I very much agree with what you told me. My dear friend, I greet you, and I greet you all. I pray that you may be blessed and at peace, and feel God's gentle touch in your heart. I also greet you, Vasilis Chatzinikolaou, our beloved musician, composer, and sound engineer for this program. He takes care of the music that keeps us company and handles the sound for the program. As we begin, I want to tell you that you were right: this program has not really helped change anything in your life. It has not taken away a problem or stopped something from troubling you.

It is a comfort, though, to know that someone is trying, even a little, to understand you. That is the comfort it gives you. I am not going to do anything extraordinary today. I will not change your life. If you are troubled, when the program ends I will not have healed your aching hand or your suffering head, or solved your unemployment. You will not suddenly find a job, and your life will not change completely. But what you said matters very much: 'My life has not changed, but someone understands me.' It matters so much to be understood. To hear someone say, 'You know, I feel what you are going through. It touches me too, and it concerns me. I am trying to stand beside you. I feel it with you.'

To feel it with you. That is a great thing. An elderly man once said, 'When I began to grow old, I went through an existential shock. I watched my face slowly change in the mirror. The wrinkles multiplied. My body began to sag: my cheeks, my hands, my arms, all the different parts of me. I would look in the mirror as I washed. Once I had a firm body, jet-black hair, health, and youth. All that begins to change. When you first notice it, it comes as a shock. But the shock of old age was more than the feeling that life was slipping away, that I was drawing near to mature...'

...'mature age and, little by little, the closing chapter of my life. It was the loneliness. It was the feeling that some people did not love me, that I was going through all this alone, with no one to support me.' It is one thing to die with someone beside you, holding your hand and saying, 'You know, I love you, and I am here with you.' It is another to die utterly alone, with no one there beside you in body or in heart. Feeling that another person's heart is close to yours matters deeply. That is what I am trying to offer, because unfortunately it is all I can do. If one of you, if you, had great boldness in prayer and strength when you called upon God, you might be able to bring about a powerful change in another person's life.

You might offer more than comfort for the soul. You might say what the Lord said: 'Get up from your bed and walk.' There, it is done. Or, 'I will pray, and by tomorrow the thing troubling you will be resolved. Tomorrow you will meet the person you are meant to share your life with.' You have been waiting eight years, praying and praying and pleading, and nothing has happened. That is what we mean by boldness in prayer: prayer that bears fruit, a friendship with God so close that you can whisper something in His ear and He will do it. The rest of us, and I am among them, unfortunately make up the majority. All we can do is keep you a little company and say, 'You know, I understand you.'

I am here beside you, and I feel what you are going through. But I cannot help you in any very tangible way.' And you answered, 'That is all right. This helps too.' I said to you sincerely, 'I agree.' I have felt that in my own life. The people who helped me most did not change my life...

...in its outward circumstances, but they changed the way I looked at life. They helped me see things differently. They stood by me, supported me, listened to me, and loved me as I was, with all that I felt. They did not reject me. That was a tremendous help to me. Feeling loved is a tremendous help, and understanding is one of the marks of love: having someone understand you. I wonder whether anyone has really felt what you are going through today. Has anyone understood you?

From morning until night, has anyone felt what you feel? Has anyone entered into your soul so that you could say, 'You know me'? Do they know what is troubling you, what you want and need, your loneliness, your sorrow, the emptiness inside you? Has anyone met those needs?

You feel disappointed. But if you have not known that kind of understanding, you have an opportunity to go deeper within yourself and learn to draw near to the source of love, who is God, whether or not other people give you love and understanding. Turn to God. Go to the source. The source will never disappoint you. With other people, however close we become...

...that closeness does not always help us in the way we expect. Sometimes we need to give people some space. We must not smother or pressure them. Let them breathe freely and love us of their own will. Do not demand that someone love you by force because you think you deserve it, are entitled to it, or have a claim on it.

