Waiting, Wondering, Whining -- Part I

Up until this point in the blog, I’ve been writing advice about ways and places to find someone. But alas, it often happens that you do everything right and you’re still stuck single, enjoying the fleeting pleasures of playing Trivial Pursuit with the neighbors.

The previous sentence has a fundamental flaw in it, I should admit, and it’s the “you do everything right” part. Fundamentally, this is not your problem to resolve. It’s the Holy Spirit’s problem, or one of the Holy Spirit’s many problems, as the primary goal of the Holy Spirit is that you can dwell in heaven for ever with God. And for that purpose, you’ll get what you need – a cross to bear and to wear, certainly, but the rest is variable depending on you and your situation – maybe a wedding ring, maybe a klobuk, or maybe what you need is a bunch of hyperactive kindergarteners to teach and take on field trips to symphonies and museums. Once you understand this, your struggle will begin to come into perspective, although I doubt it’ll get any easier.

If you’re like me, and you’re an over-worrier and an over-doer, you’re probably worrying far too much about what to do, and you’re doing far too much, too, revising the opening speech you’ll give if some handsome single man or pretty woman comes to church this week. You’re continuously looking for flaws in your profile on orthodoxchristiandating.com that you can take out in hopes of making yourself look like the ideal mate and you’re pondering churches in nearby towns that you can visit in hopes of overcoming the slim pickings in the local talent pool. Such a trip is called a romantic pilgrimage, and there’s another article about that available here. That article I wrote originally for The Onion Dome was inspired in part by a similar journey I took one June when a 13-year-old girl I knew tried to set me up with one of her friends 60 miles away.

“She’s tall, she’s Orthodox, she’s pretty, she sings really well, she’s close to your age! You have to meet her!” I actually fell for it, put on my tie and got on a 6 a.m. bus one Sunday. It was June, and the church where this girl attends services is surrounded by plants which I’m allergic to, all of which were in bloom, so the liturgy was just one long sneezing fit for me… Our Father, who are in Heaven, achoo be thy name…

The brief conversation I had with her was really, really awkward, basically to the effect of: “Wow, what a nice church you go to!”

“Yes, it is nice,” she said. I didn’t make any progress. The girl’s mother, on the other hand, liked me very much, as the absence of body piercings, tattoos or a leather jacket made me seem like a hot commodity. The would-be-mother-in-law’s interest was love for her daughter, but it was more like love seen through the back end of a telescope. The mother was looking at one specific thing – a man who knew the value of showing up on time for church or work in a tie. The girl, on the other hand, was hoping for a life of adventures and possibilities, and all she could see was one possibility, a nerd in a tie with no apparent reason for being there except to “talk” with her about “stuff.” As the girl tried to pry herself loose, the mother was saying she wished I’d come around again for church or for dinner.

Okay, that was a tangent. Where was I? Oh yeah, if you’re pondering a trip that stupid, you’re trying too hard. Way too hard. If you’re a worrier like me, you’re probably already doing enough.

This is not to encourage complacency. I am acquainted with one young man who is handsome, intelligent, has a good sense of humor and good interpersonal skills. He makes friends with a lot of women, but the only thing he’s lacking is the gumption to actually ask one out on a real date. His female friends succumb to his friendly charms, and end up carrying torches for him a long, long time…and he’s oblivious.

But, if you’re reading a silly blog such as this one, you probably don’t have that problem.

From a spiritual sense, you have exactly what you need right now for your salvation, so you’ll be happier the less you do to try to change your personal standing. So, in that spirit, the rest of this article is about not trying too hard to find someone.

There is plenty of other stuff to do while you wait:

Meditations and Spiritual Growth

When you don’t have enough to do, that’s a great time to pray! There’s an excellent prayer book published by the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco called The Prayers of St. Isaac the Syrian. Here’s a link to it on Amazon that’s half-broken. The Monastery of St. John’s Web site might have it, but their bookstore isn’t up right now. But maybe you can call them. Click here for their site.

The really wonderful thing about this little prayerbook is that it focuses on asking God how to pray, asking God to tell you what to ask for, and asking God to orient you on the right path. It’s very applicable to the situation of the wondering and wandering nature of the single person, as you’re continually asking, “What in the heck am I doing here?”

