Because there are now Orthodox parishes that actually do serve at least two Liturgies each Sunday morning. These folks have received permission from their bishops to use that approach, at least on a temporary basis, but, again, as we explained last time, that doesn’t mean it’s at all a good idea.

But what if a parish genuinely doesn’t have enough space in their current facility to accommodate everyone who wants to attend? What are those folks supposed to do?

Well, we are all out of space, and we’ve found ways to move forward.

That doesn’t mean that what works in our setting will work in every community, but the point is that there are lots of options to consider before we start cloning the Liturgy.

For example.

Lose the Pews.

We’ve written about this before, and, while some folks would never forego fixed seating because of historical or theological or spiritual considerations, they might be willing to do without those chairs or pews if they understood how much more space they might gain.

Because as any architect or event planner will tell you, a seated person is going to take up 7-10 feet of space; a person who is standing is only going to need 5-6 feet of space.

So, the next time you’re in that temple that is just full-to-the-brim, quietly calculate how much more space you would gain—and how many more people you would be able to accommodate—if you simply put the chairs or pews along the walls.

Another example.

Clear the Clutter.

When you’re calculating how much space you could save by doing away with the fixed seating, you should also ask yourself a few other questions.

• Do the icon stands have to be right in the middle of the nave?

• Can we move the candle trays closer to the door—or put them in the narthex?

• Does that shrine have to be in that particular spot?

• Would it be possible to relocate the banners or the chanter’s stand to free up some space along the wall?

Making changes—or even shifting things around a bit—in sacred space is a delicate undertaking. However, if priests and parish councils and parishioners would only take a good, long look at how things are arranged in their temples, they would be amazed how much room they would be able to free up.

And, last, but, certainly, not least.

Space it Out.

Most of the ‘overcrowding’ that Orthodox parishes experience arises from the fact that everyone in the community wants to be present during a particular time slot on Sunday morning.

And that’s important because, as we stressed in our last post, one of the basic ways we proclaim our unity is by standing with our brothers and sisters before the same altar each and every week. The problem is that, in most parishes, on an average Sunday, the time slot for doing that is about three hours—and, often, it’s a whole lot less.

That’s because most communities only do an abbreviated version of the service that comes before the Divine Liturgy—The Service of Orthros. But here at St John’s, we allow two hours for Orthros. That means, on a typical Sunday morning, we’re in the Divine Services for close to five hours.

And the attendance during those five hours varies a great deal. During the Divine Liturgy itself, folks are often packed right up against the iconostasis. But, during Orthros, a lot of times, it’s just the clergy and the chanters and four or five other folks.

But what that means is that everyone has a setting that works for them: if people enjoy being part of a crowd, then, boy howdy, we’ve got that covered.

However, if folks prefer a quieter, more spacious setting, we can provide that, as well.

The fact that we also offer Daily Services and Divine Liturgies when a feast falls during the week provides even more options, but here’s the point to remember: those options occur naturally because we have a full liturgical calendar, not because we are trying to appeal to different target populations or interest groups.

In fact, when it comes to overcrowding (and most other problems) if we’ll just be the Church, everything will take care of itself.

Or, to put it another way, our Mom will make sure we have everything we need.

Or, to put it still another way, Mother Mary, the Very Icon of the Church, will always show us the way forward.

Yes, that lovely image is by our own Baker Galloway. And, of course, we’re also right in the middle of The Dormition Fast, when we dedicate the first fifteen days of August to the Most Holy Theotokos.

Which is why we are going to, still once again, go Back to The Beatles at the end of this post.

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Before we get there, though, please know that you’re welcome to join us at the Divine Services. If that’s not geographically possible, join us in prayer for our new temple.

In addition to your prayers, you can support us by taking out a paid subscription or picking up some Come See Something Beautiful clothing or commissioning an image of a beloved pet for the Calming Room of our new temple or making a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And, sure, Sir Paul has always insisted that he’s singing about his mum, but that just means we can sing about our Mum, too...

“It’s great to stay up late!”

That’s what we’re going to be doing a month from now: in fact, we’re going to be staying up all night long when we offer our Annual Vigil for St Eanswythe of Folkestone.

If you’ve been reading Come See Something Beautiful for a while, you know that this Anglo-Saxon Abbess is the Patroness of our Building Program. If you’re new to our Substack, you can read all about our relationship with St E here: St. E. and Me.

But you might also be wondering about how a Vigil works. Granted, you don’t hear about vigils much nowadays, but it’s an ancient form of Christian worship, and it’s something we still do here in Orthodox Land. Basically, it’s a series of back-to-back services, that are offered over-night. Monastic communities serve vigils on a pretty regular basis; in parishes, vigils are generally only offered on really special occasions.

But, for all of us here in the Parish of St John the Forerunner, August 31 is about as special as it gets, because we will be honoring the Kentish Princess who intercedes for us and for our new temple.

“Wait a second…why don’t you…?”

Now, as you know if you’ve seen “Singin’ in the Rain” (and, if you haven’t please log off and go watch that musical right now), what prompts Debbie and Donald and Gene to launch into that great number is the fact that they’ve come up with a great idea—an idea that changes the course of the whole movie.

And we’ve got our own great idea—an idea that we think we’ll change the course of our whole temple project. And we’re going to unveil that great idea right before we begin the Vigil for St Eanswythe on Sunday evening, August 31.

“Hot Dog! Hallelujah!”

That’s how Donald responds to the great idea in the movie, and we’re really hoping you’ll feel the same way.

(But will there be dancing?)

We knew you wanted to ask.

And, of course, the answer is yes: We will, most definitely, be getting down with our fine selves during the All Night Vigil.

We’ve written about this before, but, really, how could we not throw some shapes when that’s what all the saints are doing, right now, in the Kingdom of Heaven?

Let’s just take some recent examples from our hymnography. Here’s a portion of the canon for St Marina on July 17

“Manifestly flashing lightning-like with the martyrs’ splendor, thou dost dance around about God, sacredly deified, O all-famed Marina, and granting enlightenment, by thine intercessions, unto them that sing thy praise.”

And here is a selection from the Intercessions for St Elias the Prophet from July 20

“Two brightly shining luminaries are risen upon the world, even Elias and Elisha. The first, with a divine word, shut up the rain-drops of the heavens, rebuked kings, and upon a fiery chariot ascended into the heavens. The second healed the noxious waters, and when he had received a double portion of grace, he crossed the streams of Jordan on foot. And now, as they dance for joy with the Angels, they intercede on our behalf, that our souls be saved.”

At the vigil, we won’t be hoofing around the nave like Gene and Donald and Debbie—though, we gotta say: Father Andrew Wilson does a mean Maxi Ford—and that’s not easy to pull off in a cassock.

No, we will be a lot more subdued…but, we’re convinced that if they have any tables or staircases or couches in the Kingdom, it’s so saints like Marina and Elias and Elisha can slide under them or dash up and down them or somersault over them.

And we’re looking forward to joining them in that joy.

But even though there won’t be any physical acrobatics during the overnight hours of August 30 and August 31, at the end of this post, we’ve got a pretty accurate musical description of what will be happening in our hearts after the service is done, and the sun’s coming up, and we’re walking out to the parking lot.

We’ll play that for you in just a moment, and, if you’d like to get in on that joy, all you have to do is show up and stay up with us on August 30 and August 31.

If you can’t fit an all-nighter into your plans, we’ve got other ways you can support us and connect with that joy.

Join us in offering The Akathist for a New Temple (video) each week.

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And while Katrina and the guys don’t have half the energy of Debbie and Donald and Gene—well, you get the idea…

I love snow.

I love the magical feeling of standing outside and looking up and seeing a whirlwind of white flakes spiraling towards your face. I love the way that snow blankets trees and gives them an almost ethereal look, and I love how clean and crisp a winter landscape looks covered in unbroken snow. It’s like endless possibilities stretched in front of me, just waiting for footprints to tell a story.

There is something fierce and wild about it too, and I can recall once standing upon a particularly large mound of snow, feeling almost as if I could be a character in a Jack London story.

Perhaps my love of snow comes from living in a region where it is scarce—Texas certainly affords little opportunity to experience snowfall—but I think that my love of wintertime runs a little deeper than scarcity. Wintertime engages all of my senses and when I’m outside in the cold, I feel awake. I can feel the bite of the cold on my skin, I can taste the snow as it catches on my tongue, or see my breath rise in front of my face. I can hear the wind howling and the crunch of dead leaves beneath my feet. This is one of the most beautiful things to experience as a human. To discover yourself so alive in a landscape so still is exhilarating.

And in a way, that’s what Orthodoxy feels like to me.

One of the most beautiful parts of Orthodoxy, to me, is the way that the services invite you to experience Orthodoxy with your whole body, with all five senses. You can smell the incense, you can touch the icons, you can see what’s happing in the liturgy through the Iconostasis, you can hear the choir and chanters, and you can taste the Eucharist and blessed bread. These things have always helped make Liturgy feel tangible.

However, sometimes it is the very tangible nature of the service that leads to a loss of focus.

On any given Sunday, there is a constant flow of people coming in and out of the nave, children are making noise, and there are often so many people that standing in the nave can feel a bit cramped. And while having a crowded and noisy nave is a good problem to have, it can make it hard for all of your senses to be focused on what is happening in the liturgy.

And sometimes, you just need a quiet moment to pray.

That is why I find vespers to be such an important and much needed part of being Orthodox.

Vespers is a beautiful service and a great opportunity for quiet prayer and focus. It is often much less crowded than a Sunday morning Liturgy, and the nave is darkened. Because of the darkness, and the relative quiet that a less crowded service brings, I find that I can focus much more easily on the service and on my presence in the church. I can focus on the icons, I can listen to the chanters, and I can devote most of my attention to the prayer bracelet in my hands.

The quietness of a vespers service is what feels the most important to me. In a way, it reminds me of snow.

In fact, when I think about vespers, I think about Alaska.

Allow me to elaborate.

When I pause to think about the stillness that I associate with vespers, I am immediately reminded of the trip I took to Alaska in college as part of a Real Break ministry. I think about the small wooden chapel situated at the end of a long hike through the woods and cold. I think about the quiet, broken only by the crunch of our boots breaking through the fresh snow and the sharpness of our breath as it rose in clouds over our faces. I think about the peace and quiet that settled into my heart when I stepped into the chapel and how our voices sounded magnified to the rafters as we sang “O Gladsome Light”.