Love cannot be demanded. Suppose you said to me, 'I want you to love me because I want you to.' You can see that demanding love like that is not gracious. Love is inspired. Someone once spoke about the columns inside a church. They are essential; they support the whole building. Yet no column stands on top of another or pressed against it. There is space between them. There is room to breathe, air, freedom. That...

...is a beautiful way to live. Give the other person freedom, so they feel at ease beside you. Do not insist that they cling to you so you can do as you please with them or keep them under your control. Smothering and pressuring someone is how you lose them. Remember the columns that hold up the church: each stands apart from the others. Remember, too, the oak and the cypress. Neither can grow in the other's shade. They need space, independence, and air. When you give someone room to breathe, they can love you. When you relax inwardly and say, 'I will not become a burden to other people,' you stop pressing them. Insisting that someone understand you can become a burden to them. You cannot bring about understanding that way.

What I mean is, what would it accomplish to go to someone and say, 'Today I realized again that you have never really understood me. I want you to understand me'? It does not work that way. Do not impose yourself on anyone. The other person needs peace and quiet too; they need rest. When these things happen through love, though, they are very beautiful. Through love...

...the other person will want to draw near. And that will happen in your life one day. It will. So many things will change. I promise you; I am not lying. Right now it may sound untrue. You may ask, 'How do you know my life will change?' It will. But you have been hurt, sometimes by different things in your life, and because you were hurt...

you drew a conclusion,

...a lesson from life, as if to say, 'I always get hurt.' That is not how it is. Do not rule out better moments ahead or the possibility that things will change. You were hurt once, twice, three times, but that does not mean life cannot become happier and more hopeful.

Imagine I hand you a rose and, as I give it to you, ask a very difficult favor. Suppose I give you the rose and then ask you for money. You are disappointed. You say, 'He gave me a rose, and straightaway he asked me for money.' Our relationship leaves you bitter, and you think, 'He gave me the rose because he wanted something, not because he loved me.'

You conclude, 'See? The rose had another purpose. He wanted money from me.' Then, because I disappointed you, whenever anyone else gives you a rose, you remember the hurt and bitterness I caused you. You think, 'A rose? He gave you a rose? He must want something too.' Disappointment has led you to draw the wrong conclusion.

There are people who give roses and ask for nothing. There really are people in this life who will love you sincerely and will not hurt you just because others have hurt you before. Life is not always like that. Of course, some people will hurt you. You have hurt others too. I have hurt people and been hurt myself, and I will do both again. I do not say that with pride or pleasure. That is how life goes. Come down to earth; humble yourself...

...understand yourself, and understand the world and the way life unfolds. There are no perfect communities. In the Lord's Prayer we say, 'Your kingdom come.' We ask for it because that perfect life is not here on this earth. We are saying, 'My God, let our life here become perfect too.' That is a petition in our prayer, a deep longing and a hope.

But in reality, we do not live that perfect life. I remember a boy at school who had come from another private school. I saw him sitting alone during a break and asked, “How are you? How are you finding your new school? How do you feel?” He was startled. “Why?” I asked. “I wasn’t used to anyone talking to me during breaks. When they did, it was either to question me or to scold me—or at least that was what I had learned at my old school.”

I said, “You mean no one can say good morning and ask how you are without your thinking they’re about to scold you?” “No,” he said. “That’s what I’ve come to associate it with.” It’s like the principal’s office at school. Someone tells a child, “The principal wants to see you,” and the first thought is, “Oh no. What have I done?”

Sometimes the principal wants to see you for a good reason, perhaps to congratulate you. I know teachers and principals who call children in and say, “I’m very pleased with how you’re doing. Here, have a sweet.” “A sweet? Oh no, what’s in it?” “Come now, there’s nothing wrong with the sweet.” “But my mother told me sweets always hide something…” Not every sweet hides something suspicious. Yes, some people use kindness as a way to lure others in, but life is not always like that.

