What happened to me yesterday—well, where do I even begin, my dear friend?

We’re together again on Unseen Passages, on Piraiki Church Radio at 91.2, the station that speaks to our souls. That’s true, but yesterday someone called and woke me while I was asleep. I had forgotten to turn on the answering machine—a serious oversight. Suddenly the phone rang at an hour I can hardly describe, and the caller said, “Father, we really need you.” “What’s going on?” I asked. “We’re arguing. You told us not to argue. Please, I want you to help us.” I said, “But so what if you’re arguing? Are you going to call me every time you argue so I can tell you what to do?” The caller said, “Please, didn’t you tell us not to argue?” “I did say you shouldn’t argue. But since you are arguing, it isn’t such a tragedy,” I said. “It happens even in the best homes, doesn’t it? Go ahead and argue a little.”

“Father, forgive me, but did we wake you up? Do you really believe what you’re saying?” “What do you mean, my child?” “Didn’t you tell us not to argue?” “All right,” I said. “Since I told you that and you’re not doing it, then don’t argue.” “But we can’t help arguing!” “Exactly,” I said. “That’s what I mean. You can’t always avoid a little argument.” When I offer advice, guidance, inspiration, or an opinion—try not to argue, get upset, or let tensions rise—that is advice. There is a great distance between hearing it and putting it into practice. So you argue a little. Put simply, it isn’t such a tragedy to argue now and then with someone you love. It even gets the blood flowing. There you are.

A friend of mine used to argue with his mother. He told me, “Once I asked a monk from Mount Athos, ‘Father, I’m always arguing with my mother.’” And the monk replied.

The monk from Mount Athos said, “That’s all right.” “She even shouts,” my friend said. “That’s all right. Let her shout; it gives her vocal cords a workout.” “But Father, sometimes I make her cry.” “Even better,” he said. “It cleans her eyes.” The monk said this to calm him down. He didn’t mean that it was good to argue. The young man was deeply upset about his quarrels with his mother, so the monk helped him relax. He was saying, “All right, arguing isn’t a tragedy.” The question is what happens through the argument, and why you reach the point of arguing with someone you love, someone who has loved you for years—your husband or wife, your child, your mother or father, your brothers or sisters. That is what matters.

You end up arguing. What comes out in the quarrel? Who is usually involved? What lies behind it, and what do we say while it is happening? Who hears us, and what good might come of it? Even out of a great commotion, with all that tension and heated talk, something good may emerge.

I lay awake afterward, thinking about all this. I had said a few words to the person on the phone—not everything I’m going to say on this program, or we would have been talking until dawn. I said enough for us to end the call. Then, lying in bed, I thought, “All right, a little argument now and then isn’t so terrible. We have blood flowing through our veins, not chamomile tea.”

Even when you’re elderly and drinking chamomile tea, it still isn’t chamomile flowing through your veins. You still have blood. If someone doesn’t bring your pill when you want it, you may get angry and say, “What is going on here? Bring it quickly!” You get upset, even at that age. The nerves are still there. Perhaps only if you develop dementia do you begin smiling at everyone with a look of perfect bliss.

An old enemy comes by—a neighbor you haven’t spoken to—and you embrace him and smile. “What a fine man he is!” Until a couple of years ago you were fighting each other in court. But that’s what may happen if you have dementia and forget where you are and what has happened. Otherwise, as long as we have our wits about us and our nervous system is working, there will always be something that could start an argument. That doesn’t mean we ought to argue. I’m not offering advice on how to quarrel today. I’m saying that, since we do argue a little anyway, let’s see whether something good can come out of it. I believe it can. And I believe a fruitful relationship is not what young people call a “flat” relationship: one that stays on the surface, with no ups and downs,

where everything is always the same and there is never any tension. It is rare for two people never to raise their voices a little, misunderstand each other, or take something the wrong way. We are human. I say one thing, you hear another, and suddenly there is an argument. Every relationship has its ups and downs, even in the best families. I might even say the same of monasteries. Why shouldn’t I? The people there are human too. What does them credit is that, through an argument, they can grow in holiness. They can use what happened to look at themselves, find humility, repent, go to confession, and show love again. That is what I mean. This is a real picture of life. We are not floating among the clouds. We are not little angels.

