Well, my friends, how are you? How are things with you? I’m glad to be with you again. We’ll spend a little time together here on Piraiki Ekklisia, the station that speaks to our souls, at 91.2 FM. I’m recording this during the day, but perhaps it’s evening where you are as you listen to the evening rebroadcast.

Perhaps it’s evening as you listen to a recording on a CD or an MP3 player, while you’re walking or driving. I don’t know. But I’m talking about the evening because I wish I could make these broadcasts at night. When night falls, the day is over, and you look back on how it all went, the day’s effort and weariness begin to settle...

Then you find a little time to lie down in bed or on a sofa and become quiet. I don’t know about you, but at that hour of the night, good thoughts come to me. Ideas come to me, things I’d like to say. The shallow thoughts and the rush of the day fall away. Something happens to our souls at night. I wonder whether it’s by chance that monks in monasteries pray in the darkness, in the middle of the night. Our souls change then, along with our mood and our state of mind, and a certain sweetness grows within us. The day’s tension fades, along with our impulsiveness, our nerves, and that restlessness that gives us no peace anywhere.

You want to settle down and feel at peace. That’s when I think of you. But how can I have you there to tell you all this? And how can I be there with microphones, a studio, speakers, our sound engineer, and our composer, Vasilis Chatzinikolaou? He’s with us again today, and thank you very much, dear Vasilis. Someone says to me, ‘You talk so much about Vasilis; you’ll do him harm.’ And I say, ‘Come now, my fellow Christian. Who says a lot about Vasilis? Vasilis is humble. I wish others said more about him, so I could say a little less.’ Sadly, there are people who deserve much praise but receive little. You hear a great deal about some people for whom one might expect to hear a couple of kind words, a fair word of praise, as we say in the Church. I don’t mean praise that feeds narcissism, unhealthy flattery, conceit, or arrogance. I mean the kind of praise that...

...a child needs to stand more firmly on their feet and keep going. Don’t confuse the two. Praise can also harm someone. As the Fathers say, it can be like handing that person over to temptation. When you praise someone in that way, it’s as if you say to temptation, ‘Here, take this person; I’m handing them to you.’ You fill their head with the thought that they’re someone extraordinary. That isn’t what I mean. I mean someone who needs encouragement and strength, someone who needs to hear, ‘I appreciate your work. I appreciate your struggle. I appreciate how well you do what you do.’ Keep doing that yourself. Praise and encourage the people close to you. Give them courage.

Once they die and the years go by, it will be too late to say those things to them. Far too late. One of our university professors wrote a little two-line poem called ‘The Dead Person’s Lament.’ It went, ‘Oh, if only I were alive, even if no one wept for me.’ If only I were alive! Now I’ve died, and everyone mourns me, talks about me, praises me, and says, ‘Well done! You were wonderful. You were brilliant.’ But while that person lived? Nothing. Not a word, not a tender gesture, not even a phone call to say, ‘You know, I really liked what I heard from you: your song, your music, what you said. I enjoyed being with you.’ You might say those are childish things.

I agree with you completely. But I hope you’ve realized that, in a different way, we remain children all our lives. You’re still a child in that sense, and you still want this. Don’t you still long for a kind word, just as you did when you were little and wrote A, B, and C in your notebook in huge, awkward letters?

You held the pencil in your whole fist as though it were an axe. You and I were both trying to learn how to hold it, and we looked up at our mother or father, hoping to see that look in their eyes. The look that said, ‘That’s lovely! Well done, my child! Well done, my brave one! You made a lovely A.’ The A was hardly recognizable, but you wanted someone to tell you it was beautiful. You wanted to see that sparkle...

