How many people would shout for joy if they received a book about a monastery?
Several months ago my mother called and said she was sending a gift – and it was a surprise. Well. I wondered and guessed and then forgot about it.
Then it arrived. Oh wow. Something amazing. An old book about Holy Trinity Monastery – Russian Orthodox – in Jordanville, New York. In the country between Utica, Albany, and Oneonta(?), New York. Not just a book. A handmade book. One of fifty hardcover copies on handmade jute paper. (They went nuts on the softcover edition. Three hundred copies. Yeah sure make a book as common as trees.) From my great uncle Dr William (Bill) Clarkin who taught many years at State University of New York in Albany. An expert on books and prints and traveled North America giving lectures and presentations. He died just a couple years ago. There is a handwritten note from Jo Mish one of the publishers at Swamp Press asking my uncle what he thinks of the book he ordered.
Apparently my uncle Ed Warner found? inherited? the book when our great uncle died. Casually mentioned to my mother, “Who on earth would want this?” My mother immediately thought of me. My mom gives the best presents.
My mother in fact sent me a newspaper clipping from the Utica Observer Dispatch a few years back about Holy Trinity Monastery (and Seminary). She knew of my interest in other Christian traditions. Turns out my grandfather somehow knew the abbot(?) of the seminary and sometimes traveled down to Jordanville for graduations. I was stunned. My grandfather was a fun guy and a great educator but so far as we knew had no interest in religion at all. Grandad hung out with Russian Orthodox monks?!? Later my mother explained that some monks – the abbot(? memory is faded here) – took courses in mathematics at Mohawk Valley Community College where my grandfather taught and of which he was dean for most of his career. Hence the relationship. I dearly wish I knew what he and the monks/priests there talked about.
There is much more I could say – about the monastery and the seminary I suppose. Suffice it to say I am fascinated by the simple existence of a Russian Orthodox monastery/seminary in the middle of the sublime nowhere that is rural Upstate New York. And by the fact that for years I had no idea that somehow our family had a connection to this “beacon and oasis of Old Russia”.
Between the cassock threads
the skin of arm
lies over bone
as snow stalactites
in the weave
and calves lurch
in crosswise step,
while the earth
nailed tight
bends.
Scans of three page spreads (PDF)
An addendum:
Shortly after receiving the book I had a powerful dream. Armetta and I went to a restaurant… somewhere (Utica?) that specialized in Russian food. No menu you chose from. You came in and they served you whatever was for dinner that evening. (Just like an Indian restaurant I visited in Atlanta last year.) Small. Dimly lit. Babushkas and monks and priests and families with children came in. We all sat at tables – at first apart and then somehow (as often happens in dreams) in a circle. I should have written it down the next day because I could tell you what was served, the people who came in, conversations we had. What does it mean?
