In the Company of Friends

Like many of you, we, too, have been isolated from family and friends in this trying year. And like many of you (I hope), we are finding ways to get out and visit some of those family and friends that we have only been able to see on a screen all this time.

In this past month, we were able to visit our old parish back in Oregon and the friends there. Plus, (while the kids chose to stay in California with friends) Senia and I took a detour from the Pacific Northwest up to Alaska for a brief pilgrimage to two of the most important places for Orthodoxy in America: Sitka and Kodiak.

It was a wonderful to sit around and talk with old friends again. It was deeply stirring to walk were saints have walked, commune from the same chalice, ring the same bells, pray before the same icons, and stand before their very relics asking for their intercession before Christ our God.

It refocuses my mind on our own calling, the same as theirs: through every moment, every word, every act of sacrificial love, every labor for Christ's sake, every moment of communion with our fellow man...to sanctify ourselves and the whole world around us, to make it holy, set apart for its original and intended purpose of union with God.

We love you all and keep you all in our prayers. Please feel free to browse our photos from the trip through Oregon, California, Alaska, and back again.