Let me tell you, we cannot get to everyone. There are so few of us, and people’s thirst for love and support is so great.

Greetings, my dear friend, wherever you are in the far corners of the world. I am here with Vasilis Hatzinikolaou, the musician for this program, who helps me so much. He works on the sound so you can hear clearly, and he adds the musical breaks and background music. And you can hear us all the way out there. Imagine: the sound of this program reaches you, even at the ends of the earth. And from the ends of the earth comes an SOS, a signal saying: We need help. We ask for love, help, and support. We want to solve our problems. We want someone to listen to us, someone to spend time with, someone we can tell our troubles to. We ask for support, for prayer, for money, for health, for someone to share our life with.

People ask because we all have needs. So if God has given you a little strength, if He has given you courage too, if your heart has the gentleness that comes with kindness, give wherever you can. Give your smile, offer a kind word, give a little time and a little support. So many people thirst for love and kindness, and of course they cannot receive it all from one person. That person is human, and you cannot depend on one person for everything. Take care that this does not happen to you. Do not rely on one person for all that you seek. Through the person you love, learn little by little to rely on yourself as well. Find within yourself that hidden spring where the clear water of God’s love flows, so that your own soul can quench your thirst too. Learn to discover God’s secrets within you, and do not depend on others.

Enjoy other people’s company; be glad to be with them. But do not let that become a dependency. Be able to manage without them too. Be glad when we are together, but be able to manage when we are apart. Do you see the difference? Do not let anyone become an obsession or a weakness, because you will be distressed by their loss. When you lose the man or woman you thought was the one person in your life, you will be terribly disappointed and hurt. So draw on your own abilities and gifts. Rely on God and on your prayer. And of course love the people close to you and give them love. If you receive love in return, be very happy. If you do not, keep giving love yourself. And if you can even find love in your heart for those who do not love you, and say, for example,

“May this person who does not love me be well. They too do not know what they are doing.” As the Lord said on the Cross, “For they do not know what they are doing.” People do not know what they are doing; that is why they treat me this way and crucify me. So you too can say, “Lord, this person does not understand. All right, they are not doing it out of malice. I forgive them.” If you reach that point, you will be very happy. Do not hold a grudge. Do not let bitterness, curses, and resentment come out of you. Everyone does what they can. I do what I can too. If I cannot do better, this is what I can do. Accept it, look at it with humility, and say, “This is how we human beings are.” Isn’t that so? Aren’t you like that too? Others are, and so am I. We give thanks, and we all ask God to fill the many gaps in our hearts, our lives, our minds, and our memories. We human beings have many shortcomings and struggles.

There goes the subject we were talking about. Do you remember it? You’re right—which subject? We have talked about so many things. Sometimes at school, after several lessons, we have a review test to see how we are doing. We go over yesterday’s lesson: Did we take it in? Do we remember it? Did we put it into practice? Did we do the math exercises we were assigned? You see, there is also ascesis, ascetic discipline, in our lives. Take what we have talked about and put it into practice afterward. We spoke about love, for example. Did you show love? We spoke about humility. Did you try to humble yourself a little and say, “All right, I am not the most important person in the world, so everyone does not have to focus on me”?

A little of your greed, your gluttony, all sorts of things—to work on them... It is not enough to say, “We like listening. We really enjoy hearing what you say.” That is good, but something more is needed. It is the doers of the law, not just its hearers. They will be called great before God. Scripture says, “He shall be called great,” the one who does and teaches. Teaching matters, and listening is good too. But putting it into practice is best.

You might find in an ascetic’s little cell a book or two, a small cup for drinking water, and one spare cassock. He had two cassocks in all: he washed one and wore the other, changing between them. Nothing else. With a book and just a couple of little things, he went to Paradise. He read, but he also put what he read into practice. We have so many books and talks, and we say so much. We talk and talk and talk.

But do we put it into practice? I do not know how much we do. I am simply reminding you to keep this in mind. I do not know whether any of your anxiety has eased after all we said in earlier programs. You seem a little better to me, and I see the same in many people I have come to know over time. Life helps us, and God helps us through what happens to us. Little by little, our souls grow peaceful. We become calmer, gentler, and more composed in the face of life’s problems.