And I think about how God was there.

Among the trees, in the cold, and in the quiet over the snow.

God was there.

In our voices, in the chapel, and in the solitude of our prayer.

God was there.

That is what vespers feels like to me when I stand in the quiet of the darkened nave. I feel like I have stepped back into that Alaskan chapel, back to the quiet of the woods, and the crunching of snow beneath my boots. And I know the quiet I feel in service is the same quiet I felt in the snow.

Being able to connect vespers and snow the way I have in this post makes me think that maybe someone like Henry David Thoreau (who I quoted in the beginning of this post) could have felt a similar way if he had known about Orthodoxy and vespers.

And who’s to say he didn’t? If Henry David Thoreau could find quiet in the snow, what’s stopping us from doing the exact same thing?

So. If you want to experience this quiet for yourself, attend vespers this coming Saturday. And while you’re there, listen to the quiet and let it settle into your heart the way snowflakes settle on your eyelashes.

And while you’re thinking about vespers and snow, consider donating to our building fund so that we can carry this quiet sanctuary over to our new temple with each and every vesper service offered. Building Fund Donation

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P.S. I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite songs related to winter.

And that’s probably the question that we’ve heard the most: If you’re out of room, why not just add additional services?

Of course, in American Christianity, additional services are a sign of success: it means you’ve outgrown your current space; it means you’re attracting more people. In fact, a congregation that does not have multiple services is regarded as static and stuck.

But there’s also a flip side to that dynamic: offering additional services means that each service can be designed with a specific target audience in mind. So, the early service is for folks who prefer a more traditional order of worship; the main service is for people who like contemporary music and who are comfortable with lots of tech; many congregations now also offer a more subdued, contemplative service—and then there are services for youth and children, as well.

The whole idea is that lots of choices in terms of style and lots of options when it comes to scheduling are going to make it possible to appeal to lots of different people.

But that’s not how things work in Orthodox Land.

We just have one main service: The Divine Liturgy. Historically, our tradition has been that everyone attends that service together—and to support that tradition, the canons of the Church forbid a priest from serving more than one Divine Liturgy per day.

Which sounds odd until you realize the value we Orthodox place on unity.

Because, for us, unity starts with the fact that we all gather together in one place at one time and offer the same service before the same altar. There are a lot of other dimensions to our unity—the beliefs we proclaim, the calendar we keep, the teachings by which we abide, the structures by which we are organized—but it all starts with showing up alongside our sisters and our brothers for The Divine Liturgy.

So, in Holy Orthodoxy, unity is not an abstraction; at its most basic level, it’s about the person standing next to us in the services.

Nevertheless, human nature being what it is, you really shouldn’t be surprised to learn that a good many Orthodox communities have found a way to—well, let’s just say they are massaging that concrete take on unity into something that’s a lot more…theoretical.

That’s because there are a number of Orthodox parishes which now have two liturgies on a Sunday morning. And, strictly speaking, they’re not doing anything uncanonical: they have multiple priests on staff, so each priest still offers just one liturgy, and all of these communities have obtained episcopal permission to do what they are doing. In other words, their bishops have blessed the arrangement because the folks in these particular parishes believe that they just can’t fit everyone into their current facilities.

But just because a bad idea appears to be a common-sense solution doesn’t mean it’s not also a bad idea.

And more than one Divine Liturgy on a Sunday morning is a bad idea.

Now, to the credit of our hierarchs, none of them have blessed this sort of arrangement as a permanent solution. It’s supposed to be a temporary measure. However, as anyone in American Christianity will tell you, once you have started a new service, it’s very, very difficult to later shut it down.

That’s because—surprise!—the folks who attend that new service begin to regard themselves as a congregation within the congregation, as a community within the community. They will start to form a separate identity from the larger group; they will see themselves as “the folks who attend the Early Morning Liturgy” or “the people who get to go to brunch early”. And even if they were told ahead of time that the entire set-up is only going to last until the new building is complete, once it’s time to discontinue that additional service, there will be resistance, if not outright opposition.

But there’s more to this than just challenging social dynamics. Because adding an additional Divine Liturgy also disrupts the Typicon of the Church.

The Typicon is the schedule of the Divine Services.

That schedule has basically been the same since the tenth century. The schedule is handled differently in Byzantine and Slavic Orthodoxy, but, in Byzantine communities, the Divine Liturgy is always preceded by the Service of Orthros.

In the West, Orthros is known as Matins; it’s the daily morning service. It’s also the service in which the bulk of the Psalter is read and most of the hymnography is sung. That means Orthros is where we are trained in the Holy Scriptures (through the Psalter) and where we are trained in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures (through the hymnography).

Unfortunately, as we’ve pointed out before, most Orthodox communities only offer about fifty minutes of what should be a two-hour service. So, in a great many parishes, Orthros is now more of an opening act for the Divine Liturgy than a service that has an identity of its own.

But when folks decide to offer two Divine Liturgies each Sunday morning, Orthros disappears completely. There is simply not time to serve Orthros along with an additional Liturgy, so communities simply stop offering Orthros altogether—and, again, it’s always ‘temporary’; people always insist that, at some point, everything is going to go back to ‘way it should be’, but that hasn’t yet happened in any of the parishes that offer two Divine Liturgies on Sunday morning.

Of course, I could be mistaken about that.

I mean, if you know of an Orthodox community that has successfully offered an additional Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning for a limited period of time, and then returned to the traditional schedule of Orthros and Liturgy, please let us know.

While we’re waiting on that update, why not join us in offering The Akathist for a New Temple (video)? You can also swap out your regular subscription for one that is Paid, pick up a Come See Something Beautiful T shirt, commission an image of a departed pet for the Calming Room of our new temple, or make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

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And, not surprisingly, we’re still waiting…

But we do have a solution to all this, and we’ll share it with you in an upcoming post. In anticipation of that, we’ll leave you with an appropriate tune (once, again) from The Fab Four.

That’s the final scene from the lovely old Brazilian movie, Black Orpheus.

Orpheus has died, and his two young friends, Benedito and Zeca, use the musician’s guitar to play the sun up.

I’ve thought about that cinematic moment a lot this month because we’ve been serving the Divine Liturgy at 6am on Wednesday mornings. We do that when there’s not a fasting season because it provides folks with a quiet option to the over-crowding we experience on Sunday mornings.

It’s also a good time to pray for our new temple, and so we always make the reliquary of St Eanswythe of Folkestone available for folks to reverence.

Of course, we serve Orthros just about every weekday morning at 4am, so we’re used to getting up early. But Orthros is generally over before the sun comes up; however, with the 6am Divine Liturgy, we get to also watch the morning light slowly move through the Holy Place and the Nave.

And, sure, we don’t make that happen any more than Orpheus caused the sun to rise over Rio. After all, as G.K. Chesterton famously pointed out:

“…God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun”.

But, boy howdy, we get to help.

In fact, we join with Orthodox Christians all around the globe, and, just like Benedito and Zeca, we assist with the sun rise.

Just pick a point on the planet.

Let’s start, say, with St Michael’s Skete in Alaska

The monks there greet the morning with Orthros and then the light rushes on across the Pacific Rim, and it lights up St Seraphim Monastery in Vladivostok, Russia

The light then spreads out across the steppes, and it flows over the Holy Trinity/St Sergius Lavra outside of Moscow

The dawn then leaps over the Balamand Monastery in Lebanon

and St Saba’s outside Jerusalem;

it explodes over the monasteries on Mt Athos

And flows through the Voronet Monastery in Romania

The light then races to the Monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God in Bussy-en-Othe, France

and on to the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, UK.

The morning then shines out across the Atlantic, and it illumines the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York

and Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia,

…and…then…it’s our turn

That’s right, here in good old Cedar Park, Texas, we get to play our part in fulfilling that Psalmic prophecy: “From the rising of the sun, until the going down of the same, the Name of the Lord is to be praised” (112.3).

And, for sure, there are lots of other Beneditos and there are lots of other Zecas all around the world who take part in this daily Cycle of Praise: nursing moms who turn to their icon corner as the sun comes up, elderly folks in nursing facilities who make the sign of the cross as the new light comes through the windows of their room, working men who get in their trucks at dawn after a long night shift and take a moment to touch their fingers to their lips and then touch the image of the Mother of God that’s taped to the sun visor.

We all make it happen together, but, a month from now, on The Feast of St Eanswythe, here at St John’s we’re going to stay up for the whole sequence. We’re going to offer an All Night Vigil in honor of the Patroness of our Building Program, and we’d love to have you keep vigil with us.

If you can’t make it to Cedar Park on Sunday, August 30, and Monday, August 31 (or if you’re just not able to pull an all-nighter at the beginning of the week), we understand. But there are a whole lot of other ways you can get in on the action.

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We’re looking forward to the day when we will be able to see the morning sun light up our new temple. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with this bit of musical anticipation from The Beatles.

This quote is one of my favorite quotes from Tolkien’s LoTR trilogy because it is a reminder that true transformation happens through faith and trust. Frodo and Sam are in the middle of a story that seems unlikely to end positively in their favor, and the only thing they decide they can do is to keep going. Of course, we all know how the trilogy ends (if you don’t, it’s 2026 and the movies are on Amazon prime—you can even get the books on Amazon kindle. Seriously, it’s super easy) but what made it meaningful and what makes the characters’ choices heroic is that they made them in the face of uncertainty.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably expressed this exact sentiment many times: “When are we going to /actually/ start building this new Temple? It’s been years and it seems like all we do is talk about money.” Waiting is something that is not easy for me and is something I’ve always struggled with, ever since I was old enough to repeatedly ask “Are we there yet?” on a car trip (sorry mom and dad). I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD and while the difficulty with waiting makes a lot more sense to me, I have also realized that my life has had a lot of waiting in it. I waited 27 years to meet the man I married, and let me tell you, Michael was (and is) well worth the wait. I waited 15 years for the little sister that I had been begging for since I could talk, and she was absolutely worth the wait. I waited a total of 8 years to finish college and graduate with a masters in English. That’s a lot of waiting. All of that waiting led to wonderful blessings, but it was hard for me to recognize the transformations that were happening in my life because I was focused on the uncertainty that comes with waiting.