Otherwise, it is as though we have decided that love has vanished from life, that everything is grim, with no tenderness or innocence anywhere. “You can’t be speaking to me innocently. You must have something sly in mind.” You can believe that if you wish, and live on the defensive, suspicious of everyone. But that is also why you are stuck in the other matter you told me about: you find it hard to marry because you have been disappointed in love. You drew the wrong conclusion again: “There is no love in this world, no pure kindness, affection, tenderness or devotion. I know from experience.”

Am I denying what happened to you? After all you have been through, would I say you are lying? You really were disappointed. He really hurt you; and yes, she really hurt you too. But that does not mean love has vanished from the world. There is a man or a woman who will love you without stabbing you in the back. People are not all like that. You suffered. Let that help you grow, as so many others have grown through suffering. You cried too. Let your tears soften your soul. Tears can do that, but yours are making you hard and stubborn. That comes from pride. Think clearly for a moment, and learn to trust. Trust.

The past disappointed you, but good days will come. Learn to trust people a little. Trust them. At once your mind goes to the worst possibility: “Who can you trust these days?” There are many people you could trust and lean on.

What if you seem a little dreamy, as though you belong to another age? So what? Is our age the best the world has ever known? Let us belong to another age if it brings peace to our souls. And if you are taken advantage of again, so what? People who have been taken advantage of are dear to us. When someone has been made a fool of, people feel for them and say, “Oh, what you went through! You poor soul. Did they really treat you that way?” You find love again from others, and from God.

And you can be at peace with yourself. It is better to cry because you were wronged than because you wronged someone else. Those are the tears of an innocent person. Perhaps people say things about you that are untrue, and it hurts. Even that can help you become holier. Learn from it all. Look for something good in others, and you will find it. You could find plenty wrong with me, for instance, but if you wanted to look, you could find a few good things too. It depends on what you have learned to look for. What old recordings have been playing in your mind since childhood? Perhaps people kept telling you, “The world is bad. Society is deceitful. No one respects anyone. People will trample you.”

Those are the thoughts you grew up with. You have seen some of it for yourself, and you are not making it up. It felt true. But it is only part of the truth, only one side of society.

There are beautiful little corners of Paradise here on earth. There is love here, and there are loving people. Do not stop trusting. You ask, “How do I do that?” By trying. There is no formula. “How will I learn to love others?” By loving them. That is how you learn. As the saying goes, appetite comes with eating. You learn to pray by praying. You learn to love by beginning to love. So when I ask you how you will learn to love, answer, “By loving.” And that means making mistakes, failing, hurting others and being hurt. What is the word for all this? In the Church, we call those who live in mountains and caves ascetics. Why? Because they undertake ascesis, ascetic discipline.

And what does ascesis mean? Repetition, trying, again, again, again. Love requires ascesis: doing it repeatedly. I will try again. Remember when you were little and first tried to write the letter A? You picked up a pen or pencil for the first time in your life and did not even know how to hold it. You wrapped all your fingers around it and struggled awkwardly with your hands.

If you remember, you could barely write a single letter. Those first letters looked awful to you. But you tried again and again. That is what ascesis means: doing the work repeatedly. Now you have learned to write. It is the same with learning to love. Keep trying, and little by little you will be able to love.

When you want to trust someone, try to draw out the good in them. Do not treat them as a failure. If you treat me as a failure, for example, I will respond to the way you see me. Your eyes will give me no hope to awaken a little courage or optimism in me, so that I can do better.

Give the other person a little encouragement.

Treat someone with an eye to what they can become. Suppose your child is at school and does not get high marks. If you treat that child as a failure, it is as though you have put a sign on their forehead saying, “I think you are a failure. That is why I speak to you like this.” And how do you speak?

With contempt. You belittle the child, dismiss them, push them aside. How could that help a child flourish? Give them a little encouragement. They need a kind word. Speak to them with hope that they can change, and you will help them do better. Even a compliment can give someone that lift.