We become clearheaded and able to endure patiently. Anxiety has impatience in it. We say, “Come on, don’t get so worked up. Don’t tremble and worry. Be patient.” Life does call for patient endurance—a great deal of it. An impatient person has anxiety in their life too. You worry about your children and want to see them turn out well. You ask, “How will they be all right tomorrow?” They are still children. You have to wait.

Today your child did something wrong: he broke the neighbor’s window while they were playing and he threw the ball. You say, “I cannot settle down. He misbehaves, and the school called me. Don’t I want my child to turn out well?” He will. But how can your child turn out well by tomorrow? He got into mischief today. This will pass, and other things will pass too. He may get into more mischief, but he will mature. It takes patient endurance for your anxiety to ease. And you will know it has eased when you can look at things more patiently and bear with them.

You will be able to endure them. You will not flare up or lose your temper over every little thing that happens. Bring Christ, His love, and His light to mind often.

The Cross is the guardian of the whole world; the Cross is the beauty of the Church.

The Cross is the strength of kings, the support of the faithful, the glory of angels, and the wound of demons.

I saw a photograph online of a Metropolitan’s office in Greece. Behind his desk—and the details of who he was do not matter—there was a large painting of a beautiful landscape, with our Lord Christ depicted in it and light all around Him, surrounding His whole body. It was a painting rather than an icon, and it is permissible to portray Him that way. And I thought: when you think of that light of Christ, remind yourself that you too are within it, and that Christ loves you very much.

I have been wanting to tell you this for days, and I want to say it again. If you understand even this one thing in your life and from this program, I will count that a great success. You can set aside any other wisdom you may think you hear from me, anything that sounds clever.

Through it all, remember this. I have come to understand it from my own life and from the little experience I have gained talking with you from time to time: through your emails and phone calls, meeting in churches, at vigils and at confession, and through the children at school. From all this contact, I have understood that every one of us lacks love. We lack it terribly.

In the end, love is what we lack and what we want more than food, more than anything—even more than the closeness of marriage, physical intimacy, and romance. Through all these things, a person seeks love. Everything else passes and lasts for a while, however powerful, precious, useful, or necessary it may be. No one is condemning any of it.

A prayer. After a meal, a relationship, some warmth, an embrace, a conversation, or a phone call, it is the love that stays with you, and still you seek more love. You say, “The meal is over, but I still want love. The outing is over, but I still want love. Our conversation is over, but I have not had my fill of love.” You can never have your fill of love; you always seek it. So think of the Lord and know that He loves you. Believe it, live it, feel it, and remind yourself of it, because you forget. There are people who grow calm and delighted when you tell them, “I love you.” They say, “Do you really mean it? Say again that you love me. You love me?” And you answer, “Yes, I love you very much.” “And do you think of me?” “Yes.”

Savros Angelos.

However much you think about someone, you cannot think about them all day, no matter how much you love them. But the Lord truly loves us and thinks of us all day long. We are at the center of His love. Keep reminding yourself of that.

Remember Christ’s promises, so your soul can grow calm and the anxiety can leave your heart. He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. That is how it ends. “I will always be with you.” My presence, My love, My mercy, My blessing, My protection, My strength—all of it will be close to you, the Lord says. And in the Mysteries of the Church, we experience Christ. Feel that you are not alone in life. You call me and say, “When I phone you, please answer sometimes. Talk to me. Or when I write to you, write something back, because I feel so alone.” “I feel so alone,” you say. Someone even dared to say to me, humbly, “Forgive me. What I’m doing is spiritual begging. I’m begging for a little love.”

I tell you, you are not alone. Do not feel that way. The Lord is near you; God loves you. Let yourself feel it. Do not wait for that feeling to come on its own. Remind yourself through prayer, and by repeating this thought: “The Lord is near me. He promised to be with us always.”

Here is something else: live in the present. Do not dwell on things that happened long ago and grow sad. Do not look ahead to things that have not happened yet and become anxious and afraid. Live here and now, in this moment. It is beautiful when you feel that. A little child lives this way very fully. Children live in the present. They do not keep digging into the past or worrying much about the future. That is why, even if they fight and one punches the other in the nose until it bleeds, and they both get hurt and cry, two hours later they are no longer dwelling on it. They have forgotten what happened, and they love each other again and kiss each other.