We may be called to be saints, but that does not mean a saint has no nervous system. A saint is like Christ, who raised His voice and grew angry without being ruled by the passions, without malice or hatred for anyone. Our Lord, Christ, hated no one. When He raised His voice in the temple, when He grew angry, He hated no one. He was indignant because...

Because those people did not respect the place of prayer. He was indignant at what happened, at what they did, but not at their souls. The Lord loves every person’s soul. Thank goodness He does, for who else would love us so much? The Lord loves us. And He does not get angry with us. He cannot bear what we do; our actions displease Him. Yet He loves our wounded, tormented souls, even when they are ruled by the passions. He loves the soul because, deep within it, at its very core, He sees His own imprint. He sees a kiss He Himself has given, and the mark of that kiss remains in our souls. Christ sees it and is moved. It is as though He says, “This person is Mine. This soul is Mine. You may see a little dust and mud on the outside, but deep within is the kiss I gave when I made this child, when I gave this child new birth in Baptism. I cannot hate this creature. I cannot be angry with

“I love this soul,” says the Lord. But we are not like the Lord. We are different kinds of “lords.” And the Lord... we, that is, get angry. We are the kind of “lord” who gets angry, who quarrels, who will not hear a word, who flares up easily and takes offense. What can we do? Of course these things happen with those closest to us, don’t they? They come from the friction of relationships. If you have not lived with someone close to you for a long time, you cannot understand it. We are all like this. At first, everything is perfect. When we speak to each other at our first meeting, it is all smiles and courtesy: “How lovely, thank you, please go ahead, you first, have something to eat, would you like more?” After a while, these things fall away. The façade falls away, the profile falls away, the image we present falls away, and the reality of the jungle we all carry within us comes into view.

Of course, that jungle has lovely birds of paradise singing in it. But it also has snakes, predators, worms, mice, and all sorts of hidden creatures moving about by night and day, underground and among the trees—threatening, sly creatures. Then you say, “What is going on? Is this really who I am? Is this who they are? I imagined her one way, but she turned out another.” And your wife says, “Excuse me, is this how I imagined you? Is this what I thought you would be like when I married you? How did you turn out like this? Were you like this when I met you?” Some people, though, have already seen it. They say, “You were like this from the day I met you. I knew what you were like.” So you need to take care in choosing the person you will marry. I’m not talking to those of you who have already chosen.

Once you have chosen, your task is to make the life ahead of you as good as you can. I’m speaking now to those who are still looking. When you get to know someone, pay attention at least to the basics. That person will not be perfect, but you should get along well together. That includes how you get along when you argue. All right,

we will argue even with someone we love. But we should be able to argue with that person and still feel good together afterward. The love must remain; it must never disappear. I would choose to build a family with someone I can argue with and still feel close to afterward. I would not want every argument to feel as though something between us had shattered and a deep coldness had set in. That is a difficult match. If you have already made that choice, then you work at it.

No one is beyond help; help is available in every situation. But what I’m saying matters a great deal. A young man who had married told me, “Yes, we argue. We have little quarrels, as every household does. But I love her very much, she loves me very much, and we suit each other. I’m not going to judge our whole relationship by one argument and conclude that we don’t belong together.”

We argue once in a while. How often is “once in a while”? I don’t know—once a week, every three days, once a day? What matters is that, even if we argue every day, the two of us still suit each other. It is a great thing to find someone with whom you fit even in an argument. Is this all very spiritual? Well, what can I say? Spiritual matters...

I think these are very spiritual matters, because this is what happens in your home. You who write to me—aren’t you a spiritual person? What could I read to you now? Since this program began, I have received hundreds of emails about people’s troubles. They sign off by saying, “I am Mrs. So-and-so from such-and-such parish,” or “I am Mr. So-and-so, and I go to Mount Athos to see such-and-such elder.” These are the troubles of people living a spiritual life. They do not belong only to people outside the Church. We all struggle in the same world and face the same hardships: difficult personalities, people who do not fit well together, souls who are hard to live with. What can we do?

