I have come to learn that my conversion to Orthodoxy is much different than that of my friends and others I know who have converted. I grew up in a Christian home, in a Christian family. My parents, siblings, and myself attended a Nazarene church and we continued to do so even after my parents divorced, until I was in middle school. Before the divorce, my family lived in the same town at my dear grandma, the one I'm taking care of now. She and I have always been close and sometimes on weekends I would spend the night at her house and go to her Baptist church on Sundays. Even as a kid, I could tell there were big differences between our separate churches, and the seed of dissatisfaction with the Baptist church grew over the years. But I have come to appreciate my gram's church since I've been an adult. My mom, brother and myself attended a non-denominational church for a couple of years before we joined a Congregational church when I was in high school. It turns out that my good friend who is now my godsister attended the ND church at the same time. Mom and I officially joined the Congregational church but my brother fell away. Back then, I couldn't even tell what any of these churches truly believed in and now I can see what they all are lacking. I never studied church history and I was extremely naive.
During the first couple of years of college, I tried to stay in touch with my Congregational church and attend when I could but life just got in the way. Sunday mornings became the only day in which I could sleep in. School and work took up most of my time and at that point, I was living about 30 minutes away from church, instead of three. After earning my A.A. at a community college, I transferred to an evangelical university. The first year was a miserable experience for me and I turned to something else at the expense of my studies: work. Work became my home and a chance to get away from school. My self-identity (and from what other people thought of me) derived from where I worked. But in June 2007 all of that changed. I was fired by my best friend at the time and was devastated. My work friends disappeared and I had nothing but bad grades and few friends at school. I was depressed for a long time and sought help. Now I can say getting fired from that place was the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in my life. I realized just how important school was and turned my life around. When school started in the fall of that year, I was determined to make a fresh start...
Fall '07 was the beginning of what turned out to be my senior year. At that point I wasn't even sure if the school would allow me to graduate. As an English major, the majority of my classes were English classes. Of all the classes I took that fall, I had a required class called CORE 400 and an English class, in which we studied an author of the professor's choosing. CORE 400 was, spiritually, the toughest class I had ever taken and the Orthodox professor who taught the Major Authors class chose study Dostoevsky, who was Russian Orthodox. I had no idea how influential these classes were going to become. On the first day of our Dostoevsky class, our professor told us we would be visiting his Orthodox church as a class on a Sunday early in the semester. He gave us a short history of the church and this was the first time I had ever heard of it. Growing up in my naive, Protestant way, I had only heard of Catholicism as being the "other" church. It was certainly an eye-opening experience on the first day. The coursework itself was tough and I never understood much of what we read. I'm sad to say that I didn't focus on it has much as CORE 400, which literally wiped me out. If I am remembering correctly, most students didn't care about CORE 400 as much I did. My friends had already graduated and I was still feeling the effects of losing my job. No friends, nothing to do, no places to go except school and my spiritual life was non-existent. But I wanted to change that. CORE 400 came along at just the right time. It challenged me to figure out what I really believed in.
I will never forget Sunday, September 23, 2007. The class met at school so we could carpool and I volunteered to drive some of my classmates. We walked in the side door of Holy Ascension and I knew that I was home. Literally. My head and my heart realized it at the same time. There's no way for me to really explain except to say, I just knew. We walked upstairs into the sanctuary and I was bombarded by how my senses were being used. There were icons everywhere, I heard the chanting, smelled the incense (you could almost taste it too!), and felt for the first time a sense of peace and comfort in my heart. We stayed after church for lunch and then a Q & A session with the priest, Father Joshua, who is now my spiritual father. I wanted to ask him what it took to become Orthodox but I was too shy. I already knew I wanted to convert but didn't say anything for months. I even kept the knowledge from my family because I knew it would cause some problems and kept going back each Sunday.
Please don't get the idea that all of my problems went away overnight, that Orthodoxy was some kind of magical cure for my loneliness and depression. It wasn't. I still struggled with classes and being alone and yet, there was the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The hour and a half I spent at church on Sundays helped me get through rest of the week. It wasn't until the following January that I told Father Joshua that I wanted to convert. I met with him for catechism classes and sometimes all of us catechumins met together. Another girl from my Dostoevsky class was converting and at this point, four of us from that class are now Orthodox. My school had a branch of Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) and we would usually meet once a week. Oh, how I miss those days!!! At one point, Father asked me about choosing a godparent and I didn't have anybody in mind. He asked my friend Janet on the spot and she said yes. She and her husband got married exactly one year after I was chrismated.
Another day I won't forget is April 26, 2008. It was Holy Saturday that year and I had just experienced my first Holy Week in Orthodoxy. My mom had come down the night before and it was nice having her support. The liturgy that morning included the chrismations and was about three hours long. Unfortunately, Mom had to leave after the service but there was plenty for me to do.
This is one of my favorite pictures.
This was taken after the service by my mom. The baby is my buddy Jonah. He was the first kid I bonded with at Holy Ascension :-) His parents are dear friends of mine.
I am looking at these pictures and can't help but think of how much has changed in four years, and I can't decide what change was for the good and what change was for the bad. As stressful as that time of my life was, it was nothing compared to what I've been experiencing since then. My thoughts and feeling about Orthodoxy have not changed but the way I see myself as being Orthodox has. But that is certainly best for another post.
Until then,
~Staci~
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