Top Ten Signs That Indicate You Might Be An Orthodox Christian

I found these online, enjoy :)

Peace,
Neo

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Top Ten Signs That Indicate You Might Be An Orthodox Christian

You might be Orthodox if...

10. You are still in church four hours later after the priest concludes the Liturgy by saying, "May the holy Trinity protect all of you."

9. You forget to change your clock in the spring at Daylight Savings Time, show up an hour late, but the service is still going on....

8. ...but there are people in your community who still can't get to church on time when the clock gets set _back_ an hour in the fall.

7. You consider an hour long church service to be "short."

6. You buy chocolate bunnies on sale (after Western Easter).

5. When someone says, "Let us pray..." you reflexively stand up.

4. You went to church four or more times in a week.

3. Your priest is married...

2. ...and your vocabulary includes several titles for the wife of a priest: Presbytera (Greek), Preoteasa (Romanian), Matushka (Russian) and Khouria (Arabic). And you always get a funny smile when you use the wrong term at the wrong parish that you are visiting.

And the number one sign you might be Orthodox is...

1. You say a prayer before you pray.



Orthodox Kids Do The Darndest Things

Pre-schooler eschatology.

As I was driving my 4 year old son to preschool, we had to detour around a construction site. He seemed a little perturbed by the change, so I said, "George, construction doesn't last forever." He replied, "I think it will last until the last day." I was puzzled, so I asked him to clarify: "The last day of what, George?" So he said, "The last day until no one is left except God, because God lives forever!"

My 4 year old son was showing me a church he built from LegosTM. Since he seemed to be getting interested in things relating to church, I asked him if he wanted to be an altar boy in a couple of years. He answered, "No, I want to be a race car driver!"

Pre-schooler Concepts

My son (almost 4 yo) was showing me picture he drew. Lately he likes to draw what he calls "maps": pictures with roads, rivers, etc, on them. On this particular one there were some orange lines and he said: "There are pipes that are carrying regular water." Then he pointed to some blue lines and said: "These pipes are carrying Holy Water. They go to Church."

My twin 6 year old girls have been getting interested in guardian angels, and in angels in general. For example, one weekend they made wings out of construction paper, taped them to their backs and pretended they were angels ("Daddy, you can be Jesus!"), and I must say they were behaving pretty angelically as well.

Anyway, at school they have been learning about some safety issues: avoiding strangers, about fire, etc...., and that had been making them a little apprehensive. They want to be assured that their guardian angels would protect them. I asked them if they wanted guardian angel icons in their room, and they were agreeable, so I ordered some from a Conciliar Press catalog I had.

Now it so happens that at the time it was my father's birthday, so after they talked to him on the phone to wish him a happy birthday, they wanted to make something for "Papou" for a birthday present. They decided they wanted to make for him a couple of "guardian angel icons," so they got out some construction paper and colored markers. As they began, my wife told them that there were some "rules" for writing icons; she said "People usually pray make when writing icons," so afterward, I could hear them in the dining room chanting together aloud while they were coloring: "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit... In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit..."

A few years ago, during a heavy thunderstorm, our power went out, so we lit some candles around the house for light. Our then-three year old twin girls were looking in wonder at the candles, and then one of them said "Daddy, we're in church!" Out of the mouths of babes...

When my twin daughters were three years old they received from my sister (their Godmother) icons of their patron saints, St. Catherine and St. Juliana. Although they had already had several icons they received at their baptism, they didn't have icons of their patrons until then because St. Juliana is hard to find, and my sister didn't think it was fair to give Catherine her icon until she found one of St. Juliana, which she finally did, from Holy Transfiguration Monastery. So they were looking at them one night, kissing them, and comparing them to the icon of St. George that their baby brother received from his Godmother. Now coincidentally, about that time I was given a small icon of Christ from a friend who had purchased it during a recent trip to Greece. My girls also wanted to see "Daddy's icon," too, and after Juliana observed that she had an icon of St. Juliana, Catherine had an icon of St. Catherine, and that George had an icon of St. George, I had to laugh when she pointed at my icon of Christ and said, "That's St. Daddy!"

At my son's baptism, he was given an icon of St. George which was written by his godmother. My daughter, who was three years old at the time, was studying it intently for awhile, and then a look of disappointment crossed her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I want an icon with a horsey on it!"