Last month, I had the opportunity to visit Spruce Island, the home for many years of St. Herman of Alaska. I went with some young people, who visited the sites on the island quickly, but seemed much more interested in fishing off the shore at Monk’s Lagoon. Soon I found myself wandering around the island basically alone.
The place that struck me the deepest was the cell of Father Gerassim, who lived on the island one hundred years after St. Herman, and kept the Saint’s memory alive. He built a tiny little building with a little front room and a very small bedroom and prayer corner. I stood in the front room and tried to imagine what it would be to live there, hearing the waves against the beach, the wind in the tree leaves, smelling the ever-present moisture - alone.
Could I have survived one day, one week, or year, living at what seems the very furthest reaches of the world? Sure, I could have survived in terms of food and warmth. But to be totally alone, with God as my only companion? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine. I could sense the joy of the companionship, as I always do when I commune with God. But for how long would this feeling of peace continue if I had no one to talk to, no one to distract me?
This experience brought me face-to-face with my own tendency to take God in small portions. Celebrate the liturgy, then get on with the rest of my day. Pray with half my mind on my schedule and to-do list. Read spiritual literature like this devotional as quickly as possible, so I can get on to better things. Do you do that, too?
O God, save me from myself! Fill me with the kind of love for you that Fr. Gerassim had!
+Father David Smith