They kiss, put their arms around each other, hold hands, and go back to their games. They eat together at the same table, even from the same plate. They hold no grudge, because they are living neither in the past nor in the future. A child lives in the present.

That is why a child is so happy. The present moment is, after all, the only moment that belongs to us. Right now I am speaking to you. I do not know what will happen in my life an hour from now. What happened an hour ago is past; I cannot control it now. Right now I am here.

I am making this program and speaking to you now, and you are there, living this moment now. I am not saying that something will not happen to you later. Something very difficult may come: sorrow, anguish, any kind of hardship. But if you live in the present moment, you can face what is here now. Suppose you go to a small child and say, “You know, we are in an economic crisis.” The child cannot grasp what that means. “Soon Daddy may have no job.”

“We will not have much money.” And suddenly the child says, “But make me... give me a toasted sandwich to eat.”

“We want to sit down and play now.” You tell the child, “My dear, difficulties will come in life.” The child does not understand what “difficulties will come” means well enough to become anxious. Instead, the child says, “Will you give me that little toy you put up in the loft, so I can play with my brother or sister?” The child lives in the present. You are trying to make the child think ahead and worry about the future. Or suppose the child is in middle school, and you say, “If you do not study, you will not get into university. When you reach high school, you will not have a good foundation. You are already not paying attention.” A child cannot see that far ahead. It is hard for the child to think, “I should study now so that, in my final year of high school, I will do well on the national university entrance exams and get in.” The child says, “Today, my dear, we have a ball right in front of us. We have a ball waiting for us to go and play. We have a basketball hoop waiting for us to go and dunk, to play, and to enjoy ourselves.” The child lives for today, lives in the present. That is why most children are happy. They have joy and are bursting with life.

A child’s smile is so refreshing. A little child smiles at you, and at once your soul grows calm. Children do not have those worries. Why do we call worries dark thoughts? Because they darken the soul. They come from anxious thoughts about the future or the past, from memories and sadness.

A child drinks in life. A child does not think about those things. Children do not spend so much time thinking; they live. Their nous, their spiritual mind, does not pry into everything. They do not feel the need to keep probing and finding things out. That is something we adults do, and little by little we pass it on to children and unsettle their spiritual mind. By “nous,” I do not mean the part that solves math problems. That is the brain. Here I mean the way a child meets life and everything that happens in it. So the child lives, enjoys life, and rejoices. That is why there is something divine in a child’s face.

There is a fresh happiness and a sense of well-being. That is why you rarely see a little child wake up in the morning without being happy about the new day ahead. Even if there is trouble at home, the child does not take it in. You tell the child about the difficulty, and the child does not understand it. We, too, can become a little more like children. We can live in the present and say, “Today.”

Well, we have eaten, and we will have a little food. What else shall we do today? We will do this. Good. Perhaps tomorrow we will have no food. All right, leave tomorrow for tomorrow. I am not living in tomorrow; I am living today. I might not even live to see tomorrow. Am I going to spend today thinking about it? I would die before my time. Should I start grieving now over something that may happen tomorrow? What did the Lord say? “Unless you turn and become like children...” It takes a turning.

A decisive movement of the soul, turning toward the simplicity of childhood. And one mark of childhood is this: children do not rush anxiously into future troubles. Then you will see happiness blossom in your soul. Look how good it is: right now I am well here. We are talking now. Later, sorrow may come into my life, or I may hear some painful news.

I may have a debt that causes me great anxiety. In a little while, I may lose my job. But right now I am well, very well. I am here. I look around: is there a lion nearby, or anything threatening me? Is there an earthquake? No, the ground is still. Good. What else? Water is running from the tap. My refrigerator is full of things. Whether it is full today or not, it has at least the basics, so I can eat something.

I am not dying or collapsing. God will provide. I will think about my future and make provisions for my children. But I will not let thoughts of the future tear my life apart twice: once now, before the trouble comes, and again when it actually arrives.