Give your wife a compliment. One man said to his wife, “Just think, without you this whole house would be a mess. You are wonderful!”

“You are a jewel, a treasure. What would we have eaten today without the lovely meal you made?” What have I said there? Nothing that sounds especially theological. I have not quoted Holy Scripture to her. Yet it is deeply in keeping with Scripture: it is love and encouragement. It is like what the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, Saint Photini. Of course, He did not say, “I am paying you a compliment.” He said, “Give me some water, give me some water.” “Why should I give You water?” Behind His request was this: “I want to honor you. You are a woman; you are beautiful and good, and you are of worth to Me.” There is encouragement for her in those words. It lifts her spirits and gives her…

A woman once said, “When my husband says one kind thing to me, I feel as though I could fly for the next week. I’m so happy.” The same is true for a husband. Just one kind word. A child does an assignment and longs for you to say something encouraging. Do you see? We will always need that. Even when you grow old, you will need someone to say a kind word. Elderly men and women come to greet me at Church and look me in the eye. I could be their son, and I am unworthy of their expecting anything from me, yet they hope for a kind word. So I say, “What a kind person you are! I’m so glad to see you. Keep up your patient endurance in your struggle.” And afterward one of them says, “A priest said something kind to me.” Just one kind word. You never know how much it may mean to someone.

And then they go running, as though they could fly—racing along in fourth gear. Vasilis, my dear, you do not need kind words, do you? You have such lovely... You are so gifted in music: the songs you write and sing, the CDs you make, the hymns you chant. What more can I say? I have said quite a lot already, but that is all right. I said it to you kindly. Let us say kind things to one another. Truly, Vasilis, you do not need it, and you show that you do not need to be heard. Still, I want to thank you, because I feel you deserve it. And now you feel the need to prove that. All right, prove it.

Do you see what I was saying earlier, especially with this lovely music by Vasilis Hatzinikolaou? A kind word and a kind attitude toward our brother can make life so much easier, happier, and more peaceful. You do not need some exciting purchase—a wonderful piece of furniture, a magnificent rug, or a nice air conditioner—to say, “My life has been transformed.” Encouragement is a kind of transformation too: helping someone feel that they matter to another person, that they have something to offer that person’s soul.

Once I was speaking in a church. I said nothing extraordinary, just a couple of simple things. But someone who knew me through these conversations we have together had come a long way to see me. He loved me without knowing me personally, and he began to applaud. I thought, “Look how that makes you feel.” You might say it was my ego, but I also felt his love. Out of that whole congregation, one person was showing his love so openly and strongly. That gives you a lift. Someone may say, “I don’t need that; I know I am weak and sinful,” and so on. But in the end, we all need a kind word and, above all, the sense of love it conveys.

During Holy Week we hear Christ’s lament: “My people, what have I done to you, and what have you given me in return? Instead of manna, gall; instead of water, vinegar.” In other words, “My people, what have I done to you, and how are you treating me?” Someone might ask, “Forgive me, but you are God. Do you want something from us in return? Do you need us to give you something back?”

He says, “My children, I do not need your praise. Millions of angels glorify me continually, without growing weary. But I long to feel your love.” Praise can express love. When that man applauded in church, I felt that he loved me. And I am not ashamed to tell you that I am glad he does. Your love brings me comfort too. Who does not rejoice in being loved? Should I be glad if you hated me?

Hatred is death; it is poison. Who enjoys drinking poison? But what if you love someone and they do not love you? Then you bear it and say, “Lord, you have permitted this. I will bear it; I have done nothing wrong.” Even so, I will keep trying to show love. To keep from being poisoned, I must stay out of the game of hatred. I must love you even when you accuse me. I must speak well of you, give your actions a charitable reading, and try to understand your words kindly. The way you speak may sound like Chinese to me, but I will try to translate it into the language of angels, into something I and others can understand. I will refuse to think evil of you, even when I can see malice in what you show me. “But,” someone says, “all this is terribly difficult and rather fine print.”

