Courtesy of Orthodixie, let me recommend a book to you called Faith & Humor: Notes From Muscovy. He has an excerpt from the book which I really liked:
“You see, Reverend Father,” a novice once said to the confessor at a convent. “I’m bored at the convent. I started to dance at the age of four and I almost became a ballerina …
When I took the veil, I threw away my ballet slippers and my tutu, as well as all the photographs which showed me dancing. Yet now I have such a strong desire to dance.”
The priest said nothing to the novice, but a month later, on her name day, he gave her a gift of pink satin slippers and a real tutu.
The novice was overjoyed. She tried on her new slippers and they fit her perfectly.
“When you think of your past,” said the priest, “and you get the desire to stand in third position or sixth position, I give you my blessing to put on your slippers and your tutu and to dance as much as you wish. You can use our conference hall. Get the key from Mother Eustaphia.
After that, the novice lost all desire to dance. She never asked for the key to the conference hall. She put the slippers and the tutu away in the corner of her trunk and didn’t think of them for months on end. But every year, on the evening of her old name day (she had by then become a nun and had taken a different name), she would open the lid, look at the priest’s gifts and remember his warmth and infinite love, and she would pray for the soul of the Hieromonk Andrianus, because the priest had long since passed away.
Nevertheless, both the publisher and Orthodixie warn that this book needs to be read with care. Orthodixe says:
It is not a laugh a page; much of it is troubling. I guess you could say that it has an attractive existential quality that will comfort some and confuse others. I found it unique … and head-scratchingly refreshing.
You see, the humanity of priests also leads to some negative stories. Not everything in the book is clearly positive, and some is negative. In some cases it can make us gasp:
To those who wanted to have an abortion, the abbot would say
“You should give birth to the baby and then leave it in a carriage out in the cold, as if it were an accident. It will scream for a bit and then freeze to death, and all will be well. It’s a lesser sin than abortion.”
“Why is it a lesser sin?”
“Try it, you’ll see.”
But no one tried.
Thank you Orthodixie for pointing out this book for me.
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