Pentecost in Australia

Pentecost by Jacqui Grace

The colour of Pentecost for the Orthodox is green. Bright spring green as a sign of new life, growth, eternal spring, eternal new life, rebirth, regeneration. Churches are decorated all over with spring growth. I can imagine it is very beautiful. But I can only imagine, because here there are no spring flowers to bring to into the home or church.

True, I can find some camellias, azaleas and correa branches with their little red and yellow winter bells. But there is a certain incongruity in my soul, a pretending and dishonesty to celebrate new life in this way when all around the dark is closing in. I've tried to tell myself that the flowers are a sign of the Holy Spirit's new life in the midst of darkness, the spiritual reality as opposed to the physical, in the depth of winter a sign and reminder of new life. But it did not ring true.

We did bring in some camellia flowers to church Pentecost day. The children placed them at the front at the pictures of Jesus. They scattered pink petals where ever there was a flat surface to do so. But what remained in my heart, my soul, was the feeling of warmth from our camp fire the night before.

In a little hesian lined hut with no electricity we prayed together by lantern light, the room aglow with candles. Following prayer we headed to the bonfire to make chai tea, heat our dinner, chat and paint flags with images and symbols of Pentecost to some world beats. On a cold wet night it was nice to be outside, warmed by the fire, safe and peaceful in it's light in the darkness. What better symbol for the Holy Spirit than a burning fire that gives warmth, and peace in the darkness.

Our Pentecost flags, painted with symbols of the Holy Spirit and new life, we will (when I sew them on their string) hang on the walls in the church. For the moment they are pinned to the edges of tablecloths that cover the tables in the church. We've decorated the church in red, our flags and Pentecost icon add touches of yellow and gold. It's warm, and life giving.

Pentecost Resource

I've been hunting for some ideas for Pentecost. A little note I read on Pentecost says, "the church is decorated with flowers to symbolise the joy of eternal spring which started when the Holy Spirit came."

That does sound lovely, and here at the onset of winter, thoughts of eternal spring are encouraging. However, it does make it a little hard to decorate the church with flowers, when there aren't that many around.

A quick internet search came up with some great ideas for symbolic kites and candles and luminstas and ballons and banners here.

I was thinking of making some lanterns or a string Pentecost flags. To make a lantern, draw or paint on a piece of paper. Paint the paper with linseed oil on both sides. Staple two edges of the paper together to make a tube. You can simply place this tube over a candle, or staple a cardboard base to the tube and attach a handle. Make sure the handle is fairly long otherwise the heat from the candle will make holding the lantern difficult.

The Pentecost flags I am envisaging would be squares of material painted with pentecost symbols or stories and then sewn onto a string.

We will be having a bit of a bonfire and listening to some world music. I'll give you an update and some pictures soon.

Ascension celebrations

Today standing in the lovely Autumn sunshine we blew bubbles as part of our Ascension celebrations.

Our church has a deck outside, and after church we all came to be there, standing in the sunshine, watching bubbles rise in the sky.

The kids made Ascension spirals after communion. I had some thin cardboard with the outline of a circle drawn on. The kids cut out the circle, and then cut a spiral out of the paper. It works best of the spiral is thick, only going around twice. Then we poked holes in the centre, threaded some wool through the hole, and tied it onto a stick.

When the kids ran up and down the decking with their ascension spirals, they spun round and round. How lovely to hear the sound of running, laughing children in that peaceful little space between worship and rushing to make lunch, made all the better by a sun warmed face.

If the spiral is made from a foil and hung over a candle, then the air warmed by the candle will rise and cause the spiral to spiral upwards.

We had a new family at church today. Their little 2 year old followed the big kids, sitting where they were sitting, standing when they were standing, holding a candle for the gospel reading. I never cease to be amazed how still a two year old can stand when given the big responsibility of holding a candle next to the priest for the gospel reading. They seem to have such a sense of awe, of ceremony and purpose. And I never cease to be amazed how an 11 year old can have such gentleness, patience and understanding given the big responsibility of having a two year old following his every move.

