A few years ago, I was returning from Poligyros, Halkidiki,
where I had taken some customers. On the way back, I passed through a village
where construction crews were laying asphalt. I didn’t pay close attention to
the detour signs, and the road I took brought me to a dead end and to the very
last homes of the village before I realized that I had made a mistake. As I was
backing out, an elderly man came out of his house, looked at me somewhat
puzzled, and asked, “Where are you going, my lad? You can't get out from here.
It’s a dead end.”
“I see it, but I realized it a little too late.”
“One moment; are you going to Thessaloniki?”
“Yes, I am”.
“Can you take me along? I was just about ready to walk to
the bus station to take the bus.”
“Very gladly; come on in."
“How much will it cost me?”
“Get in, blessed one, and don’t worry. I will charge you the same amount you would
have paid for the bus ticket.”
Once he entered the taxi, the conservation centered on the new
asphalt and the workers who were completing the road. He introduced himself to
me as the former president of the village, who was currently retired. I couldn’t
help notice that every time I tried to start a conversation topic, the
president would skillfully shift the discussion to political parties and their
agendas. He was so well versed and confident in his political beliefs, as if politics
were the only possible way to solve the problems of the world.
At some moment, I interrupted his monologue and said to him,
“Mr. President, I have been listening to you for some time now. So I will ask
you, in the spirit of democracy which you seem to espouse, that you also give
me a few minutes of your time to offer you my humble opinion. After you hear
it, you can reject it if you wish. It is your inalienable right; but for now, please
listen to me, and try to overlook the fact that I may be thirty to forty years
younger than you.
“In order for this country to go forward, it truly needs a
radical change. This change will never come from the political arena and
ideological party ranks because this same show has been on stage for decades
now. We are sick and tired of being served the same reheated meal. Personally,
I’m very sad when I see people so divided by political parties and fanatically
attached to their political convictions. So, Mr. President, if we really want
to see real change, each of us must personally seek it and cultivate it inside himself,
first. First, we must change, Mr. President, before we expect others to do so.
For this to happen, we will have to get our dusty New Testament down from the
shelves or the iconostas,[1] in
order to study it and hear the voice of the Lord that says, “Without me you are able to do nothing”
(John 15:5). Unless we understand this, we will not accomplish anything
worthwhile. When the Lord himself assures us that without His will nothing
happens, then we cannot speak about any significant change, but only about some
patchwork.”
“You are right, my lad, you really are right. I tend to agree
with you because I also happen to be a religious individual. Saying that, I can
also say that my family may not go to church every Sunday; but I have made it
four times to the Holy Land and venerated Christ’s All-Holy Tomb. I was also
baptized in the Jordan River.”
“Mr. President, can I ask you a personal question? with good
intentions and out of love, of course.”
“Ask me whatever you want, my lad.”
“Do you take Holy Communion?”
“Why
of course, I commune every Pascha,[2]
Christmas, and all the great feasts.”
“Have you ever gone to confession with sincere repentance?”
“No, I have never done this; it’s the only thing which I
have not done, and I am very much afraid that I will never get to it.”
“Then, believe me, you have done absolutely nothing. Forgive
me if I am upsetting you, but if you do not participate in the sacrament of confession,
you don’t commune, and you don’t believe as you say. Not four, but even if you
go fourteen times to the Holy Land, you will be ruining the soles of your shoes
and wasting your money for nothing.”
“Hey! Why are you saying this now?”
“Because it is not a difficult matter for us to open our
mouth to take Holy Communion, not to mention that it doesn’t cost us anything.
But we have much difficulty in opening our heart to admit our faults and our
sins so all the collected debris can come out; only then, with a clean
conscience, and properly prepared, can we partake of the Body and Blood of
Christ.
“People run today to various pilgrimages, and they do well,
of course. They go to Jerusalem, to Panaghia of Tinos, to St. Raphael [Nicholas
and Eirini], and many times we hear them saying, ‘At such-and-such pilgrimage a
miraculous icon shed tears.’ Yes, some of our icons truly shed tears. However,
did we shed even one tear for our sinfulness, Mr. President? We shed many tears
in this life: we cry for our family, our children, our grandchildren, our
finances, and our failures; life can be full of tears. Yet very rarely do we
shed even one tear for our own sinfulness, and this is a result of our
spiritual bankruptcy. That’s why today’s man toils in vain, and then he
amputates himself by his bad choices, because he refuses to hear the voice of
God: “Without me you are not able to do anything.’"
“You know, my dear Thanasi, I cannot truly express to you
how much your words have touched my heart. For years now, I remember myself
expounding political speeches from various podiums and from balconies of houses,
attracting and convincing people that my party will bring a better tomorrow.
Unfortunately, you are right. The promises for a better tomorrow have not
materialized from any one of our political parties. I admit it, because I believe there is still
some integrity left inside of me. The strange thing is that all my life I was
doing the speaking, and others were listening. Today, however, I heard things that
I have never heard before. Perhaps you can also answer this question that has
been torturing me for many years now. Why does God allow some of his children, the
faithful people who are members of the Church, to be tried so much?”
