Gail's Blog

Teaching children: Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. Cleveland, Ohio

This church is where I was baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My brother was baptised there as well. I remember sitting in a pew, horrified by his screams. Orthodox infant baptism is full immersion, done by the godparent (in his case, my father's mother). It was very upsetting to a 2 1/2 year old! Even so, I loved this church. Sitting in a Greek Orthodox church is like sitting in heaven. God isn't a very personal God there, but an all-encompassing pressence, permeating the living and dead. The smell of incense, the chant in the incomprehensible and yet familiar language of one's ancestors, the gorgeous icons and paintings, especially the universal living Christ on the dome looking down, all contribute to the sense of being in heaven and earth at the same time. This is, at least, how it was for me as a child. The Greeks don't have women priests, though. That is meaninful to me in the Episcopal Church. I've come to love the Episcopal liturgy as ...

Today Ridge is 61! He's taking it in stride. I bought him a laptop for Christmas and his birthday, with help from the "kids". We all went to Best Buy to pick it out, with Dan on his cell to his Dad for more help. Ridge likes it. I wanted to get him one because he doesn't have a job and I am wondering if he'll have to do consulting work. In that case, he certainly will need his own laptop. We are taking this no-job thing day to day, depending on God's grace. Lots of people are praying for him, anyway. Church has called him once or twice. We are taking him out to dinner with the Murphys, Geers, Dan & Alix, and Katie at Sunsets in Belmar. I got a nice bonus from preschool that I'm donating to the cause! It's like God gives you what you need when you need it.

This was quite an evening. Sue and I walked our usual four miles along the Spring Lake Boardwalk, while thunderstorms raged out over the ocean, up near north Jersey and New York. When this sight greeted our eyes I pulled out my phone and snapped this picture. I love the guard stand laying on its side right in the middle. This sight says home and peace to me.

A few years ago my daughter Katie and I went down to W. 14th St. in Cleveland to visit the Greek Orthodox church where I was baptised. Across the street from the church was a kafenion, or coffee shop, where the men congregated when the service became too long for them! On this visit, the coffee shop being in the same place it was when I was born, Katie and I ventured in. There were three men drinking that thick brew known as Greek (or Turkish, if you want to be difficult) coffee, smoking and gabbing. The only other person there was the woman making the coffee. Katie and I might have been the first women customers in 75 years! We drank our coffee, and talked with the customers. A little while later we scurried out, having made our "statement". Recently I learned that this institution had closed. I am glad the two of us had the chance to "integrate" it first!

This is a snapshot (remember that word?) I recently scanned into my computer. It is of my extended family on my father's side, before a few other children were born. I am on the right, on the floor, sitting pretty in my black and white (really) window pane plaid, sleeveless dress that I loved, a flower in my hair. I was probably 5. My brother, Bob, sits on my Grandpa's lap. On the left is my grandmother, Elizabeth. I barely knew her because besides being more at home in Greek than English, she was also schizophrenic, and was often in the hospital. Grandpa paid for it out of his own pocket, because he had no hospitalization (they didn't call it health insurance, then). She must have been in her early 50's in this picture, younger than I am now. And yet she was an old Greek lady, in a housedress, hair pulled back. She would smoke, sitting on the back stoop, legs apart, just like I saw women in Greece do when I visited there 27 years later. It was an embarrassment to her ...

She grew up loving animals. She trained guinea pigs to jump over DVD boxes set up steeple-chase style. She was central to the training of our two poodles. Now she is an office manager training people. Her biggest challenge to date: Trying to train her boyfriend to eat healthfully. Will she succeed?