...that light in your mother’s eyes as she said, ‘Well done, my child. That’s a lovely A. Keep going.’ Your soul wants to see that today. So does Vasilis’s soul, and so does mine. Even a saint’s soul does, though a saint seeks it above all from God, and also from other people, but first from God. The rest of us want God’s approval too, but we also want a kind word from someone beside us. Unless you’ve learned to hear God beside you. Unless you’ve felt what the Lord felt when He said, ‘I and My Father are one.’ And, ‘I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.’ If you’ve reached that point in your spiritual journey...

...where you feel God with you, where you know you are a child of God and have received the gift of being adopted as His child, then you don’t need praise. But if you haven’t reached that point, as I haven’t, don’t worry. Don’t feel bad. Most of us haven’t; only a few have. Most of us, ordinary Christians and ordinary people in this world, still need to hear a kind word. Your husband needs to hear a tender word too, one you haven’t said to him for a long time. You hold back your praise so tightly. You say little because you fear he’ll take advantage, or you don’t want to give him that satisfaction. And you hold back from your child too, because...

...your complaints, nagging, and displeasure come so easily: ‘What are you doing? Who are these friends of yours? What have you got yourself into now? What’s with your hair? What kind of trousers did you buy? And those earrings!’ It’s always, ‘What’s this? What’s that?’ Complaining comes readily, but a kind word comes with difficulty. Vasilis, do you agree? I can see you nodding. This is how things are, and I’m not just making it up. For better or worse, I don’t see the daily life inside people’s homes. A visit of an hour or two tells you very little. But you who live it know what happens.

I receive messages from many people: letters, emails, phone calls, and tears. Above all, tears about these very things.

What strikes me is that some mothers who want to talk are so sweet with me on the phone or in writing. I tell them, ‘If possible, I’d like to hear the other side too. I’d like to hear from your child and your husband. Do you say anything kind to him? Do you encourage him? Do you love him? Do you build him up?’

Then I hear from the husband, and I begin to understand. That sweet, devout voice I heard in a phone message, or imagined as I read an email, may be very different at home. I picture the person one way, but reality brings me down to earth with a bump and says, ‘Don’t imagine things. That’s not how it is.’

The tearful, honey-sweet message she sent you presents one side; with me she behaves differently. I admit this has made me wary. I find myself asking why we aren’t like that in everyday life. And if we aren’t, then at least let’s not hide it. Let’s be honest with our spiritual fathers when we go to the priests. Let’s show them our real selves and say, ‘Father, I’m difficult. I get overwrought and irritable.’

‘I shout, I get upset, everything bothers me, and I take it out on my children. I insult my husband and quarrel with the neighbors. They aren’t to blame. I’m struggling with my own problems, including many psychological ones. I...’

‘...struggle with what I’ve inherited, with my genes, my upbringing, my parents, and everything else I carry inside me. But...’

...you keep taking it out on the people in your home. That hardness of heart, that harshness some women show. And please don’t call to complain: I’m not speaking only about you. Yes, this may concern you, but you aren’t the only one. Sometimes I hardly dare say anything. Some women call and ask, ‘Why did you expose me?’ If I’d singled you out, I tell them, you’d be the only one calling. Yet many other women call, each thinking I mean her. I’m not trying to name and shame anyone. That heals no one and helps no one. The point isn’t to say, ‘Mrs. So-and-so is the one with all the problems.’ You don’t have a problem while I’m free of them. We’re all in the same boat. We’re all alike, because we’re human.

We all grow tired of one another. We wear others out, and they wear us out. None of us is perfect. You didn’t marry a perfect woman, and she didn’t marry a perfect man. Your wife married you, and you’re no angel. You have your difficulties, and she has hers. So what do we do? We argue, but we carry on. We may quarrel fiercely, but that quarrel can bring us close again rather than leave us apart. That was the commitment we made when we married. We never said we would never argue, or that we would somehow cease to be ordinary people. We’re human like everyone else. And if I carry anger inside me, sooner or later it will come out.

If you want to understand what someone is really like, live with them. Walk in their shoes, as the saying goes, and learn how they move through life. See what they’re like at the table, on a walk, by the sea, in the mountains, at a restaurant, at a game, or out in the town square.