Similarly, I think we are experiencing a period of transformation as we work towards our goal of building a new Temple, We can’t know when this journey toward our new Temple will end, but the faith and trust that is at the root of this project has already shown us small pieces of that transformation taking place: our parking lot was recently extended, we have a new exit door in the nave, there are railings on our sidewalk, our Discord page allows us to connect as a community in ways we weren’t able to before, and we are blessed to continue to catechize and baptize new members of our parish on reception Sundays. These are just some of the things that I have noticed in the past several months, but I am sure that there are many more things that could be added to this list.

The building project has been an ongoing conversation within the community over the past several years. Currently, the focus is on the new Temple, but I can recall when the conversation was about building the building we are currently in. Back then, we were holding services in the Parish Hall (the building that we now use for Sunday School) and the foosball table (yeah, we had a foosball table) had a waitlist. I was a teen at that time, so a lot of the logistics that went into building the Long Hall were lost on me. I didn’t understand the effort it took to raise the money needed to start construction, or the numerous meetings, discussions, and sacrifices that occurred during the entire process. The biggest thing that I was concerned about was the unfortunate fact that the building that we are currently in was going to sit right on top of a wild blackberry patch that had been growing on the property for years and which I would miss when it was gone (I do still think about that blackberry patch).

However, just because I was a kid at the time, doesn’t mean that I couldn’t contribute or participate in meaningful ways. I was old enough to put my tithing money in the building fund bowl, and to attend liturgy and participate in the life of the parish. I also recall that there was one Sunday we all wrote our names on individual pieces of wood and placed them in the ground where the building that we are currently in would eventually go to mark the place where we usually stand during liturgy. I remember looking at all of those sticks in the ground and feeling this intense sense of belonging unlike anything I had experienced before.

Looking back, I realize that even when the building that we are currently in was the focus, the building project included plans for the temple we’re fundraising to build right now, which means we’ve been praying about it for a lot longer than we’ve been raising money for it. Not only that, but Fr. Aidan (and others) have been talking about this building project for years. One of the Fall/Spring theological seminars was dedicated to the physical aspects of the building, and we learned a lot about the style of building, the importance of squinches, the history of basilicas (although it seems really unfortunate to me that Orthodox churches are never bult in the gothic cathedral style. I think Orthodox gargoyles would be SO cool) and the pros and cons of a dome. We’ve also had several presentations from our very talented team of iconographers regarding the plans to adorn the inside of the new temple. In short, this is a process that has been ongoing for a long time and that will continue for the foreseeable future. This period of waiting that we are in right now is a chance for all of us (especially me) to practice patience, trust, and faith that God knows what we need.

So, I invite all of you to wait with me on this long-expected journey towards our new Temple. And while you’re waiting, consider donating to help us build our new temple: Building Fund Donation or sharing this post to help raise awareness!

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There may not be dwarves knocking at the Narthex doors, or a wizard who shows up to blow smoke rings during coffee hour (unfortunately), but we have already gone there and back again. This is St. John’s story and we are the people in it—if we take one more step it will be the furthest away from home we have ever been.

And just because I think we could all use a little dose of nostalgia (it helps with waiting), check out this classic LoTR music video:

And lastly, I want to share a video from a channel that I listen to frequently whenever I need peaceful background music:

That’s The Bad Boys of Rock and Roll doing their best to sound like a country western band. It was during a set they performed in our hometown back in 2005.

And it’s a nice try: Mick is working hard trying to sing with a twang; Ron even got out a slide guitar, but, y’know, when you get right down to it, you just really shouldn’t try to be someone other than who you actually are.

And when it comes to Orthodox architecture, that’s a dynamic we American converts struggle with.

A lot.

Stick with me here, for a minute.

In our most recent posting, we’ve been talking about what it is, exactly, that makes a building Orthodox. Folks will focus on different features—the narthex/nave/Holy Place layout, the color of the ceiling and the carpet, the particular kinds of crosses that are on display. But, for most American converts to the Faith, the Dome is the #1 Thing that makes a structure authentically Orthodox.

And while we’ve spent the last two weeks talking about the fact that Orthodox temples did not start out with domes and how there is a long tradition of temples without domes, we know that most of our fellow converts are probably not going to change their minds: they’re still going to want to see some kind of dome, even if they have to do a lot of architectural fudging in order to pull it off.

The reason our convert sisters and brothers are so insistent on this feature is because, by being received into the Church, they believe that they have become different. They believe that they are no longer the people they were before, and, since domes are not something that you see very much anymore in American ecclesiastical architecture, that distinct feature goes a long way towards supporting their new self-understanding.

Of course, there are lots of other ways we converts communicate the fact that we are now different.

• A man from South Carolina who is a buttoned-down financial planner grows a beard that spreads across his chest and down to his waist.

• A woman from a parish in Missouri who is learning to chant starts singing with hypernasality because she says it sounds more authentically ‘Middle-Eastern’.

• A young man from Wisconsin goes off to seminary. By the time he graduates, he’s speaking with an accent that is vaguely Central European.

• A woman named Alice from Sacramento announces on social media that her new name is Thekla.

Anyone who has spent any time at all in Orthodox Land knows that those examples are, actually, pretty tame.

And, of course, the irony is that, when we are received into the Church, we do become new people. Through the mercy of God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are united to Christ Jesus, and we are transformed as we grow in our relationship with The Most Holy Trinity.

But that is a very long process, and we don’t measure our progress with external markers.

If we want to know if we are drawing closer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we ask ourselves two questions.

Are we sinning less? That means less anger, fewer lies, not as much overeating or over-drinking, along with reductions in envy, gossip, and porn usage.

And are we acquiring the virtues—are we becoming righteous? That’s going to look like increased patience and the ability to admit mistakes and the humility to listen to what other people are actually saying.

Of course, that’s hard work, and it’s a whole lot easier to just grow a beard and announce that you’ve changed your name.

Domes feed into that dynamic. Even if these features are done badly—and they often are—they still allow converts to think to themselves, “I must be different. I’m worshipping in a building that’s unlike anything else in American Christianity.”

Now, sure, I don’t know if there are any folks who actually formulate their thoughts in that fashion, but I do know that a lot of our convert sisters and brothers who are only able to define their new identity over and against what they have left behind.

Which is why former Pentecostals often get agitated if anyone says anything positive about charismatic worship. It’s why folks who were previously Episcopalian get nervous when the choir gets a little too polyphonic. It’s the reason people who used to be Baptists get anxious when someone suggests the parish might offer a vacation church school next summer.

Folks just feel the need to distinguish themselves from their previous communions. And that carries over into architecture. So, when folks are less than enthusiastic about the cruciform basilica design of our new temple, most of the time, what’s really behind that is the concern that the building isn’t going to be distinctive enough…

as in, it’s just too Western…

which, ultimately, is just code for—“It reminds me of what I’ve left behind.”

But at St John’s, we spend a good deal of time helping converts appreciate what those other communions gave us. After all, it’s where most of us learned the Name of Jesus. It’s where we heard our Bible stories. It’s where we were taught what the Christian life looks like.

So, there is no reason not to be thankful for the Sunday School teachers who instructed us and the youth pastors who supported us and the choir directors who taught us to sing and the pastors who proclaimed to us the Holy Scriptures.

In the very same way, there is no reason—none at all—why we cannot gratefully use the architecture of the early Christian West. Sure, things went off the rails in the late Middle Ages, but the cruciform basilica design is firmly within the tradition of the pre-Schism Faith, so it’s part of the holy inheritance that has been passed down to us.

And, for cryin’ out loud, people: This is Texas.

So, there’s just not going to be a better place for a temple that makes use of the Best of the Christian West.

But there are even bigger issues at stake here.

Because we live in a culture where all kinds of people want to be Someone Else—to the point that they are willing to undergo incredibly complex and painful surgical procedures. So, just a glance at that horizon lets you know how important it is that we stay true to Who We Really Are in the Faith and in our relationship with the Most Holy Trinity.

The Staple Singers had it right back in 1972.

We’ll get our funk on in just a moment, but, first, help us stay true and build that new temple by offering the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video). Upgrade your subscription to Paid. Pick up some CSSB merchandise. Commission an image in the Calming Room of our new temple. Make a direct donation to our building fund.

And we’ll hand it over to Sister Mavis and Papa Roebuck.

That’s us blessing the fine group of young people (and parents) that our community sent off to Camp St Raphael a few weeks ago.

Camp St Raphael is located in the wilds of Oklahoma, so, when we blessed the campers, we included some prayers for protection against your basic Okie varmints—chiggers, ants, mosquitoes, scorpions, Sooner fans—and it reminded us of that tune Jerry and Dawg covered all those years ago.

Blessing the Vehicles

And that’s us Blessing all the Vehicles in the parish this past Sunday.

We already talked about the reasoning behind this in detail, but, basically, it has to do with the fact that this past Monday, July 20, was the Feast of the Holy Prophet Elias.

That’s the Man of God riding up to heaven in a “chariot of fire” drawn by “horses of fire” (II Kings 2.11), and, while none of the cars and trucks and motorcycles that we blessed emitted flames, with the temperature topping 100, our procession, for sure, had some sizzle.

In fact, between the full vestments (including those funny Orthodox hats) and all the walking and the repetitive motion involved in making sure over 200 vehicles were sufficiently doused with Holy Water, at the end of our Parking Lot Parade, we looked like old Wilson Pickett used to look at the end of his set.

And out of all the perspiratory people in the world, why would we be thinking right now about Wicked Wilson Pickett?

Well, other than the fact that it demonstrates how we are, deep down, absolutely and genuinely funky (I mean, c’mon: just look at those hats!) it’s because when it comes to singing about having just the right kind of ride, nothing beats his R&B classic—and we’ve got it queued up at the end of this post.

Blessing the World

But, to paraphrase another great blues artist, we’ve still got some more blessin’ to do.

Which is why we want to remind you about the Vigil for St Eanswythe that we are going to be serving in the overnight hours of Sunday, August 30, and Monday, August 31. As we hope you know, St Eanswythe is the Patroness of our Building Program; August 31 is her feast day. So, for the past four years, we’ve offered a vigil on that day.

And, yes, staying up all night produces what we call, in Orthodox Land, ‘Liturgy Lag’—pretty much the exact same feeling that you get after an international flight across numerous time zones. But it’s worth it because the whole world is blessed during that long series of services.

But this year’s vigil is going to be even more exciting, because, before we kick off that six-hour series of services, we’re going to unveil a surprise.

