{"id":19502,"date":"2017-01-30T03:10:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T03:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19502"},"modified":"2017-01-30T04:11:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T04:11:26","slug":"finding-long-lost-family-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19502","title":{"rendered":"Finding long, lost ‘family members’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

PORTLAND, Ore. —<\/strong> We went to church this morning.<\/p>\n

It was just any ol’ church. It was at the church where I grew up. Where I was baptized. They call it\u00a0Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral these days. We knew it then only as the “Greek Church.”<\/p>\n

We listened to the liturgy. We heard lots of chanting, prayers, a short Scripture lesson from the priest. Then we had a short reception in another room, part of which was to honor my uncle, a longtime church member who turned 90 this weekend.<\/p>\n

But while we were meeting and greeting some lovely folks who came up to wish my uncle a happy birthday, I met two women; they are sisters.<\/p>\n

Their names were Cathy and Kiki. One of them is in her mid-90s; the other is a bit younger and I won’t venture a guess.<\/p>\n

They told me their father worked in the same bakery as my grandfather, my Papou George — who\u00a0was the father of my uncle and my late mother.<\/p>\n

“Oh, we knew your mother so very well,” Cathy told me. “She was such a lovely girl.”<\/p>\n

I asked them their last name. “Delastraty,” they said. “Oh, really?” I replied. “My godmother, Katy, is a Delastraty.” Of course, they responded, “She is our first cousin.”<\/p>\n

“Excellent!” I said. Then I told them about how close Katy and I have remained over many years. You see, in the Greek Orthodox tradition, the godparent becomes a sort of surrogate parent, or perhaps a supplemental<\/em> parent. Tradition holds that if something were to happen to one’s biological parents, the godparent would step in to take over rearing you.<\/p>\n

Katy never had to fill that role. But she remains a part of our family. My wife adores\u00a0Katy and her husband, Christ … and they adore her, too.<\/p>\n

So I told Cathy and Kiki about my understanding of the godparent\/godchild relationship within the church.<\/p>\n

“So … that means we — you and I — are family!” I exclaimed.<\/p>\n

This trip back to the city of my birth, thus, has revealed a family connection I didn’t know I had.<\/p>\n

What a wonderful discovery.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PORTLAND, Ore. — We went to church this morning. It was just any ol’ church. It was at the church where I grew up. Where I was baptized. They call it\u00a0Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral these days. We knew it then only as the “Greek Church.” We listened to the liturgy. We heard lots of … Continue reading Finding long, lost ‘family members’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1998,6890],"class_list":["post-19502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religious-news","tag-greek-orthodox-church","tag-holy-trinity-greek-orthodox-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19505,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19502\/revisions\/19505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}