At first everything seems perfect, but that is not when you really see a person. Once we see each other as we truly are, every part of our souls comes out. We carry all of it within us. You and I both have aggression, anger, dislike, jealousy, even hatred. Don't we? Perhaps you don't, but I certainly do.

Yes, I do. I am neither pleased nor proud of it, but I cannot tell you I don't have these things.

I don't want you to imagine that the person speaking to you is someone beyond reach, someone standing very high spiritually. No. I too am an ordinary person, very much subject to the passions, with all kinds of weaknesses. What matters is that when you quarrel with someone you love, you can go on loving them. You still cook the next day. You don't say, 'Go and eat wherever you like. Get your mother to cook for you. Don't come back here tomorrow because we had a fight.' And he must not say, 'I'm not giving you any more money. Find your own, take it out of the bank, use your savings, or ask your mother.' My dear sir, if you hold the money, you keep providing it. And you keep cooking and washing his clothes. We do not take revenge on one another. We search our hearts and ask what it was in the other person that really upset us...

Why was I angry with them? Why did you react that way to your child? What bothers you? What has your child really done to you? Is your child truly the cause? Is your husband truly the cause? Could something else be troubling you?

Problems. I see this myself. I keep saying 'I,' and I am sorry; please forgive me for using that word so often. I do not mean it out of pride, as though I know so much. It is because people bring us so many complaints and sorrows. We hear about their troubles, and I see this again and again. We have many problems, including psychological problems that need help, answers, care, and attention. To resolve something, you first have to see it and admit it. You can bake as many cakes in Saint Phanourios's honor as you like, have the Artoklasia, the blessing of the loaves, celebrated as often as you like, anoint yourself with blessed oil, and drink the Agiasmos, the blessing of water. These things do not make your problems disappear by magic.

A student taking the national entrance exams cannot simply say, 'You know, I spent the whole year praying and making prostrations, so I hope I do well.' You would ask, 'How did you do on your tests during the year? How did things go at your tutoring classes? What grades did you get in the first and second terms? How did you do on the practice exams? How are your lessons going?'

Isn't that what we say? Are we going to tell the student, 'You know, because you believed in God and prayed, because you traveled to the Holy Mountain and went to Jerusalem last year and will go again next year, you'll pass?' But miracles of this kind do not happen that way, and that would not even be a miracle. If you have a problem, find where it lies—as the Fathers say, where it leaks. Where the problem came in, that is where it must come out. At that same point, in other words: do not pass over it, close your eyes to it, or bury your head in the sand.

Do not follow the ostrich’s example: it puts its head in the sand and, though the ostrich is enormous, because it cannot see the world, it thinks the world cannot see it either. But you are still visible. The problem is still there. Hiding yourself and hiding the problem does not mean it does not exist. It will torment you.

It will go on tormenting you for as long as you cover it up instead of facing it. Say, 'I have a problem. I need to understand what is troubling me. I want to search within myself.' Of course we do this spiritually, with God's help and through the Holy Mysteries of our Church. But we must also examine ourselves and look for whatever else may be wrong. Otherwise, problems pile up.

Some people have very serious psychological problems, yet they grow up and start families, sometimes in great haste. They meet, and after a few months they rush into Holy Matrimony before everything comes to light. They have done nothing to help themselves. Then, a few years into family life, it is as though a bomb goes off in the relationship. The good neighbors and dear relatives are astonished: 'But they were such good people!' As they say, these things happen even in the best families. I am not saying that you are a bad man or a bad woman. I am saying you have problems, just as I do, and we need to see what is happening within us. After all, you may have a child. And what happens to a child whose parents have never looked at their inner life or emotional balance, and have never learned to deal with their anxiety, insecurities, problems, and childhood wounds?