And, no, we’re not going to provide you with clues or hints, because, well, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.

So just plan on joining us for the Big Reveal on August 30, and then hang around through the hours of the night as we pray for our new temple and ask the Most Holy Trinity to bless the entire planet.

But even if you’re not able to be there to watch the sun rise with us on August 31, there are still all sorts of ways you can help us out.

You can offer the Akathist for a New Temple with us each week (PDF/video).
You can restack this post, share it with everyone, or take out a Paid subscription.

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You can pick up some Come See Something Beautiful clothing.

You can commission an image of a beloved pet for the Calming Room of our new temple.

You can make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And, as promised, we’ll wrap all this up the soulful (and, yes, slightly soggy) Mr. Pickett.

We’ve made the point that doing a dome right is an expensive undertaking—in fact, that’s one of the main reasons why, at St John’s, the temple we’re planning to build is going to use the Basilica Design, a model that does not require a dome.

But, then, lots of folks want to know: If domes are so darn dear (yeah, we went for the alliteration on that one), then why do you see them on so many Orthodox buildings?

Well, that’s because most of those features are not Structural Domes; they’re Ornamental Domes.

Here’s the difference:

Structural Domes are constructed using brick, stone, reinforced concrete, or whatever structural system is being used in the walls of the building. Those structural materials are used to create an open half-sphere dome on top of a cylindrical drum-shaped opening. To connect the dome to the rest of the building, a variety of techniques are used.

With a four-pillar base, triangular pendentives transition the bottom opening of the dome down to the four main columns.

With a square or octagonal base, semicircular squinches (which is just the coolest word ever) transition the bottom opening of the dome down to eight points, which can then be supported either by columns or the walls.

But these techniques also allow the massive weight of the brick and concrete vault to be distributed throughout the building.

On the other hand, Ornamental Domes are manufactured using metal, fiberglass, PVC, or wood. These vaults are then positioned with a crane and attached to the building in a variety of ways:

• sometimes they are mounted on the building’s structural frame;

• sometimes they are simply fixed to the top of the structure.

This approach does not require pendentives or squinches because an Ornamental Dome doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much as an Actual Dome. However, you will still often see faux (that’s French for fake) pendentives and squinches made of sheetrock in buildings that feature an Ornamental Dome because that’s what folks expect an Orthodox temple to look like, and so they are added as decorations.

So, what’s the Take Away on all this?

The main thing to notice is that Structural Domes are more expensive because including that feature in a building has a dramatic impact on the entire structure: the temple must be able to support the pressure that is going to be generated by that kind of vault.

But the question then becomes: why in the world should we go to all that trouble? If more modern, less expensive techniques are available—and the end result looks pretty much the same—why choose a Structural Dome over an Ornamental Dome?

We’ve actually written about this dynamic before, but, this time around, let’s think about it like this:

• Somewhere, right now, there’s a chanter who’s experimenting with an app that will provide the ison, or drone note, to accompany him when he’s singing. He doesn’t have anyone in his community who really knows how to do that, but the app is free, and the more he tries it out, the better it sounds.

• Somewhere, even as you are reading this post, there’s a priest who has just printed off his first AI homily. It’s been a busy week with lots of meetings and hospital visits and extra time spent helping a family in crisis, and he tells himself that he will only go to the Large Language Models when there’s another week like this one, but, as he reads the sermon, he’s amazed at how good it is.

• Somewhere, down the road, you’re at a Pan-Orthodox Conference, and you’re in the vendor area, and you see a sign for an Iconographic Artist. When you get to the booth, what you find is a really friendly couple who specializes in customized, computer-generated Iconic Images: they never use the words icon or iconographer, but they produce some really amazing items on their 3D printer, and you end up buying one of their Real Reproductions for your prayer corner at home.

That’s the world in which we live, a world where people are no longer entirely sure what is and is not real. So, what we do in the Church has to be rock-solid reliable, from the music that we sing, to the words that we speak, to the images that we venerate.

And, of course, that includes the temples that we build.

But there’s still one other way that folks push back on all this: They point out that it’s 2026. They point out that no one does that kind of monumental architecture anymore. They point out that if we’re so concerned about what is real, then we need to get real about the real limitations of the real world in which we live.

But here’s what we say to that: Check out this beautiful slice of reality

This temple was completed in Romania just last year, and it features a Structural Load-Bearing Masonry Dome

And, hey, if they can do it in Romania, we can do it in Texas.

Now we’ve already made it clear that our temple is going to be constructed using the Basilica Design. But the much smaller chapel we’re planning will have a dome, and you’d better believe it’s going to be a Structural Dome.

Of course, one advantage that the folks in Romania have on us is that they got some of their funding from state sources. Texas is still a fairly religious place, but our State Legislature isn’t likely to put together a bill to help us build everything we’d like to build (though, for sure, if anyone connected with the governor’s office would like to give us a call, we would be happy to talk with you!).

That’s why we’re out here on these internet intersections raising money, so please share this post with everyone you know, and think seriously about taking out a Paid Subscription, purchasing a Come See Something Beautiful hoodie, commissioning an image of a departed pet for the Calming Room of our new temple, or making a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And, by all means, offer the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video) with us every single week.

We’ll sign off with a little construction music by The Jordanaires, and we’ll look forward to that day when we will get to pray with all of you in our new, domed chapel.

And, during our recent postings about the history of the Basilica Design, and how we are using that design in our new temple, one of those alert readers asked a question:

“Aren’t you actually going to be building a Cruciform Basilica? That’s what it says on the Plans for Our Temple section of the Substack.”

And, of course, that’s exactly what it says:

So, now, you’re probably wondering about the difference between a cruciform basilica and a regular basilica.

Well, it all boils down to a feature called a transept.

A transept is a bay on either side of the nave; these bays are oriented transversely to the nave, giving the entire area a cruciform—or cross-like—shape.

And, actually, it is this addition to the Basilica Design which made the model distinctly Christian.

If you’ll remember, the basilica was originally just a generic Roman administrative complex, but adding the transepts signed the model with the same symbol that we Orthodox Christians use numerous times a day—the same symbol that we wear around our necks, the same symbol that was made on our bodies when we were received into the Church.

Historically, transepts have been used for all sorts of things: depending on the size of the building, those bays can function as side chapels or as reserved seating for dignitaries of various kinds. Nowadays, transepts are often occupied by a communities’ musicians: the choir is set up on one side of the nave; the chanters do their work on the other side of the nave.

But transepts also have an important iconographic function. These bays make it possible to gather together and develop particular iconographic themes. For example, we’ve shared this particular graphic before, but it shows the images that will be used in the transepts in our new temple:

On the south—or right—side of the nave, the transept will feature murals that focus on the Birth of our Lord and Master: The Annunciation, The Nativity, The Adoration of the Magi:

On the north—or left—side of the nave, the transept will feature murals that focus on the Passion of our Lord and Master: The Burial, The Descent into Hell, The Adoration of the Myrrh-Bearing Women:

So, these bays will highlight some of the most decisive and the most dramatic episodes of The Incarnation: The Birth and The Passion of Christ Jesus.

But the folks who read this Substack aren’t just observant; they’re also very, very practical, so, right now, a lot of you are thinking something along these lines:

“OK. Transepts. Check. Long history with this sort of design. Got it. But really: Who’s going to stand in the middle of that building and look back and forth at the images on both sides of that long structure? You would just end up feeling silly, and your neck will give out. If anything, everyone’s going to be focused up front—that’s where the action is, after all—so why not concentrate the iconography in that part of the complex?”

Those are good points. We’ll begin our response by pointing out that we actually do have a whole lot of iconography up in the front of the temple.

And then we’ll point out that, sure, folks will feel silly, and their necks will get tired looking back and forth at the images in the two different transepts, but you know what? They’ll do it anyway. In fact, a lot of people will actually come by the temple during the week so that they can just light a candle and say their prayers and then do that silly, neck-swivel thing when no one else is around.

Beauty just has that kind of impact on people.

And here’s another way those bays will impact folks: Once people realize that they spend most of their time in the Divine Services in a space that is defined by images of the Birth and The Passion of our Lord and Master, then they will realize that their own personal stories are part of a much bigger Story.

A Story that is transforming and hopeful.

A Story that is healing and redemptive.

And even though they will probably never, ever be able to put it into words, they will also come to realize that their personal stories are not, finally, defined by

• the pay day cycle

• the results of their most recent medical exam

• their supervisor’s moods

• the latest political polls

• the stock market’s performance

• their grade point average

• their porn addiction

• their grandchild’s disability

That’s why we want to build a basilica with transepts that are adorned with beautiful iconography. Because all of us are part of a bigger Story.

A Story that is transforming and hopeful.

A Story that is healing and redemptive.

A Cruciform Story.

Please help us with this effort. Offer the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video) along with us. Purchase some of our CSSB clothing, commission an image of a beloved pet for the Calming Room of our new temple, or become a Paid Subscriber.

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Donate to our Building Fund.

Because, as Bill Monroe reminds us, we can all be part of that bigger Story.

Metal detectorist’s find may unlock hidden history

Yep, that’s our Man in Folkestone, Dr. Andrew Richardson, hard at work, keeping us connected to the Patroness of our Building Program, St Eanswythe.

We’ve got two videos of Andrew’s great lectures on our Substack (Finding Eanswythe & Eanswythe Found), but in that BBC story, he’s talking about the links between the craftsmen in Kent, St Eanswythe’s kingdom, and the warriors buried at Sutton Hoo, which was located in the kingdom of East Anglia.

Warriors whose tactical gear looked like this.

But our Princess turned her back on the violence and the opulence of that whole way of life. She wanted to get as close as possible to The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so she became a monastic—in fact, she was the first female monastic in the British Isles.

Our Liturgical Connection

Of course, worship is the key to an intimate relationship with the Most Holy Trinity. And, back in seventh century England, worship was often organized as a vigil.

Basically, a vigil is an all-night worship service. In the Church’s earliest centuries, just about all worship services were vigils, because there was no such thing as the weekend. Folks didn’t get any regular time off from work, so, if they wanted to participate in worship, they just had to stay up all night and then show up at their job in the morning.

