“Josiah and Julia Go to Church”: An Update from Sheena Hisiro

Just wanted to give an update…my children’s book Josiah and Julia Go to Church, written by Kelly Ramke Lardin and illustrated by me, is available for pre-order on the Conciliar Press website and the book itself should be out within the next couple of weeks.  I eagerly await getting my hands on a couple of copies and sharing the book.  Thank you for all the kind words, support, and encouragement!  In anticipation, here are a couple new teaser images–the cover for the book and some interior art images, which can be seen on the Conciliar Press website as well.

While I had no part in the selection of which images to include on the website, I am pleased with the chosen images.  A little fun fact about the art: the altar boy in the illustrations is my brother (though he is a bit older now than he is depicted in the drawings) who quite often serves as an altar boy during church service.

At the end of April, I will be doing several book signings in the Harrisburg, PA area.  There will be two book signings at Agia Sophia Bookstore and Coffee Shop (http://agiasophiaharrisburg.com/), a non-profit bookstore located in downtown Harrisburg, on Saturday, April 28th and Tuesday, May 1st from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.  The bookstore opened in September 2011 and is in business to serve the local community, similar in concept to Newman’s Own, though on a more local scale.  All profits from Agia Sophia will go to local charities in the Harrisburg community.  There will also be a book signing at Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church, which is the church featured on the cover and throughout the book, on Sunday April 29th immediately following the church service during Fellowship hour; all sales at the church are in support of Agia Sophia as well.  These signings are open to the public, and I encourage anyone who can come out to stop by and say hi, see the Church and people that helped inspire the illustrations for the book, buy a copy or two, and support a good cause.

We’re moving to Orthodox Christian Network!

Saint Lydia’s Book Club is thrilled to announce that the “Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists” series is moving to Orthodox Christian Network!

During my very blessed Nativity season, I met OCN Executive Director Chris Metropulos during a visit to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After a wonderful conversation that lasted across several days and several thousand miles, I became the new blog chief for “The Sounding,” the multi-author site blog at OCN.

This is my dream job. I recruit and support writers, oversee content publishing, and contribute to promotion and to the blog’s interface with other OCN efforts. I love working with people who share my wild enthusiasm for the Orthodox creative world, and I love the opportunity to support what I care about on such a large scale. The possibilities feel endless.

When Fr. Chris invited me to bring the OWRA series to OCN, I gave it serious thought. My decision to move the series reflects my original purpose in creating it. I wanted to support Orthodox writers and artists by creating a place where they could explore their experiences and share their work. I hoped to raise awareness about our creative community. Moving us to OCN is a great opportunity to do all of these things! OCN is a gathering place for Orthodox people around the world. I feel certain that this opportunity is a door opening in front of us.

With the consent of my upcoming guest posters, we are going to step through this door. The series makes its first appearance on “The Sounding” today, with guest Jan Bear writing on “Nine Ways to Spread Your Message Using Internet Tools.”  And you’ll recognize some other OWRA guests among the new contributing writers on “The Sounding.”

Please come join us at our new location, where we will be happy to welcome you!

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Lynette Smith

I was a closet writer for thirty or so years. I can count the few times over those years that I pulled my material out of seclusion and offered it to select people. What I dared to have printed for a larger audience remained anonymous. But finally at age 50, I published my first book.

Although in my early twenties I had every intention to write for publication, over the years, reasons piled up to keep me in the closet. They seriously impacted the confidence and fortitude it takes to expose one’s thoughts to possible rejection. “You can’t,” eggs some people on, and they burst those bonds with Samson-like determination. For others of us, however, the accumulation of difficulties and fear can entangle our talents and bind them in dark musty corners.

Yet, as fans of the Narnian chronicles know, a shadowed closet may germinate new worlds out of impediments. God’s economy wastes nothing; so the decades that passed granted me experience. I pondered questions of fate and faith and wrangled with my Lord. I tried to let the years teach me, scribbling sporadically about the journey.

After converting to the Orthodox Church, the writings of her elders—ancient and contemporary—plunged me into further dimensions to ponder. This, combined with the practice of sacramental Christianity lived on the ground, began to fill me up with words needing outlet. An increase of ardor for the quest of God now contended strongly against the old accumulation of difficulties and fear.

