HOLY MAN

Imagine you are around 12 years old and you have just recently determined that you are agnostic, possibly leaning towards atheist when your mother’s Theo Papa, a 70 years old Bishop from the Greek Orthodox Church, arrives from Greece.

For some reason, your mother decides that your bedroom is the one that will be given to her uncle, the Bishop, for the duration of his stay. He claims to have arrived in answer to a calling. It is his task to open a new Greek Orthodox Church in Michigan where there are already something like 30 Greek Orthodox churches, maybe more.

With his long beard, his long hair, that he ties up in a little knot that he puts under his funny hat, his pretty or plain dress costumes, he enters your bedroom. Its a little girl’s blue bedroom-

this little girl is obsessed with the color of the sky.

Within a day or two, the bedroom becomes a temple. It becomes his holy space —

and here you are

the girl who has left the Greek Orthodox Church.

in the place where you slept, where you were teetering between being agnostic and atheist, where you once rested.

This holy man, your GRAND uncle, wakes in the morning with a prayer. A nasally, singing, old country voice that cannot be replicated.

Up with the sun — prayer.

You’ve already been awake due to lung issues and the need to start the day with Pranayama and various asanas, so while you breathe in practiced rhythms, he is singing his prayers to the day.

This man, holy that he is, insists on praying before every meal. So you stand at the table with good posture, eyes forward or closed, do your cross, hands in prayer as he begins singing, old world, ancient, unchanged, songs of prayer.

Again at lunch.

Again before dinner.

Ancient practice. Be thankful for each morsel. Take this timing to remind yourself with the source.

And of course before bed and at awakening.

He prayed 5x a day, with songs to the ether.

Imagine, you are teetering.

One day he is seated in the family room where you are watching Dark Shadows.

He is communicating about name days. It’s someone’s name day. You don’t care.

You don’t relate to name days.

So you turn your sights from the television to tell him, “I don’t have a name day. There is no saint Thomai. Plus, I’m not Greek Orthodox anymore.”

He stares at you for a moment. His eyes well up with tears this is the quietest you’ve ever heard him or seen to him be.

You think, “Oh my gosh did I break him?” You realize you might be in trouble for telling this holy man you’ve left the church and you think his entire calling is a farce. What will your mother say? You must not cause your mother shame.

When he finally speaks through his tears, he informs you that you aptly named, the most aptly named person he has ever known. Because Thomai you are named after Saint Thomas, the Saint who wrote the gospels in which through his doubt, he brings faith to the world.

You are named, aptly and the gospels of Saint Thomas are yours to read.

#GospelOfThomai