After a 5-week penance from my Orthodox online community, Oikonomia, I’ve learned a lot about myself, the faith, those in it, real values that I can carry with me through life. I intended on not writing these types of autobiographical posts, but this one I feel is worth sharing. This reflection won’t cover just the penance, but the events leading up to now.

Christ is born! It has been a bit over a year since most turbulent parts of the schism over Ukraine occurred. The ship that is the Orthodox Church is finally in some quieter waters, but we are certainly still in dangerous territory. Various hierarchs have been making their decisions to commemorate the new Ukrainian metropolitan, rocking the boat and leading to further hostilities amongst our bishops. There’s that keyword, bishops. We aren’t bishops, we’re laymen.

Greetings, everyone. It’s been a while. As you might’ve read or noticed, these past few years have been all over the place. I won’t get into details too greatly like my usual blog posts, because they will no longer be my usual blog posts. What I can say though, is that I’m doing better. Not much better, but better nonetheless. An update is warranted on everything that’s happened and what’ll be happening from now.

Listening to The Specktators (well, Packy) right now. It makes me think of the times I’d walk to the bus stop every morning to go to school, muting out the noise of the world, enjoying the beat and the message. Feeling the 60 degree weather, just that perfect temperature that isn’t too cold nor too hot. Not even worrying about the future, worrying about the past. Just living in the moment, here with my music.

It’s been a long 3 months since I’ve updated on all this education stuff. When I wrote the post, I had reached my low point and I wasn’t sure where I was headed afterwards.

On January 28th, I made a pretty big life-changing decision. I decided to drop out.