Explanations and delays

Dear readers:

Serge (aka "The Young Fogey") recently expressed some joy that my blog was not dead. While rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated, I've not been posting much lately. I am not likely to do much posting, at least until Pascha, for the following reasons.

1. Much of my time has been spent helping my wife, Elizabeth. She previously had three courses of chemotherapy, has recently had a radical mastectomy of the left breast, and a biopsy of the first sentinel lymph gland draining from that breast. The report was that there was a 1.9 mm metastatic lobular carcinoma present there. Our oncologist and radiation oncologist concur that after a six week course of radiation (due to begin real soon now) that there will be a 90 percent probability that there will be no further metastasis at the excision site, and a 70 percent probability that there will be no further metastasis elsewhere. Your prayers would be appreciated for her recovery.

2. Much of my time remaining has been spent looking for work, both in the short term, and the long term. I strongly suspect that Elizabeth will be going eventually on permanent disability, and I shall have to support us both. As a result, I have studied for and taken the February 2005 California Bar Exam. As a side note, I had graduated from law school more than 20 years ago, had taken the Exam a few times, and then put aside the thought of becoming an attorney. I can no longer indulge in that luxury.

To tell truth, after having spent a good number of years doing law and motion, appellate briefs, and briefs before the California and U.S. Supreme Courts (for other attorneys), taking the Bar was a walk in the park by comparison. While I feel good about the exam (especially by laptop, rather than handwriting or typewriting, which last two for me were traumatic experiences), subjective feelings have little correlation with exam results. For the first time, I feel that passing the Exam is a possibility with some eventual probability. Your prayers regarding passing the Bar Exam would be appreciated.

3. Finally, this is Great Lent for me, and for most of the Eastern Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox world. I've noted that many Eastern Catholics and Orthodox, when they start fasting, start also devouring their neighbors in their speech and in their blogs. I'd rather not do that myself. Therefore, entries in the present blog will be limited to devotional literature, and links to sites devoted to the same. Apropos of that, I commend to you all the Prayer of St. Ephrem, which Orthodox and Eastern Catholics recite during the Liturgy of the Presanctified during Great Lent:

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power,and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of
chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant.

Yes, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own errors and not judge my brother;
For you are blessed to ages of ages. Amen.