Technology provided the forum to move out of the shadows a little, test my courage and let my meditations breathe into the common air. And so “Lynette Smith’s Lagan,” a blogsite of essays, was born. After a couple of years of blogging, key people in my life—especially my spiritual father—encouraged me to rework these essays into a book. Would it become published? I didn’t dare beleaguer the question lest it drive me back into the closet.

The time came when the book seemed finished, and simultaneously an opportunity for publication seemed to arise. Then all came to a stand-still. I began to wonder if I should just shelve the project. Depression snaked itself around my budding confidence.

Mercifully, one day I came across a quote from C.S. Lewis to his friend, Arthur Greeve, who was anxious about the slow progress of his writing career. What he wrote broke me loose. “It is not your business to succeed, but to do right: when you have done so, the rest lies with God.”

Patrons and publishers do or don’t do whatever they choose. I was the only person I could compel into motion. It was my job only to put forth my writing, not to force or control the outcome. Probably more than half my life was over; what did I have to lose? At the very least I would someday hold up a manuscript and publisher rejection slips before the Judge of all and say, “Lord, I managed to put it out there. Here’s proof that I did not let fear forever bury the talent you gave me.” In the end, a publishing contract came about.

I don’t kid myself that I’ll always get published if I simply “do what is right.” What matters is that I continue to offer what I can as God enables me.

Lynette Smith lives near Denver, Colorado with her husband and cat. She grew up on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, and as a young adult assisted missionaries in Southeast Asia. She converted to the Orthodox Christian Church in the middle of getting her Masters in Biblical Studies at Denver Seminary. She and her husband attend St. Columba Orthodox Church, a Western Rite parish under the Antiochian jurisdiction. She has taught Bible studies in both Protestant and Orthodox churches, been guest speaker at Orthodox retreats, and currently serves as chanter in her home parish. You can learn about her book, “Voyage: A Quest for God Within Christian Tradition,” at www.lynetteasmith.com. The book is available through Regina Orthodox Press, Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Elizabeth

Having read about so many truly gifted and talented artists and authors who have already been profiled, I feel very humbled to have been asked to take part in this series.  First of all, I must admit that I do not really think of myself  as a writer. I’m a blogger, first and foremost, and some of you may have already come across me at my main blog, The Garden Window or through my liturgical Akathists blog.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I went to stay for a few days with some childless friends of my grandparents. I was immensely fond of Gwen and Len, who were frequent visitors to our house, and I had a wonderful time at their home. Gwen took me with her when she went to visit an elderly friend of hers in a nursing home. I can’t now remember what this elderly lady’s name was, but I vividly remember her asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said without any hesitation that I wanted to be a writer. She gave me great encouragement, and  I did indeed write many stories in the rest of my childhood, all of which have long since disappeared, which is probably a very good thing indeed, thinking back to some of the plots…

Schoolwork, then university, marriage and caring for my growing young family gave me little time to write, although I often thought wistfully of my “writing days.”  Eventually we moved to a house with a wonderful garden which was so magical, so like the Secret Garden, that I simply had to try and describe it, and so The Garden Window blog was born.  I realised, when the youngest of my four daughters was a small toddler, that my days were merging into one long, sleep-deprived blur and I was rapidly forgetting lots of the things that happened in my daily life, so I made a conscious decision to blog regularly. Some posts were funny, some sad, some were good and some were very painful indeed, but I didn’t want to lose these memories, and after almost eight years of blogging, I can honestly say that starting my blog was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

A few months ago, I went through the archives of the blog and read the posts right from the very beginning; it was wonderful to recapture those memories and see how I had developed and changed as a woman and as a mother and how my faith as an Orthodox Christian has also developed.  For me, blogging has become an online journal which I choose to share with family, friends and those who have become my dear cyber-friends. It has been a long, long journey winding through family tragedies, moments of joy and episodes of hilarity. I have written about the devastating heartbreak of my brother’s sudden illness and death, sweet and funny things which the children have said or done, domestic disasters, how miserable it makes me feel not being able to get to church and worship with my church family and the truly awful isolation of not being able to afford to travel the long distance to my spiritual home for months at an end. In recent years I have written brief reviews of each book I have read and I really do seem to spend a lot of my life reading!

I have chronicled my children’s encounters with Christ and and their growing faith, setting up an icon corner in the new house and the delight of watching my husband hanging up a lampada for me, getting new pets and watching old pets die, seeing my eldest daughter getting married and the joy of having a new son-in-law, and my second daughter meeting her wonderful boyfriend.

