Epiphanies from an Eastern Orthodox Festival
Why do other communities look so appealing from the outside?
Lately, my newsletters have felt too declarative; I’ve written to validate what I already believe. This month my mind is less made-up, and I’m writing to understand, not explain. I’ve been dwelling on an experience I had this autumn that made me consider the importance of community, family, and multi-generational love.
When the weather is nice, and it often is in Maryland in September, still green but no longer smothering you with a humid rag, my son and I embark on a 7 a.m. walk around the small lake near our home. It’s our time together before work and a chance for him to practice a little independence and exploration.
Several regulars walk at the same time, and it just so happened that one woman whom Nelson and I had befriended over the summer invited us to attend the annual Mediterranean festival hosted by her church, an Eastern Orthodox congregation in Potomac, Maryland.
Allured by the promise of succulent Greek cooking, we showed up on Friday, the first day of the festival. Perhaps because things were just getting started, it seemed that most of the attendees were Eastern Orthodox families for whom the church was their regular place of worship. This included Greeks, Eastern Europeans, Western Asians, and Arabic-speaking Africans. So while the festival was open to the public (and no doubt more people would show up the next day), it felt like we had stumbled into the semi-private life of this tight-knit community.
It reminded me of a family reunion, and I’m a sucker for a good old-fashioned family reunion. When I was a kid, even up to the age of ten or eleven, I used to cry in the backseat of our minivan whenever we had to leave Idaho and my aunts, uncles, and cousins. On this Friday evening in Potomac, the longer we stayed at the festival, the more I desired to join the group, to adopt the culture and customs of these Eastern Orthodox party-goers.
One moment at the event stands out most poignantly. I was standing in the food line waiting to order a chicken shwarma, and ahead of me was a mother and her daughter, age six or seven, who seemed to know many of the other attendees, including the other Church members preparing the food. One elderly man stepped around the table and gave the little girl a kiss on the forehead before turning his attention to me.
It was a touching and beautiful act but clearly unremarkable to the girl, her mother, and the man. I was left to contemplate the moment, and caught up in the atmosphere of the festival, I felt a little sad, though the word inadequately describes the emotion.
Here’s a better word: Sehnsucht. It’s German, of course, they have a word for everything. The meaning combines ideas of longing, yearning, and desire but in a way that’s melancholic. It’s often used to describe idealized or utopian notions that may be unattainable or recognized as missing from one’s life.
What was missing from my life that made me so envious of the Eastern Orthodox community? For starters, I thought it unlikely that someone in my own church congregation would give my son an affectionate kiss, not just because we’re more reserved in our public displays of affection but because it’s hard to imagine anyone besides family feeling that kind of love for my son. Maybe we haven’t opened ourselves to a relationship like that, either. Why did the old man feel so much affection for the little girl? Was it simply the custom of their culture, faith, or community to foster relationships between the generations? I wished I would have asked him.
Maybe I was really longing for my own family and experiencing a dose of guilt that I didn’t live closer to them. If I were to move back to the Mountain West near my family, would that satisfy my craving for community and gathering? I wonder, though, if living far away has made the moments of togetherness more meaningful and less quotidian. One has to experience a little loneliness to appreciate the joy of togetherness.
The people at the festival weren’t all family, however. The ties that bound them were both religious and cultural/racial. I was reminded of something I learned in a sociology course during my sophomore year of college about the Chicago Heatwave of 1995. The freakishly sudden rise in temperature claimed the lives of 700+ people over the course of five days. The death rates revealed something interesting about the importance of community (as well as infrastructure). One of the most interesting stats was that Hispanics, who made up 25% of the city’s population, experienced only 2% of the deaths despite being one of Chicago’s more impoverished minorities groups.
The cause for the lack of deaths was surprisingly simple. Hispanics lived in concentrated neighborhoods and had such rich community ties that everyone, especially the elderly, were accounted for and looked after. On the other hand, Black and Caucasian deaths soared. Unlike Hispanics, they lived in less concentrated groups, and tragically, most of the deaths in these two racial groups came from elderly men and women who lived alone in apartments without sufficient air conditioning. No one came to check in on them and they died alone in their buildings.
It's a morbid thought, but have you ever wondered who would check in on you during a heat wave? Better yet, who checked in on you during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic? Probably family, but who else? Members of your church? Friends? A likely answer might be co-workers. Has the office so fully supplanted other social institutions that Bob from accounting is the second most likely person to see if you have enough toilet paper? I suppose I was a little envious that the Eastern Orthodox community had culture to bind them, not just religion.
Although I left the festival feeling sehnsucht, one positive outcome has been my increased conscientiousness towards feelings of community in my own life and the small moments of tenderness expressed to my son from outside our family.
My church community, while not prone to forehead kisses, is remarkable in the way it helps others. Recently a single mother in the congregation was scheduled to have brain surgery. My wife brought her some groceries and another woman in the church organized a meal calendar so different families could bring them dinner. I went over with some other men to check in on her the night before and pray with her and her kids. This kind of support happens all the time. Sometimes you’re the recipient, but most often, you’re the giver.
Love occurs outside our church community, as well. Just the other night, our upstairs neighbor, a single woman about 70 years old, came down for dinner. Ever since COVID started we’ve gotten to know her better and have shared a few meals or taken Nelson up to her apartment to “play.” When she arrived, Nelson ran to her and gave her a hug, and she kissed him on the cheek. For the next ninety minutes, she gave him her full attention. Had I not experienced that moment at the festival a few weeks earlier, I think I would have overlooked her goodness toward my son.
Perhaps, in conclusion, it’s difficult to appreciate the benefits of a community to which you already belong. Attending the festival made me feel like an outsider in the best way possible—envious of the rich traditions, appreciative of their closeness, and contemplative of the way I take my own family, friends, and church for granted.