[Ancient Faith Radio; September 13, 2007]
In early June I went to Los Angeles to speak at a conference at Pepperdine University that was on a fascinating topic; it was about a capella church music. I didn’t know this, but Pepperdine was established as a Church of Christ school—Church of Christ being a flavor of Christianity that is extremely Bible-based, very conservative in many senses, and in fact, they say the three things that make them different from most protestant churches is that they have weekly communion, they baptize by full immersion, and that everything in their worship is sung without instruments, it’s all a capella. They say they do these three things because that’s the way the early church did it, and of course as an Orthodox visitor to the campus, I was delighted to say, ‘Yeah, that’s the reason we do it too.’ We certainly agree that that’s what the early church did.
[Ancient Faith Radio; September 13, 2007]
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In early June I went to Los Angeles to speak at a conference
at Pepperdine University that was on a fascinating topic; it was about a
capella church music. I didn’t know
this, but Pepperdine was established as a Church of Christ school—Church of
Christ being a flavor of Christianity that is extremely Bible-based, very
conservative in many senses, and in fact, they say the three things that make
them different from most protestant churches is that they have weekly communion,
they baptize by full immersion, and that everything in their worship is sung
without instruments, it’s all a capella.
They say they do these three things because that’s the way the early
church did it, and of course as an Orthodox visitor to the campus, I was
delighted to say, ‘Yeah, that’s the reason we do it too.’ We certainly agree that that’s what the early
church did.
[Ancient Faith Radio; September 5, 2007]
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Frederica: Hello, I’m in Spokane Washington
at the conclusion of the ‘To the Ends of the Earth’ Conference sponsored by St.
Gregorios Malankar Syrian Orthodox Church, and I’m sitting here with, I would
say Khouria Heather Durka. We have all
these names for clergy wives: presbytera, and preoteasa, and Pani Matka, and
matushka and all these things, and here’s another one: Kochamma. And your tradition is in stead of saying Kochamma Heather, you say Heather Kochamma.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 29, 2007]
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Frederica: I’m in
Spokane, Washington, with a conference titled ‘To the Ends of the Earth,’
sponsored by St. Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church here in Spokane,
and they’ve brought people from all backgrounds and traditions here. I’m delighted to be talking to Fr. Anastasi St. Anthony, who is the abbot of the St.
Anthony monastery in, what is it, Newberry
Springs, California?
Where is that located in California?
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 23, 2007]
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Voiceover: We have a recording today of Frederica
Mathewes-Green addressing the audience at the Parish Life conference that was
recently held at Holy Cross Orthodox Church in Maryland, where Fr. Gregory
Mathewes-Green and Frederica serve. And
she’s reminiscing about their early days of Orthodoxy and how thankful she is
for the welcome they received.
Frederica: It’s amazing to me that Holy Cross is hosting the
Parish Life conference this year. We
started just 14 years ago, a handful of people, 19 people, meeting in rental
space in Catonsville. And that we have gotten to this point where
we can actually host a Parish Life Conference—I’m extraordinarily grateful to
God that we have the capability to do this.
And as my husband is now 60 years old, I’m extraordinarily grateful that
we’ll probably never have to do it again.
[Laughter] Once is enough in a lifetime! If you haven’t done it, you
don’t know how much work it is. I don’t
know how much work it is; I have to give a lot of the credit to someone who
would be an unsung hero otherwise: our brilliantly creative, our brilliant Shamassy,
Ina, who just has an imagination and an ability to accomplish the things that
she imagines that are going to set this Parish Life Conference apart. I’m eager to take part in it.
[Human Life Review, Summer 2007]
Shortly before Christmas, I got an email from the journalist and Slate.com editor Emily Bazelon. She said that she was writing an article for the New York Times magazine about “women’s experiences post-abortion.” She said she hoped to talk to me that day or the next, and apologized for the short notice. Since I was in and out of the office a lot those pre-holiday days, and thought we might not connect by phone in time, I drafted a quick email it hopes she could mine it for some quotes. Here’s what I wrote her:
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 16, 2007]
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Hello, I’m at the Parish Life Conference of my diocese, the
Diocese of Charleston-Oakland and the Midatlantic, and my parish, Holy Cross,
is the host. We’re at a hotel just north
of Baltimore in Towson, and getting close to wrapping up, on a Saturday morning
after breakfast. I’m sitting here with
Nancy Waggener, that is, Khouria Helen Waggener, and Rebecca Alfred, Khouria
Becky Alfred, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the Western Rite,
which is something many Orthodox are not familiar with—they don’t even know
that there is a Western Rite. Khouria
Becky is the wife of Fr. Gregory Alford, and—sorry?
[Ancient Faith Radio, August 9, 2007]
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Hi, this is Frederica Mathewes-Green. I’m in the car; there’s cars going by
me. I’m on I-95 south, driving from
Baltimore to Washington. And I was just
thinking that sometimes I’m comforted with the thought that I’m going to die
someday.
I’m going to give a speech this morning and it’s hard to
write. It’s hard to write and speak in
contexts other than Orthodox for me, because when I talk to secular people or
to other sorts of Christians, the whole worldview, the whole framework, the
whole vocabulary is so different from what I’ve gotten used to and come to love
so much in Orthodoxy. And I’ve got a
speech I’ve been writing for the last several weeks; it’s three times as long
as the time they’ve given me to speak.
I’m so anxious to be able to express what I’m saying without being
misunderstood. And, you know, that’s
tiring.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 2, 2008]
Frederica: We’re at Five Guys Burgers, which is the best
burgers in Baltimore,
and everybody is chowing down except me, because I came late, so mine is still
on order. These are some pretty hefty burgers. In Pasadena. They just opened one of these in Pasadena; I got the word
from the end of the table. Our Pasadena. Pasadena,
Maryland. And Jocelyn sent me something she’d written
earlier today about dating, and ‘I kissed dating goodbye,’ versus ‘I gave
dating a chance,’ versus people should just do courtship. And you’d read an article by somebody who
said he’s very much in favor of courtship, but the problem is when people meet
for the first time, they want to get to know each other. They’re not ready to jump into
courtship. So his solution was parents
should absolutely control every moment of their children’s lives, and children
should know that their parents are going to choose their mate when they’re grown
up. They will have no choice whatsoever. I don’t think that’s completely feasible
[laughter] but it does show that even for people who are kind of opposed to the
dating whirl, what’s the alternative?
So, what do you think? Jocelyn?
My daughter-in-law Jocelyn, married to my handsome son Steve. Did you and Steve date?
[Christianity Today Online; July 31, 2007]
Adam Ravetch and his wife Sarah Robertson spent 15 years filming Arctic wildlife in its harsh and glorious habitat. In “Arctic Tale,” the results of that labor of love have been edited down to 96 minutes and arranged (somewhat artificially) to tell the story of a polar bear, Nanu, and a walrus, Seela. The movie is aimed at children, particularly the kind of kid who is enthralled by the cable channel Animal Planet. These kids have a more realistic view of the interdependence of life on earth than we did at that age, educated by things like Disney’s “Bambi.” So, although the film doesn’t go for the full horror treatment (I haven’t quite gotten over the moment in “Winged Migration” where a big mower relentlessly advances on a tiny peeping bird), neither does it look away from some bracing truths.