My two younger daughters are growing up fast, and I am cherishing every moment, knowing that all too soon, they will be ready to leave the nest, but also knowing that I have many moments recorded on the blog to remind me of them vividly as youngsters.

The only downside of blogging is that once something has been put into cyberspace, it is very difficult if not impossible to permanently expunge it. Only on one occasion have I chronicled something which, after some reflection, I would not really want to stay on the public domain and have subsequently deleted it, but this is an ever-present hazard of having an online presence that needs to be kept in mind. I do not blog using my real name, nor do I mention the town in which I live, both in order to preserve my family’s privacy and in the belief that is wise to be cautious about putting too much of one’s life on display. Some weeks I simply do not manage to blog at all if life has been particularly frantic or even just particularly boring.

Some things are simply far too painful to discuss at the time they occur, and may not be blogged about till many months after the event when I have had a chance to reflect, pray and ponder what I have learnt from it.  Some things I have written might not generate any comment from my readers whereas on other occasions, something I have written has generated an enormous amount of interest and obviously touched a chord with my readers. This is all part of the fun of blogging.

One thing I have come to greatly appreciate and cherish is the wonderful support and camaraderie amongst bloggers. When things have been difficult, I have been heartened and cheered by the kind words and assurances of prayers, and there is the feeling of belonging to a vast family, where we are indeed all touched by each others’ griefs, sorrows, joys and absurdities. To then go to Liturgy and recieve the Mysteries, knowing that so many of my blog friends are also receiving the Body and Blood of Christ makes the concepts of the Community of Saints, the Church Militant and Triumphant so very special. I may not get to meet many of my readers and cyber-friends in this life, but the friendships are very dear to me nonetheless.

All things change, and as my use of Facebook has grown, I have found that I seem to have less time to blog, and in common with some of my blog friends, I am now seriously questioning whether Facebook is of benefit to me. Although great fun and a quick and easy way to keep in touch with people, Facebook is really not an easy medium for discussing anything extensively or particularly seriously, and is quite difficult to go back and revisit conversation threads, whereas it is simple to search one’s own blog posts and comments. I do actually prefer using my blog for discussion purposes, and am certainly hoping to be able to get back into a more stable blogging pattern – but at the moment,  the demands on my time are dictated by the needs of caring for my elderly bedbound mother and not so much by the needs of caring for my youngsters…and so life changes yet again.

Have I achieved my childhood dream of being a real writer?

I don’t think I have, but I do seem to write quite a lot, one way or another.  I write fan-fiction for an online community, I have a separate writing blog at Miscellaneous Mumblings  and have successfully completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing a 50,000 word story during the month of November for the last three years.  I have yet to find the time to successfully edit and proof-read these offerings, let alone even contemplate publishing them, but I have really enjoyed doing them, and I love writing even if it is primarily for my own benefit.

Elizabeth is 48 and has been Orthodox for almost twenty years. She lives in South Wales, UK, is married and has been blessed with four daughters whose ages range from 25 to 10. She loves history, studying Latin, reading and creative writing and helps run the library and book club at her local elementary school on a voluntary basis.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Jennifer Hock, “Finding that Inspiration”

The candle flickers its light and casts a shadow on the living room wall in the evening darkness. My dad moves the match across the mantle of our fireplace to our small family censer and ignites the charcoal cradled in its basin sending momentary sparks into the air. Soon after placing the incense on top of the burning hot charcoal, the sweet fragrance wafts through the room and an instant sense of peaces washes over me. My parents gathered all of us every evening for family prayer time before crawling into our beds for the night. This memory from my childhood, along with countless others, are the foundation of my fervor for my faith today.

Do you have similar fond memories from your childhood? Maybe yes, maybe no. All of our stories are unique as each of us is on a different journey in life. Where do you find the knowledge or the inspiration to teach your children to pray at home or to celebrate the feast days throughout the year if this was not something you grew up with in your own family? What if you’re just looking for a pick-me-up to ignite your own fervor once again? Thankfully, we have many resources to refer to: such as an archdiocese or metropolis website or outreach program, Orthodox companies selling anything from books to icons, individual families blogging about their Orthodox life throughout the year – to so much more! Over time, I’ve gathered links to many of these resources, with the help of others, and provided a hub for finding them on a single website. You can browse these resources at Illumination Learning (www.illumination-learning.com) at any time – and don’t forget to contribute additional resources as well for the benefit of all!

