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The Church Forests of Ethiopia

Churches in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition inherited many of their ideas of sacred space from Judaism. The center of their church, like the metaphorical center of the Jewish temple, is called the qidduse qiddusan, the Holy of Holies. In that center rests the tabot, a replica of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, another borrowed symbol. Only priests can enter the Holy of Holies. Enclosing this sacred center is a larger circle—the meqdes, where people receive communion—and outside that lies a still larger circle called the qine mehelet, the chanting place. All three spheres are contained under the round church roof, but those circles ripple outside the church itself.

Beyond the church building lies the inner wall, which forms a circular courtyard around every church. According to tradition, the proper distance this wall should stand from the church is the armspan of forty angels. During my visits to different churches, I watched many people enter these inner courtyards. Before crossing the threshold, they performed various gestures of piety—crossing themselves three times, dipping a knee, perhaps kissing the wooden doorframe. It was clear to everyone that when you crossed the inner wall, you were entering holy ground.

The brilliant move the priests made was to take the idea of the inner wall and replicate it. Using the same design, they built a second wall of dry-stacked stone just outside the forest boundary, thereby extending the invisible web of sanctity to include the entire forest. Suddenly the holy ground surrounding the church expanded from the size of a backyard to a vast tract of ten, fifty, or even several hundred hectares.

Fred Bahnson writes about the remnants of Ethiopia's highland forests, and how the Orthodox Church is preserving them. The companion film is gorgeous and well worth a look too.

Nice! Emergence Magazine vol 1 is back in stock!

✅ Ordered

My seeds came early so I was able to get started on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The corn is in, so now we wait until it’s about 6” to add the beans and pumpkins in and among them. Very excited to see how things develop.

Foxes and suchlike

There have been several sightings of foxes in and around the yard; yesterday I found their den. Or one of their dens, anyway.  I also found evidence of a chicken dinner, though a head-count in our coop proves that it wasn't one of ours. The den is situated not far from the road and as I drove by yesterday afternoon, I pointed it's location out to the kids and lo, there was  fox sitting bold as day next to the entrance.  I'm going to try to get some pictures, but there's no good place to really conceal myself. They picked a good spot - hidden reasonably well but with an excellent vantage point in nearly all directions. The best shooting location is directly across the road in the middle of someone else's driveway, which might be a little weird.

My three sisters seeds have shipped and should be here by Monday. Everything else is growing apace, except for the hot peppers. I directly sowed them rather than following all the directions on the package. Maybe it's not warm enough for them yet. I'm hoping that's the case. It would be nice to know for sure before the local places sell out of vegetables and I lose the window to re-plant.

Mystagogy went well the other night. Our next topic is Discernment, which should be interesting.