At least this way, we will grieve only once: when the trouble comes. That is what children do. They are upset when something happens to them. If someone breaks my nose, I cry because it hurts. But once the pain has passed and my nose has healed, I love you again. I do not keep thinking about what happened, or about what might happen, making myself hurt again and reliving it a second time—

reliving a pain I have already felt, or feeling again and again a pain that has not even come. Children live life in a wonderful way. They drink it in and enjoy every moment. They do not let a moment go to waste. If you spend this moment thinking about the future, you lose it, and many moments of your life slip away. Live now. Live in the present, where Christ is present. I think you understand. God will provide for what comes next. If you say, “God will provide,” you will see that He does. I have seen it in my own life: things worked out in the end. Even problems and temptations turned out for the good. Some people have faced temptations and trials that lasted a year, even a year and a half.

Sorrows, insults, slander—all right. Why are you anxious? Won’t these things pass too? They will. But then people slander you. All right. How long did they slander you? A month. How long did the repercussions of that slander last? A year, a year and a half? That passed too; this will pass too. And you too will pass. We will leave the stage of this life. We will leave, go on, and go elsewhere. We can look at it that way too.

Good morning. Let Monday be Tuesday—and if it is Tuesday, what does it matter? Today looks like tomorrow. I will dream again, as I did yesterday and last year. Even if my dreams do not come true, I love to have a dream. Today, tomorrow, yesterday—laugh if you like, cry if you like; pain and joy are siblings. Today, tomorrow, yesterday—die if you like, live if you like; it makes little difference.

Whatever decision I make, I’ll throw it away like a cigarette. The day will come around again, and I’ll make the same mistakes. Life goes by, time passes, and wrinkles keep carving their lines into me. But Glory to God, I still have plenty of hope. Today, tomorrow, yesterday—laugh if you want, cry if you want; pain and joy are brother and sister. Today, tomorrow, yesterday—die if you want, live if you want; it makes little difference. Spring comes into my yesterdays, and my heart beats differently. Perhaps this summer will bring me something beautiful. And if it doesn’t, so what? I’ll dream new dreams. I have so many hopes, enough to last me all my life.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday—laugh if you want, cry if you want; pain and joy are brother and sister. Today, tomorrow, yesterday—die if you want, live if you want; it makes little difference.

Remember, although I’ve just told you to live in the present, there’s another secret that can ease your anxiety: take a longer view of life. When you look at today’s problem through a magnifying glass and say, “I’m finished; look what I’m going through,” you become terribly anxious. And the pain may be real. An event can shake you and leave you deeply sad. I remember grieving when someone very dear to me died. I was devastated. It hurt me deeply. People came with words of comfort, and one acquaintance said, “You have every reason to grieve now. The wound is fresh. But a year from now, you’ll be able to look at what happened more calmly, even though it truly is sad.”

At the time, I could barely take that in. When you’re in great pain, even reasonable words seem far away. But I thought, “Yes, I’m hurting today. On this very day next year, 365 days from now, I surely won’t be in quite the same state.” Of course I’ll still love the person who died, and I’ll always pray for him. But I won’t be the wreck I am today. We become anxious about things that happen in our lives. We make them so large that they overwhelm us and fill our souls, as though nothing else matters. “This has ruined my life.” All right, it has crushed you today, perhaps tomorrow and the next day, perhaps for five or ten days. But gradually you’ll see its hold begin to weaken. Try to see it that way, whatever your sorrow may be, and don’t let anxiety take over. Perhaps you made a mistake.

Perhaps you even committed a sin. It crushes you and makes you anxious. You confessed it, repented, and grieved over it. Yes, it may be very serious. But look a little farther ahead. Later, you too will say with David, “For I know my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me.” I remember what happened, Lord, but now I remember it as something past. My soul is no longer crushed by what I did. Time has passed, and time has helped me heal. Time is a powerful remedy for life’s anxiety, and it helps us in so many ways.

Everything is relative in this life, and everything passes. So take a longer view of the problems that make you anxious now. After some time, they may no longer trouble you. I remember the day I took my driving test. I felt as though, if you asked anyone in the world what the biggest problem was, they ought to say, “Your driving test.” To me it seemed like the most important event in the world. But why would the person next to me be concerned about it? He had his own concerns: his children, his marriage, his work, his mother-in-law, his expenses, his illnesses. Yet I thought my problem was the biggest of all, and that it would overwhelm me. Then I only had to ask myself, “What time is your test?” Five in the afternoon. “How long will it take?” A few minutes. By five thirty, it will all be over. Look a little beyond whatever is making you anxious. It will pass.

