The struggle is real.

Let me start by saying this is one of my least favorite sayings of all time. I have actually been avoiding writing lately and the only thing I can think is that I didn't want to write about this topic. Not because I'm not ok with sharing my thoughts, feelings and real life struggles, but because I think that this saying is silly, at least in my opinion. Here's why I feel that way, I hear people say this over the goofiest things. Things that didn't really seem like a struggle. Things that were so minor, in my opinion, that they shouldn't even be a blip on our radar of struggle. That being said, I can't seem to get away from the thoughts that keep rattling around in my brain about this topic. So I guess that means I write about it.  

I'm going to start at the beginning of the struggle for this post. A couple of months ago I was at outdoor Liturgy. It was a beautiful day and I was very happy to be there. The process for setting up and breaking down for an outdoor Liturgy was a bit time consuming, but we had a good crew of people willing to help and we got into our groove, so to speak. So, anyway, I'm standing on the pavement amidst our beautiful landscaping, in the warm Fall sun in front of our church trying to be present in the moment (this can be a really difficult task for me) when all of the sudden mariachi music starts playing...loudly...from one of the homes in the neighborhood. Our church is in a neighborhood with a strong Hispanic presence so the sound of mariachi music isn't completely uncommon, but usually we are inside and it is muffled by that fact. Not this day. Nope, no muffling it here. So now I'm standing there, in the warm Fall sun, on the pavement with my offspring trying to filter out the mariachi music so I can focus on the service. At that moment I thought, "wow, the struggle IS real".  That's when this post was conceived. However, when I would try to start to write it didn't work. 

A couple of Sundays later, we were again standing in our beautiful outdoor space, enjoying Liturgy, when one of the neighbors of the church comes over and gets the attention of our deacon, who is standing with the parishioners due to social distancing needs. I couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but I could tell from the body language she was upset. After service I discovered she was upset because we were disturbing her sleep. In that moment I thought "Oh are you kidding me?!?!" but fortunately God put his hand over my mouth and I didn't say it out loud. It wouldn't have changed anything, and it certainly wouldn't have helped. In fact it would have just made my insensitivity to her struggle even more apparent. I don't remember if I actually said anything, but I was thankful I didn't say what popped into my head. I was thankful I won that struggle. 

Several weeks later, as we started to move into the holiday season, the offspring and I went to church for Vespers (this is a wonderful, quiet service intended to prepare us for Divine Liturgy that takes place in the evening) and as I was standing there with thoughts running through my head about work, holiday preparations, homework I needed to do, schedules, church items, and probably a hundred other things I was suddenly drawn back to where I was by the sight of our priest putting on the outer robe of his vestments. See, at the beginning of the service the priest only wears the inner robes of the vestments and part way through he puts on the outer robe. (All the vestments have specific names and at some point I learned them, but I don't really remember them now.) Well, anyway, the robes during Nativity season are red and as I stood there, out of the corner of my eye,  I saw the red fabric lift into the air while the priest was putting it on. It was like a matador waving his red cape. As I was getting lost in that moment, I was hit by the fact that this is part of the struggle and I am not alone. In fact, it's not even a new struggle. 

It seems that many of us act as if (and maybe even believe) that there is some sort of uncharted territory related to our struggle. That we are the first and only ones to fight the battles we are fighting and of course we are all alone in that struggle. It's us against the odds, but it's not.  

We are not alone and we are definitely not the first, or only ones, fighting the battles we are fighting. The truth is we have someone in our corner at all times. We are never alone in our battles. 

Fast forward several months. Many Orthodox homes have a vigil lamp that is kept burning in their home at all times. It's typically near an icon/icon corner or even a home altar. This is intended to represent the light of Christ and the light our prayers bring into the darkness. For a couple of years now we have been using a 7 day candle on our home altar (you may remember my fight with one of these candles last Spring) but recently I decided I wanted to transition to a more traditional oil and wick style vigil lamp. This has been a learning experience that has not always gone as smoothly as I would have hoped. There's a lot of guidance online and our priest has given me guidance on how to keep the lamp lit but it continues to go out on a pretty regular basis causing me more frustration than I care to admit.  So I took a break from it. 

Today, I decided to try again. I got the lamp down and trimmed the wick, I twisted the trimmed portion of the wick to gather any frayed pieces (not sure that matters but I thought I'd try), I lit the lamp. It burned bright and intense...for about 2 minutes. Then it went out. So I tried again and again, it went out. It was getting very frustrating. This went on for about 3 more attempts, but something kept whispering "keep trying". Finally I cleaned the wick and lit the lamp one more time. It didn't burn bright or intense, but it lit. It was a soft, low glow, but it was lit. I put the lamp back in the holder and stood there for a minute. Then it hit me, that's the struggle. 

It's easy to be bright, intense and on fire for 2 minutes. The real struggle is to keep listening to the whisper telling you to keep going when that fire is going out. The real struggle is to remember that you don't have to be the brightest light, you just need to keep your light lit. The real struggle is to remember that the only way to keep that light lit is to let it be the light of Truth.  

One of the first attempts