Three times the thought came to me to write to you, and three times I waited. The fourth time it overcame me. A beautiful victory this time, because my heart was filled with joy.
Perhaps you, too, are experiencing the same joy. Perhaps you, too, are writing with tears in your eyes and that smile at the corner of your lips, knowing you are beyond the screen. I feel you! It is something extraordinary, something I cannot describe! As I often read from you, it is a feeling of fulfillment. Yes, I know, in Christ we should experience this feeling, but what unites us, if not He Himself? How can you speak with those whose faces you don't know, and yet rejoice? How can you feel the freedom to describe the deepest parts of your heart to “strangers,” if not for Christ, the One who “gathers all things”? That is why almost everything I put on paper is with and about you. I simply feel that I am here, with you, always. I discover that some of you are artists, others doctors, others priests, others teachers, or simple people like me, and that's it. And yet, I still write... I write to you. I lay before you the deepest experience of my heart, and I feel at peace.
An acquaintance who reads what I write here once asked me: “Why are all subjects related to the church? Why do you view every event in your life through this prism?” I didn't know how to answer, because I didn't expect such a deep concern. Is it because Orthodoxy is not just a simple garment that you hang on a hook during the week, and then put on your shoulders on Sunday to enter the church with it? I don't know. What I do know is that I cannot imagine my life otherwise. And, yes! Oh, yes, I laugh, I dance, I enjoy life! Sometimes I argue and get annoyed! My husband knows I speak the truth. Without this, I would feel an immense emptiness. No, I don't see “temptation” in everything; I also see my own weakness, my own nature that (still) struggles.
Then someone else asked me: “Jenica, why do you write? What do you expect from people?” I paused for a moment, because again I didn't know what to answer. And so, in silence, I found that smile at the corner of my lips again, knowing you are behind the screens. This joy of yours (which you sometimes show through messages) fills me with joy too. Because “by giving you shall receive,” right? That's what Monk Nicolae used to say.
I once asked Father Damaschin Grigoriatul, with whom we have had a very strong connection for many years: “Geronda, why does man feel the need for man?”
Do you know what he answered? “Those who are full of Christ no longer feel that need, but they are rare. And those who feel this know that nothing comes from them, but it is His gift! And if they no longer need man, it is because they no longer remember him. They always thank Christ for His great love. We, the rest, still have need, because through man sometimes comes joy…”
And then he told me: “Have you never felt that your heart is cold as ice? That you have no desire for prayer, for anything? And, being in that fallen state, to see an old woman crossing the street. A simple old woman, bent over, and your heart suddenly fills with tenderness? Well, that is Christ! The One who doesn't leave you frozen!”
...Ah! I just remembered something funny! I'm writing to you to stop myself from crying! One summer, many, many years ago, I found out that Father Damaschin had never eaten ice cream! My husband and I were in the car, heading to a conference location, and as we were stopped at a traffic light, an ice cream truck pulled up next to us. You know those trucks with colorful cones drawn on them. And Geronda asks me: “Țenica, what is this frozen thing? I mean, do you eat ice?!”
My first reaction was to laugh as if at a good joke. But the next second, I realized he... truly didn't know! I thought to myself: perhaps it's a language, a cultural difference – the Father being Greek. And then, my husband suggested we stop at the first gas station, where we went straight to the freezer. I bought Gheronda an ice cream on a stick, unwrapped it for him, and… I started to cry. Both I and my husband. We simply couldn't stop ourselves seeing the joy and wonder on the Father's face. A grandfather with a white beard, nearly 70 years old, a missionary in Africa since the '70s... so a traveler... and yet, he had never thought of himself. He hadn't wanted to understand what an ice cream was. Was it because Christ was already in his heart, and he no longer needed any other sweetness?…
Jenica Gavrilă
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