Finally, the mental clarity to put something in writing. Even so, where do I start. I'm sure it's going to be dreadfully serious and earnest.

I am thankful to God for placing me here in Ottawa. I don't think about this thankfulness or talk about it much but when I pause, sit still, do nothing and really reflect, I am truly thankful. But I am not always thankful. Lately I find myself irritable and short. Everything within me has become intensified it seems. Here is my rational for why I am this way right now - besides the first several months of marriage, I don't think any time of my life has been as difficult as this one and it has become a terrible temptation to forget that all is sent by God.

Without at doubt all of this has been sent by God.

Moving to a new city, worshipping with a community that just moved, death, being a student once again and not enough time with Cheryl. How can I be thankful?

An example.

I think back to the first night Papa John's body was in the middle of the nave, his feet pointing toward the altar with the giant cross standing between his body and the altar, the crucified Christ looking with compassion on his servant. Deacon Gregory was going to come and read the Psalms over Papa John's body. He was late in showing up and I asked his brother Jon if I could start without him and let Deacon Greg take over when he arrived. Jon said that would be great. So I began to read the Psalms. As it turned out - and God bless him for making this decision - Deacon Greg needed to be with his family that night. I ended up reading the Psalms by myself. To my left was Father John's body, arrayed in paschal vestments laying in peaceful repose, his hands holding the cross and a prayer rope. I stood and read the Psalms out the Bible Papa John gave to me a few months earlier. Never have the Psalms lived so vividly. Somehow, God moved me to thankfulness, even in the face of death.

Psalm 149:1 Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the
faithful. 2 Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. 4 For the LORD
takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. 5 Let the faithful exult in glory; let
them sing for joy on their couches. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged
swords in their hands, 7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, 8 to
bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, 9 to execute on them the judgment
decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the LORD!

Psalm 150:1 Praise the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty
firmament! 2 Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness! 3
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! 4 Praise him with tambourine and
dance; praise him with strings and pipe! 5 Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud
clashing cymbals! 6 Let everything that breathes praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!


I look at these words again and even now I choke back tears and feel a deep thankfulness to our Heavenly Father for the life of Igumen John Scratch - devoted spiritual father, husband, father, grandfather. We liturgical read these Psalms at times when we celebrate the resurrection but it was not until now that these words gained a luminous quality. God is beginning to be more clear to me because of Papa John.

On one occasion, a few days after a brief conversation with Papa John in which he got a bit heated, Papa John asked me to see him in the sacristy after Vespers. He prostrated himself before me and asked me to forgive him. "I must have hurt you terribly my child," he said. I had no response. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to pick him up off the floor but I just stood there utterly humbled. When he got up I asked for a blessing and he hugged me.

"For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory."

Today my spiritual father died and entered the kingdom of heaven.

He fell asleep in his favourite chair. Those who discovered him said he looked peaceful.

May the Father receive Fr. John's soul into the eternal rest and joy of his risen Son, Jesus Christ.

He will help us.

I'm still reading Fr. Arseny.

He is a real man. A godly man. Much compassion and love without any trace of sentimentality. Just pure love for God and endless struggle to help others and seek salvation.

It's impossible to read about a man of such spiritual stature, established and filled by God's grace, and not feel humbled and challenged to see who I really am and where my heart really casts itself about to fill itself with something.

I am amazed by a couple of stories in particular.

1.) The man with the wet boots who comes back to the barracks at night after having stepped in a creek and realizes he might die tomorrow because his boots simply will not dry by the next day. He cannot leave them by the furnace because others will steal them while he sleeps and if he stays awake to protect his boots, he will not be able to work the next day and will be shot by the gulag guards. He chooses to lie down in his bunk with his wet boots on his feet. He begins to drift off and notices a man take off his boots, rub his feet with balm and massage them to return some circulation. He falls asleep thinking his boots might be gone. In the morning, Fr. Arseny gives him his boots and he learns that Fr. Arseny treated his feet with balm and stayed up all night by the fire watching his boots, thereby keeping them safe and keeping the young man alive.

2.) A young man, new to the gulag barracks, gambles with some of criminals and ends up gambling away all his clothes. They try to take away his clothes. The criminal beats the young man and Fr. Arseny realizes the young man will be killed. Fr. Arseny grabs the criminals arm - essentially a deathwish - and the criminal pulls out a knife and says he will kill them both. Fr. Arseny bashes the criminal on the arm, knocking the knife out of his hand and pushes the criminal over. The criminal falls down and hits his head. Fr. Arseny tells the young man he will not be hurt again. The criminals respect and protect Fr. Arseny from that time on.

3.) Fr. Arseny and a young man get sent to solitary confinement in a steel box for two days. It is -23 degrees outside and everyone thinks they will die. In fact, putting Fr. Arseny and the men in the box in such cold conditions could even get the gulag gaurds in trouble with the authorities for being too cruel and against regulations. Fr. Arseny and the young man enter the box. Fr. Arseny simply begins to pray. Eventually the room is filled with light and two figures appear with Fr. Arseny, serving him and helping him as he prays. The young man feels a warmth and no cold and finds himself being brought into deep prayer by Fr. Arseny. Fr. Arseny tells the young man to lie down while he continues praying. They survive for two days in the freezing cold cell. The gaurds who to come to find them are shocked and cannot believe the two men are still alive. The gaurds note that Fr. Arseny and other man are somehow warm to the touch.

Story after story and men and women seeing Fr. Arseny constantly muttering - i.e. praying - to God and selflessly serving others and these people finding consolation and faith in God through Fr. Arseny.

Ultimately, it is the faith of Fr. Arseny which amazes me over and over again. Nearly everyone whom he encounters he also sees as good. He sees their goodness even when they work as a prison guard in a death camp, a criminal who beats fellow prisoners. How a man or a woman can see goodness in the gravest of situations and in the darkest of people is a mystery to me and tells me I've got a long long way to go.

Goodness, contrary to my dark and hidden intuition, is not uncommon. It might be covered up but it is probably only covered up or obscured by my own dim glass through which I see.

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Our move to Ottawa has been a struggle and it has been tempting to compare my old experience with my new one - to find mastery over my situation by comparative nostalgia. The desire for sameness, which is the essence of my present nostalgia, is powerful and a horrible diabolical lie because the sameness I desire is born out of a will to control and find my present in the past. All of that is an illusion. The past does not exist in the past but only exists in so far as it is now alive. The only place I can be is "now" and now is filled with much more good than I can possibly bare. And to compare what I once experienced with what is now my reality does not do justice to either the present or the past because it divides the past from the present when, in reality, what is true and good in the past must necessarily still live even now - not simply as a memory - but as something spiritually powerful and light bearing. I do no justice to those who shared goodness with me at St. Herman's, at TWU, in Morden and everywhere if I allow myself to feel caught or pulled between them in a comparative fashion. By doing so I do not allow these faces be who they really are because in my heart I have pulled them apart and pushed them away from each other and by pushing and pulling them assunder I commit a great violence.

Forgive me my brothers and sisters. You have all done so much for me.

May God and his most pure Mother help me to treasure in my heart all your faces and the Presence they show forth.