Fotis Kontoglou

Fotis Kontoglou started out as a babe and a child in a little part of the world, blessed with beauty and joy, protected by hills, by the vast ocean, by obscurity and unimportance.

The little valley - cuddled by the earth, smiled-on by the sun, protected and hidden by God – kept him and raised him and nourished him until he came to love it, so very much that he would never forget it.

So very much that his heart would long for that place and for those people always. And anywhere he went, he went, always, as an exiled man who remembers.

Wherever he travelled and wherever he went he was a rock of a different color, taken from the shallow ocean bed of that place, smelling of the sun that casts its light on that place, and the earth that showed its fullest glory there. Smelling of the sand and of the clearest sea water.

He was himself a little piece of that eden, and no matter what rains showered on him and what winds blew roundabout him, they couldn’t change his color, or dampen his warmth or disperse the scent of those people and that place that his souls was kneaded with. And so he walked the streets, and lived in the cities as a testimony of God’s secret art, and he lived his life as a sacrifice: for the world to know.

His body was a sacrifice: so that we may know that people come from somewhere. That we have a past and a meaning. That we have a significance. He was a memorial in the hard and broken streets of the city to the Man Who Knew God’s Love. And being there, for us, his days were a martyrdom.

I don’t think he ever forgave the sea that pulled him away and carried him far from the land of his birth. But I don’t think he ever stopped loving the sea, and burning with a longing for it, turning his mind to it, and visiting it, hoping always that that same sea might grab him again and take him back once again to the embrace from which he had come.

You know, it’s not everyone that God treats so roughly. It’s not everyone who lives a long death, torn apart by the beauty he has seen that he can never forget. This man must have been a great man and a very strong one.  Otherwise I truly don’t think God would have burned him so with the fire of an angel.

I hope that now he has become fully inflamed and that the light of that beauty that he bore and endured during his life has become his eternally now. And that it includes him and counts him as one of its own.

Messenger of God, burning with desire for the good and the beautiful, shine your light also on us so that we can see our way.

freshness

Do you know how when the air is clean and fresh the scent of the earth and the sea is stronger and richer and embraces the man like a blessing? And the flowers almost speak, and the sunlight tells of joy to every corner and every detail of the earth, and the music of creation is so obvious that only the most deaf can miss it?

Well it is the same thing with our souls. When our spirit is not burdened by pollution and we are pure: the grace of God will fill us and fulfill us and satisfy every ability of our heart like nothing else! Like nothing you can imagine.

Well that’s the problem, we cannot imagine. We are so tired and far away from the truth and from the beautiful that we bother not.

Oh, oh my soul! I lament because I don’t know how to convince you. You don’t miss what you don’t know the value of.

Tasks

It doesn't matter if your task is grand or small.
It matters if it is good or not.

The life of a Christian

The life of the Christian is about loving the good. Seeking true goodness; desiring it deeply; needing it fully.

Hoping in the good,

Loving it,

Desiring it more than anything else; rather than anything else.

Seeking the peace and joy of goodness, rather than your own benefit

Wanting to know God

Seeking to know God

Becoming able to know God

Becoming more akin to the good yourself

Living a life more filled with grace, kindness, charity and love. Being washed through and through of evil, becoming free to be with the good.

Being disgusted by evil

Wanting to have nothing to do with it

Needing the good

Needing it all the time

The truth is this is who you are.

The life of Orthodoxy is about the struggle to seek the most true knowledge of God. It is about knowing what you seek, and how to approach it, as precisely as possible. It is about wasting as little time as possible on error whole you desperately seek the truth that you need.

A prayer for the morning

God, help me to know my talents, and to use them.

That I do not waste them away like the barren fig tree.

What can I do well and what am I good at? Do I do it?

Do I use what you have given me for the sake of all your people,

And to Your glory?

Or do I sit on it?

Because what you have given me is not mine to keep.

What I am is not for myself alone.

Am I a good steward? Do I use what you gave me to the benefit of your people?

Or am I wasting away, already withered, like the barren fig tree that bore no fruit?

Like the barren fig tree to which You had given life and nourishment,

But which gave nothing back?

God grant to me to give something back.

Something excellent

- that is - to express that which You have given,
like the moon reflects the light of the sun and is like a light in the darkness.

Amen.

remembrance

They tell you that it is all known.

That it is closed and decided.

