Update on New Kid

A couple of people left comments on my post concerning the "New Kid on the Block," so I thought I'd respond this way.

Catherine -- it just gets better and better. He's just such a nice person. New priests often come with an Agenda. Fr. Dean saw himself as revitalizing an aging community, and he did -- unfortunately, he also stepped on a lot of older toes to do that, and people got hurt. The last priest seemed to have as his agenda closer ties with the heterodox community, which wouldn't have been a bad thing, if it hadn't also involved little gems like "icons" of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic (from those Bridgebuilders crackpots), ecumenical services that included the local rabbi giving a sermon while standing in front of the icon of the Annunciation, and those little girls Going Where No Orthodox Little Girl Had Ever Gone Before -- I've crabbed enough about that that I don't feel the need to go into it again.

(By the way, in case anyone is actually buying "icons" from Bridgebuilders, I should note that I refer to them as "crackpots" because they so obviously subscribe to the theory that what makes an icon is the style of painting, and nothing more. You should have seen my priest's face when I made mention of their "icon" of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco official who was gunned down because he was gay. This is the kind of thing they get up to.)

Fr. Costin, to give the New Kid his name -- Fr. Costin also has an agenda. As he said to me, "People will forget about their petty grievances when they return to their spiritual focus." If it's possible to fall in love spiritually, I think I've just done that! :D

Elizabeth -- it wasn't the old priest who told Fr. Costin that I would "turn against him," but a member of the parish council who is best described as an Old Woman. The poor soul used to be a very responsible member of the community till he had a stroke; now he can't practice in his former profession, and seems to spend his days lurking around the church and finding things to gossip about. This is why this particular bit of gossip doesn't bother me for my own sake, but it does hurt in the sense that this nice young priest must be wondering when and how he's going to get hit between the eyes. I won't say "Never" -- I'm sure that eventually, we'll have some kind of difference of opinion -- but I hope we can resolve it, as I did my differences with Fr. Dean. It's when people won't listen that eventually, I just stop trying.

I'd like to try to get a picture of these people so I can put it up on my blog. They are just such a cute family!

When You Have Too Much Time on Your Hands...

...this is what you get up to.

This is an adaptation of an Ellen Maurer-Stroh cross-stitch design of roses and lilies. I charted them out on top of a St. Olga cross, and the idea is to stitch this design onto at least two analoy covers: one for the main analogion in the church itself, and one for the analogion that stands in the narthex. There are four other analogia, and for them I will stitch a plain St. Olga cross, no flowers -- I have to make some kind of progress. ;-)