“You know, Mr. President, an apostle once asked the Lord the
same question about the man born blind. He asked, ‘“Rabbi, who sinned for him
to be born blind, he or his parents?” Jesus answered, “Neither did he sin, nor his parents but so that the works of God could
be revealed in him”’ (John 9:2-3).
“We cannot, of course, give precise answers to the volitions
and works of God, because the works of God cannot be judged by our human minds.
The volitions of the Lord are untraceable. If we take a beautiful fragrant herb,
such as basil, for example, and we rub its leaves in our hands, its fragrance
is not only sensed by us but by all those around us, don’t you agree? Unless it
is crumbled a bit, it does not release its fragrance. Likewise, God allows his
faithful servants to be tested, like a refiner tests gold through fire, so that
those around them can be spiritually benefited. If the farmer doesn’t trim the
vineyard, it does not produce fruits. If the incense does not sit on the lit
charcoal, it will not offer a sweet fragrance. Afflictions are the active
presence of God’s love. These are some of the reasons why God allows these
pedagogical disciplines in order for his faithful children to be tried, so that
even the indifferent ones can take heed and profit spiritually. I will now
share with you some things from my personal life experience, Mr. President.
“For years, I was
living in indifference and sin. I frequented cafés for many years, as both a single
and married man, wasting my time. A childhood quadriplegic friend of mine was a
frequent patron at one cafe. Every Monday afternoon, he would plead with me to
take him to some sermon to hear the Word of God. It was only five minutes away.
Since I had a close relationship with him, I had no trouble telling him, ‘Why
should I? Can’t you see I am in the middle of an important backgammon game? Get
someone else to take you.’ Unfortunately, no one wanted to take him. The
paralytic would humbly lower his head deeply saddened, missing many sermons for
many years. However, he prayed for everyone there at the café and much more so
for me, saying, “My dear Christ, please help my friend Thanasi to meet You, to
believe You, to love You, because he does not know You, Lord."
“It seems that his prayer was heard one winter afternoon in
1992. I decided to go ahead and take my quadriplegic friend to the sermon at
the small chapel of Saint Theodore, with the understanding that I would simply
drop him off and go. Upon entering the church, I saw people of all age groups
piously observing the speaker who had just begun. I settled the paralytic in a
corner. Then, I sat in the first row convincing myself to stay for only five
minutes. I was curious to see why all these people chose to waste their time there.
The sermon was about repentance. It was like a megaton bomb. The speaker's
words were dripping like honey, and like a double-edged sword, they pierced my
heart. I began wiping my tears with both hands. I left the front row quickly
and went to the back seats, but there, the same thing happened. Carefully
listening to the speaker and thinking of all my sinfulness, I wanted to shout
with all the strength of my soul inside that little church, “My Christ, you had
his sermon for me on hold for so many years!’ Those five minutes in 1992, at
that moment, added up to many years, and to this day, together with my
paralytic friend, we observe the same speaker, who has become our most beloved
teacher.[3]
“Please, tell me, Mr. President, who was the real paralytic?
Who helped whom? he who was pushing the wheelchair for five hundred yards, or the
one praying for me for many years while in his wheelchair?”
I didn’t even manage to finish my last word, when a kind of
earthquake occurred in the heart of the president. He stopped listening to me
because he had placed his hand on his forehead and began crying with sobs and
wailing so much, that for a moment I became afraid. It is not very common to
see a 75-80-year-old white-haired man crying so much. After he wiped and
re-wiped his tears, giving me a thousand blessings and thanksgivings, I told
him, “Now I think we can both see, Mr. President, the reason why the taxi
entered your dead-end street?” I wish I hadn’t said that because he began
crying again like a little infant, worse than the first time; he then fell into
my embrace and told me, “Can I kiss you, my dear Thanasi?”
“Of course,” and now we began crying together, embracing
each other for quite a while.
After
he recovered from the great intoxication of tears, he told me, “Thanasi, I will
celebrate this day every year, and I mean every
year, because today is my real
birthday. I give you my word that as soon as get off, I will go to Holy Confession.”
O dear Lord, what beautiful, heavenly words, came out of a contrite and humbled
heart that had just decided to implement those things we spoke about! Let's reflect a bit to see how this taxi
driver took a wrong turn and arrived at a dead end. Do you think he came across
the last house of the village by chance? Was it a mere coincidence? Not so,
because Christians don’t believe in coincidences, nor in luck, but only in the
providence of God. Besides, the Lord himself assures us, “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Not even one will
fall of them, without the will of my father” (Luke 12:7). Not even one hair
or one leaf falls from the tree, if His love does not allow it. So, I close
this story and invite you to remember the final words of the president, that if
God grants me, I will share with my grandchildren one day: “Thanasi, on this
day I will celebrate every year-believe me every year-because today is my real
birthday." The question is, how many of us celebrate or even remember such
spiritual birthdays?
[1] Prayer screen or icon stand.
[2] The Jewish Passover, was a foreshadowing
of Christ’s Passover from Death to Life, His glorious Resurrection from the
dead-the greatest Feast of the Church: Great and Holy Pascha.
[3] The teacher was the late lay theologian
and preacher Panagiotis Panagiotides of
Thessaloniki.
Used by permission of CZ, www.saintnicodemos.org
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