Let a little air out of that balloon in front of you, the one blocking your view with the words written across it: anxiety, anxiety, chaos, ruin, disaster. It isn’t as overwhelming as it looks. Everything passes in the end. That test passed, and so did the other troubles, and in a few years everything will be different. That’s why you see grandparents who have been through so much in life—trials, sorrow, illness, death—and nothing seems to bother them. Whatever they hear, as the saying goes, they don’t bat an eye. They remain calm. “This too has happened in our lives,” Grandpa says. “Has this happened? God will provide, child. Don’t worry. You will grow stronger.” He doesn’t share your anxiety because he has been through so much himself. Life has strengthened him, and now he sees things with the maturity and distance that time brings.

This too shall pass. This too shall pass.

Nothing that happens in your life is by chance. Remember that; we’ve said it before. Today we’re revisiting what we’ve said about anxiety, and I think we’ll finish the subject. May the anxiety itself come to an end as we finish talking about it. Remember: nothing is by chance. God allowed this troubling event to happen in your life, or allowed you to hear something that upset you. Try to meet it with a thought illumined by God before a dark thought comes and tells you to collapse. Say to yourself, “Why should I fall apart? Why should I offend God? He allowed this to happen.” He allowed it. That doesn’t mean it was His good and pleasing will.

It wasn’t something God willed with delight; it happened by His permission. If someone has a car accident, that doesn’t mean God happily wanted the crash. It means He allowed it to happen. So, since God has allowed it, I’ll look at what needs to be done from here, calmly, without falling apart or surrendering to anxiety. And remember that you can endure. You have the strength to endure. Don’t underestimate yourself. You may say, “There’s no way I can manage this. I’m not strong enough.” Yet people who thought they couldn’t cope have gone on to do great things. Someone may say, “If that ever happened to me, I could never bear it,” and feel anxious at the mere thought. Then it happens, and they discover they do have the strength. You can bear so much. There is remarkable strength within you. Sometimes, though, we get into the habit of lamenting, complaining, and grumbling.

And it can be a way of drawing other people’s love and attention. When a little child is ill, its mother stays close. Its head may hurt and it may have a fever, but it likes the way she strokes it and cares for it. She rubs its back, makes chamomile tea, and brings chicken soup with noodles. The child likes all that. Sometimes we, too, cling to an unhealthy state of soul and show our troubles to those around us because it wins their sympathy. Everyone loves us; we’re the poor souls everyone pities. “Oh, how sad. Help him; he’s hurting so much. Support him.” But that kind of pity is not the support we need.

A woman once sent me a message that was clever, though a little sly. She said, “Please tell God to answer me quickly, because I get upset when He doesn’t. When He does answer me, I find it very easy to love Him. But when He keeps me waiting, it hurts. Please tell Him that leaving me waiting isn’t good.”

I thought, “Even if I tell God, He’ll probably say, ‘Is that your concern? I know what I’m doing.’” The tender attention we keep asking for doesn’t always help us. How often have you pleaded with God and begun to cry, thinking your tears will move Him to pity? He’ll... Rather, we imagine God will pity us and be moved by our sadness, out of pity and compassion. Yes, I didn’t mean that kind of pity. It reminds me of the pity children at school wanted when you gave them an assignment and said, “Read the five chapters for review,” and they said, “Have pity on us, please, have pity on us.” Enough of that, enough of that. If you don’t settle down to study, you’ll remain dunces. Oh, come on—“Have pity on us!” As if you couldn’t read five chapters. What are you? You all underestimate yourselves. That’s what God does, while we simply take it for granted that we can’t do it.

Then we come up with explanations: “He doesn’t love us or respect us. He doesn’t hear our prayer. Perhaps God doesn’t exist.” We say all sorts of things to avoid facing what may be the greater problem: our own neglect and lack of effort. Stand on your own feet. Keep going. Struggle, and grow stronger. How do you know you can’t do it when you haven’t tried? You haven’t yet fought your way through. When you do try, you discover strengths rising within you that you never imagined you had, and you manage very well.

