Sun Jan 31, 2010
Flora In Winter 2010
We continued a family tradition yesterday - visiting the Flora In Winter exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum. The floral interpretations of selected art from the museum's collection were refreshing on a day where the temperature hovered around 10 degrees. Here is my favorite - probably one of the most straightforward takes in the exhibit but nevertheless beautiful:
Fri Dec 18, 2009
Inter-Religious Beginnings
I was up early today for an 8am meeting at the Mayor's office with some other local religious leaders. Mayor Lukes will be vacating the office shortly but she wanted to gather us together in response to some recent hateful acts in the Worcester - a vandal or vandals hit a local synagogue and church recently. The mayor believes firmly in not mixing politics and religion, but she thought that this meeting would get the ball rolling on local religious leaders forming some sort of organization (starting in Worcester and eventually expanding to the whole county) on our own, which is what indeed is happening. Rabbi Seth Bernstein and Bishop Reilly, who have been involved in this sort of thing for years, lead the discussion. Our immediate aim is to start a database of all local religious leaders and houses of worship. Just as you can go online and find all the concerts happening in Worcester any given day, you will soon be able to do the same with clergy contact info. This will also make it easier for us to come together in the event of a major crisis or a situation that calls for a united voice from the religious community.
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Mon Dec 07, 2009
Art Opening/Family Trip
Friday night the Christakos brood rolled to Express Yourself Coffee on the corner of Pleasant and Richmond in Worcester for an art exhibit opening. The exhibit is called Inspirational Art: Icons and Angels and features the work of Sharon Jordan Bahosh and Sotirios Sam Lalos, who of course is our Cathedral's invaluable sexton. A duo played acoustic music while much coffee and tea was consumed. The crowd was a mix of hipsters, folkies, art types, old Albanian gentlemen in cafeneo mode, and, well, the priest's family. And we all had a blast. Sharon exhibited a series of paintings on angels; I was not able to get a good picture with my phone due to the glass frames. Sam has a number of linocuts of the feasts of the Lord as well as several icons on exhibit. Please stop by Express Yourself to check out the art as well as to drink tea or coffee in a very cool place. Here is a picture of Sam (note the sport coat and turtleneck). Owner Lawrence can be seen to the left:
And here is Sam's linocut of the Transfiguration:
Fri Dec 04, 2009
Worcester Six/A Relic
Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the horrible Worcester Cold Storage fire and the death of six brave Worcester firefighters. The Worcester Mag story interviews some of the brave survivors of the battle, ten of whom are speaking for the first time on the tragedy. There is not much to add here, but there is a connection to the 9/11 attack in NYC when over 340 firefighters perished. During the aftermath of the Worcester fire Fr. Dean met Fr. Mychal Judge, an FDNY fire chaplain. At the end of their pleasant encounter Fr. Mychal gave Fr. Dean one of his business cards. Fr. Mychal died a martyr's death while administering last rites on 9/11 and praying for victims of the attack. The card Fr. Mychal gave to Fr. Dean is in its own small way a relic, and it is the kind of thing that gives me chills whenever I see it. These pictures from my phone are blurry - it is hard to capture something that small on the cell phone camera - but you get the idea.
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Mon Nov 09, 2009
Voting In Worcester
Last Tuesday I rolled to my local voting site to perform my civic duty and vote. And if I had been of the mind to commit voter fraud (and I am definitely not!) I easily could have. Here was the procedure at my polling place: I went into the room and approached the desk where the volunteer was sitting. She asked me my address but not my name, I told her, and she started thumbing through her binder, which was open on the desk and easily visible to me. I found my address well before she did, and saw my name, all while she had her head down reading. She asked me my name, checked it off, handed me my ballot, and that was that. I didn't have to show identification or anything. I am not sure about the procedure in other parts of Worcester, but I could basically have mentioned any address and read the name and repeated it back to the volunteer, and then gone in and voted. Now I doubt anything like this happened last week, and I respect the volunteers for what they do, but it seems to me that changing the procedure and incorporating a license check into it would be reasonable.
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Thu Oct 01, 2009
Rehabilitate With Laughter
There is a very special event coming up Friday night at The Manor in West Boylston - comedian Dave Reilly will perform in a benefit for Holy Trinity. I will be at a stewarship seminar in Sommerville all day until 6 so may not make it back for this. This is definitely something different for a fund raiser and it should be a great time. Please come out to support our wonderful institution and enjoy some good comedy.
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Wed Sep 23, 2009
Worcester-Area Orthodox Pilgrimmage
While writing the previous post (about the grave of Isabel Hapgood) I started thinking - there really is a lot of Orthodox stuff, historical and otherwise, in the Worcester area. You could easily take a day or two and do an Orthodox mini-pilgrimmage of the area's sites and activities related to our faith. In the greater-Worcester area, pretty much where the 12 members of the Council Of Eastern Orthodox Churches are, we have:
-The Museum Of Russian Icons in Clinton.
-Isabel Hapgood's grave, as noted below.
-The original site of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in nearby Pomfret, CT. The mansion is now owned by the Dvorak family.
-The first Western Rite church in New England, as far as I can tell, in Warren.
-Holy Trinity, the only pan-Orthodox nursing home/health care facility in the world.
-The 12 churches of the Council, each of which has some major history behind it.
More...
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Thu Sep 17, 2009
Art In The Park Worcester 2009
Yesterday Prez and I took the girls to Little Angels, but we penciled in an extra half-hour or so beforehand to stroll through Elm Park and check out the Art In The Park exhibits. Last year's stuff was great, but the artists have taken things to a whole new level this year. Scroll down the page from the link to see pictures, but if you are in the area go check it out - the art will be there until October 4, so you have a few more weeks tops. I am still trying to figure out my favorite - perhaps the Observatorium or the Steel Vessels. Here is prez in front of the Toaster, a VW Microbus with foam and other stuff:
[12] comments (134 views)
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Mon Jul 20, 2009
Double Rainbow Over Worcester
I took this photo with my phone from our front porch at some point during the near-Biblical rains we had over the past month. There is another rainbow to the right of the main one, although it may not come out well on your monitor.
[19] comments (250 views)
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Thu Jun 04, 2009
Albanian Festival
The St. Mary community has a great site promoting their festival, which begins Friday at 5pm and continues through Sunday. Vaia and I will attend the opening ceremony and then have some food and check out the beautiful icons that cover the inside of the church. We will also go at some point, with Prez, on Saturday. I will be sending out "tweets" as to when and where I will be. (I am now on twitter as @FrXtakos, if you wish to follow me).
Another great reason to live in Worcester is that every summer there is a first-class ethnic festival, since we Greeks alternate summers with the Albanians. I hope we have a good Cathedral turnout to support our sister parish.
[13] comments (204 views)
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