In a motel in faraway Texas, where he came for three days to give an "intensive" course on "sacramental theology" at the Episcopal seminary.

A long flight yesterday, during which I finished Aries' book on death. It is very interesting, especially that he writes about the evolution of the perception of death since the Middle Ages. Its scheme: acceptance of death by everyone and society – hence "public dying" and "habit" to the dead (bazaars in cemeteries), burial ad sanctos. The absence of the cult of graves (it is obvious that the dead, being in the Church and with the Church, are felt as part of life, as with us...). Then there is the "individualization" of death (15th-16th centuries): personal judgment, etc. Then, in the 18th century, death as rupture, its rapprochement with eros. In the 19th century – the cult of graves, the idea of nation, succession. And only in the 20th century, the complete removal of death from life (hospital, etc.). All this will need to be reread and rethink.

This morning is "social" life. Meeting with the Dean and other professors. The first lecture is out of five, which I am more or less satisfied with. Breakfast with one of the professors and two Anglican priests, very cozy and interesting. In such conversations, one checks what everyone needs in Orthodoxy and what is a relic that requires an Entmythologizierung... Two hours of rest in a motel. He began Hendrick Smith's book The Russians, The Russians, by Hendrick Smith (a three-year correspondent for the New York Times in Moscow). At 4.30 a.m. "sherry party" [603] in the seminary. The inevitable conversation about the consecration of women. On my way back, the dean drove me past the famous U. of Texas tower, from which a paranoid man had shot and killed about twenty people a few years before.

Sunny. Warmth. Especially beautiful are Texas evergreen oaks.

Wednesday, January 21, 1976

Outside the window there is a bright southern sun and palm trees over the swimming pool, and L. has just called from New York, where it is cold, snowy and slushy. Last night dinner with three professors and their wives. It always seems to me that the main feature of an American professor (and perhaps a theologian especially) is timidity, a kind of fear spread throughout the atmosphere around them. Well-being and the fear that corrodes well-being...

In the morning - the second lecture. I am more than surprised by the interest and passionate attention of the audience. "You may not know," one of them later told me, "that your writings saved this seminary" (it was the center of "secularism"). Indeed, there is no prophet in his own country... Breakfast with six students in the restaurant is incredibly friendly and joyful...

Then, at two o'clock, in some absolutely paradisiacal weather, there was a tour of the library-museum of President Johnson from Prof. S. Very impressive. In everything - Texas immensity and grandeur. Three hours of solitude and tranquility in a motel, reading H.Smith. Cleverly and not even without depth. The quality of American journalism that always amazes me...

Thursday, January 22, 1976

A hectic day. Yesterday there was an evening lecture, then an evening at the dear Perry's with Green and Bellamy. This morning there was a sermon and a lecture, followed by a conversation with a young man who had converted to Orthodoxy. A conversation that made me sad! Why is conversion to Orthodoxy immediately accompanied by this petty interest in "carlovatism," suspicion, a kind of tormenting confusion of consciousness? It would seem that he has found the truth, he has come to the Father's House...

Friday, January 23, 1976

Last day in Texas. Yesterday dinner with the Dean and his wife, Prof. S. and his wife, in the cozy and very "authentic" restaurant "Old Vienna". Reflections on Western Christianity, on its "ethos" and on what we, the Orthodox, should do... Yesterday, before dinner, I spent an hour and a half with a class that studied Orthodoxy... I try to "catch" everything for myself – what is the difference in the approach, the basic intuition. Everything keeps coming back to the question of the consecration of women, and here, with the greatest benevolence, with all the "openness," there is a complete wall of misunderstanding. In the last count[607] "The West" is, after all, a mixture of pride and masochism ("guilt complex"[608]). By initiating women, he "corrects" something, "repents" of something. But he is also proud in his repentance. Having understood his sin, he himself must instantly "reparate" with the same self-confidence with which he "sinned". Each stage seems final to him. We answer poorly, because, in fact, we do not know what the impossibility of a female priesthood is. We only feel. When we, babbling, try to explain, it turns out that we are the "proud" ones, and not them! And since the Orthodox in the main (not Orthodoxy!) are really proud ("of Orthodoxy") and cheaply triumphalist (they themselves are good!) – then it turns out to be an incredible triple confusion... All this is painful, all this – I feel – requires some kind of radical inner clarification.

Crestwood. Monday 26 January 1976

Today is the start of registration for the second semester. A lot of noisy seminarians, hugs and kisses. I feel like an old man in the midst of all this seething. A passionate desire for solitude, already an old fatigue from the crowd.