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A Weekend In May, 1977
As I departed the Student Union building where the cafeteria (with unlimited seconds) was; with my meal card in one hand, and my flipflops in the other, I passed by a vendor on the first floor who was selling Coptic religious jewelry and other objects, as part of my college's program of bringing in certain merchants who sold spiritual objects that represented, or were used in, various religious practices.
I was a long-haired nerd, clad in a polo shirt and baggy painters pants, and flops---which were more in my hand than on my feet. Although I had often walked, barefoot, that sixteenth of a mile, between my dorm and the student union building, I had always walked it slowly---as, in those days of glass beverage bottles, there was often broken glass to avoid. However, I almost ran home to get my money so that I could purchase a Coptic Cross eucharistic necklace. I hurried to my room, and retrieved enough money from the coffee can in my closet. I was so keyed up that, on the way back to the Union buildingm I realized that I had left my flops in my room.
At that time, the Coptic Church represented, to me who did not know better, Eastern Orthodoxy. So this was my first attraction to Orthodoxy. And, at a time when personal identity was very important culturally in the seventies, I was Starwatcher, which later evolved into Starward (through the sonnet on Saint Benedict by Thomas Jones, Jr,), I was, even then, on my way to become Starward; although, at that time, Starward was a chubby, long-haired nerd, clad in a faded polo shirt and baggy painters pants, whose feet were daily dirty with street grime.so as not to put undue usage on my flops.
Unfortunately, when we moved out of the dorm on June seventh, 1977, the Coptic Cross was lost and never retrieved. But the seed had been planted. And nearly thirty-seven years later, I was chrismated and received inro the local Orthodox Church on April nineteenth, 2014, which was Great, or Holy, Saturday.
Starward
