This summer marks the eleventh year of my conversion. I’ve spent the past eleven years standing awkwardly at post-church coffee hours, nodding at sermons, and weeping at baptisms.

And this summer, a few more motions were added to the litany of my frail, fragile movements in the church: I began crossing myself, bowing towards icons, and opening my mouth to receive warmed wine, blessed bread, the body of Christ pooled on the edge of a spoon.

I became Orthodox in the same month that I became a wife, and the rich irony of both occasions is not lost on me.

My husband, who grew up Episcopalian, converted to Orthodoxy in college, and my background in the Reformed church gave us an interesting courtship, where dates included vespers and long discussions about Marilynne Robinson and St. Athanasius. [Read more…]