I’ve found my own flame dimming from time to time and needing rejuvenation. Our lives are busy, even hectic, and I find myself yearning for a moment of inspiration as I start to drag in the weight of my everyday happenings. There are a few Orthodox blogs I frequent for just such a boost. In an age of technology, I think we have a rare opportunity in history to help each other. It’s easy to get caught up in our children’s extracurricular activities, schoolwork, and our own jobs, let alone all the other stuff that goes with our everyday lives. Taking a few moments to read an article or post from a fellow Orthodox Christian can sometimes help us on our journey to Christ.

Looking for that little inspiration? On February 9-11, 2012, Illumination Learning will be hosting an Orthodox Education Webinar (www.orthodoxconference.com) showcasing some of the resources available to us as Orthodox Christians. We have gathered together many fantastic Orthodox speakers for you to listen to and watch during this three-day event. Virtual tickets will go on sale January 13, 2012. Information about the speakers and their topics are being updated on the website daily in addition to ticket and door prize information. Join us for what promises to be another phenomenal event!

Jennifer Hock is married with four kids ages 17 – 6 with one on the way. She enjoys writing for her blogs, writing curriculum, and organizing events. She has been homeschooling her four children for many years now and hopes to continue to do so in the years to come.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Kh. Krista West, “The Community of Joy”

May 2011–A few weeks ago, I stood at my worktable and watched the rain deluging my backyard.  The light outside was that unique shade of Portland leaden gray, a tone that has an oppressive quality, flattening the sky and giving off a somber light.  Many people find it depressing, but it is after these storms that the grass glows with a sublime and intensified light, and it was that intoxicating light that I was hoping to see.  It was a solitary moment, just myself alone with my work, and I treasured the quietude and the beauty.

As I brought my eyes back to the work before me, I beheld an even greater beauty. The yards of beautiful burgundy and gold brocade spread across my table caused my heart to soar.  This glorious fabric was steeped in traditions that were centuries old, yet looked incredibly fresh and sparkling.  In my sixteen years as an ecclesiastical tailor, I’ve had thousands of yards of fabric pass over my worktable and yet their glory never seems to grow stale.  The familiar designs are like old friends well met, the new designs are awaiting their turn to be another link in the ancient chain of the beautification and adornment of Christ’s Church.

A few years after I began working as a church tailor, I met an old friend from high school.  He asked where I was working and I explained.  “You make the same thing over and over again?!” he asked incredulously, “Don’t you get bored?”   It hadn’t occurred to me to question this, but as I began to reflect upon it, I realized that my repertoire of garments is incredibly limited–only 12 basic designs—so I was making the same garments almost daily and yet I wasn’t bored.  Why was that?

I knew it had something to do with the feeling I got when I was working.  It didn’t happen all of the time, but every once in awhile I would experience the most delicious contentment, a deep sense of gratitude to be part of this line of craftsmen throughout the centuries who had worked at this labor.  It wasn’t particularly glamorous or thrilling work; in fact, any novelty it had had quickly wore off after slogging through tasks like cutting 45 feet of canvas interfacing into 4 inch strips or marking out row after row of bias binding.  But it seemed that the longer I labored, the more joy I had.

As time went on, I began to realize that the very thing that would cause boredom—the sheer repetition of my work—was in actuality, the very freedom that gave such joy.  By working at the same tasks, obtaining mastery bit by bit, year by year, I was going deeper and deeper into the work.   And, yet it wasn’t a self-serving mastery since it seemed that the more I delved into my work, the less I knew.  I had read an account years before of a famous artist who, decades into his career, was convinced that his work was worthless and he abandoned painting altogether; at the time, I thought he was foolish, but I began to understand his motivation—the better you get at something, the more aware you are of your own ineptitude.  In the case of working as an ecclesiastical tailor, familiarity bred humility.  Sure I could make a beautiful set of vestments, but in the back of my mind I knew that at some time and place in the Church’s history, someone else had done it better.

It is this very humility, this knowledge that I am laboring in a long, unbroken chain of tradition to which I am held accountable, and for which I will face judgment, that grounds my creativity.  I work within a limited, fixed tradition, acutely aware that I must not add or subtract anything from the essence of the garments which I have been handed down.  And the wonder is that, rather than make my work tedious and lifeless, it’s these very limitations that stimulate and feed my creativity.  As Photios Kontoglou, famous mid-20^th century iconographer states, “The artist of every period remains within the bounds of this form [the traditions of the Church].  And not only does this fact not trouble him, but by reason of it his work gains in intensity, for, unfettered by any necessity to invent a new type, he can devote himself completely to the task of execution.”  He speaks of the devout iconographers who “…transmitted their art, as a precious acquisition, to the subsequent artists, meekly and joyfully, not as an excellence of their own, but as a treasury of joy and a spiritual feast to which all are invited.”  Unlike many secular artists or craftsmen who find themselves enslaved to the modern, I found myself liberated by the ancient.