Now if only I can have the same sense of awe, purpose, gentleness, patience and understanding with three little ones watching my every move as they learn how to live.

From Fast to Feast

Our beautiful resurrection day service was held. The church is total darkness until the priest called out, "Christ is risen!" and held high a large candle. A candle in the darkness gives off a bright light. I was amazed at how much light. It is an image I hope I can remember when I am among people in dark places. We each lit our own candles from this candle. Throughout the service the priest shouts out, "Christ is Risen!" and we shout back, "Truly he is risen!" The kids loved it, and shouted with gusto. Still today they are calling it out to each other.

After the service, it was 1am by this stage, the feasting begun. My little one was jumping up and down with the excitment. The poor kiddies have been a bit hungry lately. There hasn't been much in the house to eat. I hope this too is an image forming in their minds. I can talk, talk, talk about hungering for God, about God fulfilling our needs. And now they have a physical experience to relate that to, of being hungry, of persevering and waiting, of the party and celebrating when we are with the risen Christ.

We had bacon and eggs and pancakes and coffee and hot cross buns for breakfast, and roast lamb and chocolate cake with double cream for dinner.

On the table sat the three Easter candles we had decorated the day before, our Easter eggs from our Easter egg hunt, our palm Sunday crosses, our Greek Easter bread from the kids Godfather, and on the window ledge the tall white candles he had given them, decorated with butterflies and a cross.

With every bite of chocolate I savoured I remembered, "I am feasting because Jesus is alive today."

Celebrating Orthodox Easter in Australia

I've found it quite difficult to celebrate two Easter's this year. Someone in the Seventh Day Adventist Church told me they celebrate Easter every Sunday. I don't think I could handle the emotional strain!

When all our friends and family and community celebrated Easter, and the nation had public holidays to do so, we joined their celebrations with eggs and hot cross buns, and stories and songs, albeit out camping in a paddock somewhere.

Now four weeks later we're doing it all again with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. This time we've been fasting from animal products for six (although we only did four) weeks, we're tired, we're working and going to school each day and attending church services for holy week at night. And everyone else is wondering why we're still going on about Easter.

There's been so many niggly little problems and annoyances with everyone and everything that it felt a little like spiritual attack. It's hard to think about Easter when you're annoyed by everyone. Which is quite possibly the idea of niggly little annoyances.

Our little church came together for worship on Sunday. We prayed, we worshipped, we received that precious blood of Jesus that really does fill me with warmth and joy and peace and a relaxing "Ahhhh. Everything is right" as the wine slips down my throat. We had lunch and laughed and talked about a lot of things.

Finally I feel like I can celebrate God's ultimate sacrifice to rescue us. Now I do feel like I can "get into" and participate with my whole self in Easter. And finally I feel that I can bring Easter to my children.

Going to the Holy week services that the church wisely provides does help prepare us for Easter. Going even when I'm running late, and preparing for meetings, and having hot chip sandwiches for tea, and knowing the kids are going to have a late night, going to a Holy week service turns my soul toward God without me struggling to do that on my own.

Jacqui came round and we made hot cross buns. They were edible this year, not like our first attempt.

• Thursday night we will make some more hot cross buns, and the kids can help. For our first attempt at making them six years ago (it's taken a long time to over it) the kids piped on crosses. This year I think that can be involved in the whole process, measuring, mixing, waiting for yeast to rise, kneading again, waiting again. We make the crosses out of a paste made from 2 tbsp self raising flour and 2 tbsp water.
  

• Friday we will dye some eggs ready for Sunday. Legend has it that Mary Magdalene took a red egg to explain the resurrection of Jesus to the Roman Emperor. And the Greeks knock their red egg against someone else's to say "Christ is Risen", the tomb has cracked open, death could not overpower God, and new life has come.

