Hieromonk
Theophylact (Belyanin), who labored at the Pskov Caves Monastery, shared this
story with me. The story made it into his manuscript collection “It Happened in
Our Time.”
It happened
in the 1970s. There was a Soviet family loudly celebrating the birthday of the
father of the household. As is the custom, they were celebrating with a feast,
toasts, and libations. And in the midst of all the merry-making, they somehow
forgot about the father's five-year-old son. He was twirling around the guests,
climbed under the table, and suddenly, unbeknownst to his parents, crawled out
onto the balcony, which was off limits for him. Their apartment was on the
eighth floor.
In the swing
of things, the boy was finally missed. They looked for him, but he was nowhere.
He wasn’t in the living room, or in the kitchen, or in the hallway. The door
was locked, so he couldn’t leave. The parents darted for the open balcony door,
but he wasn’t on the balcony either! In horror, the father looked below with a
shudder, expecting to see the body of his son sprawled out on the ground—but
his Sasha was quietly playing on the grass. Not waiting for the elevator, the
father dashed down the stairs, jumped outside, picked up his son, hugged him,
and asked,
“Sasha, how
did you get here?”
“Papa, you
won’t yell?”
“No, son.”
“You know, I
was bored, so I went out on the balcony and was looking down below, and it was
so interesting. I leaned over, and suddenly I was flying down. But while I was
flying, some old grandpa caught me.”
“What
grandpa? Your grandpa was sitting with us.”
“No, a
different one, so handsome, with a short white beard. He was dressed like in
church. He carried me down, put me down on the grass, and disappeared.”
The father
didn’t know what to think. It didn’t fit at all into his materialistic head. It
was against all laws of physics, and especially the law of gravity. But his son
was there, alive, and he couldn’t pass through the locked door! It was
absolutely against all laws.
To the
delight of all the guests, the father carried Sasha home, sat him on his lap,
and didn’t take his eyes off of him. Suddenly the son said, “Pop, I remember
who this grandpa looked like.”
At first the
father didn’t understand: “What grandpa?”
“Come on! The
one that saved me.”
Sasha took
his dad to his grandmother’s room. There he clambered up onto the stool and
pointed his finger at the ancient icon of St. Nicholas in the modest prayer
corner:
“Papa, it’s
him!”
Deacon
Vladimir Vasilik
Translated by
Jesse Dominick
Pravoslavie.ru
12/19/2017
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου