So Why Cover? part 2

Sts. Alexander (340), John (595), and Paul the New (784), patriarchs of Constantinople

August 30 Old Style
Okay, I decided to start wearing something on my head for church services at least. I had experimented with scarves and wraps before, so I had lots of fabric to work with.

The first Sunday I wore a scarf, I immediatly felt different. The church that I went to at the time was very...cerebral. The worship space was beige and sterile. The focus of worship was listening the sermon. The simple act of doing something external as a gesture of devotion was a personal revolution. It felt so right. 

Along with headcovering came the issue of modesty. The Apostle Paul had discussed this too as worship. This raised more questions: what was modest dress in modern America? Long skirts and long sleeves? I really didn't know how to approach it.

But over all I felt I was going in a newer, deeper direction spiritually. Even though I couldn't fully explain it, this was not merely about dress. It was about how I moved in the world and about an awareness of spiritual things unseen. It was about possessing or even harnessing the power of my sexuality (by God's grace) as a spiritual force and redirecting it. The headcovering is a sign of authority or power. Of course this was years before I would begin to learn about the life of monastics who are the ultimate (but not the sole) example of this concept and what the Church has always known about the power of offering our bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God as a spiritual act of worship.

I found a group of women online who also believed that headcovering and modesty were important to their own religious practice. There I "met" Alana. And Alana introduced me to Orthodox Christianity.

What was that line about angels?

The Closeted Coverer

Afterfeast of the Dormition
Prophet Samuel
August 20 Old Style

So Mary made a comment in response to one of my posts about whether I wanted to be inconspicuous in my covering or not. I have been thinking aobut it ever since. I am not ashamed of covering but I don't want to be associated with belief systems that do not represent what my covering is about. For example, I am not all that into headship as conceived by some Christians who cover. My covering isn't so much about my husband and his authority over me. Sure, I believe in submission. But I believe that submission is the way of all Christians regardless of gender. Wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to lay down their lives for their wives. There is a mutuality in laying aside one's preferences and even one's needs. I would not want my headcover to convey a different concept.


I am also not of the belief that all women have to cover or even believe as I do about covering. One of the most freeing things about being Orthodox is the acknowlegement that all members of the flock are not called to the same thing at the same time. Maturation in Christ happens at a natural pace, aided by the general guidlines and expectations of the Church. Economia can be a beautiful thing.

I don't want to be plain. Sure, I believe that Christian women are taught to dress modestly and without excessive display of wealth. But Orthodoxy has made me aware of the importance of beauty to the human soul. God's creation is beautiful. Our worship is beautiful and pleasing to the senses. Being able to replicate beauty is a reflection of the image of God in us. I'd like to continue choosing colors that suit me and putting my clothing together in a manner that pleases and flatters me. I don't feel that I have to abandon my appreciation of beauty in dress because I cover.

Lastly, I like to have a drink...or two every now and again. I like having a good time, laughing, watching movies, going to rock or reggae concerts. We fast a good bit in the Orthodox Church but we also feast. I am also a budding activist. I wonder if some people will see my covering and believe that these things don't go together. But to me, there is no contradiction.

So in the end, perhaps what I have written displays my own prejudices about women (more especially Christain women) that cover. Perhaps this is what I think of when I see a woman in a white lace chapel veil and it is wrong of me to draw such conclusions. Perhaps I need to get out of other people's heads and deeper into my heart. I am still working it out...

The Monastic Veil

Afterfeast of the Dormition
Martyr Myron of Cyzicus (250)
August 17 Old Style

This is a lovely video. Enjoy!

Meanwhile, on the Other Side of the World

Afterfeast of the Dormition
Translation of the Image Not-Made-By-Hands of our Lord Jesus Christ from Edessa to Constantinople (944)
August 16 Old Style


Sometimes I dream about pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I love traditions and pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Jordan and other sights is one of the oldest Christian customs. Christians who did not have the privilege of living in the Middle East would save for a life time to make a pilgrimage before their deaths. I have cherished a longing to do the same for many years.

However, accounts like the one below make me wary of any tendency to romanticize the Holy Land. Our brothers and sisters in the Faith are suffering daily as they try to maintain their centuries old way of life. Traditions are made almost impossible to keep with the current situation in Palestine. As we continue to celebrate the feast of the Dormition, let us keep these members of the Church in our prayers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(names have been purposely removed for reasons of privacy)

Greetings from Taybeh where today St. George Greek Orthodox Community celebrated The Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Old Julian Calendar, thirteen days later than the New Calendar.

… thousands of Christians who had permits for only one day were crowding the Qalandia checkpoint to get into Jerusalem either to pray or shop. Many Palestinian Christians have a tradition to venerate the empty Tomb of the Mother of God and light candles on the left and the right of the staircase leading to the crypt. The lit candles down a hundred steps is a magnificent site itself as people pass the tombs of Sts. Joachim and Anna on the right and the tomb of St. Joseph the Betrothed on the left.

…three days prior to the feast day for the Mother of God, as is also a tradition here in the Holy Land, I had the great blessing to be in the procession where the Greek Patriarch with all the faithful walked the icon of the Holy Mother of God from the convent next to the Holy Supulchre down the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, through all the stations of Christ's passion to prepare for the celebration that took place today in the Church dedicated to the Ever Virgin Mary. It's an extraordinary and beautiful procession to attend before sunrise and listen to the chanting dedicated to the Holy Mother of God.

Not only do people come from all over the world to walk in this solemn procession in remembering the falling asleep of the Most Holy Theotokos but also bus loads use to come from all over Palestine. With the restrictions of only having a one day permit on the feast day, Palestinian Christians are missing out on these centuries old values and traditions that have maintained our deep Christian roots in the Holy Land.