By the late fourth century, Sunday morning worship was the norm, but the original version, the vigil, never went away. In fact, that service was eventually regarded as uniquely powerful. Here’s how one Holy Father, Isaac the Syrian, describes that kind of worship:

“Choose for yourself a work willed with delight: constant night vigil, whereby all the Fathers divested themselves of the old man and were accounted worthy of the renewal of the intellect. During those hours, the soul experiences that immortal life and by means of that experience, she puts off the vesture of darkness and receives the gifts of the Spirit.”

St Isaac lived in the seventh century, at the very same time as our Kentish Princess. St Eanswythe would have participated in vigil services on a regular basis, and, in a few weeks, we’re going to follow her example and serve our own vigil.

Our Kingdom Connection

We’ll offer the Vigil on the Feast of St Eanswythe, which means it will begin on the evening of Sunday, August 30, and wrap up early on Monday morning, August 31.

And while it’s customary to speak of the Vigil as a single service, it’s actually a whole series of services that are offered sequentially: Small Compline, Great Vespers, Litia and Artoklasia, Orthros, and The Divine Liturgy.

Also, while the services are sometimes lengthened due to the music that is used or because of the number of people who are present, most Vigils don’t actually last the entire night; generally, the sequence of services runs about five to six hours.

If you’ve been reading Come See Something Beautiful for any length of time at all, you know this isn’t the first Vigil we’ve offered a vigil on St Eanswythe’s Feast Day. As a matter of fact, this will be the fourth time we’ve stayed up all night to pray with our Patroness, and, every single time we’ve done that, amazing things have happened.

So, what will happen this year?

Well, for starters, just like St Eanswythe, we also live in a culture that prioritizes violence

and opulence.

That means simply showing up for something as counter-cultural as an All Night Vigil is going to rattle the Principalities and Powers.

And once we set off those cosmic reverberations, who’s to say what else might shake loose?

But, hey—why don’t you plan on joining us for the Vigil, and we’ll all find out together?

If a quick trip to Cedar Park, Texas, isn’t within your budget, we’ve got all sorts of other ways you can connect with the work that we’re doing and the fun that goes along with it.

You can offer the Akathist for a New Temple with us each week (PDF/video).

You can restack this post, share it with everyone, or take out a Paid subscription.

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You can pick up some Come See Something Beautiful clothing.
You can commission an image of a beloved pet for the Calming Room of our new temple.

You can make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And to wrap this up with a good old boy vibe, we’ve got one of the original urban cowboys, Joe Walsh, to sing about what happens when we stay focused throughout the night—and we’re hoping you’ll be able to join in.

And, of course, lots of folks have opinions on that subject.

For some, the structure has to be clearly sectioned off with a narthex and a nave and an altar, or it’s just not genuinely Orthodox.

For some, the building has to have a central chandelier or a blue ceiling or red carpet; otherwise, it’s not authentically Orthodox.

But for most people, the number one feature that makes a building Orthodox is a dome.

There are many Orthodox temples that feature beautiful and magnificent domes. However, most folks are really surprised when they learn that the earliest temples did not have domes.

We have already talked about the most basic model for an Orthodox temple; it’s called the Simple Gable Design. That layout has served Christians well for thousands of years, and there’s no reason why it can’t be used in our twenty-first century world.

In fact, as we’ve noted, our current facility is a large version of the Simple Gable Design

But like any architectural model, this design has limitations, and the most significant drawback for this particular lay-out is that it cannot be expanded beyond a certain point.

So, how is that design supposed to work in a growing parish community?

Folks faced the very same problem in the early centuries of the Faith. By the mid-fourth century, Christians were no longer a persecuted minority. Lots and lots of people were being received into the Church. So, our foreparents had to figure out how to architecturally accommodate those folks.

In that sort of situation, you would think that they would have just used a design plan that other religious folks were using. But pagan temples were not built for large crowds.

Those structures were constructed to shelter the statue of the god to whom worship was being offered. Pagan temples often had libraries and support facilities, but what they did not have was expansive, indoor spaces for big crowds.

So, rather than borrow a layout from their pagan neighbors, our ancestors in the Faith turned to Roman municipal architecture, and they adopted and adapted a building design known as the basilica.

Basilica is a Greek word; literally, it means a ‘royal walkway or porch’. But in the Roman Empire, the basilica was the generic administrative building that was at the heart of each and every city.

If you had to get your driver’s license renewed, you went down to the basilica. If you wanted to get your passport updated, you got in line at the basilica. If you were going to dispute a tax bill or if you had a date in traffic court, that meant you were going to make a trip to the basilica.

It was that kind of place.

However, because each and every basilica featured the same basic design—a design that could handle overflow crowds—Christians decided to use it for their temples.

Basically, the Basilica Design is an expansion of the Simple Gable Design.

• The eastward facing vertical structure is raised even higher.

• Two side aisles are added; these side aisles are separated from the central area by rows of columns.

• The central area is higher than the side aisles, and windows above the side aisles allow light into the building (the technical name for the windows is clerestory windows)

• The east end of the building is raised slightly above the rest of the floor, and, often, the east end of the building includes a rounded extension, known as an apse.

That’s how the Romans put together these buildings, and, in many cases, the Christians simply moved into those facilities and adapted them for the Divine Services. However, even though the Basilica Design started out as the Roman version of the courthouse annex, our foreparents in the Faith turned it into something absolutely gorgeous.

Check out these reconstructions of the original St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, which was built in the middle of the fourth century

and also these reconstructions of the Church of St John the Baptist in what is, today, Switzerland; it dates to about the year 800

But, ever since the fourth century, Orthodox Christians have been building temples using the Basilica Design.

And that’s the layout we’re using for our new temple here in Cedar Park.

Now, our new building is definitely going to be beautiful, but it’s not going to feature the kind of opulence that is on display in those ancient temples—after all, those structures were sponsored by kings and emperors: St Constantine paid for Old St Peter’s, and Charlemagne underwrote the construction of the Church of St John the Baptist.

Obviously, we don’t have access to those kinds of funding sources.

(But, hey, if a member of any currently existing royal family is reading this Substack right now, by all means, get in touch with us; we’d love to talk with you!)

And that’s one of the reasons why have chosen the Basilica Design, a model that does not feature a dome. Because doing a dome right costs a significant amount of money.

But we’ve got a growing community on our hands, and we need to get into a new temple as soon as we can manage it.

So, given our circumstances, going with the Basilica Design only makes sense.

Now, having written that, I fully expect that we’ll hear from all sorts of folks who will let us know that there are all sorts of ways we can do an inexpensive dome. And we’ll respond to all those offers in our next post.

The James Herndon Singers are going to lay all this out for us musically, but, right now, we’ll just thank you for taking the time to read this post, and we’ll ask you to take some additional time and join us in offering the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video).

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And if you could become a Paid Subscriber, or pick up some of our CSSB merch, or commission an image of a departed pet for the Calming Room of our new temple, or make a donation to our Building Fund, that would help us get into that new, beautiful basilica even sooner.

And, at the conclusion of our last post, we were working through an issue that confronts a lot of new communities—when you don’t yet have a permanent home, or when you’re not yet able to afford the facility you really want to build, how can you let folks know that you are an Orthodox parish?

In other words, what’s the best way to communicate the unique nature of The Faith?

Many communities try to do that architecturally, and that often involves something that sort of looks like a dome, but there is a better way to approach all this.

At the end of each and every one of our posts, we ask for your prayers, and we even provide you with a link to a service called the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video). If you have been offering that service along with us, then you know that Oikos 7 of that Akathist reads like this

In the account of thy martyrdom, O holy Justin, when Rusticus the Prefect asked where the Christians in Rome assembled, thou didst reply that they gathered at the Timiotian Bath. But now that thy relics abide in our holy altar, thou dost also join in our assembly, as together, across the centuries, we call out: Alleluia!

St Justin the Philosopher was martyred in Rome in the year 165.

And, yes, we do have his relics in our Holy Table.

But the part of the Akathist that we want you to note today is the part where St Justin tells the judge that the Christian community he belonged to in Rome met at the Timiotian Bath.

There were a lot of public bathing facilities in the City of Rome, and the Timiotian was an especially large complex. We do not know exactly where St Justin gathered with his sisters and brothers—it might have been in one of the facilities’ big open spaces; it might have been in a private room.

However, if you are currently part of an Orthodox group that is still looking for permanent location, it should be encouraging to know that one of the great saints of the Church worshipped with a group that met in the second century equivalent of a Gold’s Gym.

And it should also be instructive that St Justin and his community were able to communicate the unique nature of The Faith directly and personally, through their own lives.

In fact, it was not until many years later that the Church was able to express the beauty of Holy Orthodoxy architecturally. We’ve written about how Christians took full advantage of that opportunity when it did become available, but prior to the late fourth century, folks like St Justin and his sisters and brothers witnessed to the Faith by simply being patient and kind and generous and merciful.

And those qualities—those virtues—are going to make a bigger impact on folks than any kind of attempt to put together a DIY dome.

Because, truth be told, a mail-order cupola or a repurposed grain storage cap could very well just end up confusing people.

But goodness and hope and joy are pretty straightforward.

And speaking of straightforward, that’s a really good description of the plan for an Orthodox temple that we talked about it our last post. Remember? It’s called the Simple Gable Design

This layout features a symmetrical building that faces east. The structure is higher than it is wide; it faces east; it is illumined with light that comes through windows.

There is nothing elaborate or exotic about the Simple Gable Design, but, for centuries now, it is the basic way that Orthodox temples have been put together.

And when the Divine Services are offered in that kind of simple setting, it generates a deep-down kind of dignity, the kind of dignity that comes from knowing who you are and To Whom you belong, the kind of dignity that is the necessary foundation for virtues like gentleness and peace and love.

That’s something we’ve learned from our own experience, because the building in which we currently worship is just a large version of the Simple Gable Design.

Eventually, that structure will become our Fellowship Hall, but, for over fifteen years now, that layout has not only served us well, it has also connected us with our sisters and brothers in the Faith all around the world and down through the centuries who are using or have used the same basic model.

But what happens when that model can no longer accommodate all the people in our community?

We are already at that point and have been for several years.

And it just won’t work to try and build another structure using the Simple Gable Design. As we’ve demonstrated, the model is attractive, and it has a great many advantages, but it cannot be expanded beyond a certain point—because, after a while, with the height of the structure and its forward-facing orientation, it just becomes a tunnel.

But the lived experience of the Church provides us with a number of other good options.

