From a
young age, my parents taught me the importance of two very important realities:
two experiences that we lived. These two
realities were that of culture and family.
I grew up
in the Mississippi Delta; the North Western part of the State of
Mississippi. It is a very impoverished
area but, like many places in the South, it is rich with culture. The Mississippi Delta Blues Festival was
literally right down the road from our house.
I remember walking down to it, in an open field. The bands were all there playing music and
many people came to hear them. It was a
real cultural experience, part of the life of the people. As with kindness, being gentle and taking
care of others is a part of the culture down there. We helped our neighbors and they helped us. Even though we were from the North — my
father from Chicago area and my mother from Indianapolis, Indiana — people
welcomed us and we welcomed them. They
treated us like we belonged there. We
were family to them and they were family to us.
The
reality of family is another thing we lived.
We were close knit. Family was
important to us. We even travelled back
many times to Indianapolis to see our family and relatives — aunts, uncles,
cousins, grandparents. I was raised
zealously nominal Roman Catholic. This
was part of both family and culture. It
was what we did as a family. Everybody
in the family was Roman Catholic so we were too. It was a meeting of family and culture for me
growing up.
Moving
ahead to my senior year in High School, we moved to Phoenix. I met my future wife, Veronika, at the
Catholic Church youth group. I graduated
and got a job. My future wife and I both
decided to go to Catholic Universities for our undergraduate degrees. I went to Franciscan University of
Steubenville in Ohio and she went to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. We graduated and moved back to Phoenix. I moved in with my Dad. We got married six months later. My Dad’s neighbor was a retired French Chef
from France and my Dad asked me if I wanted a job. I said yes and I began working for the Chef,
Bernard. He taught me how to cook. (I am
now the cook at St. Tikhon’s Seminary and cook for all the Seminarians) I worked under the Chef for two years. After my wife and I got married we became
catechumens in the Orthodox Church and then were Baptized Orthodox.
I had
first been exposed to the Orthodox Church at the University. I had a friend who became my mentor; an old
gentleman I met there named Todd. He
taught me about the Orthodox Church, the Theology of the Orthodox Church,
Patristics, St. Gregory Palamas and the Cappadocian Fathers. I had never had any experience with the
Orthodox Church. There are Orthodox
Churches in Mississippi, but there aren’t many and thus not many people know
about the Orthodox Church there. I
wasn’t taught anything about the Orthodox Church growing up. I had a little bit of experience of the Divine
Liturgy and Orthodox Spirituality before going to University because I had
visited some Byzantine/Greek Catholic Churches, but it wasn’t the fullness of
the Orthodox Church. Todd introduced me
to the Orthodox Church, but for me it was still just an intellectual knowledge
of Orthodoxy, not the fullness. My
future wife and I would drive up to a Greek Catholic Church in Northern Ohio
while I was at University. I was
searching for more. Not to say anything
bad about Roman Catholicism, but if I’m honest with myself, I would say I was
going to hell as a Roman Catholic, for a lot of reasons. The Orthodox Church — Christ saved me. I was looking for more, for culture. I was looking for the Orthodox Church, to
experience it.
Culture
is not just something that you do. I was looking to live the Christian culture.
We do this as Orthodox Christians. We
say our morning prayers and our evening prayers. We have icon corners in our homes. We live out our tradition, our faith. Our Faith is our lived-out Christian
culture. We have culture in Christ. The Church is our Family. That’s what I was looking for; what I was
yearning for. My wife and I were trying
to live out Orthodox faith and spirituality without being Orthodox — so we
became Orthodox because we realized you couldn’t be Orthodox without being in
the Church.
An
article by
Seminarian Alex Baldwin
Source: http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2012/11/culture-and-family/
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