Axios! Axios! Axios!

The reason we were in Chicago in the first place was for our friend Musil's Ordination:

Yes, Brandon and I attended our first Greek Orthodox service. The church was ornately decorated with lots of golden artwork of Saints. The service was long and most of it was in Arabic, with some Greek and a bit of English thrown in. Musil's family is from Sryia and most of the attendees were dark haired with big noses - I fit right in!

When I could catch some of the parts in English, I recognized similar elements to the Episcopal Church service - bible readings, prayers of the people, Nicene creed and Brandon's favorite - the peace! We even took communion. The priest dipped the (real) bread in wine and placed it in our mouths. This website told me we shouldn't have actually taken communion...oops. This website has a pretty similar description of the ordination ceremony that we experienced.

Musil is now a deacon and will be a priest next year. He is studying divinity at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. We're so proud of our Musil!

Sinners & Saints

Yesterday, I experienced a Carbondale rite of passage at Pinch Penny Pub's 10th Annual Polar Bear Party. It was basically a big drunken frat party for SIU students featuring mass Corona consumption. The bar and beer garden opened at 10am. We got there around 4pm and waited half an hour to get in! The cover was $5 but the beers were only $1.50. The place was packed and there were hundreds of crushed Corona cans littering the ground. The weather during the afternoon was really nice and we didn't need our jackets until the sun went down.We left after a couple hours but ventured back around 11pm. The crowds had died down by then but a lot of people were inside the bar area staying warm. One of their signature drinks is a "green dragon" which was explained to me as being like a long island but made with sour mix. It was bright green and tasted like a lime popsicle to me. Well, I just did a google search of the drink and got back some results for a marijuana drink -- it was not that!

This morning I ventured out to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Carbondale for the 10 o'clock service. The church is located across from the Pulliam Hall clocktower (shown in my blog header). It was a very intimate service with just about 30 people present - including a piano player and just 2 choir members. The service progressed very similarly to that of St. Dunstan's. The main thing that was new to me were the bells used during communion. I also had an embarrassing moment at the altar when I thought the chalicist skipped me. I was holding my wafer so that I could dip it in the wine. When he didn't stop for me, I just ate my wafer and left. Turns out that they have a separate bowl of wine for those who dip and I should have just waited. Lesson learned :) Actually, the best part about the morning was getting to meet Father Roderick. He recently moved to the area from Fredericksburg, VA. His family still lives in Northern Virginia and in fact his daughter lives in Alexandria and is coming to visit next week. A nice coincidence.

Saying Goodbye

I'm tried of saying goodbye... it's hard! On Sunday I had my last Sunday school class with my 11-13 year olds. They surprised me with a donation of over $350 to help AIDS orphans in Tanzania. On Tuesday, I resigned as Kiwanis Club President. Unfortunately, our meeting was canceled due to snow. Kind of a let down. And yesterday was my last day of work. I went out to lunch with my co-workers. Then in the evening I had dinner with my sister who went back to Boston this morning.

Today, I used as an opportunity to sleep-in, get my car inspected and registered at the DMV. I even posted some furniture on craigslist. Brandon and his parents will be here Saturday night and moving day is Sunday. Busy busy!!