It is not accidental, therefore, that the biblical story of the Fall is centered again on food. Man ate the forbidden fruit. The fruit of that one tree, whatever else it may signify, was unlike every other fruit in the Garden: it was not offered as a gift to man. Not given, not blessed by God, it...

Abba Gregory said, 'The whole life of a man is but one single day for those who are working hard with longing.'

A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him, 'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.

I am just beginning to really get grounded in solitude, so that if my life were to be on the way of ending now, this would be my one regret. Loss of the years of solitude that might be possible. Nothing else