This book does not begin with doctrine. It begins in my consulting room, on an ordinary afternoon.

I had been following the ordeal at close hand, through my friend Giannis. The dying man was his Elder, Petros. That afternoon Giannis came into my office pale, the anguish plain in his eyes.

I answered him back without even thinking about the words.

I set it down that way because that is how it happened. The answer came before thought, not after it.

Twenty years passed between that afternoon and the day I began putting these notes into the world. This book exists because he did not die that afternoon.