“Keeper of the Light”

  • Keeper of the LightI just fin­ished read­ing “Keeper of the Light: St. Mac­rina the Elder, Grand­mother of Saints” by Bev Cooke about that most inter­est­ing woman, St. Mac­rina the Elder.

    This is a per­son we’d all like to invite over for din­ner. Born around 270, her spir­i­tual father was St. Gre­gory the Won­der­worker, her grand­daugh­ters were St. Mac­rina the Younger and St. Theose­bia. Her grand­sons were St. Basil the Great and St. Gre­gory of Nyssa. Now, seri­ously … isn’t that some­one you’d just like to hang around and see what she’s putting in her oat­meal cook­ies?

    The book is writ­ten in an easy “young-adult” style, fill­ing in the many gaps in what we know with some poetic license, some edu­cated guesses and some good sto­ry­telling. Mac­rina didn’t have it very easy — she and her hus­band and young son went from the cushy life of Roman cit­i­zens to seven years of vagabond exis­tence as Chris­t­ian exiles. How­ever it was that she made it, she must’ve had a qual­ity about her.

    There’s some­thing about grand­moth­ers. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my grand­mother Grace — we had one fine year when I could go visit her in her lit­tle farm­house and climb her avo­cado trees and eat burnt pop­corn (Grandma was a hap­less and unin­spired cook). But some­how or other she made an impres­sion. She used to tell Bible sto­ries when she was babysit­ting, but then she’d tell Bible sto­ries when she did almost any­thing. She’d sing hymns when she washed the dishes and fed stray cats. Def­i­nitely a church lady. She didn’t live long enough to see me enter the Ortho­dox Church. Prob­a­bly just as well. Grandma Grace was seri­ously Bap­tist. But I’d like to think that she wouldn’t be quite as scan­dal­ized by the icons and sacra­ments if I told her that we did it all because we loved Jesus.

    So maybe that kind of grand­mother is what St. Basil, Mac­rina the Younger, Theose­bia and Gre­gory had. The kind we all need.

    ***

    By the way, I should men­tion that sell­ing the books is a fundraiser for our women’s soci­ety (named after St. Mac­rina the Younger). I can’t say you couldn’t get them cheaper on Ama­zon, but if you want to help us out, we’re ask­ing a dona­tion of $17.50 per book.

    That’s not why I reviewed the book, inci­den­tally. I haven’t got­ten that mer­ce­nary. But don’t grand­moth­ers always try to teach you some­thing about thrift — I’m doing two jobs for the price of one.


    Related posts:

    1. Sunny. Light clouds. Grumpy farm­ers expected.
    2. Spir­i­tual Coun­sels by Fr. John of Kronstadt
    3. The return of Phillip of the Foun­tain Pen
    4. The Daily Lives etc. Calendar
    5. Fairy tales, the Old Tes­ta­ment and Napoleon Dynamite

    October 2nd, 2006 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 10.02.2006

    I’ve known Bev online for a cou­ple of years, and I’m so excited for her.

    Email me, I want to pick up the book and would be happy to do so through your Women’s Society.

  • Grace

    I’ll do that, but if you see this com­ment, fill me in about Bev. The name was really famil­iar to me, but I couldn’t think where I’d heard it.

  • Mimi

    Are you on the Ortho­dox Women’s list? That’s where I had the plea­sure to get to know her.

  • Bev Cooke

    Hi. I finally ran across your blog with the review of my book — thank you so much for those words! Feel free to email me, if you want to explore where we may have elec­tron­i­cally met.

    In the mean­time, may I use part of your review on my website?

    Thank you again!

    And Mimi — thank you so much for those words, too!

    Yours, Bev.

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