I’m tired, sad, perplexed, sometimes angry, and not a whole lot make sense right now. I wish things were different but they’re not. In other words I’m grieving.
Yet I’m not going to give up on Orthodoxy. I’m not going to stop serving where I can. Even if I’m not sure which people I can trust I know I can trust God. Though I’m not sure I like Church right now I know where its been and where, eventually, it is going and so I hope to stay close. Somewhere along the line the things which look so dark and hazy at the present will clear up and the best I can do right now is keep my face towards the Light and try to move towards morning.
I’ve been serving people in ministry for a quarter century and I can only think of a few times that I have felt as overwhelmed as these past days. Yet I know from all those years that God’s good cannot be denied and weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning. I’m learning again that princes of any kind are seldom worth my complete trust but God is and in my prayers, my silences, my perplexities, my angry moments and whatever is to come there will be a still small voice with the directions to help me find my way home.
Lord give me the faith to see wherever You are and the courage to follow.
The Beautiful Path 
I’ve been at “ministry” for 40 years now. I’ve been through the darkness of Church schisms, beat downs by episcopacies, firings, marginalization, outright persecution, slander, involuntary and voluntary exile, lied to, used, abused, and manipulated. In all of it I longed for light. This is what I know now: “Ministry” isn’t what you do at an altar for a particular bishop, within the walls of a Church. Do you wish to see God? It is seeing Christ in every person you meet in the present moment, and following Him to the Cross, sacrificing your life to them, one second at a time in the name of Christ our Savior. Do this, with or without a collar, and you will live. As a bishop once told me: You don’t need a “blessing” to be a Christian. Forgive my presumption.
LikeLike