I describe his talks as a cleansing pool. They washed away everything superfluous in the soul and the mind, until what was left in their place was a clear discernment: discernment in how to handle the freedom of the will.

And a will, he said, is a thing called to handle energies. ἐνέργεια, in the Palamite sense: the energy by which God acts in the world.

That energy fills the universe, and the being is given it to handle, at whatever stage of its unfolding. Along with it comes the gift of free will. You gather the energy, you modify it, you reproduce it, or you spend it. What matters, he said, is the process and what the gathering does. What marks the Fathers, those who know the essence, is the conscious use of the power.

As time passes more of it becomes available, and more is asked in return: consistency toward what the Paraclete asks. That is what I mean by collaboration with the plan of the Creator.

His system was complex and radically simplified at once, resting on Orthodoxy and particularly on Saint Gregory Palamas and the Kollyvades movement that carried him forward. At the head of the whole structure stood the Inner Prayer. Every conversation we had came back to it: replace your inner talk with the prayer.

The Fellow Traveler is here if you would like company for a moment before the threshold. You do not have to ask anything. You can simply sit beside it.