In any case, an argument shows that we are real. When we argue with someone, the polite appearances and proper manners fall away, and real parts of our souls come out—qualities we no longer feel we have to hide. Before you marry, of course, everything is polite. I read a book that advised a man thinking of marriage: “After two or three dates, if you want to see how patient and gracious this woman is, pretend to spill a little wine on her clothes by accident and see what she does.” You needn’t try it; you already know. She will treat the wine as though it were the Agiasmos, the blessing of water. She will say, “My love, it’s nothing. I love you so much. Don’t even think about it. We’ll get a sponge; it’s nothing at all. I’ll keep this as a little keepsake from you. It was your wine, my love—yours!” And you think, “Goodness, I spilled wine on her!”

“She loves me so much. I stained her dress, and she took it as a compliment!” You think, “What an amazing woman. I got her dress dirty, and she thanked me.” A little while later, you get married. You walk into the house, and she says, “Where have you been walking? And why do you eat like that?” One woman said to her husband, “The way you chew bothers me. Why do you put your socks on crooked? Put them on properly. You don’t know how to dress, how to sit, or how to eat.” And the poor man thinks back to the wine he spilled on her dress and says, “All that’s been forgotten.”

That was before we really knew each other. Once we do, little things in our souls come to light—the truth about our character. You see our tempers, our difficulties, our quirks, the distance we keep, the tension, the clashes.

Our defenses, too—and our aggression. You can look at someone you love and, in a moment of anger, think, “If you died right now, I’d finally have some peace. What a relief that would be.” Then, a little later, you say, “What am I saying? I love this woman. Why did I say that?” Five days later, the thought comes again: “My God, if she died, I’d have some peace. I wouldn’t have to see her.” And afterward: “My God, I adore her.” Which is true? Do I love her or hate her? At the moment you say each one, you feel it. That is how we are. At times we are divided within ourselves, and these contradictions come alive most intensely with the people we love.

Little children may tell you about dreams in which they wanted their father or mother to die. It isn’t because they don’t love their parents; they love them dearly. But when someone feels a little oppressive and you want them out of your life, death can come to mind as a final way out. Then the child is confused: “How could I want my father or mother gone when I love them so much?” That is the contradiction within us. Until God makes us whole and transforms us through His grace, the Mysteries, love, and prayer, this is how we are. If it comforts you, I’m like that too. Now, I asked a young woman, “Are you married?” “No,” she said. “How would you feel about arguing now and then? Would it frighten you?” I think it’s good for us to get a little rumpled in marriage and in our relationships with others. The same goes for work. “What do you mean, rumpled?” I liked the expression: our character shouldn’t stay perfectly pressed.

When we have frequent contact with people, we’re bound to get a little rumpled. You say something, I answer, I raise my voice, and perhaps a few poisonous words slip out. The polite phrases disappear; suddenly we stop addressing each other so formally. Familiarity turns a little too bold, and our carefully pressed image gets creased. People say, “So that’s what they’re really like.” You see truths about your character. And if you’ve started a family, many things come out into the open. Family is a great teacher, a great furnace, and a great university. You learn so much in a family. I don’t live with many people, so I don’t experience that myself, but people from large families tell me about it.

“It’s different when you grow up with a lot of people,” someone told me. “You don’t know what it’s like. So much comes to the surface.” I remember being in a car with some people who stopped to buy souvlaki and fries to take home. “What would you like?” they asked. “Get me two souvlaki,” I said, and waited in the car. When they brought the food, I took mine out to eat, but someone said, “Wait until we get home.” “Home is another twenty-five minutes away,” I said. “The food will be cold. I’m hungry, and I’d like to eat mine now. You can eat yours whenever you like.” “Can’t you wait?” they asked. But what was the point of buying it there if I had to eat it stone cold? Then they said, “I see. You haven’t lived in a large family, so there are some things you don’t understand.” People who live in large families see life differently.

