We are delighted that 2020’s first Woman of the Week is the author of the astonishing and beautiful book, Putting Joy Into Practice, Phoebe Farag Mikhail. We asked her about her approach to her faith:
“Orthodox Christianity for me has always been something personal, practical, and palpable. That’s how I’ve experienced it, and how I strive to share it with others. God loves me personally, as a woman, as I am, and as I could be. His love is practical, manifesting itself not just in miracles and mysteries, but in everyday ways, if I open my eyes up to them. His love is palpable – His incarnation allowed us to see Him with our eyes, touch Him with our hands, and His Spirit works through the Church that we might continue to do so through the sacramental life.
“It’s this love that reminds me that I am more than the roles I play: wife, mother, sister, friend, writer, educator, activist, and so on. I am a woman loved by God, and my highest calling is to accept that love first, and then live that love out in the roles that I do play in life. Accepting that love first for me includes participating in the sacramental life of the church, especially in the Eucharist, through which I taste the body and blood of Christ Himself, and confession, through which I reconcile with God and the Church after recognizing and repenting of what I have done to separate myself. Accepting that love first means embracing some of the “practices of joy” that I have written about in my book: praying the psalms, giving thanks, shooting arrow prayers, praising God. From this fountain I’ve been able to draw love for my husband, patience for my children, empathy for my sisters, brothers, and friends, words for my writing, inspiration for my teaching, and strength for my activism.
“I don’t always do these things well. Sometimes I fail, miserably, especially in the role of mother to my children, the one that occupies most of my time and my thoughts. Often,it’s because I’ve failed to draw from the fountain of love. But as many Desert Fathers have pointed out, Christianity is a process of falling and getting back up again, falling and getting back up again. Perhaps sharing my imperfection is itself an act of love – if my children can see that when I fall, I can get back up again, then so can they. Because they will fall, and can get back up again. Because in Orthodox Christianity we know that when we fall, we fall into the arms of the Father, and when we get back up again, we do so holding His hand.” Axia!
Find out more about Phoebe’s book and her approach to intentionally creating joy in your life here:
https://beingincommunity.com/putting-joy-into-practice/
We asked our Woman of the Week, Phoebe Farag Mikhail (seen here at a book signing), how she views her ministry in the church:
“Before I became a clergy wife, when I served in church, I often took on a role in an “official” ministry – usually Sunday school teacher or coordinator. When I took on the “clergy wife” role, which has no predetermined job description, I could have continued in those kinds of services. At the same time, however, I was pregnant with my first child, and the transition to motherhood far outweighed my ability to do much else for a little while. When I emerged from the fog of new motherhood, I realized I could carve out a service as a clergy wife in a somewhat different way. My service in the church now is more about building personal relationships and sharing hospitality. It’s not so much a defined role as a practice in being fully present for those around me. And as an extreme introvert, this is a huge challenge – yet God has called me to it.
“Being fully present allowed me therefore to recognize some possibilities for ministry in my church that weren’t there before – such as starting a monthly group for moms of young children with a few other moms in the church that had become my friends. It allows me to recognize new faces when I see them, and welcome them in, connect them with our community. I remember one encounter with a new congregant a few years ago that I chuckle about all the time. Our congregation does some things a little differently than some other Coptic Orthodox Churches, and after liturgy this new congregant asked me where she could get “orban” (blessed bread), which in other churches is distributed in the nave or during Sunday school. I told her the priest distributes it after liturgy. She then asked me where she might buy sandwiches for her kids to eat. I told her we didn’t have a cafeteria. She asked ok where do they go for Sunday school? I told her we do Sunday school on Saturdays. I was pretty sure after that conversation she would try to find herself another church in the area. Then she told me that it might be difficult for her to get her kids to Sunday school when her husband works and she doesn’t have a car, so I introduced her to a member of the congregation living in the same town to see if they could coordinate rides. For years, now, her family has been a permanent fixture in our congregation, and when her husband considered a move to a different state, she put her foot down and told him they are not leaving East Rutherford, NJ.”
We asked Phoebe Farag Mikhail, our Woman of the Week, about her morning routine:
“These days I work from home, and this semester I am teaching in the evenings, so my mornings typically look like this: I get up before the kids at around 7 am to get their lunches started (if they are bringing lunch to school). If I am able, I try to get up even earlier, at 5:30 or 6 am to pray, read a chapter or two from the Bible, and maybe do some reading or writing (I manage to do this 1-2 times a week). I get the coffee started and then I wake my two older children for school at around 7:30 am. I start to get dressed myself while they dress and brush their teeth. Then my husband and children go to our icon corner to pray a shorter version of the Morning Hour (depending on how much time we have – sometimes we have trouble getting them out of bed!). We may sing a short hymn together related to the liturgical season. Then they eat breakfast and either my husband or I take them to school at 8:25. Once they’re off to school, if I didn’t get up early enough to do my own prayers and Bible reading, I’ll do them then. My youngest is in preschool and goes in the afternoon, so he I’ll spend some time reading books to him and then letting him play independently or use his screen timeat around 9:30 am while I get started on the work I need to do for the day – marking papers, preparing lessons, preparing for speaking engagements, reading for any courses at seminary I might be taking, fulfilling any tasks for the volunteering or church service work I do, writing articles or blog posts, or working on my next book.”
Thank you, Phoebe!