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We’ll look at one of those options in our next post. But before that post posts, please join us in offering the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video). If you budget will allow it, please become a Paid Subscriber, purchase a Come See Something Beautiful T-shirt, commission an image of a beloved animal for the Calming Room or our new temple or make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And we’ll keep that construction theme going with The Great Gospel Men.

Okay, yeah, we’re a little behind on our news cycles here in Central Texas. After all, we’re building our own temple here in The Republic. But we just couldn’t let this piece of—ahem—journalism pass without comment.

To begin with, in the teaser, the narrator talks urgently about a “divided” neighborhood, and the reporter, Ms. Taylor Alanis, strongly implies that the parish is building on land that “is protected”.

But when you watch the—ahem—news report, it turns out the facts are otherwise.

St Mary’s is about four miles from St John’s. Father Gabriel Illes is absolutely everything you could want in a priest: he is patient and kind and humble, and, for years now, he has supported himself with his own trucking business.

Clearly, Ms. Jessica Hayes doesn’t like having the parish down the street, but it’s really, really difficult to imagine how one upset property owner could generate headlines about a ‘divided’ neighborhood.

To add to the silliness, Riviera Springs is just bang right up against all sorts of fast-food establishments (you can easily see a Cane’s Chicken and a La Madeliene Restaurant in the footage), so to complain about “a commercial facility” and “commercial traffic” seems, well, a little late.

And as for the land being ‘protected’, the City of Cedar Park specifically says that it’s not—so why didn’t Ms. Alanis just say that Ms. Hayes was mistaken?

Who You Gonna Believe?

Mr. Google?

Of course, the climatic ‘gotcha’ moment in the piece is when Father Gabriel refers to the fact that the area surrounding a temple becomes sacred and safe. He encourages viewers to “google” the idea, which was an unfortunate choice of words, but what he, of course, meant was that everyone ought to look into this reality.

However, the reporter, Ms. Alanis, got some footage of herself sitting in front of a desktop, and the search engine connected her with a “2023 study from the University of Iowa” that included “720 houses of worship” in our nation’s capital. Based on this study, Ms. Alanis states that religious facilities are more likely to “attract or enable crime”.

What Ms. Alanis doesn’t inform her viewers is that, according to the Crime Prevention Research Council, just the property crime rate in Washington D.C. is somewhere between 198-434% above the national average.

So, as they say in the research business, it’s not exactly what you’d call a representative sample.

Or Bambi?

But if Ms. Alanis had just driven a few minutes south of Riviera Springs, I would have been happy to give her an example of what Father Gabriel was talking about.

Here’s what I would have told her:

A few weeks ago, I was pulling into the parish parking lot on a Friday afternoon. I was running a little late; I had a number of things to do.

At that time of day, I always park on the east side of the building to catch the shade. But as I was gathering up my stuff, I noticed that something was happening on the grassy island just behind our main facility.

There were five big crows.

There were three squirrels.

And there was a fawn that could not have been more than a few days old.

The fawn was all hooves and spots and nose, and it was pretty wobbly. The crows and the squirrels were gathered around the fawn, and, at first—well, I thought they were waiting on it to collapse so they could go to work on it.

But I got out of the car, and I walked towards the fawn. The crows flapped up on to the building; the squirrels zipped up into the trees. The fawn just went to ground; it was so still, I couldn’t even tell if it was breathing.

I looked the fawn over, and I didn’t see any obvious injuries. I looked out into the trees on the back of the property, but I couldn’t see any mama deer. I decided to leave well enough alone, and I reminded myself as I went on into the building that squirrels aren’t carnivores.

Crows will, for sure, eat pretty much anything. But as I went about getting ready for vespers, I realized that the birds I had seen did not appear menacing. If anything, those corvids actually seemed to be somehow encouraging the fawn…maybe to get back into some cover…maybe to obey her mom.

Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer. I went back outside, and the fawn was gone. The squirrels were still up in the trees. A crow cawed from up on the roof. I walked over to the tree line, but there was no deer sign.

Of course, at this point, some smart-aleck is going to want to know if this guy showed up:

But, y’know, the only reason those Disney stories work in the first place is because, deep down, in our heart of hearts, we know that’s how the world was meant to work.

We’ve talked about this before, and we’ve pointed out that’s how the world does work on our five acres, because this property is being sanctified. It’s being offered to the Most Holy Trinity twice each and every day,

We want to congratulate Father Gabriel and the good folks at St Mary’s on the completion of their facility, but, with your help, we’re going to build a temple that will still be standing after Cane’s Chicken and La Madeliene and the Riviera Springs neighborhood are long gone, and, on that sanctified land, the deer and the squirrels and the crows will always have a home.

So, please help us all you can—Ms. Alanis and Ms. Hayes, you’re welcome to join in, as well.

Offer The Akathist for a New Temple with us each week (PDF/video).

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Pick up some Come See Something Beautiful clothing.

Commission an image of your favorite fawn or squirrel for the Calming Room of our new temple.

Make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And while you figuring out the best way to help, we’ll slide on outta here with Mr. Dylan singing about the birds on our five acres.

We get that from time to time, and what folks are generally reacting to is the fact that the design for our new temple does not feature a dome.

Of course, we quickly point out that the chapel we are planning does have a dome, but that just hardly ever satisfies these folks. They’ll nod and sort of smile, but it’s obvious that they are disappointed: because if you believe that domes are essential to Orthodox architecture, then you pretty much want to see them on every single structure.

That’s why you’ll see mission communities who have fastened an onion shaped cupola to the roof the garage in which they’re holding services.

That’s why you’ll see parishes who have put silo caps on top of their new buildings.

Because lots and lots of people are convinced that domes are just one of the Required Trademarks [can you put a Trademark Sign here?] of Holy Orthodoxy.

Of course, that’s just not the case, but since so many folks think otherwise, we’ll need to spend the next several posts talking about this subject.

Let’s start this way:

That’s one of the most famous iconographers working in the world today. He is an Archimandrite in the Russian Patriarchate; his name is Zinon Teodor; he is widely regarded as a modern master of this holy art.

In the closing years of the last century, Archimandrite Zinon planned and built a chapel in northwest Russia, close to the Estonia border. Now, if one of the foremost experts of Orthodox iconography and temple design is going to map out and then construct a building, we can expect it to feature all of the elements that the Church regards as essential—

Right?

Here is the chapel:

And, notice: there’s no dome.

Now, sure, the building is small. Here is an interior photo:

But this isn’t some quirky, eccentric personal project by an independent artist; this is Orthodox temple design in its most basic and essential form.

The folks who study this sort of thing for a living call it the Simple Gable Design. This design features an eastward orientation and a central, forward focus on the Holy Table; the emphasis is also on verticality (in other words, the space is not wide and low); the building is symmetrical, and it has windows to let in light.

But because this is a modern building, even though the design and construction was overseen by a world-renowned master iconographer, a lot of people are still going to be suspicious. They are going to wonder if it isn’t, finally, just one attempt to tinker with the Tradition.

Which, once again, makes us thankful for our relationship with Dr. . Because, last year, during his lectures on the Patroness of our Building Program, St Eanswythe, he shared with us an archeological reconstruction of a temple from a monastery that he helped excavate just a few miles from our Kentish Princess’ community in Folkestone.

The temple was in a town called Lyminge, and this is what it probably looked like

There are a few differences between this temple and the one constructed by Archimandrite Zinon: the building at Lyminge features an apse, a separate area for the Holy Table, and it also has a side room that was used as a crypt. But, otherwise, it is the same Simple Gable Design.

Here is a reconstruction of what the interior of the Lyminge temple probably looked like

Again, what you see is the same basic design—which is all the more remarkable when you take into account that these two structures are separated by 1300 years. Archimandrite Zinon’s chapel was constructed in 1997 with the same principles that were used back in the seventh century, in a building that was likely very similar to the one in which our beloved Holy Abbess worshipped.

But what about domes?

Well, we hope that it’s starting to become obvious: domes have just never been a requirement for a structure to be authentically Orthodox.

For sure, we’re going to talk more about all this in the next few posts. However, before we sign off, we should probably also address an issue that a lot of folks have to deal with when they’re trying to get a new parish off the ground.

So, let’s say you’re part of a mission that meets in a strip mall.

Or, let’s say you belong to a more established community, and you’ve managed to put up a multipurpose building on some land that you recently purchased.

But you need a way to set yourselves apart from all those other new congregations that are also starting in your area. You need something that will clearly distinguish your community from all those other Christian groups.

That’s when folks start looking at fiberglass cupolas and silo components.

Because what is more Orthodox than a dome (or something that at least looks like a dome)—right?

Stay tuned, because we’ll answer that question in our next post.

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But, in the meantime, we hope that you’re praying the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video) along with us. And, if you are, we hope that you will also seriously consider becoming a Paid Subscriber, purchasing some CSSB clothing, commissioning an image of a beloved pet for the Calming Room of our new temple, or making a donation to our Building Fund.

Because, as the old gospel song says, we’re all working on a building—whether in Kent or in Estonia or in Cedar Park or in The Kingdom—so we’ll sign off with Mr. B.B. King.

Of course, the services themselves and the hymns that are appointed for the services are the same in both monasteries and parishes. But the way those hymns are sung is very different.

In a monastic setting, the goal and purpose of the music is to generate contrition, to further the work of repentance. But in a parish setting, music is a way to provide—in the famous words of St Augustine—“comfort and spiritual strength” (Confessions IX, 7).

Here’s what that looks like in practical terms.

In a monastery, the sisters and brothers focus on contrition throughout the day and night; then, when they participate in the Divine Services, the music is offered in a way that does not disturb or distract them. Instead, the music gently enhances their repentance, and, in that way, each member of the community is able to offer their gift in union with their sisters and brothers.

As always, Elder Zacharias of Essex is a sure guide in this matter. He writes that

“when we attend the church services each one of us will bring the best of what he has found in his sacred converse with God as a contribution to the gathering…of the members of the Body of Christ in this place. Each one should bring something, and his contribution will be invisible but real…One may have the living word of God in his heart, inspiring prayer of repentance and many tears, or a prayer of thanksgiving for all his brethren…A wide variety of holy dispositions may rise in the heart during our presentation before God, which we will bring to the holy assembly.” (Monasticism p 253)

That means ‘monastic’ music is unobtrusive and subdued; it is designed to support the spiritual work that the sisters and brothers are already doing; it is not sweeping or dramatic.