That they have the power and the knowledge, and that you need to follow them and be fed it by them.

The world is art and you are free

Genius is new and it follows its own truth.

Don’t follow them, follow the truth.

The world is art and we are free.

The doors are open, the sky is high, the air is fresh, they know nothing.

You were not born into a world that is old, or finished, or known.

They know nothing.

The world is art and we are free.

If you cannot breath then open a window.

If the dust has settled then clean out your heart.

Lighten your mind by throwing out sin.

Lighten your pack by throwing out your sin.

Leave all your nonsense behind.

Follow the truth and do not stay huddled in a lie.

Kick off this loathsome clutter

Beat off this clingy stuff.

Open a window, clean out your crap.

It’s not over yet.

Let me tell you a practical thing:

There are other people there who have lived, who look and see, who incline their ears and hear.

You are not alone out there. There, where the meeting of the minds and of hearts really happens, it is there that really you will meet.

Come out

at a distance from God

At a distance from God there is darkness and death

There is illness.

The thought of that space is repugnant

Everything about it is wrong.

Not for a second would I want to be there.

Not for a moment could I stand it

Not at all could I bear it.

Breathing would be easier at the bottom of the sea.

So then how could I have lived there for so long?

Why do I speak about God all the time?

Why do I write, again and again, about this same love?

Why do I sing you the same song?

Does it become not a bore?

I do so because one is Holy, one is Lord.

Because every good thing comes from on high

Because besides God nothing is good.

I write about it because it is all I have.

In truth I am ill and it is my only hope.

I am dying, and of healing it is my only source.

I am underwater in a sinking ship, and there is only one little spot, one little space where the water is not.

One little corner of air.

I swim to the surface, I tilt my head and keep my mouth in that spot.

Only there do I breath.

When I speak with God.

I keep my self there, in that little crack of air and I wait. I wait for heaven. I wait for more.

I wait. 

(if you do not want dog hair on your living room carpet)

To God he is worth £100

I will not steal him, I will not bargain with him,

And I would not buy him for £20

Even if he were willing to sell himself cheap.

God made him like this.

And then He redeemed him with His blood so that he can be.

So that he is free to be.

And God fed him and raised him.

He made him like that, and like this and like this.

So, I could not belittle him, but only let him be. Even help him to be.

And if I love him I will let him grow;

Respect what he is

And pay for him the fullest price.

If he is like a beautiful container that God formed to contain joy, I could not want to leave him half full.

If you do not have a yard for your dog to run in and to bury his bones therein,

don’t get a dog.

If you don’t have a yard but only a porch, get a flower but not a tree.

If you do not care to learn don't become a teacher.

And if you will not love a man and support him to be,

then don’t stand in his way.

Understand one thing

God never said that women ought to be obedient to men.

He said that wives need to be obedient to their husbands.

One is not obedient to their husband because he is a man.

But because he is their husband.

It is a division of labor that is necessary for the accomplishment of a difficult and vital task.

It is as if you decide to take a long journey together, and to help one another cross a vast dessert.

Will you do your part? Yes.

Will you do your part? Yes.

Agreed.

Then let us embark.

There is a mutual dependence, and respect.

It is not that man is placed on the whole above woman.

It is rather than man is made as only a part,

of a whole

a whole that includes the wife.

They are not an andras and a gyneka –

But both together and inseparably are the androgyno.

How can you Man be better, or more important, or more valuable than your wife in the marriage,

when in a marriage you do not exist apart from her?

So when you look at a woman – every woman – know:

That you are looking at a person, like any person, and give her the due respect.

And when you look at your wife know:

That she – another person – and you, have agreed to work together

and have agreed to take on this task;

that each will do their part;

and that only with all the parts do you have a whole.

Without her you are not a boat – you are just some logs.

And give her the respect that is due.

But again, let me say it once more:

-       not every woman owes you obedience

-       and your wife is fulfilling a function and serving a role. Not for you ‘because you are king’. But for you and the entire family, and for God. Because you have a long way to go; because this is significant; because you are in the middle of a dessert, and however you do this, you need it to work.

She is carrying the same burden – sharing it with you. So work together as one, 
and show her the love that is due.

You are working together

You are in the army of God, on a mission together.

Co-operate, and be one another’s joy.

Rely on each other,

Trust one another,

And be one another’s shelter.

You are on enemy land;

You have one Commander;

You share a mission;

Co-operate

You have one another.