Every time I pick up my scissors and lay out another brocade, I am laboring within a great community.  Like the unknown artisans who laid the stones of Hagia Sophia or made the glorious mosaics at Ravenna, my faith guides my purpose, which is not a man-centered expression of myself, but rather a God-centered expression of the Kingdom of Heaven.   I am called to lay aside myself and approach the “spiritual feast” that is the adornment of the Church.

Because for the Orthodox Christian artisan, there are no solitary moments.  Each and every moment I spend by myself, working on an epitrachelion or cutting out altar cloths, is in actuality a moment spent in the company of all of the artisans who have gone before me in this long and glorious tradition.  We don’t stand alone, but together, and our joy is not taken from a single thing we might create out of our own limited and corrupt minds, but rather from the knowledge that we are laboring to make the material world give praise and glory to the Creator of All.

Krista West was born in Portland, Oregon and began sewing at the age of 4.  Her love of handcrafts as a child and her conversion to Orthodox Christianity in 1993 led into an interest in Orthodox ecclesiastical vesture.  She apprenticed with Leslie Schaill of Traditional Cassocks and Vestments from 1994 to 1997 and began Krista West Vestments in 1997.  Her focus quickly became on the Greek-style and while the majority of her work is in this arena, she also is interested in maintaining distinct styles of vesture within Orthodox Christianity.  To that end, she has sewn for the clergy of many jurisdictions.

In 2002, Krista began to research the origins of Orthodox Christian vestments.  In 2004, she travelled to Greece to participate in a museum conservation course hosted by the Greek Ministry of Culture which preventively conserved the ecclesiastical garments of the Gonia monastery in Kolimbari, Crete.  Her research and field work led to her podcast “The Opinionated Tailor” which began airing on Ancient Faith Radio in 2008.  She has written various articles on ecclesiastical garments and continues to research multiple aspects of this field, including natural dyestuffs and early Byzantine textile history.  She has lectured at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, St. Vladimir’s School of Theology and St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary as well as at parish retreats.

Kh. Krista is married to Fr. Alban West, pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Portland, Oregon and is mother to three daughters.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Calee M. Lee

I always seem to forget to move the laptops when we’re expecting guests. Computers are as much a part of our home aesthetic as the Celtic souvenirs from our days living in Ireland or the Byzantine icons which dominate a corner of our living room.  I sent my first electronic message over 25 years ago so I suppose it is little wonder that I currently work in a field that relies on technology that barely existed several years ago.

My daughter is four and like so many of her generation, she cannot comprehend a world without computers.  One day, she was listing through household objects, trying to grasp the contents of my childhood. “Mommy, did you have a TV when you were a little girl?” “Yes, but it didn’t have a remote control.” “What about a Wii?” “No honey, they didn’t have video games that fit inside people’s houses.” “Well, Mommy. What about stairs? Did they have stairs when you were little?”

Yes. We had stairs.

My children live in a world that, at first appearance, has radically changed in the last 20, 50 or 100 years.  Information is constantly at their fingertips and children are now capable of tasks like audio recording and editing that still seem like magic to my grandparents. Yet, despite a different virtual landscape, their hopes, dreams and concerns are not fundamentally any different from those who have gone before.

Will anyone love me?

Can I do something important?

How do I navigate this world?

As an Orthodox Christian, I am supremely grateful for the examples set and recorded for us in the lives of the saints. As an Orthodox parent, I was initially unsure how to communicate these stories. Writers like Jenny Schroedel and Clare Brandenburg have shared several simple, yet beautiful, stories of our faith and their books are treasures in our home. Unfortunately, both the limited nature of the Orthodox publishing market and my personal pocketbook had left us with fewer children’s books that I would have hoped.

Enter Saint Helena.