However, parishes are different.

Just like the nuns and the monks, members of a parish community should also bring a gift to the Divine Liturgy. But, unlike monastics, folks in a parish have many other responsibilities and face many other temptations while they strive to carry on their “sacred converse with God”.

Thus, on a Saturday night before the Sunday Divine Liturgy, nuns and monks are praying or sleeping, and many of the folks in our parish are doing the same. Nevertheless, many of the members of our community are also comforting sick children or paying the bills or arguing with their spouses or viewing things they should not be viewing.

Consequently, when we show up on a Sunday morning (usually fifteen to twenty minutes late), what we need is not music that will simply support the spiritual work we have already been doing; what we need is music that will lift us into the Kingdom and sustain us throughout the service. And our appreciation of that dynamic is only going to be intensified when we factor in all the visitors and inquirers that join us every Sunday morning, because those folks don’t yet have any real understanding of the fact that the Divine Liturgy is something for which we have to prepare.

To sum up, then, ‘monastic’ music is sober and restrained; ‘parish’ music is exhilarating.

But here’s the thing: We don’t have to choose between the two styles.

If you’ve listened to some of the recordings of our choir, you know that they are capable of producing some genuinely awesome music. And each and every weekend, they work hard at providing our parish with that kind of support.

But we also have at least ten other services every single week. That’s because we offer Orthros and Vespers almost every day of the year. The music at those services is a lot more subdued, and that means folks who take their relationship with the Most Holy Trinity seriously and who want additional time—and a setting that’s a lot more quiet—in which to interact with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can take full advantage of those opportunities.

Of course, right now, we offer both the weekend services and the daily services in our current facility. Eventually, though, we hope to have separate spaces for these very different sorts of services.

The Weekend Divine Services will be offered in our new temple.

The Daily Divine Services will be offered in our chapel.

In all the months that we’ve been out here online, we’ve not yet had a chance to talk about our chapel, but we will be spending a lot of time in that space down the road: after all, we’ve got to figure out the exact design and the iconography and the saint(s) to which that chapel will be dedicated, and we’re going to need your help with all that.

But, right now, it’s enough to know what kind of services we will be offering in that space (Daily Divine Services and Feasts that fall on a weekday) and what kind of music will be used in those services (small groups or single voices singing arrangements that are simple and modest in a way that is bright but unassuming).

As you can see from the conceptual rendering of the space, the intimacy and beauty of the chapel will only enhance that whole experience, so why not help us build that facility?

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Make a donation to our building fund.

Upgrade your subscription to Paid.

Purchase some Come See Something Beautiful shirts or hoodies.

Commission an image of a departed pet for the Calming Room of our new temple.

If you just don’t have any money to spare, restack this post, share it with everyone you know, and join with us in offering the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video). We read through that service every week.

And since we’ve been talking about music, we’ll wrap up this post with still another recording of our choir.

We’re starting out this update with Tom and the band, because, once again, we’re going to be focusing on just how wild life can get here in Orthodox Land.

This is a topic we’ve tackled before, but we’re going to be coming back to it a few more times in the weeks ahead.

Because while there has been a lot of talk recently about wonder and enchantment and re-enchantment and whether any of those concepts are adequate to our cultural moment, the folks involved in that conversation appear to think that, in order to really get wild and to truly be holy, you have to either live out in the woods or you have to figure out a way to be transported to a different time and place.

But really: all you have to do is join us here in The Parish of St John the Forerunner.

Because we know what holiness looks like.

And, boy howdy, do we know how to do the wild thing.

The Bad Bee Whisperer

Case in point.

That’s Stephen Guerra. He’s a faithful member of our community. He’s an usher; he serves in our Church School. You just won’t find a more laid-back, calm, easy-going guy. He’s married; he’s got two lovely children.

And, as best as we can determine, he holds the world record for Longest Distance Driven on an Interstate Highway with a Minivan Full of Bees.

No kidding.

Here’s the back story.

A few years ago, Stephen and his wife decided that they wanted to get into the bee business. But for bees to do their business, they need peace and quiet and lots of adjacent pollen producing plants, so the Guerras purchased some property in rural Hamilton County. They then acquired some bees, and set up shop.

Now Stephen and his Apis Mellifera are producing honey on a regular basis (in fact, they supplied the honey portion of our menu during our recent Annual Forerunner Festal Fun Event).

But, from time to time, it’s also a good idea to introduce new bees into the community, so, not too long ago, Stephen was looking to expand his apiary. He contacted a beekeeper not far from his rural Hamilton County operation, and he made arrangements to pick up four boxes of bees very early one morning.

Apparently, if you’re going to be transporting bees (and we’ve checked with our Legal Department here at Come See Something Beautiful, and they have informed us that you really, really shouldn’t try this at home), 4am is the optimal time. It seems the bees are a little sleepy at that hour (and, really, can you blame them?), so that’s when Stephen told the beekeeper he would arrive.

However, Stephen was delayed by a storm; he didn’t arrive until much later in the morning. By then, the bees were awake and kind of cranky (like all of us when we first get up), but Stephen got his four boxes of bees, secured them in the back seat of his minivan, and headed out to Hamilton County.

Now, in order to appreciate what happens next, you need to understand that each of those boxes of bees contained 5,000 insects.

For all of you math-challenged folks out there, that’s 20,000 bees.

And, as you probably figured out by now, they got out.

Stephen’s not really sure exactly how that happened. The boxes were all closed, and he actually didn’t have to drive very far, but he ran into traffic on the interstate; he had to stop suddenly a couple of times, and, then, before he realized what was happening, the minivan was full of bees.

And when we say full, we mean he couldn’t see out of any of the windows.
At this point—flying down the highway at 75 miles an hour with a vehicle filled with stinger-equipped insects—most of us would have simply lost it. And, when he tells the story, Stephen does admit that he probably exceeded the speed limit when the bees first erupted into the minivan (ya’ think, Stephen?). However, after wiping the bees off the inside of the windshield, he saw an exit, he got off the highway, and he got out of the car.

And here’s the part that makes Stephen Guerra The Bad Bee Whisperer.

He pulled his beekeeper suit out of the back of the vehicle. Then he put the suit on, he got back into the minivan, and he drove to his property out in Hamilton County.

I don’t know about you, but once I got out of the minivan, I would have just walked off into the sunset and left the whole mess behind. But not Stephen. And by the time he made it to the Guerra Honey Apiary, the bees had all settled down, and he was able to eventually get them set up in their new home.

You Can Be Wild, Too

If you’ve been reading Come See Something Beautiful for a while, you know that’s just what life in our parish looks like—and we’ll provide you with even more examples in the weeks to come.

But if you’re looking to be holy—and to get your wild thing on just like the bee keepers

St Modomnoc

St Ambrose

St Gobnait

and Stephen ‘The Bad Bee Whisperer’ Guerra

—you really ought to join us here at St John’s in Cedar Park.

If that’s not possible, then please join us in offering the Akathist for a New Temple each week (PDF/video). Restack this post; share it with lots of people; take out a Paid subscription.

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You can also purchase some CSSB clothing, commission an image of a beloved pet (like bees!) for the Calming Room of our new temple, and make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And to honor our very own Bee Whisperer, we’ll put a wrap on this update with the help of Muddy Waters.

Yep, that’s our choir doing what they do best: singing the praises of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I thought we’d start with that recording since we’re in the middle of a series of posts about music and our new temple. But what we’re going to focus on today is the really odd fact that, even though we Orthodox have some of the most glorious and the most beautiful liturgical music on the planet, the average parishioner just doesn’t sing.

And there are at least three reasons for that.

First of all, believe it or not, there are some people who believe that singing is somehow ‘unspiritual’.

I’m not kidding.

Most of these folks are converts, and they tend to be young men, but, from time to time, you’ll find a young woman who thinks this way. And what happens is that these people show up at the Divine Liturgy, and they stand in the corner with a (usually very large) prayer rope. They then stare resolutely at the iconostasis, and they never, ever once open their mouths to sing.

That’s because, somewhere, somehow, these poor people have picked up the idea that, even when it is served in a crowded parish, the Liturgy is their personal opportunity to privately interact with the Most Holy Trinity—and thus everything going on around them is simply a distraction.

Most of these folks seem to have the idea that this is how monastics participate in the Divine Liturgy, but here’s how one of our modern holy fathers, St Sophrony of Essex, writes about his relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

Over and over again my heart would sing praises to Christ God Who manifests Himself in Uncreated Light…My soul would sing hymns of praise to God, Who with such love came to meet me… (On Prayer, p 79)

And just in case we might be tempted to see those references to singing as metaphors for a completely spiritual experience, here’s what the saint’s disciple, Elder Zacharias has to say on the same subject:

Within the Church, we are taught to sing our triumphal song to the Almighty Jesus, the Conqueror of Death, especially during the Divine Liturgy… (Monasticism p 193)

Monastics do approach music differently, and we’ll be talking about the difference between parish music and monastic music in a later post, but, whether in a monastery or in a parish, in Holy Orthodoxy, there is simply no basis for the idea that music is less than spiritual.

But we do often make it difficult for people to join in the music. That’s the second reason why the average Orthodox parishioner doesn’t sing: we’ve communicated to them that they just shouldn’t try.

Of course, no one puts up a sign: Don’t even Think About Singing. But when a single chanter sings the Trisagion Hymn just a little bit differently each and every week, folks are going to get the message that they aren’t supposed to join in. If a choir regularly offers a variety of music that is complex and performative, people are going to conclude that their participation is unnecessary and unwelcome.

That’s why, at St John’s, we work to make our music as accessible as possible—because we believe that the music of the Liturgy belongs to everyone, not just the professionals. So, if we are going to be using new music, we make sure that it is going to be suitable for congregational singing, and then we not only make recordings available to our community well ahead of time, but our Music Director also offers to meet with people and coach them through the new pieces.

As part of our catechumen formation, our Music Director meets with each new group of inquirers to talk about music and to encourage them to look through our music library and listen to our recordings and to sing along with everyone else. In our Church School program, The Catechesis of The Good Shepherd, the children sing the same songs that we use in the Divine Liturgy.

But there’s one final reason why most Orthodox folks don’t sing.

It’s because most Orthodox temples now feature fixed seating—and folks who are sitting down just don’t sing.

