Returning to Where it all Began
The place was just as I’d remembered it, with the cabin still the same color my grandfather had chosen, and Priest Lake, with the snow capped mountains off in the distance, and the little island just off shore, just as tranquil as the first time I had walked on that beach, soon after my grandparents had purchased the property from the Idaho Department of Forestry. I remember camping in a tent, while my grandfather began clearing trees, and selecting the site where he’d build his lake home.
The photo of me standing next to the dock is especially meaningful for me, for it was this dock that served as my special place of solitude as a sixteen year old. I would spend hours sitting in a deck chair, alone, praying, and reading the Bible and theological works. It was on this dock that I first experienced the contemplative life, and sensed God calling me to be a monk.
This beach overwhelmed me with memories of my youth, for it was here where I first felt the desire to wear a black robe, and live a life that would be focused on communing with God. It was this place where God first instilled in me a desire to spend my future in solitude, prayer, and community, as a monk. No longer a sixteen year old with dreams, but a seventy-seven year old monk, wearing that black robe, and gazing out at the beauty that first instilled in me a desire to live a life in communion with God.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Tuesday November 15, 2022 / November 2, 2022
23rd Week after Pentecost. Tone five.
Martyrs Acindynus, Pegasius, Aphthonius, Elpidephorus, and Anempodistus of Persia (341).
New Hieromartyrs Constantine and Anania priests (1918).
New Hieromartyrs Bishop Victorin and Priest Basil Luzgin of Glazomicha (1918).
Venerable Marcian of Cyrrhus (388).
“Shuiu-Smolensk” Wonderworking Icon of the Mother of God (1654-1655).
Blessed Cyprian of Storozhev, former outlaw (Olonets) (16th c.).
St. Erc, bishop of Slane, Ireland (512) (Celtic & British).
St. Anthony the Confessor, archbishop of Thessalonica (844).
Women-Martyrs Cyriaca, Domnina and Domna (Greek).
Martyrs of senatorial rank beheaded under Marcus Aurelius (Greek).
The Scripture Readings
1 Thessalonians 1:6-10
6 And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. 8 For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. 9 For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Luke 11:34-41
34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
Woe to the Pharisees and Lawyers
37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.