Several years ago, our family had the opportunity to visit friends on the island of Cyprus for Holy Week. We logged mile after mile on our rented vehicle, visiting monasteries and reveling in the opportunity to immerse our very American selves in a culture defined by its faith and connectivity with the saints.  At many of the monasteries we visited, we noticed an abnormally large population of cats. Upon further inquiry, we discovered that these felines trace their genetic lineage to a shipload of cats sent by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, after she visited Cyprus and found the island’s Churches to be infested with poisonous snakes.

This story rattled around in my head until one day, tired of princess paraphernalia proclaiming beauty without virtue, I sat down to write about one royal woman who not only embodied power and grace, she was adventurous and understood the value of a housecat to boot.  I wrote The Queen and the Cats: A Story of Saint Helena with the intention of providing our daughters with a royal role model who, instead of focusing on frippery, placed the Cross of Christ in the center of her gaze.

As I looked for a way to share this story and more like it, I realized that while there were few printed books for children about our faith, there were even fewer (there weren’t any) available in the format in which our family does most of its reading.  The Queen and the Cats was the first story about an Orthodox or Catholic saint to be offered for Amazon’s Kindle, and through this technology we are able to offer families an affordable way to share these stories (and their beautiful illustrations by Turbo Qualls) with children.  The Kindle book is available in six countries and can be read on any computer, smart phone or tablet with Amazon’s free app.

Paperback and ebook editions of The Queen and the Cats are available on Amazon and from several Orthodox booksellers. In 2012, we plan to release four more stories for children which draw from the rich treasury of the lives of the saints.

Calee M. Lee lives and writes in Southern California. She is the founder of Xist Publishing, providing “books for the touchscreen generation” and attends St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church with her husband and two children.  She blogs sporadically at CaleeMLee.com.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: R. Leo Olson

I know confessions in the Orthodox Church are private. I get uncomfortable whenever the topic comes up in a group for fear of someone spilling their guts and then expecting me to respond with some great spiritual insight. With that in mind, I would like to start this post off with a confession of mine.  Ready? I daydream during homilies. I know I should listen to the many well-crafted homilies I have heard. God bless the priests and their homilies. I grew up Baptist so I know all about paying attention to what a preacher preaches, but I still day dream.

Like Adam, I blame God for this. The cause of this day dreaming ‘sin’ is Bible reading. The Scriptures are full of the most fantastic stories and they capture me every time: The most perfect woman ever created is walking alone, naked in a garden and happens upon a fallen angel in the guise of a talking snake and changes humanity forever—now that’s a storyline, characters, inciting incident, and catastrophic plot points! There’s a reference to angels mating with women creating Nephilim. There’s a prophet that calls fire from heaven atop a mountain in a ‘throw-down’ of whose God is bigger and then taunts the priests of Baal that would shame a modern day professional wrestler’s smack talk. There is a story of a guy who is told to marry a prostitute and name their kids ‘no mercy’ and ‘not my people’—talk about being picked on in Hebrew school—now that’s interesting Young Adult fiction. But what really sends me dreaming is Jesus and His parables. When the Epistle or Gospel is being read, I don’t follow along in the bulletin but listen with my ears like the first believers would have heard it.

Life as an Orthodox writer for me is one of constant amazement, basking in the creation of the greatest story teller of all. He’s called the author and finisher of our faith. My creative life is interwoven with my life as an Orthodox Christian. One cannot exist without the other. Christ is in all and fills all things for me. I am compelled to write because the power of the Divine story captures me and communicates God’s love to me. He is called the Word after all.

Another confession: You may think, because of the last paragraph that I sit at my computer with incense burning, among a shrine of beeswax-candle-lit icons and chant music filling the air. That does sound cool, but my process for writing is very similar to other writers, such as Anne Rice, Stephen King or Steven Pressfield. It’s a grueling process both internally and outwardly. I fight the inner war of procrastination and the outer war of scheduling. Writing is hard and everyone has a comment or suggestion or ‘bone to pick with me’ or ‘their take’ and it gets in the way of my selfishness. It’s my story after all, right? (read sarcasm and deeper philosophical themes about living a life that edifies others into that last question.) But the process is also life for me. I must write. I must have a discipline of writing something every day. A lot of times what I write is weak, preachy, sometimes mean and ill-informed diatribes, but every now and then, there is magic. ‘There’s treasure in trash’ if you will allow the cliché. The process of my writing includes a large piece of paper with a mind map on it, trying to cipher a story arc. I usually start with a character or a phrase and then go from there. Once I have the kernel of an idea and have extrapolated possibilities I let it percolate and I start paying attention to what I see, hear, feel and think. I live, as best I can a liturgical, ascetic life. I read a wide spectrum of books and the lives of saints. This is where the magic starts.

