Christ Is Risen!

I can’t sleep (SSDD (Dreamcatcher, The Kingdom will know)). I guess it’s to be expected, as by nature, I’m a night person, and the last nine-ish days have been quite busy, and I’ve been staying up way late(r).

But every Lent, even before I was a priest, has had its difficulties. And this Lent continued the trend. But the journey we take with Lent, culminating with Holy Week and Pascha, contributes to our growth, and I feel I grew in the past 40+ days.

I remember last year’s Holy Saturday when I found out after the Vesperal Liturgy of the Protoanastasi that my old friend Teebs had died the day before. I called a friend of mine in BC – Teebs’ cousin – and got confirmation of the worst. I’ve had more than a few old friends pass, and I often wonder why the rest of us from my old friend group are still here. I like to think that the good die young, that those of us still here need more time to repent. God knows that I, a horrible sinner, still do.

Time moves fast. I was lost, but then I found Christ in the Orthodox Church, and now I’m blessed with the responsibility for my daughter, to teach her who Christ is, to lead her to the Light, and to show her The Way. It’s truly a weird feeling to look back at everything, the brutal absurdity of the journey from darkness to Christ, to look back and say, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Weird also still to think I and my Presvytera are converts, but our daughter is a cradle Greek Orthodox Christian. We make plans, but God laughs – it is for us to humble ourselves and follow His plan no matter where it takes us, and no matter what it costs us.

I was baptized on Holy Saturday, 2011, and every year, I think back to that night, knowing how different life could be and how lost I could be.

Yet here we are.

Christ Is Risen!

I wish I could reach everyone I’ve encountered along the way – those born Orthodox, those searching, and those who couldn’t care less – and tell them all: there is Light at the end of the tunnel. The Light shines in the darkness and the darknes does not understand. καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. Do we understand? There is a choice we must make, to keep going the wrong way, or to humble ourselves and correct course. Never easy, but then again, anything easy is never actually worth doing.

I remember the visceral feeling when I read Teebs’ obituary, but one line stood out to me like a bout of retrocognition: “Tyler’s formative years were spent on his Grandmother Betty Wiebe’s farm, where he and many of his friends forged cherished memories that would last a lifetime.” I know who wrote that obituary, and God bless you, as that is an amazing, beautiful and PG way of saying what needed to be said.

God bless you, Betty, and forgive us for all the worry we put you through.

Reflecting back on the Lent, Holy Week and Pascha of 2024 and 2025, what I know is that life is a strange and odd journey up the mountain, and although many of us – baptized Orthodox or not – waste our time in sensory pursuits and choose instead to sit still and make no progress, or worse yet to get off the mountain and enter the swamp – God’s mercy is greater than our ignorance and our indifference. And thank God because, for me, that is far too often far too true.

“I’m okay, but kinda upset

Told my mum I’m doing my best

It’s too late to go and get rest

So I’m gonna live in my head” -Hazlett