We have a tendency to brush these things aside, even to make a bit of fun of them and disparage these issues so that we do not have to pay attention to them, supposedly because we are very spiritual. But that is not how it is. I remember a friend telling me that he had gone to Father Porphyrios and asked about a relative with psychological problems. Father Porphyrios told him, 'My child, he needs to see the doctor and take his medication.' My friend said, 'Father, I came to you so you could pray for us and God would hear.' He replied, 'I will pray too, but he must also see the doctor. And if the doctor says he needs to stay in a clinic for these serious psychiatric problems, then he must stay there.' We have simply learned to treat people like him...

and to use them according to our own needs. We take from their books whatever suits us, while passing over the things we do not want to discuss. But these people cared for the whole person. They were never one-sided; they kept a sound balance.

When you break your leg, you do not stand before the icons asking for a miracle with a broken leg. You go to the doctor and have the leg put in a cast or a splint. In the same way, when you have problems inside and feel confused, you ask for help so you can learn to deal with your situation. You find yourself upset by everything at home. You quarrel, shout, lose your temper, hit people, swear, hit your children, and tear up their things. As I said earlier, you can hear such stories even in the best homes, in Christian homes, in your own home, where you listen to church on Sunday, attend Church, and are a good person. Why does all this happen? So that we too may learn humility and understand that we are human, like everyone else.

That grand idea we sometimes have of ourselves needs to fall away: 'I am not like other people. I am someone special.' And God says, 'What makes you so special, my child? You are like everyone else.' So take a look at your own problems.

I hear of many spiritual fathers who, to their credit, understand and admit that they cannot do everything. Their example teaches me something too. One of them will say, 'My child, I am not the one to advise you on this. Ask the specialist.' Suppose you have a serious health problem, and the doctor tells you, 'No more squid. You must not eat squid again because, say, you have high uric acid. Shrimp and other seafood are bad for you too. Don't touch them again.' A priest with good sense and discernment will tell you, 'My child, follow the doctor's advice.' And if a doctor tells a woman that she must drink a glass of milk every morning to take her medicine, her spiritual father will step aside. He will say, 'This is not my place to interfere.'

To pressure you and make you do whatever I want. You are not my property. You are not my property. We do not live in an age when I can simply make you do as I please. Follow the doctor's advice; the doctor does not make you do whatever he wants either. But as a priest, I face a greater temptation to make you do whatever I want. You see a doctor now and then, only when you are ill, while you have frequent contact with a priest. That gives me an opportunity to take advantage of your coming to me. How much sensitivity and how much illumination from God it takes to understand that I am not your master, that I am not the ruler of your life! The One who guides us into the harbor of His will is God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the One to whom I must turn you, the One to whom I must help you draw close, the One you must love. From Him you must find the strength to stand on your own feet and learn to walk. If I see you struggling to walk, I should help you stand so you can walk toward Him, rather than cling to me. If I learn that you have a problem with your physical legs, I will tell you to see an orthopedist. Likewise, if you need psychological, neurological, or psychiatric help, I will tell you that I cannot provide it. Some Saints may have been able to, and perhaps some Saints can even now. They can, but an ordinary person, an ordinary cleric, cannot say, ‘You will do whatever I tell you.’

Only someone who has that kind of closeness with God can speak so confidently about such matters: 'Do as I say and do not be afraid.' Father Porphyrios, whom I mentioned earlier, advised one person to see a doctor, take psychiatric medication, and go to a clinic as well, with his blessing. Yet he told a woman I know, whose doctors had recommended an operation for cancer, 'Do not have the operation, and nothing will happen to you.' But he could see. He could see. If you can see, then of course you may say that. If you are God-bearing, if you are a person who... He told her, 'Nothing will happen to you.' She replied, 'But Father, the doctors say that without the operation I will die within eight months.' He answered, 'You will live for decades. Do not worry.' When you are such a person, you take the other person upon your shoulders, accept responsibility for them, and save them.

