I will never forget when I found the black-haired girl, in the real world in of November 2020, and realized holy shit it's her. I stared down, at my phone. I screamed. I threw the phone. Sat down. My head swam as I sat down and looked at the floor. And then considered checking myself into a funny farm. I thought about it long and hard. I decided not to, because who was going to take care of our kids? Maria would have to work. The kids would be wondering what the heck happened, and I would never be able to explain that. And how do you explain to a spouse that you checked yourself into a psych ward because you recognized someone from a dream???
So. That was off the table. Whatever was going on, I had to figure it out.
Boy, lucky me!
So, I sat down and examined what I was feeling. It wasn't "I think I know this person." It was "I know this person. I know her, and I have never seen her before in my... oh shit." The response was a combination of recognition, shock and utter fear. I couldn't find any wishful thinking anywhere in my response. I couldn't find anything that was trying to make this person more meaningful to me. If anything, the opposite was there. I am Maria's, thank you very fucking much. That is something that has been a part of me since seven years old. It is not going to change, for so many reasons.
So... what the hell was I feeling? What was this? Who was she?
And why did it feel like she was in trouble? Oh goody, how ridiculous is that? I sneered, ignored it. But the feeling kept going, until I thought it was going to drive me actually crazy. So, I did the one thing I could: I prayed for her. It was all I had. No ethical contact was possible, or even desirable. There was either praying for her, and feeling like I was as at least doing something, or there was just.. sitting in this overwhelming push to pray for her. It was like someone had opened up my brain and began a constant download of this need to pray for her.
But it never got so overwhelming that I couldn't ask: why me?
Like, seriously, why me?
Why was I feeling this?
I had not the privilege for doubt, which is one of the most insanely painful things you can imagine. I wanted to doubt, and couldn't. It made absolutely no sense, but it was happening, and there was nothing I could do but pray for this stranger and hang on for dear life. I could feel I was burning a trail, somehow, with every last bit of me on fire to keep this person supported. I felt like I was in a continuum of flame, with a river I couldn't understand extending before and behind me indefinitely.
So late 2020 through 2025 gave me absolutely no time for answers.
2026, and suddenly the overwhelming push stopped. Poof. Gone. Along with all memory of that river of fire. It was like someone reached down, plucked me out of this fiery existence, and dumped me back on dry (and cool) ground.
And then let me be.
I have had enough spiritual experiences in my life to not be terribly surprised that the memory of the experience left. The Spirit, when He stops doing a particular thing, takes it from you, and that's it. You knew what you needed to know, and now that you don't need to know it, it's gone.
But the question remained.
Why me?
This was a question that burned me in me all of 2026, up until... a few days ago.
At the top and center of all Orthodox churches hangs the Pantorcrator: Christ the Judge. He holds the closed book of judgement, the one where you find out if you treated the least fortunate like Christ. It's closed, because no one will know how they did until the end.
I have a habit of looking dead in the eyes of the one that hangs above us as I go up to communion. During that time, ever since I knew who the black-haired (now) woman is, I have felt the urge to pray for her. It's a brief moment of wishing that, whatever I get from communing, she gets it too.
For the past five years I have looked up, into the eyes of the Just Judge, and slowly, over the course of the five years, a question began to form in my mind, in the form of a Silent, Still, Quiet, Voice.
Why you?
The Voice became quieter and more forceful with time. Each time, there was some variation of "I don't know, but I'm doing it anyway. If it's wrong... please forgive me. I don't know what else to do." The sense was always that the answer I gave was honest, but it was incomplete. But as the question got more and more forceful, so did my honest response: "I don't know, but You won't take this from me, so I am going to do it!" And that, again, felt honest. It was the best I could do, and that was enough, for right then and there, but it wasn't right.
The night before liturgy, I lay day next to Maria. And in that moment, I felt the familiar twinge of overwhelming attraction I've always felt for her. Over the last ten years, since remembering being abused as a child, I have had a difficult time with the reality of my pull towards Maria, for reasons that shouldn't take much to suss out.
But this night, I lay next to her, and I knew. Knew. That the pull was simply because we existed. It had no moral component to it. It was a symptom of something that was simply us. We existed, and we belonged together, and it was my peculiarity that I needed her as much as I always have. Twelve years in, and I'm practically like a teenager around Maria, even now.
And for the first time in ten years it felt okay that that was how it was. Smiling, I stroked my wife's shoulder in affection, and went to sleep. I just was what I was.
The next day, as I went to communion, I felt the tug to pray for the black-haired girl. I did. I looked up, like I always did.
Why you?
And this time I looked into the eyes of the Almighty and said, with a calm tremble:
“Because You made me to do it. This is who I AM. I could do nothing else. Of course I did it. I'm me. Thank you."
Yes, I capitalized it on purpose, for in that moment there was a feeling that something far larger and incomprehensible joined me for those two words.
For one second the One Beyond Defining met a little micro/macrocosm. Two voices spoke. And the voices were joined. And were one.
Why me? Because what was needed was precisely what I did. It happened because, faced with someone that good and pure-hearted, it wouldn't even seriously occur to me to take what wasn't mine. I was content. I am Maria's. Content, I could do what needed to be done.
There's other questions I still have: why show me that vision of the future? Why take it from me, along with everything else? I remember that I had the vision, once, but I can't remember it directly anymore, because it has been removed. Why do that to me?
But the primary question I had for going on six years is now quiet. And that quiet is such a blessing.
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