Kind of Against My Theology, But It Happened Nonetheless

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Recently, my priest and I were talking, and he remarked (regarding my tendency to make everything far more difficult and convoluted than it really is) that according to the writings of someone named (I think) Elder Joseph, the Lord doesn't really ask very much of us.

So I pondered that for a few days.

The thought kept coming to mind that God just wants us to give up our heavy fog-wrapping of delusion/illusion.

Then on the third morning after tha conversation, I felt in internal nudge toward a book that had arrived in the mail a few weeks before but that I had scarcely opened, consigning it to the shelf for when I had more time: PRAYERS BY THE LAKE by St. Nicolai Velemirovich.

I felt that I was supposed to make the sign of the cross and open the book because God had something to say to me in it.

I felt that I was supposed to open it near but not at the beginning.

I feel a little weird when this kind of thing happens to me, because in many respects, it's against my theology.

But I did it anyway, and this was what it opened directly to, below--I'd never seen it before:



"You do not ask much of me, my Love. Indeed, people ask more.

I am wrapped in a thick wrapping of nonexistence that covers the eyes of my soul. You only ask my soul to take off her misty wrapping and open her eyes to You, my might and my truth. People ask my soul to wrap herself more and more thickly with heavier and heavier wrappings.

O help me, help me! Help my soul to attain freedom and lightness, to attain lightness and aerial wings, to attain aerial wings and fiery wheels.

Stories are long, too long; the moral is short - one word. Stories spill over into stories, the way the smooth face of my lake spills over from color to color. Where does the colorful overflowing of the water under the sun end, and where does the overflowing of stories into stories end?

Stories are long, too long; the moral is short-one word. You are that word, O Word of God. You are the moral of all stories.

What the stars write across heaven, the grass whispers on earth. What the water gurgles in the sea, fire rumbles beneath the sea. What an angel says with his eyes, the imam shouts from his minaret. What the past has said and fled, the present is saying and fleeing.

There is one essence for all things; there is one moral for all stories. Things are tales of heaven. You are the meaning of all tales. Stories are Your length and breadth. You are the brevity of all stories. You are a nugget of gold in a knoll of stone.

When I say Your name, I have said everything and more than everything:

O my Love, have mercy on me!

O my Might and Truth, have mercy on me!"


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