one foot in and one foot out?

Well, there's been a lot going on this week. I'm just hesitant to say too much at this point. I met with Fr. Gregory. He thinks it's about time to move forward, so we're starting to talk dates for me to become a catechumen. Woo hoo! One thing this would mean, obviously, is that I'd have to step up my involvement in the life of the parish. There's no minimum standard per se on most of this stuff, but I would need to make an effort to be in services with some regularity, and hopefully attend at least some of the classes that are coming up.

Transportation is going to be an issue. As I've mentioned before, we have only one car. I'm open to changing that if necessary, but I'm trying to be cautious and explore other options first. I don't really want this situation to put a strain on our budget, when it's already stressing other areas. Still, it might be a worthwhile trade-off if my wife doesn't feel like she's having to give up her car every time I want to go to a service. One positive development today--I was talking with someone after DL this morning and she offered to provide rides when Ian and I need them. Another possibility--my in-laws are talking about selling one of their cars, which might meet our need without too much expense. Then again, who knows what they'd think if they knew why we were interested.

That's the other thing that's getting close. If I do take the next step pretty soon, we're going to have to look seriously at telling parents about what's going on. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, although it will be nice to have it out in the open. Particularly, I'm concerned about the negative effects that might fall on my wife as a result. Some of that has already happened this past week, with her brother, who's known about this for some time. I'm not going to say exactly what happened, but it's something that affects her a good deal more than it does me, and is specifically in response to where I'm at with Orthodoxy. I can deal with negative reactions that affect me--I pretty much expect it. But I don't know what to do with things that affect her. It's probably the only thing that makes me question whether what I'm doing is worth it.

It's been good to get to more services this week. The car wasn't done Thursday evening, so I didn't make it to vespers. But I got there Tuesday and last night, as well as this morning. I was able to attend all of matins, DL, and hang around talking until about 1:30. Now I have to decide what to do this Tuesday. I could go back for the usual weeknight vespers, or I could visit the ROCOR parish for St. John of Kronstadt. The biggest reason I'm thinking about the latter option is that I feel like I should get over there sometime to explain in person what's going on, and how I'm probably not going to be back there much anymore, as I get more plugged in at the Antiochian parish. On the other hand, maybe it would be better to do that sometime when it doesn't require passing up another service to get there.