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Answers to questions you may have been afraid to ask!

An opportunity to explore the spiritual in a manner that all may come together and share.

 

Apr 16, 2011

I've sometimes felt attracted to Mount Athos, for reasons which many of us can appreciate.  Mount Athos is a little peninsula sticking out from Greece, narrow enough and with rough enough terrain that the only reasonable way to get there to visit is by boat.  It is, for all intents and purposes, a sovereign nation which history has for the most part left alone.  Its sole purpose is to be a place where men in various monastic orders can liver as monks with as little interference as possible from the secular world.  And yes, I do mean men - no women have allowed on Mount Athos for centuries.  

Many of the monks on Mount Athos consider the ultimate experience, one highly prized, is to be "kissed by God", which means living in complete isolation as a recluse.  Having spent some time in a monastery of an order which (at the time) prized such things as silence and solitude, I have an apprecaition.  

And what does this have to do with us? 

Each and every one of us has a need for some private time with The Divine, regardless of the name or names we use in addressing The Divine.  Even if you share a roof with someone you trust completely and from whom you have no secrets, it is in private time with The Divine that you can share your deepest thoughts and be free from any kind of real or imagined inhibition.

So, let's see how we might build such a place.  Not to live there, but to visit when we need such private time.

Blessed Be!