At least, this is what it has done for me. My relationship with David, like nearly all relationships, felt cataclysmic, world-shifting, inconceivable to anyone outside of it, incomprehensible even to ourselves. We felt certain, like nearly everyone in nearly all relationships, that no one in history had ever experienced anything like it. (If this is what love feels like for everyone else, I wondered, how does anyone get anything done? How does the world keep turning? Who keeps the lights on?) We recognized this as silly and naive but knew there was no point in resisting; to desire, as we know, is to submit to being made a fool.
Rayne-fisher quinn
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Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.
What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.
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What do you think hurts more: a father who’s strict or a father who’s uninterested?
—Fr. Elijah Iskander -
“There’s a solo journey that everyone goes on. You can be with all your people [that you love], but if you don’t feel fulfilled with the place or your purpose in the place, then it doesn’t matter how much love you have [around you].”
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To marry or not?
Constantine Yiannitsiotis, someone who knew Elder Porphyrios closely for many years, relates:
A friend was facing the dilemma of marriage or celibacy. The Elder offered many prospects of salvation and so he was freed from the anxiety of the dilemma, even before he had decided one way or the other. He did this by saying, “Don’t torment yourself unfairly, by putting pressure on yourself to make the choice now. Free yourself from that persistent thought and give all your attention to how to love Christ who loves you. Everything belongs to Christ, our past as well as our present and our future, where His Providence is revealed even to the very last detail of our lives. You could have a family; you could go, wherever you like, to dedicate yourself. You could, however, do none of those things and stay at home, as you are now, again you can be saved, it is enough that you love Christ. Christ will bring about the solution that suits you most, that will speak clearly in your heart. Do not be sad, you are on Christ’s road even now.”
Ref: With Elder Porphyrios A Spiritual Child Remember (Constantine Yiannitsiotis)
SO GOOD QUOTES 