It is fine print because we have already read the large print. Now let us look at the smaller print and try to do a little more, if we can. If we cannot, what did I say? We will write the letter A again, even if it still comes out so badly you can hardly read it. That is all right. We will try tomorrow, and the day after. Another chance will come. Another chance will come. How many chances? Perhaps a hundred years’ worth; that is why we are alive. Life is very short, you might say, but it is long enough to learn that loving is worthwhile. For that purpose, it is enough. It feels short because you want to live forever, while God, life’s events, your body, and its decline all tell you that you cannot go on like this forever.

“I want to do so many things. A hundred years are not enough.” And God says, “You have time for the one essential thing. You do.” What is essential? To love, to learn to love, to become love. You can learn that in six years, or seven, or ten. If you learn to love, you will be happy however many years you live.

Please think about all this, and stop hurting the people you love. We do it. Sometimes we quarrel with people we love deep down. What wife, for example, would say she does not love her husband? You love him. If you heard that something had happened to him, that he had been hurt, you would be upset. Yet you speak to this man you love and wound him deeply. I cannot understand it. I was saying this to someone, and her husband does the same thing: he hurts the wife he loves. How can you hurt the person closest to you, when in a few years you may have to live without them? You will lose them, or they will lose you.

And we will depart, and one of us will be left without the other... That is what I was saying to a couple. They came to me and told me about their quarrels and troubles in the family. I said, “My dear friends, look, one of these things will happen: either you will take me and accompany me when I die, or I will accompany you,” I said to the wife, “along with your husband, and we will weep for you; or I will accompany you with your wife,” I said to the husband, “and we will take you.” And we will say, “Oh, if only they were still alive...” The wife will say, “Father, do you remember what I did to my husband?” Yes, while he is alive, while he is alive, show him love now. For a time will come when we depart from this life. We will not be together forever. So let us value one another. We have worth. How could we not, since we are...

We bear God’s seal within us, his kiss, something divine in our hearts. Does the other person have no value? Of course they do. A time will come when you remember what I am saying and ask yourself whether you treated them well. Before you speak, ask yourself, “Will what I am about to say express love? Would it be better to close my mouth and be quiet? Would fewer words be better?” Sometimes, my friends, let us say nothing.

Let it go. Do not say it. Close your mouth, for once. I knew a man who would tell himself, “Keep it shut!” He was speaking to himself: “Keep it shut. Close it.” How often can a word, however small, be the last drop that makes the cup overflow? Just one word. Friendships of decades can fall apart over one remark that leads to another, until we say things that do not express who we truly are. You might ask, “Are those things we say lies, then? After all, we really do...”

...have these contradictions within us.

We are contradictory creatures. We have love in us, but also malice and hatred. Someone may even say, “I would be glad to see you die.” In that moment of anger, the person feels it, but usually does not mean death. They mean, “I want you out of my way for a while. I need some peace from your presence; you have worn me out.” We can be cruel, but we also have love; we can be good. The Apostle Paul spoke of this struggle within himself: he wanted what was good, yet wrestled with evil too. “Why am I like this?” Do not be disheartened. You and I are like this, and so is the person you love. What, then, do we need? Self-knowledge and love, because we share the same problems and weaknesses. These weaknesses are...

A teacher who loved her students very much and took her work seriously was once filmed for a study of how she taught. When she watched the recording, she was astonished. Without realizing it, she had constantly corrected students she deeply valued, making negative and belittling remarks. The researchers said, “Look how many things you said to this student, how often you gave that one a disapproving look, how abruptly you interrupted another. Why do you do that?” She answered, “Can you believe it? These are the students I love most.” Then why scold them like that? Are you demanding a perfection they cannot reach in this way? You may say you are trying to make them better, but this does not make them better. You may think you are helping the other person improve...

