The past days were hectic. The little city hermit had been packing, distributing his property here, sending a few boxes back to Greece and trying to pick up the pieces of his broken heart. Now, all is done. A search of a home and a family again begins. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” I now have only my Gerondas and my spiritual family in His Uncreated Church. “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” What remains to be done in my last week here is a pilgrimage to Walsingham to take leave of Our Lady. Then, I am praying for a Baptism in the Uncreated Fire of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Finally, I am craving for a long retreat into silence. “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I am asking for your prayers and will pray for all of you. May we meet again in God’s kairos.
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE 
I will desperately miss your posts. Please do not take down your blog. Please leave it as a continuing resource as articles are reread or newly discovered. Thank you for all you have done. May God grant you many years.
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Dear Melissa Bishop, thank you for your kind words. No, I am not planning to take down my blog. It is just that right now, I am exhausted and I am not sure at all when/ if I will resume and at which frequency. I too will miss all of you. You all are part of my family and I will carry all of you in my heart and keep you in my prayers wherever I go. I just need time and quiet before/ if I go public again. Love and poor prayers in Christ.
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May the Lord be with you and restore all that is needed to your soul!
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I had to look up “Walsingham” and found the following:
“Walsingham is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and is a major pilgrimage centre. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.”
I learned something new about the church as Io have done for as long as I have been receiving your blog. You will be missed (a lot) and I, along with Melissa, will anxiously await your restoration of you blog in the hopefully near future. God be with and bless you.
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Thank you for your encouraging words. All in God’s kairos. I think by the end of October I should be able to resume blogging but all is in God’s Hands. Until we meet again, may our Lord keep you in the palm of His Hand.
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And I thank you for encouraging words and for your prayers. I am in a good situation myself, less than half a mile from the Monastery of the Theotokos, The Life-Giving Spring in Dunlap, California. The sisterhood continually prays for my wife and me; in fact some months ago I was at deaths door and without the care of the wonderful medical staff at a local hospital and more importantly the prayers of our Gerondissa Markella and the sisterhood, I would now be interred in our monastery graveyard awaiting the Second Coming of our Lord. Glory to God.
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Amazing! Indeed in a very good situation! Restored to life and health! What does this experience feel? And less than half a mile from the monastery?!! Was that ”chance” or purpose?
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My wife retired as a 1st grade teacher in about 1999 and i retired as a college professor in 2003. We were living in Merced, CA near an OCA church but, we started looking for a retirement location preferrably near a monastery; we initially looked for a place near the monastery where now Metropolitan Jonah was the abbott, but couldn’t afford land or a house on the California coast so we settled near the Greek monastery in Dunlap in 2002. We moved and I drove to my teaching assignment 105 miles one way for about six months before i could retire. We have been living near the monastery since that time and have been very involved in the progression from a house (as a monastery) to the current beautiful monastery that Gerondissa Markella with the help of the sisters, and the local (church) community that has come into being here and also includes the many visitors, and the clergy that have been involved. The monastery was brought about through the joint endeavors of +Metropolitan Anthony and of course, the Panaghia.
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Amazing!! And well done! What a blessing to come to such a decision together with your wife!! Do you know that this is precisely my plan, purpose and dream too (if Gerondes give the blessing) but sadly the time is not right yet. I still have lots of « projects » and « missions » to undertake in the world … What you have experienced must be fascinating and a true balm and blessing to your souls. May our Lord richly bless you! I am truly most joyful for you! If you live practically inside a monastery and share so intimately its life, fellowship, holiness and love, what did my poor blog have to offer to you? My love and poor prayers
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