You deliver them, and the outcome shows it. That woman is still alive. She did not have the operation; she is a pharmacist somewhere in Greece, and many years have passed. Yet in many other cases, sadly, we advise people in a controlling way: 'You will do as I say because...' Because what? Can we also say, 'Because God told me'? Did God tell us? I cannot claim any such thing for myself. Someone may say, 'Quite right; you are unworthy and sinful.' Yes, that is precisely why I would not dare make such a claim. But another person did dare. He said, in effect, 'I am no ordinary person. I know what I am telling you. You will marry this man. End of discussion. It is from God.'

All right, and what about the ordeal this family is going through now, for example—the incompatibility of their characters, the distress within their home? I am not speaking of just one family, or of Greece alone. I mean families abroad too: in England, America, Germany, and Cyprus. I have stacks of letters, and I am not exaggerating—whole bundles in folders sent from all over the world. People say, ‘We obeyed our spiritual father and did what he told us, but now we cannot go on like this.’ I ask, ‘What do you want?’ ‘For you to tell us what to do.’ But that is precisely asking me to perpetuate the problem. You became attached to someone, and now you say, ‘No, I do not want to be attached there; I want to be attached elsewhere.’ The point is not to become attached. Look at your life soberly, consider your problems calmly, and make your own decision.

With God’s help, with the help of your spiritual father, with enlightened prayer and his enlightened counsel—but you will make the decision. Do you know what I will do? I mean, what any spiritual father will do? When you have a cloud in front of you and cannot see through its fog, the spiritual father comes and blows and blows until the cloud clears. Then he says, ‘My child, can you see now? Wait, let me blow a little more, so you can see what lies ahead.’ What do you see? You are the one who must look. You will take responsibility for your life, so that whatever happens, you can take joy in it. Even if you fail, you can still say, ‘I failed because I tried. Because I struggled. Because I chose. I made a choice, and it failed.’ Who said that everyone’s choices, all our choices, would succeed?

Do you see? Is it so terrible to make a mistake in life? Who can guarantee—with such a high opinion of himself—that he will make a move and never make a mistake? This is something we ask of God. We pray to God, saying, ‘Lord, please help me not to make a mistake.’ But have we made mistakes? We have. Even people who wear themselves out in prayer keep making mistakes. They make choices that turn out quite differently from what they expected. How much worse when someone else then makes those choices and leaves you to bear them. Is your own life a matter of ‘We’ll take care of you before you do’? No, we are not talking about buying awnings for my house or installing locks or an alarm. Will you take care of me before I do? This is my own life. It is your life. It is your choice.

A few days ago I received a message: ‘Please, I don’t know whether I should start a family or not, become a monk or become a priest, stay in the world, go to the Holy Mountain, or go on a mission.’ All right, what do you expect from me? ‘Tell me what to do.’ That is something we all feel we need. I do not blame him for saying it, because I often feel that need myself.

It is like the little child I mentioned. He wants his mother to say, ‘Well done. You’re doing well.’ Yes, but at some point that child must grow up. People of God should help one another grow and mature. Of course, we must do that without malice, harshness, or a hard heart, but we must do it. Do you want me to tell you what you feel, to tell you what your calling is? I will pray that God enlightens your nous, your spiritual mind, and that the light of Christ comes to you.

“The light of Christ shines upon all.” That is what I will say for you: “The light of Christ shines upon all.” And when I say “pasi,” I mean “to everyone,” just as “Peace be to all” means peace to everyone. That is what “pasi” means. Do you know how “pasi” is written? If I asked you how it is written... I am not speaking to you, dear philologist! Many know that it is written with an iota, an alpha, another iota, and a circumflex, right? But very many do not know what “pasi” means in “Peace be to all.” It means peace to everyone; there are also “hoi pantes” (“all”) and “ton panton” (“of all”). Then there are “pasi” and “pason,” the feminine forms, and “pantas” in the accusative. So, peace to everyone. And that is what I will say: may peace and light come into the soul of this person who does not know what to do.