...but that is not how it works. When you love someone, you lift them up; you do not put them down. No one can say, “I belittle you because I love you. I humiliate you because I love you.” Sometimes we misunderstand the ascetic writings. We take a snapshot of what one ascetic did to another and say, “He insulted someone to help him become a saint, so I will start insulting people too. If a certain father called his disciple a ‘filthy dog’ and told him to leave, I can say the same to my child.” Is that the same thing? There are indeed stories in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the lives of the Saints where someone speaks sharply to another person to humble him and help him grow in holiness. But we do not have the same spiritual grounding, and we have not seen the whole of that relationship. What do I mean? Before that person spoke so sharply...

...he had shown love at other times. His eyes had shown, “I take responsibility for your life seriously. I care for you, and I pray for you.” The Saints did not only speak sharply to humble someone; they prayed fervently for that person too. The love in their prayers surrounded them. So even when a sharp rebuke landed, it landed more gently. There was a cushion of love, so the other person was not crushed. That is what we fail to do. We keep only the outward appearance of what the Saints did and imitate that. But will picking up a stick and striking people make you a saint?

It will not make you holy. It may teach others to endure and grow in holiness, though. I think of Diocletian: he caused many people to become saints, but he did not become one himself. He sent many people to Paradise, but he did not go there, because his orders were cruel. Do you see? Lift the other person up; do not humiliate them. Why do you sometimes speak to your wife that way?

A woman said to her husband, “If I am as awful and useless as you say, why did you marry me?” She was not being sarcastic or insulting him. She was hurting after all the accusations and insults he had thrown at her. She had taken his words to heart: “Am I really all those things? Then why did you marry me?” He was left speechless. “She is right,” he thought. “When I married her, I did not see those things, because they are not there. I see them now because I have grown harder, because I have become bored and used to her. I have not learned to deepen our love. I focused only on outward things, and without growth of the soul alongside them, those things are not enough.” Do you understand? “Why did you marry me, then, if you think I am worthless?”

Your wife is not worthless, and neither are you. Look at the tear falling from your eye. You told me about it yourself, and now I can see it. That one tear shows that a tender heart lives in this body. If you were utterly hardened, you would not be able to cry. Anyone on this earth who can shed even one tear has feelings. Their angel will seek out that tear and preserve it, so that even that one tear may soften a hardened heart.

Learn to change. Let light enter your soul. Perhaps what you are hearing now will give you a few things to think about. Let your heart grow wider and your nous, your spiritual mind, open up. Let go of some of your fanaticism. Do not be fanatical. I will tell you something: the very fact that you can listen to this conversation we are having tells me you are not fanatical. I believe that. You may accuse me of various things, but I pray to God that fanaticism will never be one of them. I try not to be fanatical. Do you know how? When you speak to me, I want to listen and understand you. It is...

It is very easy to avoid being fanatical. Just be open to people. Listen to what the other person has to say. Say, “Tell me. I want to understand what you mean.” Then close your mouth and open your ears, your heart, and your soul. Truly want to understand the other person, without fanaticism, and

step for a moment into their soul and their way of thinking. Imagine what it would be like to be in their place. Someone once told me how excited he gets at a sports match, or how he loves to listen to music, move with it, and dance. Personally, I don't understand that because I don't experience it myself. But when he told me, I wanted to understand. That too is a way to learn to love: try to understand the other person. Loosen your fixed way of thinking, the fanaticism that makes you say, “I could never accept that.”

All right, don't accept it in your own life. But since it is part of the other person's life, try to understand them. I'm not telling you to be false or to change the way you live. If you don't like something, don't do it. Just try to understand the person, and you'll see wonders in yourself. You'll discover that you too can be shaped; you too can change. So what if you've lived this way for thirty, forty, fifty, or seventy years? You can change today. You were fanatical, fixed in certain views, caught up in ideas and obsessions, absolute judgments and stubbornness. All right, that's how you were. Why can't today be a new day? Live a new day.