A trip to a monastery might also be worthwhile. Not to be a monk or nun, necessarily, but the monastery will teach you how to pray and how to think in a clearer manner.

See how long you can go without saying or doing anything about finding someone. It will be liberating for you to discover that your desperate thoughts about dating are not really you, just something your brain does when it’s bored. And, while you’re behaving like a sane, normal person, someone special might come along and be impressed with you.

Find something you’re really thankful for, and spend time with it. I moved to San Francisco in 2005 to work for Raphael House, a homeless shelter run by an Orthodox charity. I was glad to be at such an amazing agency, but I didn’t like living in San Francisco. It’s a town that really charges some people up. Bishop Benjamin, who often ate dinner at Raphael House, told us how much he loved San Francisco, and how the energy of the place really charges him up every time he drives across the Bay Bridge into the city.

Another Raphael House worker, Connie, then said, “Pigeons – eating barf!” I have to say that I agreed with her image of San Francisco. It’s hard to like your city when there are transvestite prostitutes working your block.

After a year of living there and wishing I could leave, I hopped on the bus and rode to Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral (the newer one) for the feast day of St. John of San Francisco and Shanghai. This liturgy was a big deal, with more than a 1,000 people coming out for it. The choir at this cathedral has a symphonic sound to it that I heard at feast days in Kiev when I was there in the Peace Corps. There wasn’t a word of English in the service although I knew enough Slavonic to figure out where we were in the service. It was a day when I forgot about the city and really knew that this kind of worship unifies people with Christ and with each other. As I went up for communion, I was thankful, for the first time, that I was in San Francisco, where I could casually hop on a bus and have this really magnificent service. I was thankful for where I was and for the people I knew. I was able to say, honestly, “I am all right with being a bachelor for now.”

I met three girls at the service. They were all really pretty, although I didn’t have my usual “what’s the right thing to say oh-no-I’m-going-to-have-a-heart-attack” reaction. I just talked with them and behaved like a normal person.

I was really thankful I could go to church services that beautiful. I kept going to Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral and its older sister cathedral which bears the same name.

Three weeks later, I met another girl at the Old Cathedral, who also didn’t like San Francisco that well. We got married and left town together.

Write a prayer applicable to your situation and put it in the back of your prayer book. Say it every night. Over time, you’ll revise the prayer. I started out with “find me a girl!” and then I moved to “Tell me whether it’s a girl or a klobuk for me.” The prayer that really helped was, “Bless my work today and prepare me for whatever path you have for me.”

Find some saints that really inspire you, write their tropars on an index card and carry it around in your pocket. The ones I found most helpful were:

• St. Juliana the Virgin (July 6). Apparently she was very humble because no one knows much about her life. She was a princess in Kiev who died at the age of 16. Her grave was found 200 years later when workers were laying foundations for a new church. Her relics were incorrupt.
  
• St. Moses the Virgin (July 26). He was a muscular, handsome fellow who wanted to be a monk at the Caves Monastery in Kiev. But, Kiev was invaded, and Moses was enslaved by the invading army, and he was sold to a rich young widow who tried to force him to marry. She held him captive for 10 years before giving up, and then he was able to become a monk.
  
• St. Barlaam, Igumen of the Kiev Caves Monastery (Sept. 28). He was the son of a noble and had an illustrious life ahead of him. His father had a beautiful bride picked out for him. But, he wanted to be a monk under the instruction of Saints Anthony of the Caves. St. Barlaam’s father kidnapped him and dragged him home and stuck him in a room with his bride, who worked every temptation possible on him. This didn’t work, and eventually his father gave up. He became a monk, and eventually the abbot of the Caves Monastery.

I guess none of these saints had, “Waited a long time to meet the right guy/girl” in their story. But I think the Prologue could really use a saint or two such as that. That’s your job! Get to it! Be a saint! We need some more fish-wine-and-oil days!

I’ve written more than I thought I would about waiting and wondering, so I’m breaking this into two parts. Click here for the next part, distractions during the waiting process.

Or, you can go back to the Table of Contents.