They’re always in contact with others. There’s friction, and friction produces heat. It can heat up your temper, but it can warm your heart as well. You experience another kind of love, another kind of irritation, and situations you never expected. I came to understand that this is one of the gifts of marriage and family life. The polished front falls away, the false image falls away, and you see the other person as they are: their character and what they carry within them.

I don’t have that myself, I don’t. Those who can have real, living relationships with people are fortunate—relationships in real life, not with people as they imagine them. It would be lovely for us to go on an outing together sometime, to give you an example. I’m telling you, that’s where I’ll see you and you’ll see me.

There I’ll judge you and you’ll judge me by what we do, not by the words of a radio program. You’ll see how I eat, for instance, how I chew, whether I’m greedy. Suppose Mrs. So-and-so brings some wonderful little spinach pies, which she makes with incredibly crisp pastry. The moment I see them, I want to eat half the tray, but I hold back and eat only four or five pieces. You’d look at me and say, “You eat that much? Do you get very hungry too?” Then, on our outing, we’re supposed to leave that monastery at twelve thirty and go farther on for another walk, but we’re still searching the hills at ten past one for a grandmother who went to gather wild greens for us. Just when you imagine So-and-so is calm and peaceful, you see him lose his temper and shout, “Where on earth is that grandmother? Listen, everyone, what is going on here? We agreed—you don’t do that.”

You say, “So you do get angry? You lose your temper? You’re greedy and impatient? And I thought…” Yes, you thought that because you had only seen the polished front.

When you got married, when you entered a monastery and became a monk, or when you joined a community and began living with others, God gave you the chance to move beyond that polished front and discover what living with people really means. The polite appearances fall away, and you see real things. A person is more than what you see during a short visit. Of course, I seem nice to you too. Actually, I’ve got it backward: when you write me an email, you tell me the truth about yourself. I’m the one who seems to have everything under control. Someone may imagine that if they met this speaker or another, these people who speak to us would be flawless. Dear friend, we’re human too. I certainly am.

I have difficult moments, irritable moments, odd moods. Sometimes I feel heavy and listless. I don’t want to say anything or talk to anyone. I want to eat a lot, or I want to sleep. If you’re married, or you work in a busy office, an association, or a company, those relationships give you a very good chance to look within yourself and see what’s hidden there.

Spend time with people so you can see how you really behave. It’s easy to imagine you’re perfect when you’re alone; see how you do with actual people. Do you show patient endurance? If someone says something you dislike, what do you say inwardly? “What nonsense! I’m better than he is”? If someone talks about himself too much and shows his ego, will you take against him? Will you forgive another person’s mistake?

You discover these things when you’re with people. Alone, there is much you cannot see. So it is a great blessing to live alongside others, even if you argue a little now and then. After all, you share everything. How easy can it be never to argue? You share meals and sleep, waking hours and every part of the house—the bathroom, the kitchen, the living room. You share your dishes, your clothes, and the time of your lives.

You share your concerns too. It’s hard to imagine there will never be moments of tension. Sometimes I worry about couples who say they never argue. A couple once came to me and said happily, “Father, we’ve been together for thirty-five years, and we’ve never argued.” I was surprised and glad, but inwardly I wondered, “Are you sure?” Then I thought, “What’s going on? Either they must be very holy, or they must have exceptionally calm characters. There really are very calm, gentle people who have been that way from birth, but that’s another matter. Or perhaps one doesn’t really know the other. Because if you come to know who I truly am, sooner or later something about me will irritate you. You’ll tell me, I’ll answer back, I’ll be bothered, and we’ll argue.”

Never arguing at all isn’t always a sign that a relationship is healthy. I think a little bubbling up is part of life. If you turn on the stove and the water never boils, you wonder whether the burner is on. In a relationship, the temperature rises too, and something may boil over. Don’t be alarmed if you sometimes feel both love and hatred toward the same person. That is part of our painful human condition. If a woman told me, “I gave birth and felt no pain,” I’d find it unusual, apart from medical help. Or if someone said, “I went to the funeral of someone dear to me and didn’t cry at all,” wouldn’t that seem strange? Relationships have their struggles, and arguments often come with them. We work to smooth the rough edges of our character, like stones on a beach rubbing against one another until their surfaces become soft and smooth.

