Comments on the OCF.

So, the day after the dinner discussing St. Clement of Rome and my apparent familiarity with him, we had the first OCF meeting at the University. We had vespers with litia and artoklasia, since it was a vigil-rank feast followed by dinner [socializing and figuring out what to do with the year]. It was delightful, some 20-30 students, mostly Greek and Syrian, it seemed. With that kind of mass, one could do something. But, no, they're going to meet once per month in the same way, have vespers, have dinner, go off, maybe get involved with Habitat for Humanity and other charities, but that's all. No vision whatsoever! With that many people, surely one could find a few willing to do daily vespers once per week or start a small discussion group or something regular to have some impact on their lives? Yes, the parish it meets at is 5 or so blocks from the main quad and one doesn't want to mingle too closely the identity of the OCF with the parish, but there would surely be enough interest to do some part of the daily office once per week or to have some ongoing discussion group? It'd take less than an hour, it's not hard to learn to assemble vespers, it doesn't have to be a big deal. The occasional big meeting where everybody attends and all the priests from all over come down and everybody sees there are plenty of Orthodox in the campus community is a great idea and once per month is a reasonable frequency, but it's great to have something small that's there regularly for the students outside of Sunday distinct from the parish's stuff [the parish has an akathist every Thursday: nuts to paraliturgical services, I say [though they read it within compline [nuts to liturgical piety in general, anyways]]].

Other news: I apparently have a birthday coming up [I share a birthday with the Theotokos]. When asked by my parents what I wanted, I told them pants, and they said they'd give me a gift certificate. For the mall. Not even for a particular store! Can't they just buy a few pairs and give them to me? Or at least take me to the store? Or at least give me a gift certificate for a particular store? They've done all three in the past with varying degrees of success, but I heartily prefer them to the vastly impersonal mall-wide gift certificate. Something has to be done about the growing gulf here.

More: a name is needed for a collaborative "left-wing" political web journal with a religious orientation I will be contributing to. The previous name fell through for a variety of reasons. I would prefer one that has a secret trollish meaning that subverts the intentions of the liberalists, like "Vox Clamantis", but not "Vox Clamantis" because that's already taken and overused.

Secret Trollish Meaning of Vox Clamantis: The famous poem of the same name is not at all sympathetic to the side of the peasants. Suck it, urban liberalists!