• Saturday we will roll beeswax sheets to make candles, and decorate them with little pieces of coloured decorating wax. You warm it between your fingers and push it on. Simple. The candles are used in the resurrection service. The service starts in darkness. When we get to the part of the story where Jesus is alive, the priest brings out a candle from which everyone lights their own candle, and the light of Jesus is passed on from person to person.

• Sunday hopefully we will get the chance to have a feast with roast lamb and potatoes. The kids have requested dessert with double cream.

This Friday, the Orthodox Good Friday, is Anzac day. It's the day we remember all those Australian and New Zealand soldiers who gave their lives to save and protect all that is precious, their family and friends and country. So quite appropriate for us to be remembering the day when Jesus rescue mission was drawing to it's completion. The day he died to save and protect all that is precious to God, that is every single person ever made.

Easter celebrations

This is a little too late if you celebrated Easter a few days ago, but for those in the Orthodox church there's plenty of time to get prepared.


We usually go camping at the Easter public holiday time as part of a community of about 150 campers all camped higgledy piggledly all over a cow paddock. How do we bring Easter to this setting?

We take a tea light candle in a holder and we light it at meal times on our little camp table. On Good Friday and Easter Saturday it sits on the table unlit, but on Easter Sunday at breakfast time it glows and flickers in the breeze because Jesus, the light of the world is alive.

We eat hot cross buns only on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Hot cross buns are special Easter food, that are not so special if you've been eating them everyday for the last 6 weeks. Even better is if you make your own hot cross buns so you can be part of the preparation for this special day.

We attempted this when we had a three week old baby. I like seeing the photos of the older two sitting in the bench in their pyjamas, piping crosses on buns. The buns themselves were inedible solid rocks, but the memory of the participation lingers on! I think we'll try it again this year, especially since there won't be hot cross buns in the shops by the time Orthodox Easter comes around.

And we have an Easter egg hunt. As my son pointed out today, I should get hollow eggs, because they represent the empty tomb, and the hunt is like Mary and Jesus' friends coming to find the tomb empty.

We had bacon and eggs and tomato for breakfast on Western Easter a few days ago. My middle daughter told us why we have this for breakfast at Easter (we've never done it before though). The yellow yolk is the son of God risen, the halved tomato is heaven opened up for us through Jesus' resurrection. I don't know about the bacon. I'm sure she could come up with something!

Another cool idea is to take a teacup or goblet. I found some fancy ones at the op shop. Fill it with soil from the garden and plant a candle in the middle. On Easter Thursday soak some wheat grains in warm water. On Good Friday, scatter the seeds on top of the soil, or just underneath. Keep it watered, and well lit and by Easter Sunday the wheat will have sprouted into new life. Light the candle on Easter Sunday because Jesus is alive. If you keep the cup on the dinner table you can watch the wheat grow at each meal.

As part of our kindergarten celebrations, we take two large gumtree sticks from the garden and tie them into a cross. Then we tie autumn leaves and native flowers and foliage we have collected all over them. We take our crosses and go for a walk singing Easter songs all the while, God's not dead, He died upon the cross etc. Then the decorated cross can be 'planted' in the garden. My daughter did this quite naturally without suggestion from me a few years back while we were camping. This year we had big kids join us for our little procession and they loved it too.

And of course for our Easter celebrations we will get dressed in 'special Easter clothes' whatever the kids decide that is, and go to church to light candles and share the bread and wine which is Jesus body broken for us.

Birthday Presents

We had our youngest daughters sixth birthday party on Saturday. Now that she is finally interested in reading she insisted that I point to each word as I read her invitation. I can't skip words anymore!
So when I read the part, "Please don't buy me a present but you might like to make me one, like some nice biccies or a picture," she said, "No, Mummy. I like presents from the shop."
We compromised with "home made/kid made presents welcome."

She did get some little tea cup biscuits and some drawings, and a tiny God's eye made with cotton and toothpicks, which was lovely. She also got a doll and laugh's when you press it's tummy, a beading kit and a "make a stain glass window" kit. She thinks it's all great, except that we haven't been able to make the stain glass window since it needs to be baked, and I am not turning the oven on when it's 39 C.