…[With] the permits, the American passports and using an Israeli registered car, I tried to help [my son] reach Jerusalem faster via another checkpoint (Hizma). The soldiers, of course refused to let him or my husband…enter Jerusalem. I tried to plea with the soldiers that the day was ending and the permits were expiring at 10 pm so I really wanted to take my family briefly into Jerusalem. I said please, "they have American passports." "Please they have a permit" “Please conduct a random act of kindness" we identified ourselves and we are unarmed civilians.

Other than pure misery and harassment, I cannot understand why Palestinians who are also holders of a valid American passport and go to the trouble to follow the crazy Israeli regulations of getting a valid permit cannot use it at the Hizma checkpoint and must be confined to only one checkpoint that always has hundreds of people waiting and hours backed up. Why can illegal Israeli settlers enter the West Bank from any checkpoint they wish and Israeli products flood the Palestinian supermarkets from any checkpoint they wish? But it's pure discrimination and an outright violation of human rights for Palestinians.

I am thinking that on each and every holy day we constantly seek God's divine grace and love just to have the strength to survive in a land sanctified by Christ Himself but made violent and miserable by the occupation forces. Thus, as the Ever Virgin Mary was a source of consolation and edification to the Apostles two thousand years ago, may she continue to be so for the Christian community in the Holy Land so that we may keep our true hope in Christ our God.

Happy Feast!

The Dormition of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary
August 15, Old Style

Reflection on the Feast from the Prologue
Each one of the faithful can learn much, indeed very much, from the life of the Virgin Theotokos. However, I would like to mention here only two things. First, she had the habit to frequently on Golgotha, on the Mount of Olives, in the Garden of Gethsemane, to go to Bethlehem and to other places famous because of her Son. At all of these places, especially Golgotha, she prayed on bended knees. By this, she gave the first example and incentive to the faithful to visit the holy places out of love toward Him Who, by His presence and by His passion and glory, made these places holy and significant. Second, we learn how she, in her prayer, prayed for a quick departure from this life that her soul, at the time of her separation from the body, not see the prince of darkness and his horrors, and hidden from the dark regions not encounter the power of Satan. Do you see how terrible it is for the soul to pass through the toll-gates [mitarstva]! When she, who gave birth to the Destroyer of Hades and, who herself has frightening power over demons prayed thusly, what then is left for us? Out of very great humility, she commended herself to God and did not trust in her own deeds. So much less should we trust in our deeds and even more we should commend ourselves into the hands of God, crying out for His mercy, especially for mercy at the time of the departure of the soul from the body.

The Urge to Cover

Dormition Fast
Forefeast of the Dormition.
Prophet Micah (8th c. B.C.)
August 14 Old Style

I have been covering all or most of my hair for the majority of my adult life. There have been many reasons for this but religion has played the biggest role in growing this conviction in me. Now that I am an Orthodox Chrisian there is even more force behind my conviction. Ironically, I stopped covering when I entered the Orthodox Church. I wanted re-examine my reasons for many things in my spiritual life and practices to be sure that they conformed with Orthodoxy.

After four five years of praying with women who look like this



and this



and this



I feel that my conviction on covering has a place in my Orthopraxis. There is an almost tangible holiness about the women that I know who cover. The holiness that we experience at the Divine Liturgy and other divine services is mysteriously enhanced by our covering and modesty. It is only natural that the holiness should spill over into everyday life just as every other part of Orthodoxy does. The only challenges in my opinion is how to refrain from judging others who do not agree and covering in such a way that I do not draw undue attention to myself.

This is a topic that I plan to write about often. If there are women like me that scour the internet looking for others with this urge to cover their bodies including their hair, I want them to be able to find a likeminded soul or two through this blog.

closing the year with fasting and feasting

Dormition Fast
Afterfeast of the Transfiguration.
Holy Martyr and Archdeacon Euplus of Catania
August 11 Old Style

The final fast of the year is quickly coming to a close. September 1 begins the Church new year and the cycle of feasts and observances. Renewal is a continual theme in the Orthodox life: Nativity, the coming of the light; Lent, with clean week and Pascha, the eighth day that belongs to the Kingdom to come. Even the weekly experience of confession followed by communion on Sunday (a weekly experience of the eight day) is both a cleansing and a new beginning.


The liturgical year ends with two major feasts in August which continue this theme of renewal: Transfiguration and the Dormition of the Theotokos. Transfiguration (August 6) commemorates the revelation of Christ's glory on Mt. Tabor to the disciples Peter, James and John "as far as they could bear it." It is a foreshadowing of the Resurrection and the renewal of all creation in its glory. "His face shone like the sun, and His raiment became white as snow." St. Nikolai Velimirovic says in the Prologue from Ochrid, "Up to this moment, the Lord had many times shown His divine power to His disciples, but on Tabor He showed them His divine nature." And it is to this divine nature that humanity and all of creation are called. We have become partakers of the divine nature and if we persevere our faces and garments will shine with the same brightness seen on Mt. Tabor.




The final great feast, the Dormition of the Theotokos, shows the faithful what we can look forward to when we meet the veil separating this experience of life and the next. The most holy Theotokos lays on her funeral bier surrounded by the Church, its material and immaterial members. Her body is censed and the viewer can almost hear the prayers and hymns rising to commend her soul to heaven. Behind the bier we can see what would have been unseen to those present. The Lord Jesus Christ carries the soul of the Holy Theotokos, born again as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, to heaven.

What strikes me most is that after years of prayer, fasting and struggle, her soul at the time of death was at the developmental stage equivalent to that of an infant. And if that is true, I should not despair of my seeming lack of progress in things spiritual. The glorious Light of Mt. Tabor will surely shine in the meek, low, flawed and the stumbling. To God be the glory!