I do not make light of it. You and I, all of us, go through times when we feel trapped and cannot decide what to choose. At such a moment, our savior and benefactor is not someone who takes responsibility for our choice and our life. It is someone who says, ‘I will stand beside you. I will be a presence of love, a presence of prayer, a presence of support. But you must put your own will to work, listen to your deepest desire and the longing of your heart. You must listen within yourself, decide what to do, and rejoice in it. And if it turns out to be a mistake, at least you can say, “I tried, even though I got it wrong.”’ Has any child learned to write the alphabet correctly at once? Has anyone written the letter A just once, moved on to B, and been done with it?

How many exercise books did we fill? How many scribbles did we make? That is how life is: full of mistakes. Some people have the illusion that they, or their circle, will never make mistakes. I cannot say that. I have made many. I remember something Mr. Ganotis said that taught me a great deal. Sometimes you know a person only briefly, and they say two or three things that leave their mark on your soul. I asked him, ‘Who has been your greatest teacher? Which elder or spiritual father taught you and benefited you most?’ He answered, ‘My greatest teachers have been my mistakes—the mistakes I have made.’

‘I made many mistakes and had many failures. They taught me, helped me mature, and woke me up. They gave me whatever wisdom I now have to say something useful.’ Even then, I cannot claim that what I say is infallible. You might follow my advice and still make mistakes in your own life. We cannot escape mistakes. They will happen, even after we have prayed. That may sound strange, even irreverent, but it is not blasphemous. You pray, and it is as though God says, ‘Good, you have prayed. But do not grow proud and think everything will now go well because you prayed. You will struggle, and that struggle will include difficulties that I send you, though you see them as failures.’ They are part of the struggle too.

In his book, Saint Joseph the Hesychast describes praying about where on the Holy Mountain they should go. He moved from one place to another—New Skete, Little Saint Anne’s, and others. I cannot remember them all. He says that one night, as he prayed, God enlightened him: he saw a light of revelation and heard, ‘You will go there.’ Then, three pages later, he describes the temptations, problems, difficulties, and upheaval they faced there. He says he realized it had been the wrong choice. Listen to that! I turned back a few pages to compare. Earlier he had said he prayed and God enlightened him to go there. And I thought, ‘Father, forgive me, but how does that fit together?’

Forgive me, but you said you prayed there for God to enlighten you. A little later, everything went wrong. What kind of prayer was that? Did God enlighten you or not?

Do you see what I mean? All sorts of things happen even in the best households, to the best people, even to great saints. They do not pray because they expect their lives to be free of trouble, setbacks, and problems. They pray because they want God with them in everything they do: ‘Lord, be with me even in my mistakes and wrong choices.’

I was still deeply puzzled. How could God Himself give you an answer, only for that answer to lead, before long, to such upheaval that you are shaken and say, ‘Let’s leave this place; it was a mistake’? You might look to Christ and say, ‘Lord, forgive me, but did what You told me the other day no longer hold true? I wasn’t asking You what I should eat tomorrow, so that You could say, “All right, what does one day matter?” You told me to move, take my belongings, and make a new home, and now You tell me, “Get up and leave this place”?’ ‘Yes,’ He says, ‘that is what I am telling you.’

Things like that happen. So take responsibility for your life. Grow stronger little by little; mature. If you cannot manage that yet, do what you can. People do not change by force, and I cannot change you. I have not made any astonishing changes within myself either. But some things make you stop and think. Many people have helped me by letting me make mistakes. They could see the mistakes coming, yet they did not frighten me. Once I asked someone, ‘If you knew what I was about to do was a mistake, why didn’t you tell me?’ He said, ‘You would not have understood at the time. I could see that. I could also see how much you wanted to make that choice then. So you would make it, and we would trust God with what followed.’