Those stones weren’t always smooth. They were hard and sharp enough to scratch your hands. The waves knocked them against one another, year after year, for hundreds and thousands of years. Little by little, they became pebbles. Our souls are like that too.

You’re a living couple, two different people. Your mother and father are different from your wife’s mother and father. You didn’t marry an angel; you married someone who had parents and inherited traits from them, and who was shaped by a different home. Perhaps you went to university and your spouse went to a technical school. You’ve read a great deal of literature, while the other person has read more practical books. You have different characters and different tastes. One wants to watch sports, the other a television series. One reads newspapers, the other novels. We aren’t identical. We disagree and differ. There’s nothing wrong with being distinct people. What matters is that we don’t grow distant from each other in our hearts.

That is what we’re aiming for: to argue without growing distant in our hearts. We want to be able to argue and still love each other afterward. What we want to avoid is the coldness that can follow. Still, arguments can bring truths out. You speak about your hurt and let out the bitterness you’ve kept inside for days. It’s as though an abscess in the soul breaks open. When you’re calm, you may be unable to say those things. In an argument, old stories come back, along with wounds that haven’t healed and grievances from years ago that you may never have voiced. It can be a chance for these things to come into the open.

Sometimes a woman wants to tell her husband that she disagrees with him, but she can’t bring herself to say it while things are peaceful. She has come to think that loving each other means agreeing about everything. That’s a mistake. We can love each other and still disagree. But some people think they can speak the truth only during an argument, so they provoke one. It may begin over food, clothes, shopping, or something else entirely. Then, at the end, one says, “And if you want to know, I completely disagree with what you told your brother the other day.” The other person thinks, “What does your brother have to do with this? We were talking about dinner.” But there he is, suddenly part of the argument. What you really wanted to say has finally come out.

An argument can create just the right climate for truths to come out of our souls. That is why, when brothers and sisters quarrel, little children who do not know how to hide what they feel may start over a ball and then say, “Oh, leave me alone! Mom always loves you, and she pays no attention to me,” or, “They’re always taking care of you and giving you money.”

You thought they were fighting over the ball they had been playing with in the room, where they had wrecked everything. Suddenly they bring out their bitterness and old wounds, but they also speak the truth. Take what they say seriously. Do not mock them: “Go on, tell me all those little complaints you’ve been hiding. See? You were hiding them!” Yes, the child was hiding them. So what? Why point that out? Listen to what the child is telling you, and ask why it was kept hidden.

Focus on the fact that the child has told you now and has not hidden it from you. Notice that, and see yourself, your brother, and the person you love.

This leads to knowing yourself, knowing your brother or sister, and knowing others. Little by little, you may come to know God. How can you understand God when you have barely begun to understand how you yourself work? How can you understand the One who so far surpasses you when you have not understood even a little of yourself? An argument can help you see yourself, come down to earth, grow humble, speak the truth, and feel its truth. Knowing how to argue well is a great art. It can help us greatly on our spiritual path; something good can come of it. Afterward, you may draw closer to the person you love. As for me, among the people I know, I have never seen anyone who never argues. Let us be honest: I mean at home, not in public. No one argues in front of me.

Though sometimes they do argue in front of me, if they feel at ease and we are alone. Then I get to hear what they say. Usually, though, at a visit or a gathering, everyone smiles. “How are you?” “Very well.” “How are things at home?” “Glory to God.” Then, a little later, someone pulls me aside: “Father, what do you mean, ‘Glory to God’? We’re at each other’s throats.” There is the other side: problems, problems, problems. The doors close, everything is shut tight, the apartments are soundproof, and the arguing begins. I have never seen anyone who never argues. I found just one story in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers about two fathers who never quarreled. They wondered how people managed to quarrel at all. One said to the other, “Father, there is so much kindness and love between us, yet we hear that people quarrel all the time. What is that like?” “What does it mean to quarrel?” the other asked. “One person says something, the other says the opposite, and they make a fuss because they cannot agree.”

