Turtles seem to live a pretty long life, except the ones that like to cross the road!
August 08, 2021
A turtle when it feels threatened retracts its’ vulnerability back into its shell; and you know I am the same way! I have always considered myself to be an introvert, as I spend a lot of quality time in my shell, cozy and safe.
In becoming a priest, it has challenged me a bit. The things that pushed me back into my shell now get in the way of building God’s church.
Overall, I am a broken man in need of a Savior!
I am the chief of sinners; please do not put me on a pedestal! My poor wife knows all too well, or all too Weller! I am the product of a broken home. I grew up mostly without a father but had many great godly family men in my life.
I was a wayward, wild and crazy youth that finally realized something was missing! There is no man that sinneth not! (1 Kings 8:46) I stand before you as your priest but am unworthy of the position. It is simply that I love God more than that loud panicky voice that cautions me, and I force myself into the altar and out of my safe shell, trembling before the mighty hand of God at my many failings and my priestly duties!
My life now is constantly changing as my shell of an ego or inner child get in the way of my need to love and too weep with you in your struggles and pain.
To say that these last 16 months or so have added a challenge with the biological warfare released on us is to put it mildly. I reflect back to my parents and grandparents enormous life-changing struggles they lived through with a new appreciation.
At my house, we have turned off the news and its many misleading stories and so called experts. We read science reports now with an untrusting temperament and realize a contradicting study is just a day or two away. We have pushed forward trusting in God more and honoring our bishop. I don’t wish to cause Vladyka any harm or anguish.
Our beloved bishop is a prayerful man whose love for us is without measure. As you know, ROCOR is a very conservative jurisdiction and is slow to change or to be pressured by society, and our hierarchs are always thirsting for your prayers!
During this time frame, my wife and I religiously consumed the elderberry and zinc supplements, but agent Wuhan still found us! This past lent on Clean Monday, I was blessed to experience this new variant for myself. It was a time to reflect on how temporary life on earth is! I wondered if this was it for me and if I would see us celebrating our first Divine Liturgy in Cross Keys, Va. in our new church. And of course like a good Christian, I shared it with some of you.
The version I had allowed me to recoup quickly but I know many have struggled severely and lost loved ones to this virus. Most of the folks that I contaminated struggled more than I did and I weep for their pain. And I certainly didn’t want to take this home to my 85 year old mother either, who already struggles with another biological warfare agent called Lyme disease! But I have chosen thus far to stay organic and weather the storm!
Trying to navigate these stormy waters amidst the regulations and daily reports of doom and gloom with your wellbeing in the forefront of our thoughts and prayers was our goal.
Our concern is focused more on the life to come than this circus we are attending now. I didn’t want our un-Godly big-brother’s spotlight singling us out for amplifying this disease either. And I surely didn’t want anyone to suffer from their attendance here a church! But this toxin seems to have a mind of its own.
The first folks in our church family that contacted the bug early on did not pass it on to their families or coworkers. The dirty bug I contracted, I believe at work, was more contagious. But we cannot fear death, it comes for us all!
But understand this, there is absolutely no poisonous death awaiting you here at the chalice! The Body and Blood of Christ is Life and are here to strengthen and heal you! Are you a believer? As long as I am breathing and able, I will also be here for you! Christ is either your God or you have surrendered to the pagans of this new world order!
“The Divine Liturgy is the way we know God and the way God becomes known to us,” says St. Sophrony. It is the Church’s greatest mission! In this great work, the Lord’s work, the same Saint says, “We feel His Divine presence within us, outside of us, at the highest grandeur of the universe, in the face of man and in the radiant intellect. And in the hours that the unwaning light illumines, our hearts we realize we will not die.”
St John of the Ladder writes, “Above all, you should leave the integral faith and the pious dogmas as a legacy to your children, so that not only your children but your grandchildren too will you manage to guide towards the Lord by walking the path of Orthodoxy.” (Saint John of Sinai, On the Shepherd 97, edition Holy Monastery of Paraclete, Horopos Attica, 1946, p.402 (PG 88, 1201A).
So where do we go from here? As the Commies try to take over this country with a devilish love, rooted in greed and power, we will find ourselves even more secluded.
The True Church has already seen this sinful illness before and weathered the great storms of the past! When our governing body expects you to accept sin and pride as the new norm and allow our children to be warped with non-biblical teachings, our once godly nation has been hijacked and placed on a road to damnation. Love is not acceptance of sin, but a hope for salvation of all of the created on the single lane highway to heaven.
Many of our new politicians go to Washington and become millionaires controlled by delusional sick filthy rich people seeking to become king, and seeking to take our Constitutional rights away so they can gain more power!
Satan is winning many battles now in this country! Great nation’s fall when they turn their attention from the true God to watered down theology created by man to allow man’s sinfulness to be made acceptable to mankind. It will not last! There is only ONE truth! History will confirm this for you.
Don’t pull your head back into its shell and hide either, get busy! A little while ago, St Paisios warned us saying: “If Christians don’t begin to witness their faith, to resist evil, then the destroyers will become even more insolent. But today’s Christians are no warriors. If the Church keeps silent, to avoid conflict with the government, if the Metropolitans are silent, if the monks hold their peace, then who will speak up?”
The Orthodox Church has given you all the weapons you need to defeat this attack and this brain washing of mankind. But you must come to training camp.
You must practice our special diet. You must pray like your life depends on it, because it does!
You must study the words of truth found in the Holy Scripture and realign your family’s vehicle on the single lane highway that offers no rest stops in the diminishing time we have left. And most of all; be about your Father’s business, hold firm to the wood of the Holy Cross, love your neighbor but protect your children from heresy and supporters of paraphilia, and above all, be Orthodox 24 hours a day! Live it, Breath it, Die Orthodox! Glory to Thee!!!
