preparing for the Wedding Feast

John 2, 7-8 (highlighting is mine):

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.”

It's interesting and important that we're requested to "fill the jars" - I just read it as "make your complete effort". Only then He will, with His grace, make our human efforts and offering into something acceptable to the Master of the Feast.

"The Hunger Games"

Finished reading "The Hunger Games", all three books. The heartache. Very realistic view of humanity, unfortunately...

"Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?" I ask. 

"Oh, not now. Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated," he says. "But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift of self-destruction."

Great book though, really good.

missing

Since Pascha, I haven't been to a single liturgy. I miss being there, miss the communion with my extended family, and of course I miss the Holy Communion (not that these two should be separated) and become a spiritual wreckage, even more than usual. But my dear wife stays home all week with 3 kids and is constantly very tired since our 3rd was born; so on Sunday mornings - when I am with the baby, letting my wife to catch up on the sleep a bit - I feel it is unfair to her to just wake her up and leave her with the baby again while I go where I want to go. Yet, even though I think what I do is right, I do realize I may also be manipulated by the tempter and it's probably getting out of balance. And here's what I read at Fr. Stephen's blog today:

The purpose of the Church is not to create healthy civilizations, nor does the Church exist to be yet one more outlet of good feelings and neuroses. The Church is that place where God is being reconciled to man, and man to God... It is the ecclesia, the Divine Community of the Body of Christ, in which we may be made whole...

Ninety percent of Orthodoxy is “just showing up.” I meant then and repeat now that the slow work of transformation requires our presence within and to the ecclesia, the Church gathered.

I need to "show up" - to be healed, to become what He wants me to be, for Him and for my family, immediate and extended, and the whole world.