“Shall we try it? We have never had that experience.” “Yes, let’s try. How shall we do it?” “Listen. We’ll put a little jug here between us. First I’ll say, ‘This is mine.’ Then you’ll say, ‘No, it’s mine.’ I’ll say again, ‘It’s mine,’ and we’ll quarrel. Shall we try to see what an argument is like?” “Let’s try,” said the other. “Then we’ll know what it is that makes everyone quarrel and complain.”

They set down the jug, and one began: “The jug is mine.” The other jumped in: “No, the jug is mine.” “The jug is mine,” said the first. Then the other father replied, “Well, take it, then. Let’s settle this. Take it.” “No,” said the first, “we’ve stopped arguing again.” “We have,” said the other. “It isn’t easy for us to quarrel.”

That is the only such story I found in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. In all the other stories, people there, too, had friction, conflicts, and tension. Such things are human. Even the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul had a disagreement at one point. That is why, in their icons, Peter and Paul are shown embracing and greeting one another with a kiss. It shows that in the end they were reconciled: their disagreement did not divide them in their hearts. On a practical matter, the Apostle Paul said that Christianity should spread to people from the nations, to pagans who wanted to become Christians. They should all be received once they were baptized. The Apostle Peter said, “We must address only believing Jews. They alone should belong to Christ. The Jews are God’s chosen people.” There was tension between them, but God...

...used it for good, and their sacred mission spread into other places after they went their separate ways for a time. Yet that tension left no hatred in their hearts. In many situations, you see people come to love one another through a quarrel. This is especially true of little children, whose souls are innocent and bear no hatred. They quarrel and quarrel, then embrace. They say what is on their minds; their souls let out all the tension and all the truth. Their logismoi, their intrusive thoughts, are spoken aloud. Everything comes out. A child does not know how to conceal things. So sometimes a child swears, and you say, “What is this?” The parents blush because they think their child is immoral. Your child is not immoral. The child is simply so open that whatever comes to mind comes out. And that swear word came from something the child heard; it did not arise from the child’s own soul.

The child heard it from you, a neighbor, or someone at school. At that moment, the child does not know to think, “I shouldn’t say this now; people can hear us.” The child says what it feels. That is part of your child’s sincerity. And afterward, children love one another deeply. Brothers and sisters embrace and play again. One might even have broken the other’s nose and made it bleed, yet after a little while, or a few days, they have forgotten it all. We are the ones who keep our distance afterward. Our pride comes out, along with the urge to protect ourselves. We do not want to give the other person an opening, so we sulk and hold our ground. A woman told me, “I quarreled with my husband on Tuesday. I didn’t speak to him until Friday. That will teach him.” “Teach him what? Did he learn?” “No,” she said. “Because if you speak to him...”

Speak to him gently and make peace. Let the quarrel bring you closer to one another. It is all right if you have an argument, but make up afterward, my dear. We argued over one thing: you bought shoes after I asked you not to, and you spent money. Yes, that upset me. But I love you, the person you are, your character, your soul, the one who shares my life. Holy Scripture.

“I don’t want him to think he can take liberties with me. I don’t want him to feel too comfortable.” But is the coldness you keep between you any better, I ask? Does it help? “How many years have you been married?” She tells me, “Twenty-two.” Twenty-two years of marriage, and you still act like this? “Yes,” she says. “Has keeping that distance helped you in those twenty-two years?” “I don’t know if it has helped, but I can’t just give him...” We need to make peace after an argument. “All right,” I say, “how long do you need before you make up?” “I don’t know. I need time to see that his life is changing and that he has put things right. Then I’ll speak to him.”