He told me, ‘Put your hope in God, and give it a try.’ ‘But it turned out to be a mistake,’ I said. ‘So what if it did? You can put it right.’ Once you understand that, you become more at ease with yourself and with others.

You grow kinder and more forgiving. You look at people warmly and say, ‘Have you ever made a mistake?’ ‘Oh, many!’ I have made mistakes too. Then we can bear with one another and see how much we share, especially our setbacks and problems. Something taught me a great deal in 1990, at a camp in Kalamata. A man there—not the camp leader, but another person with responsibility in the Church, a mature spiritual man—said to me, ‘I have made a great many mistakes.’

‘And I have even harmed children by what I told them,’ he said. ‘I have made mistakes,’ he said. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing, but it turned out I had made mistakes.’ That taught me a great deal. He fell in my estimation because of what he said, and at the same time rose greatly in my esteem. He fell in my estimation because I had thought of him as an authority. But he rose greatly in my esteem because he put me at ease, and I thought to myself, ‘Since Mr. So-and-so has made mistakes and yet is such a fine person...’

It means that even admirable people make mistakes. So you too, dear lady, good as you are, sometimes lose your temper. All right—it doesn't matter; you lose your temper too. Many good people can lose their temper. Don't try to suppress it by saying, ‘There is nothing wrong with me. Everyone else is to blame. I will admit nothing about myself.’ Admit it, and say, ‘Yes, I am what one woman calls me: I'm hysterical, I'm hysterical, and I take it out on my children.’

What are you saying? I love you so much!

You're hysterical, and I don't love you at all when you're not at all hysterical but are the flawless lady, the flawless Christian who never makes mistakes, who is always in good form, always composed and serene—until someone, as someone used to say, steps on your tail. When they step on your tail where it hurts, of course it isn't in front of me. It happens when I'm away, when the people who applaud you when you need them are away, and you're at home in private with your children, your mother-in-law, your neighbors, your brothers and sisters, your cousins. Then this smiling, devout lady brings out her claws and says such things that you wonder, ‘Where did all that carefully maintained piety and kindness go? Where did it go? Where did it disappear?’

These things happen for our good. They help us see who we are and come to know ourselves. That is the answer Saint Paisios gave me on the Holy Mountain when I met him in 1990. Thank you, Vasilis, for the musical breaks you have played, and for the last one you are about to play before I finish what I have to say. The number is 4118602.

With the area code, of course, the station’s phone number is 210-4118-640. And Vasilis, play something lovely of your own. Vasilis has released some wonderful CDs: “The Blues of My Soul,” “Blues in the Plagal Mode,” other CDs of Byzantine music in English for English speakers and people living abroad, for friends and acquaintances, and more beautiful music of his own. Thank you so much for your good wishes and for telling me how much you have benefited from the two books we’ve published, “Strengthen Your Soul”

and “Love Forever.” Some episodes of “Unseen Passages” have been put into writing. Thank you for your kind words. This program will be rebroadcast in a few hours—or rather, in a few days—and you’ll be able to find it online if you look for it. After Vasilis’s final musical break, I’ll tell you what Saint Paisios said to me. It is very important for understanding God and humility, and it relates to everything we’ve been discussing today.

That was lovely, Vasilis, truly lovely. Thank you so much. I don’t regret choosing you as my assistant and colleague. Now, when I met Saint Paisios in 1990, I asked him, “Father, how can we acquire humility?” Supposedly I was concerned with such lofty matters as humility. Well, I was only a youngster. Perhaps I just wanted to sound clever. If someone had asked me what humility was, I wouldn’t have known. At first he gave me a playful example. “We ought to hold a march in Syntagma Square,” he said, “with signs saying, ‘Down with the grammarians!’” I said, “Father, I don’t see what that has to do with humility.” “How could it not?” he asked. “You know the personal pronouns in Greek, don’t you?” I said, “What about them?”