I made her a little doll. I also gave her three beeswax candles and a little packet of decorating wax, which she loved using, and a tiny tree puzzle.

Birthday Presents

I've always tried to impress on my kids that they don't need a lot of stuff. For presents I always request homemade things, and we put on invitations that go out from our house, "you don't have to buy me a present, but you might like to make me something nice, like a picture or some biccies." My daughter has developed a policy of making birthday presents for everyone now. Whenever she gets a birthday invitation she asks, "What can we make for a birthday present?" We've made flags with bamboo from the garden, biccies, pictures, mammoth cards, lavender sachets, given flowers from the garden, and this latest present is a wide headband made from our bag of material scraps.

I'm quite proud of it really. The pattern comes from Altered Cloth

Now of course, I've had to make one for all the kids, son included. His is narrow in plain brown. At least it keeps his hair out of his eyes. Although I don't think Dad is too keen on his boy in a headband. I might make one for me too.

A house blessing

T is for Theophany by Kristinsdottir. Used with permission.

Last night our wonderful priest came for dinner. After our salmon and silverbeet quiche and roast sweet potato (my favourite food) he bought out his little bottle of holy water collected from the Theophany blessing of the water service a few weeks back.

We are blessed with a priest who takes an empowering approach to leadership, to equip the whole church for the work of service (Ephesians 4), who stands back, and lets us be involved as much as he can to let us grow and use our gifts and talents for the church.

He gave the girls the task of carrying candles, which they did with much care and solemnity, while the boy carried a bowl of holy water for our priest to dip his little branch of leaves into. The kidlies followed him as he prayed and flicked holy water into each room. Pretty soon they were leading him from room to room calling, "What about the bathroom?" "And the cupboard," "Now the laundry," "Don't forget the chickens."

So now we have all, cats, chickens, guinea pigs, land, house, wife, husband and children been blessed.

Theopany is one of those moments that I remember when I think of my journey to Orthodoxy. I was happily attending the Liturgy each week, learning so much about the symbolism and story behind every action of the priest and people. When a little table appeared at the front of the church covered in it's classy (I mean it, it was pretty fancy in a modern inner city way) white tablecloth, I always panicked a little. Here would be something new and strange that I would have to try to accommodate into my God view.

The first Theophany I attended, I just wasn't up for struggling to participate in things I didn't understand. Restless small children were my easy out (how often is that the case) and I 'had' to take them to the foyer.

The friend who had first invited me to the Orthodox church was there. He had rushed up to the priest after he had prayed for God to enter the water, to ask, "How can this be?"
The priest replied in his joyful, patient, understanding way, "the Orthodox believe that God can be present in matter." My friend was satisfied. I stood there, marvelling at his ability to so quickly accept that answer, as I continued to struggle, wondering just what was I supposed to do with a bottle of holy water.

The children on the other hand have no problem with it. When they're scared at night, I go and get the holy water for them to take a sip. I say, "We have asked God to be in the water, and now we ask God to be inside you, giving you his energies and protection." When they're scared of the darkness, we pray that God chains up the dark scary things and takes them away to lock up. Then we make the sign of the cross on their beds with holy water, or sprinkle it in the room.

"Mummy," they say going to bed, "bless us with holy water." So I make the sign of the cross on their heads with a finger dipped in holy water, asking God to bless them.

Theophany is the feast wherein the Church performs the ritual of the “Great Blessing of the Waters” in which we pray, “Grant to all those who touch, who anoint themselves with it or drink from it, sanctification, blessing, cleansing, and health.” The Church acknowledges that it is Christ himself who blesses the waters and all of the elements of our earth by extension. Through Christ’s Incarnation, all material things are made holy.

As Bishop Kallistos Ware explains,“This, then, is part of the meaning of Theophany: in the eyes of one who is a Christian, nothing should ever appear trivial or mean, for the redemptive and transforming grace of the Savior extends to all things, however outwardly despicable.” from byzantineimages.com