Sometimes we behave harshly. Holy Scripture tells you, “Look, make peace by evening, before you go to sleep. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” Especially in winter, when it sets around five, you hardly have time to quarrel! You must both argue and make peace by five. Then comes sunset, and Scripture says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Do not reach sunset still quarreling, still angry with one another. Make peace, and go to sleep as we tell little children to do: loving one another, calm and reconciled. We do not know what may happen overnight. You do not know whether you will be alive tomorrow, or even whether the ceiling will stay where it is all night. Earthquakes happen in so many parts of the world. And there is something else: it does you no good to poison your soul and leave that poison inside. Why say, “Never mind, I’ll get it out another time”? What other time? You are poisoning yourself...

If you do not make peace with the person you quarreled with, you keep the poison inside yourself. When you say, “I’m holding it against her,” that poison is in you, and it can do great harm. This is one reason we become ill. Couples who quarrel do not fall ill very easily, because they talk things out, they talk things out. Someone once said of a woman, “The poor thing will die of sorrow.” Her husband jumped in: “Don’t worry, she won’t. To die of sorrow, you’d have to keep it all inside. She doesn’t do that. Whatever is on her mind, she says. She lets it all out in an argument.” There is something healing in that. Piling up problems, logismoi—intrusive thoughts—and other thoughts inside us, without ever sharing them with the person we love, can even affect our physical health.

What is it like to keep things inside because you can never tell the person you love? Tell them, my dear. “But we’ll quarrel if I do.” Well, have a little quarrel. And why are you so sure you will? It is not certain. Say it kindly. Speak courteously, choosing your words with care. The words you use, and how you use them, matter. Suppose you say, “Do you remember that day we went to dinner at your cousin’s, and you...”

“...you, who never stop talking, started telling stories.” That phrase alone sets up a quarrel. “Just as you always do” and “you never stop talking” wound the other person. They are little jabs, mockery, insults. You could say instead, “Do you remember when we went to your cousin’s, and while we were talking you brought up our finances? I felt a little hurt that you told them everything.” That need not start a quarrel. But a bitter little jab can. Many people know exactly what sets the other person off. A husband thinks, “If I say this to her, we’ll have a huge fight.” A wife likewise knows that a certain remark will provoke and anger her husband. How do I know? The person has said so, many times: “Please stop saying that. It upsets me when you keep saying it.” Yet you say it again and again. That is pride; it is your own problem. From my limited experience, I have learned that you can tell the person you love even the hardest truth, however painful or serious it may be, if you say it kindly and courteously. Then they may understand, and you can have a fruitful conversation.

Even if there is a little tension, you can respond constructively. Let the other person raise their voice; you need not follow them into it. Stay calm and try to help. Even the way you quarrel says a great deal about your character. A woman says, “I don’t quarrel. I don’t say anything.” And I say, “Well done.” But then her husband comes to me: “Father, she really doesn’t say anything. Do you know when? Just when I say, ‘Please, speak at last! Say something!’ That is when she decides to say nothing at all. And it is the most infuriating thing she could do to me.” And...

She thinks it is a virtue, that she is saintly because she does not answer me. But she keeps silent on purpose to make me even angrier.” Well, I do not know whether that is so. But you can anger someone by speaking, and you can anger them by keeping silent. When the other person feels overwhelmed and longs to hear a word from you, some answer in the middle of your quarrel, they say, “Please, I’m asking you something. What do you think I did wrong?” And you say nothing. “I’m not saying a word.” That is...

...very stubborn, proud, and unkind. There is no compassion in it. At that moment, you are not showing love for the person closest to you. That is why the tone of our words matters so much, and so do our motives and the words we choose. You may say to me, “Father, that sounds fine, but how am I supposed to remember all this in the middle of a fight?” At that moment it is as if a bull has charged into a china shop and smashed everything. Can you say to the bull, “Please turn carefully at the corner; I have some precious Bohemian vases there”? Of course not. Once the bull is in that frenzy, it pays no attention to anything. Our souls can be like that. In the moment, we do not realize what we are saying or how much we hurt the other person. We wound one another, trade insults, quarrel, misunderstand each other, say things and hear things, and afterward complain.