That’s especially the case when the parish in question has a really good group of chanters or a really accomplished choir—because when you add fixed seating (and a sound system) that’s just going to produce the ambience of a concert hall, and the congregation will be shaped by that environment. That means the parishioners might sing a bit during those portions of the service when they actually stand, but, most of the time, they will just listen politely or hum along, because that’s what happens in a concert hall.

Of course, at a rock concert, folks do sing along, and they often do that in a loud and raucous way—but those people are always standing (unless it’s one of those aging boomer concerts on PBS where folks sing softly—and nod their heads in time with the music—from the comfort of their seats).

We’ve already posted about why we aren’t going to have fixed seating in our temple, but we can add to that the fact that we want folks to be singing the praises of the Most Holy Trinity throughout the Divine Liturgy—and they are going to be much more likely to do that if they are already on their feet.

So why not come sing with us? Plan a trip to Central Texas.

If you’re not the traveling kind, pray the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video), restack this post and upgrade your subscription to Paid, pick up a Come See Something Beautiful T-shirt, memorialize a beloved pet with an image in The Calming Room of our new temple or make a donation to our Building Fund.

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The sooner we get that new facility up and running, the sooner we can start singing in it. And to give you a taste of what that’s going to be like, we’ll sign off with another recording from our choir.

But, as we do so, I want to circle back on something we mentioned in our last post: I pointed out that, after participating in their first Divine Liturgy, “some folks are so blown away… they later don’t remember that they also ate a meal after the service”.

That really does happen on a fairly regular basis—in fact, even after people have attended several Divine Liturgies, they still have a hard time describing what they have experienced.

Now, a good bit of that speechlessness is because what happens in the Liturgy—a worship service that is almost entirely sung—is extremely rare in American Christianity. But the inability to express what they have seen and heard also has much deeper roots: because what these folks are trying to convey is the fact that they have been present in the Kingdom of God. They have been present at the End of All Things.

And that reality is proclaimed in the actual text of the Divine Liturgy. For example, during the Holy Anaphora, the priest and the congregation rejoice in the fact that God the Father “hast brought us up to heaven and endowed us with Thy Kingdom which is to come”—and note the past tense of those verbs.

A few minutes later, when the Gifts are elevated over the Holy Table, the language becomes even more striking, because this is what the priest proclaims on behalf of the congregation:

Having in remembrance, therefore, this saving commandment, and all the things that have come to pass for us—the cross, the grave, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, the session at the right hand, the second and glorious advent…

So, through our participation in the Divine Liturgy, we are taken beyond history and beyond time, and we are present before our Risen and Ascended Lord, just as we will be at The End of All Things.

Given that vast and otherworldly scope, it is no wonder that folks who are new to Holy Orthodoxy have trouble talking about the experience. Nevertheless, when they do manage to string together some thoughts, what they almost always focus on is the music that they heard during the service.

And sure, they will also focus on the icons and the incense and, sometimes, even the sermon. But they invariably come back to the music, because even though they are unacquainted with the tunes and they don’t know the words, they understand—at a very primal level—that music is the medium that the Holy Spirit uses to connect all of us and the entire cosmos with each other and with the Most Holy Trinity.

We talked about this briefly a few months ago, but, now, we’re going to spend a couple of weeks talking about music—which may seem like an odd topic, given that we’re working to raise money for a new temple, but since that temple is going to be the physical setting in which we offer that music, the topic is actually super important.

Think about it like this: When we built our current facility, we went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the acoustics in that facility are just right. We consulted with several different engineers, and we asked them to weigh in, not only on the space in which we would be singing, but also on the materials that were used in that space and the separation and isolation of sounds from the AC units, the bathrooms, and the kitchen.

And the results have been glorious: The building in which we currently worship will eventually be our fellowship hall (and we will have to adjust the acoustics when we make that transition). But, right now, when we are offering the Divine Liturgy in that structure, it literally becomes an instrument that we enter into and inhabit. The building actually sings along with us.

We want that same experience in our new temple. That’s one reason why we have located that structure on the back of our property—so we won’t have to contend with any road noise.

And we have already had several acoustical engineers look over our plans to make sure that we are headed in the right direction in terms of layout and materials selection and basic planning.

Of course, involving those sorts of experts is additional work and a good deal of additional expense. But we’ve learned how very important all this is by watching folks who tried to avoid that kind of trouble and expense.

Sad to say, there are a lot of Orthodox communities who have been told that any and all acoustical issues can be solved with a really good sound system, but that’s just not the case. Not only does a sound system just make a complicated acoustical situation even more complicated, it will also re-orient the entire focus of the service, and it will actually discourage people from singing.

We’ll be talking more about why folks don’t sing in our next post.

But we’ll wrap up this conversation by pointing out that when there is no sound system, folks are not necessarily able to hear every single sound that the clergy or the choir produce, but that’s OK. That’s OK, because the clergy and the choir are going to be making a lot of those same sounds in next week’s service, and, if folks want to hear what’s going on, they will be able to be appropriately attentive.

But, with a sound system, when it comes to being attentive, no one has a choice: Everyone is forced to listen, whether they want to or not. Because most of us are used to that sort of aural oppression, we have forgotten how liberating it is to simply be able to direct the focus of our attention during a worship service as we see fit.

If that’s something you’ve forgotten—or maybe something you’ve never even experienced—then head on out here to Central Texas and pray with us.

If you can’t make the trip, join us as we pray the Akathist for a New Temple (PDF/video) each and every week.

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If you’d like to support our project financially, all you have to do is upgrade your subscription to paid, purchase some of our Come Sees Something Beautiful clothing, arrange for an image of a beloved pet to adorn The Calming Room of our new temple or make a donation to our building fund. Whichever way you contribute, all of that money—every last bit of it—goes directly to our new temple.

And since we’re talking about music, we’ll leave you with a recording of our incredible choir.

This past week, we celebrated our parish feast day, The Feast of the Nativity of our Patron and Protector, St John the Forerunner.

All of you American Christians know him as John the Baptist, and you probably think of him as a really strict and stern kind of guy—that’s was certainly my experience growing up in Protestantism.

But that’s not how he is regarded in Holy Orthodoxy. For example, this is a hymn that is sung about the Holy Forerunner on a regular basis:

“O swallow of the spring-time, beautiful dove, solitary turtle dove, Holy Baptist of the Lord, flower blooming in the desert, bring forth an abundant harvest of virtues in my soul which has become barren and fruitless.”

And that gets at an important dynamic which goes to the very heart of what life in the Church is all about: because the closer we get to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the more tender we are, the more compassionate we can be, with the folks around us.

Archimandrite Vasileios Gondikakis was, for many years, the abbot of Stavronikita Monastery on Mount Athos.

The monks on Mount Athos are super-serious ascetics, but, in his book Hymn of Entry, this is what Archimandrite Vasileios has to say about Orthodox Christians:

“Do not tell me how much they fast, how many hours their prayers last…Is there even one among them, even the most advanced, who can understand the tired mankind of our own day, who can comfort those who suffer?”

Festal Fun

So, this past week, we did the whole Athonite Thing with the Divine Services: we offered Great Vespers on Tuesday evening at 7pm; on Wednesday, June 24, we got up at 4am and served Orthros and the Divine Liturgy.

But in addition to those five hours of worship, on Saturday, June 20, we followed Archimandrite Vasileios’ advice, and we had ourselves some fun at our Annual St John’s Festival.

Now, since June 24 roughly corresponds to the summer solstice, in a lot of traditional cultures, folks mark that day by jumping over large bonfires.

Um…yeah…no thanks.

But what we do offer at our festival are locusts

and honey (from our very own parish bee-whisperer, Stephen Guerra).

Of course, if you’re not into that cuisine, we have other options, as well

And we put a Texas Twist on the whole event with a King Herod pinata.

Beating the Bounds

But the main attraction at our St John’s Festival is the Beating of the Bounds. The practice actually has biblical roots (Proverbs 22.28; Jeremiah 6.16); historically, it goes all the way back to Anglo-Saxon England which is the very same culture that gave us the Patroness of our Building Program, St Eanswythe of Folkestone.

The idea is that, once a year, the parish community walks, in procession, around the property. Before the invention of modern surveying and mapping, this is how property stones (called bounds) were identified and restored and committed to memory with the use of some interesting aids—sometimes the memory aid was that everyone in the procession beat the bound stone, but, sometimes, everyone in the procession beat several unlucky participants.

And our take on that is pretty much the same take we have on fire-jumping: Um…yeah…no thanks.

But processing around the property is a lot of fun. It makes it possible for folks to get out beyond the parking lot and the buildings and actually see the beauty of the five acres which the Most Holy Trinity has entrusted to us.

But a good procession needs some fun music, and that’s where our whole festival gets truly Texan.

Emily Dickinson and The Yellow Rose

So back when Father Andrew Wilson was getting his degree in Early American Lit at the University of Texas, one of the most useful things he learned is that you can sing just about every one of Emily Dickinson’s poems to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”.

No, seriously, go ahead and give it a try: “Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me…”

Anyway, to honor Father Andrew’s alma mater, and to make our procession around the property an event worthy of the Lone Star State, we composed our own processional song that is sung to—you guessed it—The Yellow Rose.

Here’s the chorus:

St John is the Forerunner—but he’s not an SUV!
He’s the greatest born of woman; from him the demons flee!
The number of feasts in which his head is lost and found are three;
He pointed out the Lamb of God, and he always prays for me!

And, really, when it comes to biblical and liturgical references, as well as allusions to contemporary car culture and personal piety, where else—where else—are you going to find that much packed into four lines of utterly absolute doggerel?

But, hey—you should hear the rest of the song!

We’ve got some of the verses ready to stream for you at the conclusion of this post, but, before we fire up that recording, just go ahead and admit it: like all the rest of us, you’re tired; you’re in need of some comfort, and you want to get in on the fun.

You know you do!

So join us here at St John’s.

If a move to Texas isn’t in your future, we’ve got all sorts of other ways you can take part:

Share

• join us in offering the Akathist for a New Temple each week (PDF/video)

• restack this post; share it with everyone you know; bump your own subscription up to Paid

• purchase some of our Come See Something Beautiful clothing; remember a beloved pet by commissioning an image in the Calming Room of our new temple

• make a direct donation to our Building Fund.

And, as promised, here’s a more complete version of our processional anthem, but we should warn you—it’ll make you want to move to Texas.