You’ve grown melancholy. You feel cast aside, like a stranger in your own city. Come on, my friend: put skates and a pair of ball bearings on your heart.

I speak and take wing. There’s snow in your head, freezing your thoughts. Come on, my friend: put skates and two ball bearings on your heart.

A warm little fire in the woods. Take your place to come first again. It seems to have cooled off; a little rain is coming, and spring arrives like a bride.

Hey, my friend, come on, put skates and two bearings on your heart.

Put songs you love on the tape player. Think of the hour, the moment when you’ll get your revenge. Think of girls and celebrations and everything stirring with life, and of a child searching for his way alone. Put songs you love on the tape player. Think of the hour, the moment when you’ll get your revenge. Think of girls and celebrations and everything stirring with life, and of a child searching for his way alone.

I’ve seen this many times in you, in people I know, and in life all around us. It doesn’t take much philosophizing to see it. When a person struggles through adversity, they can make it through. They can overcome poverty, illness, bereavement, unemployment, hardship, psychological troubles, and trials, and come through them strong—very strong.

There are mothers who have carried their grief, their widowhood, and their loneliness while raising their children. They keep their composure, help them with their lessons, wash them, take them to school, go to work, and somehow manage it all. Of course it comes at a cost. You grow tired; you grow old. You may not enjoy a carefree life. But who says there is no beauty in that kind of life?

There is holiness in that face, worn by suffering and tears. When you smile, even a little, your smile has a different depth now. After all those years of pain, your smile is extraordinary. It can make someone beside you feel as though they are in Paradise. You used to laugh all the time, but your laughter was different. Now you smile less often, yet your smile is rich, life-giving, and renewing. And you made it through, though everyone around you feared you would not. Do not be afraid. Each person can make it through.

Every one of us can accomplish a great deal, because God trusts us and sees us as worthy and precious. Think of the cry of “Worthy! Worthy!” at the ordination of a priest. Have you ever been to an ordination? As the bishop shows the people the things the new clergyman receives—the stole, the cuffs, the belt—he says, “He is worthy,” and the congregation cries, “Worthy!” It is a moment of great joy, because they affirm that he is worthy to bear the weight and honor God has given him. God says something like that to us: You are worthy. Believe it. You are anxious because you have not recognized your worth or what you are capable of. You can do many things. God does not measure your worth by whether you enter university.

If you do not get in, does that mean you are worth less? You are worthy whether you get in or not. Tall or short, heavy or thin, man or woman, child or adult, grandfather or grandmother—you have great worth. Once you understand that, the logismoi, those intrusive thoughts of doubt, unworthiness, and inferiority that feed your anxiety will begin to leave you. Something keeps eating away at you: “I am not good enough. I am not accepted. I am not loved. I am not attractive. I am not important.” But your worth does not depend on your money, your degrees, or your talents. It lies in your soul. You are a human being. That is enough. You might meet me in the street and say, “You know, I listen to you on the radio.” I might answer, “I’m glad, but I’m in a hurry. Goodbye,” and walk away. Then you might think, “He paid me no attention.” So what?

What does it matter if I do not pay attention to you, or you do not pay attention to me? Does my worth depend on whether you praise me, or yours on whether I praise you? If we keep thinking that way, we will suffer all our lives. So be careful about how much weight you give to other people’s opinions. Worrying about what people will say is a great source of anxiety.

Even when you want to buy something, you think about other people. You want to buy a car: you like gray, you like green, you like brown, you like red—whichever color you like. But instead of choosing it because you like it, you become anxious. You say, “I could buy it, but what will the neighbors say? What will others think? How will they judge me?” You go to get dressed and say, “I like what I’m doing,” but then you say, “Oh, I’m anxious. How will people see me now? What if they don’t like me?” Try to get past that too, if you can. Try to understand it. That is how you get past it: through understanding.

Dispel the myths in your mind. Understand that what you keep thinking and imagining about what others say about you is a myth. Even if the whole world applauds you and calls you important, you do not become any more important because they keep saying it.