“How can you speak to me like that? How can you insult me?” And I say, “My dear, what are you telling me? I called you a name? Do you remember all the things you called me? I brought up that old incident? Do you remember all the things you brought up?” In the end, both of us have done wrong. Especially in marriage, the point is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. A relationship is meant for both of you to come through together; there is no single winner. That is why you married: to share the victory with your wife or with your husband. You did not marry so you could say, “I beat him. I’m the better one,” or, “I beat her. I’m the better one.” Fine, hold on to being right and enjoy it. But what good will it do you? “I want to go to court so I can at least tell a lawyer that I was right.” If being proved right matters more to you than staying together, that is one thing. I thought you wanted to live with your wife and preserve your marriage. Think about that, my dear.

Here I am speaking to you from a safe distance. I cannot get into an argument with you, and you cannot really argue with me. But you are in the thick of family life. Have you realized what an important place that is? There you can learn so much about your character and your soul, and you can become a saint.

Marriage is a path to holiness, a path of great growth, spiritually, intellectually, in every way. You mature in marriage. You see many things about yourself, even through an argument. Arguing a little is not the problem. The problem is staying there, letting hatred enter your heart and settle in your soul. No. I love the person I share my life with. I may dislike what they do: the banging, the anger, the swearing, the smoking, the hitting, the kicking, the slapping, the breaking of things, the spending, the reckless living, whatever it may be. But I love the soul deep within them. Deep down, my soul loves everyone, and yours does too. On the surface, though, our thoughts, our nous—our spiritual mind—and our ideas get in the way of that love. Then a thought comes along and says to you...

You say, ‘Are you serious? You’re going to forgive him? You’re going to forgive him? You should make a fuss. What he did is unacceptable.’ These are the things our thoughts tell us, the things our society and culture tell us. That is where words like revenge, punishment, and injustice come in. The soul knows nothing of these things. The soul feels love, because God’s seal is within our soul, and there is pure love there. Pay attention to that. Remember it. That is why, when we are in a good state, we can even love people we hate at other times. Think of bedtime, when the nous, the spiritual mind, is less involved. If you have argued and are asleep beside each other, you may bump into one another and gently say, ‘Come on, move over a little.’ But once you are fully awake and the nous starts working again, you think, ‘Oh, right, we had a fight,’ and say, ‘Move over, I’m telling you.’

Then you begin to think, ‘I have to keep my distance from her. I have to show her I’m angry.’ When does that happen? When the nous begins to work in this unhealthy way. Deep down, our soul has no such problem. It loves everyone, and all the more your wife, whom you married, your husband, your children, your loved ones. You love them. We started out talking about arguments at home. Has our time run out? All right, don’t shout; we don’t want to start arguing now! Have I gone a little over time? Our time is up. Vasilis Chatzinikolaou, thank you very much. Vasilis does not get angry; we never argue. Vasilis, I thank God that in all these years of working together, we have never had a quarrel.

Well, we have differences and disagreements, but we bear each other no ill will. That is a great joy in a friendship, and in relationships generally. We will have to say more in another program about women who cannot speak freely in front of their husbands and say what they feel, and about men who are rather rigid and abrupt at home, as though everyone were a soldier or a general. There is no end to this subject, because family life goes on, and problems will always arise. Still, love one another. You may argue a little from morning until afternoon, but by evening, when the sun has set, let things grow quiet. Let your souls find peace. Make up as best you can and go to sleep loving each other and reconciled. It does a great deal of good, both for you and for your children. Thank you. We will explore these things further; we cannot fit them into one program. And I pray that Christ will enter your hearts.

May He help you understand that each of you is the other’s glory. In the crowning service we say, ‘The servant of God is crowned for the handmaid of God.’ Your wife is your crown, and your husband is your crown, your glory.

May you have a rich, warm, tender, caring love, so that you can bear what life brings. We already have financial troubles. If we have no love as well, and only constant grumbling and fighting, how can we bear life? I pray that you will find the strength to endure. To do that, you must learn to love, to understand the other person, and to forgive. Well, we will speak again next time. Until then, take care. The phone numbers for the program are 41 18 602 and 41 18 640. The email address is Atheata dot Perasmata at Yahoo dot gr. Take care, and I hope we meet again next time.

Farewell, my dear friends. Goodbye.