Our Woman of the Week is Olga Meerson, nominated for the graceful way she combines her roles as academic, musician, and priest’s wife. We asked her to tell you about herself:
“Let us start the Catechism way: who am I?
“I am a Jew, first and foremost, in all senses of the word and in all my capacities—as a teacher, a woman, a musician, an Orthodox Christian, a Biblical scholar, as well as a scholar of Russian Literature and Culture, , and also, a mother—God help my three poor children (now grown) burdened with a typical Jewish Mother! My husband’s parishioners also have to bear the consequences of their Matushka being a typical Jewish Mother, though in their case, I sometimes manage to muster the tact, learned over the forty-two years of my husband’s priesthood, to curb my savage maternal instincts. As a Jewish Mother, I have no choice but to constantly ponder and admire our Heavenly Father’s infinite, kenotic patience with His own children’s freedom, and His willing acceptance of the suffering entailed by what we thus freely choose.
“Born, in 1959, into a secular Soviet Jewish family who repatriated to Israel in 1974, I was converted in Jerusalem, first to Judaism and then, through Baptism, to Christian Orthodoxy. In the process of looking for a priest brave enough to agree to baptize me, an Israeli citizen, in 1976, just after the Israeli Anti-Missionary Law had been implemented, I met an Orthodox Seminarian from St. Vladimir’s, a long-time friend of Fr. Alexander Men’. A few months later, I would marry this man, who, however, was first of a purely instrumental interest to me—as someone able to find an Orthodox Priest ready to baptize me. This would be a Greek, though a more intuitive choice would seem to be a Russian. The “White” Russian church (ROCOR) was out of the question as it was fairly militantly anti-Semitic, at that time. So my future husband appeared as a wonderworker.
“He found me Archmandrite Meliton, later a bishop in Gaza, eventually passing away back in Greece. I am eternally grateful to him. When enchurching me at the Royal Doors, he made me list all the key attributes of the Jewish Temple’s Holy of Holies, including the Arc with the Mannah, the Scripture scrolls, and the Menorah. He told me, triumphantly, in his somewhat broken and heavily accented Russian, “You see! We are all Jews!”
Thus even the miracles of my Baptism and marriage are inextricably connected to Jerusalem and my being there as a Jew. Ever since, for over 42 years, this factor has continued to shape my liturgical behavior and priorities as a Presbytera and a church musician, as well as my scholarly interests.”
Axia!
Olga Meerson, our Woman of the Week, was nominated for her roles as an academic and a priest’s wife, among others. You see her near her office at Georgetown University and in her choir. We asked her to tell how she integrates teaching and her parish life:
“The main thing about teaching is posing everything you want to impart to students as questions, the Socrates way. To do so, you yourself need to think in terms of questions. The students will, otherwise, immediately discern insincerity and either unplug or take your questions for leading ones. This is stifling, for both their minds and mine. If no question is open-ended, no discovery is possible, either as part of research or for them to make for themselves as a result of my teaching. It is important to invite them to test, and often refute, my hypotheses and come up with alternatives as they see fit. For research too, there is nothing better than having good opponents who knock you out of your snug thinking box.
“This is not so different from pastoral tasks—the art of listening to another person’s sore spots and perspectives as possibly turning your own vision, and even ordeals—perhaps those especially— upside down and inside out.
“In fact, this is a two-way feed. Back in 1998, I published a post-Bakhtinian book on Dostoevsky titled Dostoevsky’s Taboos.
“Many years ago, when I was still a teenager, I read this author and he ended up greatly contributing to my conversion to Orthodoxy. But then I still could not imagine how important it would become for my training in pastoral care: The only reliable voice in Dostoevsky which resounds authoritatively without muffling the rest of voices is that of pain, often the pain of a great sinner or an outward criminal. This voice itself is silent because it taboos this very sinner’s sore spot, so to discern it, we must listen to the sinner’s silenced voice of pain, carefully and with the concerted effort of empathy. Love for the suffering is easy until you clearly see they are sinners. Dostoevsky and studying his characters’ various languages of personal pain really helps to love your neighbor: they may be awful but he takes care to implicate us in their sore spots to the extent we cannot help but identify with them.