“Tell me the personal pronouns,” Father said. “What are they?” “I, you, he, we, you, they.” “Well done! See where you started? ‘I.’ The very first thing you said was ‘I.’ The grammarians are to blame for putting ‘I’ first. It ought to go last. We should say: ‘you, he, we, you, they, I.’ ‘I’ at the end! That’s what our march in Syntagma Square should be about: ‘Down with grammar!’” I haven’t seen that example in any of the books about Saint Paisios published so far. He told it to me, and I loved it. Then he said, “Let me give you a more spiritual answer now, one drawn more directly from the life of the Church.”

We acquire humility through self-knowledge. It’s a word with both spiritual and psychological meaning, a word that reaches into every part of life. I need to understand myself, my true self. I need to understand the person close to me, but first I need to understand myself. If I do, I’ll be able to understand you, because you’re much like me. I sometimes tire of talking with people, and I can get angry with someone; so can you. If I recognize my own irritability, I’ll understand yours and be able to forgive you. If I see that I’m jealous because I feel inadequate, or envious because I’m afraid, or that I’m angry—if I understand what is happening inside me, the forces at work, my desires, and what pushes me one way or another—then I’ll be able to understand you too.

All the ways we hurt one another—and I began today by talking about how harsh we can be with each other—spring from a deep ignorance of what is going on inside ourselves.

We don’t know ourselves. We hide as though there were no problem. We fool ourselves about so many things. We barely even touch the real issues. We say one thing is troubling us when something else is troubling us altogether. I remember a woman preoccupied with the salvation of the whole world, with when the world will end and whether a third world war is about to begin. Yet there has been a third world war in her own home for years. She doesn’t speak to her children, her husband, or her mother-in-law, and then she talks to you about when the signs of the Apocalypse will appear. I want to say to her, “Is there anything more revealing

than what’s happening in your own home? Doesn’t that concern you? You worry about what will happen across the whole world, but why can’t you see what is happening under your own roof?” That’s what I mean. We fail to see the real problems in our lives. We focus elsewhere and talk about other things. What saddens me is that all this happens within the Church, under God’s care, in the sacred space of the church building and around it. We are people of God. Shouldn’t we be the most genuine and honest people, willing to look truthfully at ourselves? Yet there are others more honest and more genuine than we are.

Some of them never set foot in church. Vasilis is telling me it’s time to finish; we’ve gone over, so please forgive me. Someone told me about a young man in northern Greece who died of cancer. A great crowd came from all around the region—perhaps two thousand people. My immediate question was, “Was he very involved in the Church?” “No,” I was told, “not at all. But he had something about him that drew everyone close.” I fell quiet. At first it bothered me: he wasn’t ‘one of ours,’ as we sometimes say. But no, my dear friend. Christ teaches us that sometimes others give us lessons in sincerity, humility, honesty, self-knowledge, and knowledge of God that we ourselves can hardly imagine.

We need humility. And I’m sure this program alone hasn’t changed things: you’ve been listening for years, and the problems at home are still there. I can see it in the calls you’ve made and the emails you’ve sent. One young woman wrote, “I listen, I cry, I’m moved, and I manage a ‘Lord, have mercy on me.’ I can’t do much more.”

I accept that, and it’s beautiful: a humble admission, a humble acceptance of my weakness, and a plea for God’s mercy, so that God’s strength may truly be seen to be made perfect in weakness. Do you understand those ancient words? God works through our poverty and hardship. So love your husband, love your children, and speak more gently and humbly. Don’t sulk or dig in your heels—and don’t say as many ‘don’ts’ as I’ve just said! All these ‘don’ts’—but I have to tell you these things. Let’s change a few practical things. Let’s stop hurting each other and bleeding in our homes, all right? Take that practical point with you. Strength to you, and all the best as you go on. Vasilis, thank you so much. Thank you to Phoebe for answering the phones and receiving your messages. Thank you so much for your love. My greetings to everyone, wherever you are.

Take care, and we’ll speak again next week. Goodbye, my dear friends.