Chancellor’s Corner – August 2023 | August 1st, 2023 Procession of the Cross
“Summertime.”
On a perfect, breezy, dusky, not-too-hot Wednesday evening at our St. Eugene’s Camp, I had a rare (for church camp!) moment of being alone at an outdoor picnic bench. It was something about the wind direction, probably, but even though I was rather far from the “choir cabin” where the expert singers were practicing their hits for the culminating campfire, it sounded like I had a front-row seat to the performance. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how those young strong voices sang the 1958 song “Summertime, Summertime” by the Jamies that rehearsal night. There was something so escapist, so “other” about the celebratory sound and lyrics. What an anthem for a break from the routine!
Paradoxically, though, the reason I was alone and able to take in that moment is that I was working on… the weekly bulletin. Not something at all “other” or “camp” or “escapist” in the least. In fact, it was a task emblematic of a return from the otherness of camp to the world and a task that I go through every week, whether it’s the middle of the school year or the middle of my camp escape from routine.
That moment feels like an image of my summer; some great opportunities to do things differently or have a little change of pace mixed in with as much (maybe more?) regular duty as always. For me (and I hope the 75 or so campers at St. Eugene’s and the hundreds of additional campers at our other amazing diocesan camps) church camp was definitely a highlight. When people ask me about church camp, my “line” this year is that camp saves lives. I thank God for all of the volunteers and benefactors that make our church camps happen. Every year I see what a big deal these efforts are as our young people come of age – in the Church of Christ!
Certainly, in the interval since my last posting long ago in June, the “regular” work of the Diocese continues! We held our June Diocesan Council meeting over Zoom to steward financial resources while still deliberating fully. His Eminence, our Archbishop Benjamin presided at feast days and visited church communities all over. Archpastoral visits included Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco for the feast of Pentecost, Port Townsend, St. John Monastery in Manton, our annual July 4 pilgrimage to Fort Ross, Berkeley, Poulsbo, Santa Rosa, Atwater, Fremont, and Corvallis. I was blessed to travel with His Eminence to Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga for the tonsuring of three sisters (it was a special treat to have His Grace, Bishop Gerasim of Fort Worth with us for that sacred evening).
I was glad to see some of our Diocese of the West seminarians and diaconal candidates when I led the 16th annual Diaconal Liturgical Practicum at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. I tried to make Summertime a little different than my usual routine by visiting some parishes including Holy Virgin Church in Menlo Park, St. Anthony the Great Church in Bozeman, and our mission of St. Moses the Strong in Helena. In all the places I visited so far this summer, and in a lot of phone conversations, the question of whether we have enough priests to serve our growing diocese always comes up. Please consider this my monthly appeal for us all to pray and work for vocations. We have a great diocese but there is, in fact, a lot of work to do!
Of course, for a second time this Summer, we are entering a period of fasting. This can definitely feel very un-Summer-like to me! But I do believe that fasting – if I truly embrace it; if I allow myself to just do it – functions like an interruption of my normal way of thinking; of my reliance on myself to solve problems (as if any of us can really solve anything). As Father Alexander Schmemann once wrote,
Fasting is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself by which He liberates us from total dependence on food, matter, and the world. By no means is our liberation a full one. Living in the fallen world, in the world of the Old Adam, being part of it, we still depend on food. But just as our death-through which we still must pass-has become by virtue of Christ’s death a passage into life, the food we eat and the life it sustains can be life in God and for God. Part of our food has already become “food of immortality”- the body and blood of Christ Himself. But even the daily bread we receive from God can be in this life and in this world that which strengthens us, our communion with God, rather than which separates us from God. Yet it is only fasting that can perform that transformation, giving us the existential proof that our dependence on food and matter is not total, not absolute, that united to prayer, grace, and adoration, it can itself be spiritual.
May all of our efforts, including the Summertime rest and change of routine, be accepted and blessed by the one we must rely on, the Savior of this world, our Lord Jesus Christ. As always, I welcome any comment or communication.
In Christ,
Fr. Kirill