"800 years of prayer"

February 4, 2007

“800 Years of Prayer”

That was the first thing the monk said as we stood inside of an ancient tiny little chapel tucked away in the snowy forest this morning. Those words fell on us like a gust and everyone looked up the cupola. I think even the most disinterested person there was caught off guard by the weight of them. I know I was.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. We were in the medieval town of Novgorod. A place I have always dreamed of going. We saw a lot. It was a beautiful, rushed, crowded, white, and strangely lonely day. With every day I am increasingly aware of the fact that I have nothing in common with the majority of these people whom I spend an enormous amount of time with. I’m so insanely starved for anything even vaguely resembling substantial conversation. I just wanted to be alone and I couldn’t get away. I needed to sketch. I needed time that wasn’t there. At St. Sophia’s, Russia’s oldest medieval cathedral, we had ten minutes at the end of the guided tour to absorb thousands of years of history and worship. I was lonely and annoyed. Most everyone had left and I stood in a dark corner. I turned around and barely visible on a dark back wall was a huge fresco of seven saints. I don’t know who they were. Maybe they were apostles. It doesn’t really matter I guess. They looked at me and they were huge and they knew something mysterious but definitive that I didn’t know, and I was with them, and they made me not alone. I looked around at the iconostasis and the frescos, and was reminded of the multitudes of people who lived their lives deeply, for something so much bigger than themselves, so much bigger than the moment. That was my birthday gift. The rest of the evening I sat in my room as people stumbled through the halls yelling and screaming in drunken stupors until five in the morning. I got up early to be in St. Sophia’s alone before another long day of group activity with hung over people. I sat on a bench in the dark cathedral and looked up at a fresco of Jesus praying over the loaves, his arms reaching out at his sides, and me in front, with Him. A few Babushkas walked around me crossing themselves and kissing glassed cases. I stood in front of the trinity icon and was swept up in the circle of everything Real and True and Beautiful. It made me quiet inside. And thankful.

The monk at the little chapel in the woods was told to speak to us in Russian, but he insisted on using his limited English. Minutes passed between his carefully chosen sentences. He mixed up his thousands and hundreds, and he reformed each sentence a few times before he was satisfied with its content. He wanted us to hear him, and not phase out while he spoke to himself in Russian. He told us that he is not more spiritual than anyone because of the life he is called to, but not to forget that we must all be preparing ourselves for the final exam. That was my Sunday sermon. It was simple but sustaining. It was hard to leave the safety of that place. It was deeply peaceful and protected and would not allow itself to be compromised.