Monday, November 17, 2003
At church yesterday, something amazing happened: In the middle of the ligurgy, the power went out! Did this cause any pandemoniom? No. The service just kept on going. In the midst of the flickering candle light, Father James continued with his part in the liturgy as did we. This was an example to me of the timelesness and Heavenly nature of the Divine Liturgy. The world could stop functioning, and yet the Ligurgy would carry on. An incredible comfort to me.
I can remember from my Protestant days how a power outage would, if there was no natural light, have ended the service. We would all go and partake of doughnuts and coffee. Maybe if we would have had candles burning during the service, it would have been different. Who knows. Due to the nature of the "free spirit" of the Protestant service, the speaker would have probably spent a few minutes talking about the outage and then asked if the congregation wanted to continue. During the Divine Liturgy, it isn't even a question. This is due primarily to the Orthodox theological fact that the Divine Liturgy takes place on earth AND in Heaven; it is otherworldly. My Protestant experience has been that we worship God and he hears it, but that we are actually not mystically before God in Heaven, worshiping Him. This makes the Orthodox worship experience hard to just cancel when something like the power goes out. Anyway, I was touched.
7:19 AM
