July 13 // Seattle, Washington [view photos]

It’s our first full day in Seattle, and with a healthy night’s rest behind us we were ready to fill the day up with roaming around downtown Seattle, feasting our eyes on the merchandise throughout Pikes Place, and eating at a few of the establishments.

We started our morning out at Saint Spiridon Orthodox Church (saintspiriton.org) on the northern edge of downtown Seattle, near the flagship REI store on Harrison and Yale. By the looks of the building, it’s an old Russian Orthodox church (now Orthodox Church of America) that has stood through much with it’s worn, bright blue, white and brick exterior.

I’ve heard from other Orthodox about their experiences with traveling and participating in the divine liturgy elsewhere, how there are a lot of commonalities and it feeling like home. And while they’re right to some extent, there were a lot of unique things that made this place equally foreign to me — Russian language aside.

First of all, the choir was breath-taking and the music they sang was heavenly and perfect in every way. It was distinctly Russian in influence, so you could clearly hear that in the tonality, the way they sang their vowels, and in the various emphasis in the bass and tenor soprano parts. I wish I could have bottled up or recorded the sound and carried it with me wherever I went, it was that beautiful.

There were no pews, so the entire service we stood — all two hours of it — so it wasn’t for the faint of heart or the weak of legs. And all the old babushkas earned their seats with their many years, the right to sit through the entire liturgy. But the music, the sights, and the liturgy was nearly enough to keep me sustained through the service.

A few other differences that were notable — they sang their creed and the Lord’s Prayer (that was quite the beautiful experience), the apostolic reading was read by two women in English and then Russian, the sermon came at the END of the service instead of after the Gospel reading, and in addition to offering blessed bread after communion, they had some sort of wine/water mixture in little cups offered to us. I’m not sure what that was all about, but I followed along and grabbed a cup plus some blessed bread.

It was pretty tiring, standing for two hours, and made me appreciate the subtle differences about my home parish — namely being able to sit when the priest sings, “let us complete our prayers unto the Lord” — the cue that we’ve got another good 30 minutes to go or so. I also missed being able to participate in the blessing of the bread and wine in saying “AMEN” when the bread becomes Christ’s body and the wine becomes His blood. Instead, the Deacon did that in response to the Priest’s readings behind the closed gates with the curtain drawn. Yes, they also had a curtain behind the gates on the iconostasis. That was another unusual difference from what we’ve become used to at Saint George.

In all, our experience at Saint Spiridon was beautiful and unique, and I wish that we could have spent a little more time to take pictures, meet some of the people at coffee hour, and hear more about the parish — but we were hungry and had made a b-line to Pikes Place Market to find some lunch since we had skipped breakfast.

Pikes Place Market was hopping with people and there was a lot of buzz in the air with people bustling around buying wide varieties of fruits and vegetables, fresh-cut flowers, and watching the fish guys do their thing — or more accurately, stood around waiting for them to do their thing. With only three fish guys on duty and no one buying fish, I don’t think that they were up to the normal antics that everyone has come to associate with the Pikes Place Fish Market. So instead of it being an attraction to come and see, it just felt like another vendor to walk by with nothing special about it.

For lunch we feasted at Pike Brewing Company, where we had fresh hummus with hot pita bread, Natalie with her turkey sandwich and me with my fresh halibut and chips — of course, accompanied with a great weissen beer. I have to say, that my fish and chips was the best that I’ve ever had — the fish was extremely fresh, was light and flakey, and the batter was also distinctly different. The waitress said that it was “air fried” — whatever that is. But it was positively the best fish ‘n chips I’ve had yet.

The rest of the afternoon we hobbled around, saw different things, bout some Seattle Chocolates for friends of ours who used to live there (and of course missed being able to get them), and bummed around much of the afternoon.

I think both of us hit the wall, though, around 4:00 in the afternoon — between the afternoon heat, being tired from walking around, and seeing the extensive amount of homeless people looking for handouts, we were ready to head back to the hotel. Very ready.

Seattle just isn’t what I remember it to be, and while I’m sure they’ve always had a lot of beggars on the streets, it just seemed a lot more than I once remembered of Seattle. And that was just a bit difficult to deal with. When you’re on vacation, you’ve explicitly worked hard and saved your money to come and enjoy your stay at your destination — but then to have vagabonds from all sorts of backgrounds asking you for money, it does a few things to you… or at least it has for me.

One one hand, I feel ticked off — we’ve worked hard for the money that we have and for the time that we’ve been given to enjoy our stay in Seattle. And to be asked for our money of someone who probably has done little to find work, make efforts to get their life back in order, or maybe are just too lazy to do anything at all — I feel violated and disgusted. That’s the selfish side of me.

Then with what sum of compassion there is left within me — and if there is any at all, it comes from Christ or those I know who are like Him — I feel really awful about their situations, having to beg for money, food or help, and wished that I could do something that would truly help them out instead of just giving $5.00 here or there, and wondering if they’re just going to use it to liquidate their troubles away in a bottle of gin.

Conflicted, in a word. I feel conflicted about walking past them. And admittedly, I walk right past them without giving them a glance, and outright ignore their request for money. Only once did I give some spare change out this afternoon — and that was for a middle-aged man who asked if I could spare a penny or two for some art supplies, with a few used smaller sheets of canvases or something at his feet. In the back of my mind, I suspect he was just feeding us a line, but he was creative about his begging, so I gave him some loose change and kept walking.

Seattle sure isn’t what I had hoped it would be for us. We have enjoyed some great food, good beer, and seen some enjoyable things in Pikes Place, but on the whole it was probably more depressing than it was enjoyable. Nice vacation, huh?!

One more full day here and then we make our way towards Victoria, British Columbia for some whale watching, dinner, a nice night’s stay in the city there, and a few more things on the morning after. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll be glad to leave Seattle and move on. This used to be one of my favorite cities, and has always been held with some level of romanticized idealism in the back of my head. In fact, Natalie asked me on our way to Seattle if I’d ever want to live here, and my response was an enthusiastic “yes” — provided that I had the perfect job offer. But now I’m not so certain. It’d have to be a damn good job to get me to want to move out here. It just seems too crowded, dirty, and filled with so little hope in the people that fill the city streets. It’s pretty sad.

I think tonight we’re going back to Pyramid Brewing Company for dinner and should have my photos from today up later tonight. The ones for yesterday are up now if you’re interested.

Filed under: General

1 Comment »

1. WebbedFeetOfClay said,

   July 27, 2008 @ 9:02 pm

   I was really happy to see that you’ve picked up on posting again. I’ve been praying for you and hoping all was well for you post the 26th of April.
   Seattle’s a good place, St. Spiridon’s is gorgeous, nice to see you’re also enjoying St.George’s.

   (O, and I’m going to the Sacred Music Institute at the Antiochian village this week, I intend to keep ears open for some thoughts on modern orthodox composition.)

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