The book that changed (saved?) my life in a pizza shop!

As I sat in the Pizza Hut, tears streaming down my face, I realized, I had finally found a way. A way to live out what the Bible and the church had always been teaching me.

Years ago, lets say, mid 2000s, I was working a job I ABSOLUTELY
hated. It was a call center, non-stop calls of people complaining about their high speed internet. 24 hours, 7 days a week. The anxiety was through the roof. Nothing like getting cursed out every single day. Some maybe can handle that because they don’t care, but I truly cared about our customers, and did all I could to help. But the way the job was setup, we could only help within a certain script, and within that, only a certain time frame. So, it was not REAL help, only the illusion of customer service (there’s a lot of companies doing that, so when I encounter real customer service, I’m astonished).

Anyways, I take lunch and go to the local Pizza Hut. At the time they had an all you can eat buffet. I pulled out this book that had been sitting in my bag for months, “Sayings of the Desert Fathers” by Penguin Classics. and skimming through it, I could not believe what I was reading.

Such depth. Such humility. Such beauty.

Mind you, these are monastics, not people engaged in the marketplace per se’. Yes they were fasting and praying all day and stuff. BUT, it was still applicable to my life, in the sense of, I can fast and pray where I can. Matter of fact, some of the church fathers have said that those who are able to do this in regular “secular” (it’s still sacred) lives perhaps may receive greater credit, in their journey towards theosis (sanctification). This is because of all the distraction there are.

As I sat in the Pizza Hut, tears streaming down my face, I realized, I had finally found a way. A way to live out what the Bible had been teaching me.

Sometimes the right teacher comes along to help you apply, what has been written in the scriptures. The scriptures tell us, one plants, another waters, but God gives the increase. The one who initially plants the seed, is not always the one who will water it.

This was NOT theology, theory, or esoteric beliefs!

One of the hardest things for people to grasp, when I recommend this book, is that it is not about theology. Nor is it about some esoteric deep meaning of the universe type of book (though it is in fact very deep and exposes the meaning of life to you in a very real way). One person I recommended it to, couldn’t get past the centaur demon figure on the cover, and never read it (which was an artists depiction of spiritual warfare, the book was not about centaurs…lol). We should not always be looking for theological knowledge for knowledge sake, as if that is an end unto itself. This book tells us how to live out that theological knowledge in a practical way.

I have since moved on to other books, that were also life changing, but that one always carries a place in my heart for helping me get through some pretty rough times. Shortly after that, the Great Recession hit, we would lose our home. We had to move to a less than ideal neighborhood, I got an unexpected health diagnosis, there was the Pandemic, several job losses, close loved ones deaths, and more. But through all of this, these simple anecdotes, while they didn’t change the situation, they helped me have coping skills to endure. And he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.