Decision time approacheth. Whether tis nobler to enter wholeheartedly into the New Calendar Nativity Fast of one’s parish, or to begrudge its 13 day prematurity. The thirteen day lapse does not seem to matter as much the rest of the year because the other commemorations don’t seem as specifically seasonally important. This is probably a result of our not marking time by holy days, but by the civil calendar. It seems right when older texts mark days by approaching feasts and fasts rather than numbers. All that changed with the split calendar and increasing secularism.

I suppose it depends on one’s sense of Orthodox community – local or worldwide. It is sad that there is a discrepancy. One should not have to chose between the two. Submission to one’s Bishop and unity within one’s parish seems to trump what they are doing in Russia, Alaska, or even across town, except in cases of flagrant apostacy, which some think this issue boils down to. I don’t. To me it’s just sad.

So for me and mine, the fast begins this Sunday. Two days for eating meat are all that’s left. Then we make our subterranean descent into admitting that this world and ourselves are not as they should be, which prepares us for the Coming of Christ who fixes it, and shows us how to enter into His healing.