“On a totally different note, my poetics research has greatly helped my own liturgical practice in the selection, appreciation, commentary, choir-members training, and liturgical performance of hymns. Appreciating daring metaphors helps. For example, why is the Mother of God compared to the Red Sea (cf. the Theotokion Dogmat in tone 5)? For the sole reason that, like the Red Sea, She too opened and closed without trace for the salvation of Israel, now encompassing everyone caring to join the People of God. This metaphor is driven not by any possible Freudian analogies between seas and girls, neither for any redundant “picturesqueness” of the image, but purely functionally: Like the Red Sea, she aims to save Israel from captivity and death. To be effective, a metaphor has to be narrow and precise, its tenor and vehicle touching only at one, very narrow, point, and the narrower this point, the more concrete And striking the metaphor, really capable of both shaking our minds and piercing our hearts. Unless we are versed in the language of poetic tropes, we miss the language of miracles (in Greek, signs) through which God speaks to us.
“My musical training has helped a lot in choir directing and lately, because of the acoustic limitations of Zoom, switching from polyphonic to antiphonal arrangements of the service, to preserve the participatory nature of liturgy— meaning a common, shared work/service. Accordingly, the musical flexibility required by the switch, ironically, entails retrieving earlier, more interesting chants or versions of chants, often simplified and de-modalized at the times of harmonization and introduction of polyphony. Thus not only the Russian znamennyj and Byzantine chants have become relevant again but e Ben the Kieran came back in its pre-simplified, obikhod version!”
We asked Olga Meerson, our Woman of the Week, about her morning routine:
“Every morning I have to get up. This might sound obvious, but for someone prone to depression, this is a major task. These days, this chore has become taxing for many more of us mortals. Monks used to call these feats of prayer their labor, poiesis/delanie. So let me share what seems to work. It is prayer combined with physical exercise.
Even before taking my meds, I go to our sunroom and climb on my stationary bike. I use it for about forty minutes while saying the following prayers: “Oh Heavenly King” through “Our Father,” the latter three times, each dedicated specifically to intercession for each of my children, before moving on to several names of people needing additional prayers; then three times “Rejoice oh Virgin”, also commemorating each of my children, some of their namesake friends, commanding each to the hands of their respective saints. (For my eldest, it takes longer: he has a wife and two very young sons.) By the time I am done with this part, I have started to breathe heavily but feel that my lungs are finally ventilating and my brain is beginning to function. I continue with the Creed, the Great Doxology, starting with “every day will I bless Thee,” in the original Hebrew for the psalm verses cited there. Then, the following Psalms: 23; 24; 51; 91; 137, and 141. (I am giving their Western, non Septuagint, numeration, as I usually recite them in Hebrew, some sung.) Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon,” I sing in Hebrew, to the znamennyj chant. I sing the opening of Psalm 141 (“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains”) to the chant done by the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Sometimes— lately, quite often— I also sing his version of Psalm 126:4-5 (“Those who sow with tears reap with joy”).
I have found that mental singing sometimes works better than reciting, and even better than singing out loud. For example, my 61-year-old voice is less limited by its current range! Mentally, we can fly, even sing perfectly, just as we hear angels do!
The greatest and most beautiful paradox of traditional prayer is that another person, sometimes thousands of years ago, addressed God in his/her capacity as “I,” — and now, his/ her “I” is actually me, Olga! Try it! It always works. Even if you are not Olga, nor Ephraim the Syrian, nor even King David! This paradox, in turn, entails another one: since everyone can address God just as I address Him, as You, He actually reveals Himself as always the same but each time in a way unique for addressing me, and only me!
Thus prayer usually shifts into meditation.
Then, I switch to my iTunes— Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, of Bach’s C-Minor Mass. Usually, I also switch exercises, to hula-hoop to this music, as sort of a prayer through dance.
After all that, I do a quick vacuum of the most necessary accumulations of dust. By that time in the morning, the Sun makes its specks dance and whirl quite pleasantly. So this house chore can create gratitude too. Now, even a clinically depressed person can face the rest of the day, and of life, full of faith and hope.”
Thank you, Olga!