And if the whole world speaks badly of you, their words do not make you a bad person. Other people have their opinions; they are only human. You carry a precious treasure within you: your personhood, your soul, your gifts, the divine seal and the breath of God within you. That is who you are. Take joy in who you are. Do you understand?

You are a wonderful person. Someone says to me, “Father, if only I had earned that degree. I didn’t.” So what if you did not earn the degree?

You could not get that degree back then. Times were different; it was long ago, and you had difficulties for various reasons. That is in the past; so many years have gone by since then. You cannot keep thinking about it. Your worth is immense. Yes, now people... Let people say what they will about you. Love people and... but leave them be, too. Do not concern yourself with what they will say about you. Rise above that opinion.

The Apostle Paul says, “If I still sought to please people, I would not be a servant of God.” If I were always trying to please others and worrying about what they would say of me, I would not be God’s servant. I concern myself with what God says of me. You worry because your daughter has not married, and you wonder what the neighbors will say. Is that how you will decide what to do—by what the neighbors say about your child? Your child can sense that you are concerned about her marrying not only for the sake of her soul and her path in life, but also because of other people’s opinions. That does nothing to help your relationship with her.

“My dear child, you’re getting older. My friends keep asking me about you. The other day your uncle from the village called again and asked, ‘Is your daughter still unmarried?’ What am I supposed to tell him?” Tell him whatever you like. Tell him to mind his own affairs and look after his own home, his own troubles, his own burdens. Why are you so anxious about what to say to people? “My child has chosen this path, and...”

“My child,” someone says, “has made me a laughingstock in the neighborhood.” People say that for different reasons: some are embarrassed because their child is close to God and goes to church; others because their child has drifted from God and become caught up in drugs, trouble, substances, nights out, drinking bouts, or anything else. “What will I tell the neighbors?” That is what occupies your mind. What will you tell the neighbors? Your child is happy. Is that what worries you? Other people? Let people live in their own world, and live in yours. You live in another world of your own: the world of God, the world of his love, the world of the Church’s grace. You do not live in the rest of the world. I say this without looking down on anyone. We are all the same, when it comes down to it, because we who belong to the Church are like that too. We judge everyone else as well. Sadly, we make those same comments about others if we hear that a friend has reached a certain age without starting a family...

we talk about it too, and behave just like everyone else. So even within the Church there are people who may increase your anxiety instead of easing it. We claim to be people of God, yet we give others reasons to worry and burden them when we should bring them peace. Think of that woman who came to the Lord and was healed. How must she have felt when the scribes and Pharisees—the religious people of that time—began making comments against her?

She might have said, “You invited me to come and pray here and receive help. I came, Christ healed me, and now, instead of putting me at ease, you make me anxious. You whisper about me, criticize me, grumble, and condemn me.” That is what the world does, and we become like the world too. So all our effort must be to stop being like that—

in our outlook and our conduct, and not merely in our words. We must become people of God, people who have grown beyond the usual routine of gossip, judgment, nosiness, and pettiness. “What will they say? What will they do?” It does not concern me.

It does not concern me. “Really, you do not worry?” “No, I do not worry.” “What will they say?” “Let them talk.” Once I told an acquaintance about a comment someone had written against him in a book. I said, “Look, they wrote this and that about you.” Someone else had said it, and I told him, though I should not have. I was trying to make him anxious in my own way, or to see how anxious he would become and what he would do. We like seeing the people around us suffer, because when someone else suffers, you are glad that you are not suffering. You think, “At least I am better off; I am in a better position.”

I told him, thinking he would be upset, but he said, “Let them talk. What don’t people say? Let them talk. What they say may be true. And if it is true, it is true; what can we do? It is true, and they wrote it down. And if it is not true, all the more reason not to worry. I have even more reason not to worry, since it is not true. Oh, let people talk; may they be well. I do not concern myself with it,” he told me. “I do not care what that clique of his says. I do not care.” Not out of malicious contempt, as in, “I despise you; to me you are a scoundrel.” No, I do not concern myself with it. “My friend, what are you doing? You know, is this what you do?” If you have seen God and felt His presence in your prayer, you cannot do such things. I cannot imagine a holy, spiritual person who experiences prayer, the Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, love, giving, and almsgiving—all these gifts of God—and then, after such a powerful experience...

going off to act spitefully. I cannot accept that. “But it happens,” someone says. “He has done it.” Perhaps he has. I still do not want to join in his game. He may play it, but he will not find me as a partner. No, thank you. “But he will keep talking about you.” That is all right. I will not fall into the trap of becoming anxious. Let him talk. What freedom that brings! To do this, though, you must stand firmly on the ground of humility and gentleness, and rest in Christ’s love. You must know your worth through Christ and say, “My God loves me. Yesterday, though I am unworthy, God counted me worthy to receive His Body and Blood within me.”

