Amelia’s middle name.

“Amelia May?” Miri said, her eyes widening. “Is her maiden name Thompson?”

“I think so,” Mat. Paraskeva said.

“She’s Father Andrew Thompson’s daughter. They’re family friends of ours. We drove out to Ohio to see them and Amelia May was 16 and I was 9 and she showed me all of the animals on the farm. That was so wonderful.”

Matushka Paraskeva’s face took on a terrified urgency, “Oh my God, oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make your friends sound like they’re crazy.”

And then Miri’s answer let me know that I was marrying the right Orthodox girl: “No, it’s ok, they really are crazy.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mat. Paraskeva said again.

“Don’t worry about it, they really are crazy. Amelia May’s parents stopped talking to her for a year because she married Nicholas,” she said.

“Because he wasn’t Orthodox at the time?” I asked.

“No, he was Orthodox, but his father-in-law didn’t like him because he was in a diocese where the bishop sometimes attended ecumenical gatherings,” Miri said. “He just wasn’t Orthodox enough,” she finished, and I put my hand on my face.

I thought, a priest who is that literal about the aerial tollhouses not being Orthodox enough?

The phrase I want to leave you with here is “It’s ok, they really are crazy,” because I think it’s one that we especially need to survive the new decade. Being in a religion for a good period of time means that you have those friends who are a little over the top, and it’s such an important skill to have to maintain these friendships without going down the all-or-nothing rabbit hole your friends think everyone should go down.

And this is why I’ve been telling this rambling story. I feel like lots of Orthodox friendships have been strained or lost since the pandemic started, with alternate realities growing both in the church and outside the church, regarding masking, vaccines, or the results of the 2020 election.

We have to find a new equilibrium, where we can again say, “It’s ok, they really are crazy,” about our off-kilter friends and be friends. Sometimes “ok” is an abbreviation for “off-kilter.”

“It’s ok, they really are off-kilter.”

Or maybe we have to become that odd friend. Either way, we have to stay together, unified in our faith in the crucified and risen Christ, even when the local health authorities make a sudden change in rules for public gatherings and half your friends freak out and decide to switch because the priest is being too strict or lenient with the protocols. The heartbreak from that is the main reason I haven’t been able to come up with new humor articles for a year.

I hope we can find a spirit of humor and have some fun blogging together. I love to read your comments!