In Sojourning with Angels I had the main character Milo in my mind for a long time. Then I ran across an akathist to a guardian angel and started to think about the role of guardian angels in our lives—so I have a guardian angel that can protect me in a car crash, good—yeah angels! The angel watches over me, and then it hit me and I was instantly unsettled —the angel is watching me right now. Right now as I sit at this computer, listening to Explosions in the Sky (post-rock band), snacking on ham and drinking coffee with cream on a Wednesday—Noooo—angels, look away!

I find many things that I believe as an Orthodox Christian unsettling when I really think about them: time dimensions that collapse during the liturgy and how I can’t stop yawning or being stern with my kids while in the Kingdom of God somehow. Or how my sinful mouth now consumes Christ—Whoa!—back to the post. So I usually obsess about these beliefs for a time, and with this book I obsessed about angels. I then read about the Toll Houses that guardian angels guide us through when we die and I knew then what to do with Milo and the story. Magic.

This seems to happen often in my stories. I reflect on the ramifications of some of these beliefs. I can’t possibly replicate this holiness because of my own flaws and sinfulness but I am wrapped up in all of this ‘stuff’, so I turn to my characters and the art of telling a story. Jesus did the same thing with the Good Samaritan. He told an amazing story then posed the question to the audience, “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” and sucked them into story forever.

Confession three: One day I was walking down the Christian fiction aisle of a bookstore and saw Amish prairie romance novels, an end of the world series, a couple books about Christian assassins, vampires and zombies. I confess I write Orthodox fiction because I am not satisfied with the stories that populate the Christian fiction aisles. I write the stories I would want to read—stories that wrestle with the sinful condition of mankind, stories where God is thought to be silent, stories where characters really struggle and run from God, stories where the love for God must fight if it’s going to win, stories of faith, adventure and definitely more about angels than vampires. The world needs great fiction, even fair to good fiction, from an Orthodox perspective because, well, if we don’t write it then we will have missed the mark as artists, writers and Orthodox Christians in America and that is something to go to confession about.

R. Leo Olson lives in West Michigan with his wife and three children. He has degrees in Comparative World Religions, Biblical Studies and Ancient Greek. He attends St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids MI. He has recently published his first adult fiction novel: Sojourning With Angels: The Rise of Zazriel. More information than you probably want can be found at  http://rleoolson.com/wordpress/

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Thomas Eric Ruthford

I got my start as a writer with a game called “Ghosts in the Graveyard.” It is a variant on hide-and-seek that my sister and I played with the neighborhood kids when I was 8. The game had involved one child being a tour guide, walking the others around the “graveyard” and telling spooky stories at different locations until the ghost jumped out, shouted “Ghosts in the Graveyard!” and started chasing everyone.

When I was the tour guide, I told stories about how the trees in a certain area had, over time, grown in such a way that their tops were very sharp so that they could impale parachuting skydivers in revenge for centuries of logging of their kind by humans. I was often asked to be the tour guide, and the encouragement made me want to be a writer.

Making a connection with the audience is both rewarding and challenging, especially with humor. All at once, you have to come up with something that’s relevant to your audience, it needs to have unexpected combinations that will cause mental fire drills in the heads of the reader (laughter) and you need to make sure you don’t go too far and offend people.

I got inspired to write Orthodox humor by The Onion Dome, which during its heyday was the Saturday Night Live of Orthodox humor. It had a lot of fake news and fake pastoral advice (hold your nose while walking in front of restaurants during Lent) and was a hoot. The creator of the site, Alex Riggle, brought together an assortment of writers to create a new genre that was both obscure and hysterically funny to the Orthodox people who followed it.

My humor book, “Heaven Help the Single Christian” got started as an Onion Dome article. I was inspired by a young man who had met a girl on one side of the country at a church conference. They got along well. A few weeks later, he flew to the other side of the country to show up unannounced on her doorstep with a bouquet of flowers. This delightful story spread around the girl’s group of friends – my fiancé (now wife) being one of them – and the extreme measures that he was willing to take to find a girl who believes in God really resonated with me. My first thought was to laugh at him mercilessly for his romantic pilgrimage, but then it occurred to me that I’d done the same thing, twice, before I met my perfect girl, only my pilgrimages involved buses, not airplanes.