Is that not an immense honor? So if another person, subject to the same weaknesses as I am, says something about me, let him say it. He is not my judge. You will make yourself ill if you are always occupied with what others say about you. And if they say something good, may they be well. That is no reason to become beside yourself with happiness, either.

That’s fine. But remember, the same person who says something good about you may also say something bad. So don’t lean too heavily on praise or get carried away by it. Someone said a kind word to me; may God bless them. If they say something unkind later, let them. Stay calm. Keep your peace.

Now, don’t let what I’m about to say go to your head, though I believe it’s true. I don’t know who could argue with it. Your music, your help, your CDs, and all you’ve contributed to this program, to the life of the Church, and to the world of art are beautiful things. I don’t want you to become proud, because you live what I was saying earlier. You don’t worry about what others will say. You follow your path humbly and with conviction. You’re an example of how we should all try to live. That’s what I appreciate: saying, ‘I’ll do what I believe is right,’ without selfishness, and without being troubled if some people don’t like it. Thank you.

I’ll say what I believe. I’ll make the music that brings me peace and expresses who I am. I’ll listen to other people’s opinions, but my trust in myself and in God won’t collapse, and I won’t be crushed because someone sees things differently. Can’t we all have a place in this world? Can’t a garden have different kinds of flowers? Why should I be anxious because others aren’t like you or me? Each person has a beauty all their own. That’s what I wanted to say today, my dear friends. I think I’ve finished this subject. And when you’re anxious, my dear friends, don’t try to do too many chores. Housework can bring a lot of anxiety when you feel you must get everything done. Someone once told me, ‘Do a little, and do it well.’ Clean just the living room today, not the whole house. Do the bathroom tomorrow, the kitchen the day after, and something else next week.

You can’t do everything in one day: cook, iron, sweep, dust, mop, and do everything else, while also being a good mother and wife, shopping, and paying the bills. Just listing it all makes me anxious! So let’s do what we can, a little at a time and in peace. Good iconographers know when to stop working. When their eyes, hands, or enthusiasm grow tired, their work suffers. They stop because they love their work and know that to do it well, they need freedom from anxiety, pressure, worry, and agitation. Take things calmly. Do a couple of chores, and do them well.

You might say, ‘What if I’m at work and have a great deal to do? I can’t tell them, “Today I completed only two delivery forms and sorted two documents. Then I got tired and anxious and couldn’t do any more.”’ That’s true. As I’ve said, it helps to choose work that suits you, work you’d enjoy even if you had to do it a hundred hours a day. Being able to choose that is a luxury and a great blessing: to have work you enjoy, without feeling oppressed inside. But what can I say if that isn’t possible? Do the best you can. At least welcome God into your heart and ask Him to give you patient endurance. Do the work as a service and an offering. Find some beauty even in what seems dull and stressful. Forgive me if I’ve tired you. Now I’m anxious too, wondering whether you liked what I said. Then I tell myself, ‘My God, this is what I said. What else can I say?’

Whether it was good or bad, successful or not, these words came from my mouth and my heart. Forgive me if anything I said upset you. The program’s email address is theata dot perasmata at yahoo dot gr. In a few days, this program will be online, so you can listen whenever you wish, day or night, or download it. We’ll speak again on the next program. Thank you very much for your love. I love you too, and I pray for you. Whatever good thing you ask for, may Christ grant it to you. Above all, may He first take away your anxiety, because only then will you be able to enjoy what you’ve asked for. If you gain it and hold on to it with anxiety, you’ll burden both yourself and the gift. I pray that everything may happen without anxiety. Farewell!