Put into practice the wish someone once gave a friend: “May you live all the days of your life.” May you live all the days of your life. Think about what that means. Of course, I'll be alive on the days I live; when I no longer live, I'll be dead. But the point is to do more than simply breathe and go through the days. Enjoy each day. Let your life truly be life. That happens when things change within you, when you reflect, are born anew spiritually, and are renewed as a new creation in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, a new being. Something new comes from you. Someone who knew you as

harsh, difficult, and set in your ways sees you become tender, guileless, generous, and smiling. You look at your wife, or a wife looks at her husband, and say a kind word you never used to say. Fine, you didn't say it before. Say it now. It's that simple. Start today with one kind word. Begin with what you can do. I'm not asking you to leap from zero to a hundred. Climb a little way up the mountainside. You can't reach the summit in one step. Leave the plain behind and climb high enough to breathe the fresh air. Then, when you see the sunrise and its light rising into the sky, you'll say, “How beautiful it is up here.” And the climb will become easier.

Every day brings many chances to live what we've been talking about. Every problem that comes into your life today is a chance: a chance to love, to forgive, to understand someone else, to put yourself in their place, to trust them, to hope, and to look forward to something better. A chance to become a new person. You may look at those problems and say, “Oh, why is my life like this?” But each one is an opportunity, a possibility. Your life is beautiful, and what you have before you is both a challenge and an invitation. Think of a student going to a tutor, knowing that today's problem will be harder than yesterday's. Deep down, the student is glad, because he says,

“I've realized that my teacher thinks I'm intelligent and capable. He trusts me to solve problems. He doesn't keep giving me one plus one equals two. He gives me hard problems too. Why? Because he believes I can solve them. I can see in his eyes that he considers me capable.” That is what God does. He considers you worthy. He believes that you, woman or man, are capable of many things.

That is why many problems come: so that you can find wise ways to meet them. Sometimes the answer is patient endurance, sometimes humility, sometimes struggle, sorrow, or tears. Sometimes it is accepting something you cannot change; at other times, it is fighting to change something you can. In all this, love will give us discernment.

What does God ask of us in today's problem? Should we stay quiet or speak up? With my child right now, should I give a slap that might help, or show patient endurance and forbearance? There isn't one answer for everyone. If I could see you as I speak, I might say something meant for you and your particular history. Another person had a completely different view; there isn't one answer for everyone. You will pray about it, won't you?

I gave you the phone numbers: 4118 is the number; 602, 4118, 602, and 4118, 640. The program also has an email address. I do read the messages, though I don't manage to answer them; sometimes I barely have time even to read them. The address is the program's title with a dot in the middle: atheata.perasmata@yahoo.gr. This program is rebroadcast during the week. The people at the station can tell you when if you call.

You can find it online now, too. These recordings circulate on cassettes, and little by little they are being put online for people in distant parts of the world, for those who cannot listen otherwise, and for those who have their own reasons. Well, another day has passed. Vasilis, thank you for another program. God takes note of what you've done today, and the angels write it down with their own pens.

I carry it in my heart too, and I thank you very much. And... what did we do today? Nothing. I know we did nothing; I have no illusions about that. We did this: kept each other a little company. Mutual understanding. I understood you, and you understood me. And we understood that life is difficult; we understood that Christ makes life sweeter and turns bitter things into medicines that heal us. We understood that we are not alone.

There is you, and there is me, and there are many friends who love you, think of you, and tune in to listen to this program, the previous one, the next one, and others. They are edified by them. We are a group of people who understand one another and can talk together. That little bit is what we did today. And that is what we'll do on the next program, if you'd like to join me again. Until then, take care and keep growing. Don't despair or lose heart. Smile, because God looks on you with love. Smile, because it suits you. Be hopeful and joyful, full of hope. May you have strength, and have a good week.