This is a very difficult post to write.

I and my Bishop have the pleasure of speaking at least twice a week, if not more, and of course we correspond nearly daily. The benefit of this is that my formation, while irregular by orthodox standards, has the benefit of being immediate, individual, intimate and nearly, but not entirely, focused on my personal spiritual journey, while keeping extremely close watch on my physical, emotional, and psychic states of being. In all, it is extremely holistic. As a result, the emotional turmoil that priestly formtion causes have been greatly ameliorated.

And there has been turmoil of nearly every sort. And, I thought thta I was nearly through it all--not turmoil per se, but the particular turmoil of this part of my formationin life. Actually, in a way, what happened this week signalled an end to my priestly formation, and began my formation AS a priest--although actual ordination is still a few months off, or perhaps longer.

But what has happened is that I am now confronted, by my own intuition and reasoning, by inspiriation, and by discussions with my Bishop, by the actual needs of the church, by my own limitations and state in life, and by what the WILL of God is for me right now--as concerns my entire life and as concerns my ministry as priest and religious.

I had thought that I would be immediately able to 'help people' in that amorphous, social-worker style of 'helping' that the world legitimizes. You know, start a small home parish, begin an outreach ministry (I want to minister to youth). These are the things that are the 'hallmarks' of being a priest and religious, right? Aren't they the reasons I 'signed up' for this?

No. They aren't. And I knew it at the time, but I clung to those ideas because, frankly, it is all I knew exoterically, and besides, being unaligned with Rome or Constantinople and working under a new Patriarchate, it helped me feel more normal.

But even that is taken from me. My Bishop warned me that the closer I came to Holy Orders, the less of me there would be, more of me would be sloughing off, sometimes tearing into living flesh, sometimes easy, like shedding dead skin. This time it feels like giving away a precous part of my soul.

God is demanding that I work behind the scenes right now. That's the bottom line. I wanted glory and churches and fame (of a sort). I know, they aren't very holy aspirations, but let's just be honest. At least having a parish, working in prisons, etc., I would 'be' more as I would see my reflection in more people. That was my secret storehouse. And Jesus tells me---leave your barns behind, "Follow me."

And he is leading me into a place that tears into me, that reaches into me and touches the hurt place, the secret place I thught he would not discover, despite my prayers that I be completely united with him. It's laughable. Like a child 'hiding' behind a tree. So easy to catch.

So, He asks me to stay at home. He asks me to work in my secular jobs. I have the ability to work two full-time jobs, and my family needs the money, and, if I progress as I believe I can, I'll be able to support my family, fix our financial dilemmas, and even support our nascent Church.

Somehow, I thought perhaps that my priestly vocation would exempt me from facing the brutal realities of my financial hardships. Somehow all would be fixed. Well, somehow it will--but by facing them head on, and not wishing them away with cotton-candy-feaux-holiness.

So, my parish is one of five--my immediate family, and only them. And so it will remain for the time being. My ministry to children will consist of three-my own three. All the rest is deferred. My hopes and fantasies about them all not taken away, but left behind for now. Jesus leads me down a dirt road covered with high green trees, making a long, long straight arbor through which I must walk. And I am a tent-maker, but without the job and heartache of public ministry.

I am crying as I write this. Because I know it is the right thing, but it is yet another hope deferred. He has given me priesthood as a gift, but withheld what I thought it would be. And so, the pain that this mortal life brings me remains unabated. My soul is made ever more healed, but the tears are ever on my pillow.

In a way, this is all to the good. The average seminarian in the orthodox spends 6, 8 years in formation. We do not have such a timeline. So I will be blessed with the grace of celebrating Eucharist, but the rest of the vocation, the external ministry, is 'contra-indicated' for me. Not forbidden, just not the road that Jesus would have me travel. So, I submit, I accept, I humble myself.

I took a vow of obedience of course, and my Bishop is also my Abbot and Prior. Yet, still he does not command me to focus on my secuarl work and building up finances, but he suggests it may be best for me. And, I took a personal vow, deeper and more sacred even than my external vow, that I would take the merest wish of my Abbott as my law. And so, I embrace it.

Tears are flowing even now as I write this. For following Jesus is far more intimate, far more sensual, far more dangerous, far more painful, far more wondrous, far more devastating, far more demanding, than I ever imagined. O Holy Virgin! Catch me as I fall. I fall into death from the cross I would willing have stayed upon. Yet, for only 3 hours was our Lord permitted to suffer--would he not have stayed 3 weeks!? Would he not have gladly stayed there and perhaps brought tens of millions to God in that way? Yet, it was contra-indicated. The way closest to the heart of the Father was an unnaturally short period of suffering, then the deposition and burial. I lay my body in the arms of my Mother and Nichodemus. Protect me, I pray, all you holy saints. For my road is dark. My eyes are blinded by grief and tears, my heart is heavy, so that it bears me down to the ground. Yet, my body walks erect, head high. I do not know how it does so, yet it does. And I must hurry to catch up and remain with it.

All you my friends, pray with me that I stay in the hands of God. And weep with me. I again more intimately realize that every glory that God holdsbefore us is teh sugar that goes with the medicine--and the medicine, the medicine is bitter unto death.