"Every person in our epoch...

"...is overburdened.

Don't forget what I have already written to you:

'The curse of our age is haste.' "

~Elder Sophrony to his sister Maria

in Letters to His Family

(picture is the quotation as I wrote it in my

reading-journal).

***

I have been pondering this and finding

it gives consolation and compassion to others.

a revelation of the suffering of the whole world

I loved these words, 

from Archimandrite Sophrony's Letters to His Family.

***

Upon reading these, 

I found myself thinking back to when I was in Ottawa,

looking for work, running out of money and getting sick.

This was a very pivotal time in my life;

I gained a hint of something that could become one of

the greatest parts of my life,

the feeling of being connected with the suffering of the world,

feeling as one of them.
***
I can also sense who if one can keep this feeling,
one does not feel one's loneliness as something
that stings, but that which is shared.
***
I would say it is harder for me to keep this feeling
here, where I live now,
but I am thankful that I at least have a sense
the great truth of what
Elder Sophrony is speaking of...