When I was in the midst of the struggle to find someone to marry, I thought that someone needed to write a good book on the topic, but I was far too angry to do it. After getting engaged, I had a new joy in my life, but the memories of being single were still strong enough for me to write something lighthearted but engaged in the reality of the topic, and the book came together quickly.

Promoting your first book is a challenge. The recommended way of starting is to get invited to conferences, give talks, sign your books, and sell them out of a box that you bring. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that. I’ve also made some zero-budget advertising videos and put them on the Internet in hopes that they’d go sort of viral, and I’m writing essays based on parts of the book for magazines.

I’m trying to break out of obscurity, but it’s also important to try remaining humble at the same time, making being a writer a unique spiritual task for a Christian. I want to provide material that speaks to the reality that Christians face in their daily lives while also providing appropriate advice. The writer’s task is a lonely one, but the help of other Christian writers is necessary, both to help improve your work, and to make sure that what you write helps people with their salvation.

Thomas Eric Ruthford is a writer living near Seattle, Wash. He and his wife, Miri, met at the Old Cathedral of the Holy Virgin in San Francisco in 2006 and got married in the same church a year later. Thomas was baptized in a creek in Wilkeson, Wash., in 2001, having never been a member of a church before. In his career, he’s been a newspaper reporter, a Peace Corps volunteer, and a financial officer at the Raphael House homeless shelter in San Francisco, an Orthodox charity. He’s an avid bicyclist, this year riding 204 miles in one day, a new personal record.

Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists: Jane G. Meyer, “Becoming Jane…For the Hearts of Children”

It has been my absolute delight to be working in the world of children’s literature these last—almost–twenty years. It started with writing simple stories, leading to longer ones with plot lines and chapter breaks. It blossomed when my first son was born and he was (still is) a child who gobbles stories, eating them for both dinner and dessert. His delight in a book is tremendous, and being a mama who loves words, and languages, it was a perfect naptime match—he napped and dreamt of other worlds, and I wrote.

Fast forwarding many years, and many stories. Now, I sit here at my desk, marveling at the winding road God has paved for me. Not a road of financial success and worldly gain, but a road where truths have been discovered, where my obedience has been tested, and where a longing for potato chips has become an obvious sign that I need to get back to work! It’s still true, after all these years, that I like stories, but it’s even more true that I like children, and it’s triply true that I love Christ. And as an artist, that is how I try to live out my days. Liking stories, but loving Christ.

For many years I had the honor of not only writing, but being part of a team that acquired, edited and produced children’s books. I was able to work with dozens of authors to help shape their stories. To me this was a little taste of heaven, and I’m grateful I had that time rooting others on. It taught me that Community is a powerful thing. That joining forces, producing a book, or doing any sort of work together, makes something better than what could be done alone. We are the body of Christ.

Orthodox children deserve beautiful words and images to inspire them, don’t you think? We should labor over every aspect of a book for these children who openly (or even reluctantly) are led into that land of saint or story. That is my joy, knowing the potential is there to inspire deeper thinking or change a heart. Yes, the heart! We must, as parents and guardians, as teachers and grandfathers, nurture the minds and hearts of children, with loving time together, and with stories that build deep faith in a little one…

Liking stories, but loving Christ. If we, as a community of writers and illustrators and book designers and publishers, can keep Christ before the story, then we will accomplish exactly what God intends. We will be part of a team that changes real, beating and feeling hearts! And in that work, my heart will also be changed. For the stories that flow from my pen are not mine alone. God helps, aids, teaches, inspires, gives me courage. His hand appears when least expected, and I try to keep a prayer begging for His presence on my lips when I’m working—it sounds a lot like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!

My ultimate goal is to be completely, fully, totally enveloped by Christ, and becoming the Jane that God has envisioned. And if there are still stories to write as I become that Jane, then you can bet that I’ll be here at my desk, praying the Jesus prayer, rooting on my fellow workers and their stories, and dreaming about little ones and their beautiful hearts.

Jane G Meyer is a children’s book author and editor. She lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband and three children, where they attend Saint Athanasius Orthodox Church. Her next book due out is The Hidden Garden: A Story of the Heart, and will be published by Conciliar Press in the fall of 2012. You can see more about Jane on her website, www.janegmeyer.com —she also blogs about bread baking at www.janegmeyer.wordpress.com, hoping to inspire others to stretch and give just a little more, and she welcomes you to be part of her community of friends on Facebook, where she shares her blog posts, snippets of her life, and photos…