Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 14:27:54 -0500 Reply-To: Orthodox Christianity Sender: Orthodox Christianity From: Kenneth Udut Organization: Computer Forum of NJ (908)486-2956 Subject: Monastaries Dear friends @ Orthodox: Over the course of the past few weeks, while reading The Philokalia, only being part of the Orthodox Church for perhaps three months now, I keep feeling pulled towards the monastic life. My current e-mail account is e-mail only (I left full-Internet access as it was too much of a temptation to continue being attached to it), and if anyone would be gracious enough to send me e-mail containing a list of monasteries in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania/New York/Massachusetts area, with contact phone numbers and/or addresses (and language used and size if possible), I would *greatly* appreciate it. I asked Father John (St. Nicolas Orthodox Church, Elizabeth, NJ ), and he will check into it, but he is a very busy man and doesn't have the kind of online resources yet that you do. E-mail to this site takes a day or two, and I don't check every day (I had planned on going offline permanently until I called this site on a lark, and found that I had been using it as a backup for receiving ORTHODOX e-mail!) If you have printed information or can help me with discernment (one of the qualities I lack and so desparately desire), simply ask me and I will be *very* pleased to send you my telephone number and mailing address. I truly feel alone in this journey. Orthodoxy has brought me closer, and reading the spiritual fathers have been a daily "Wow!", as I pray that I be worthy to participate in the noetic realities... but I really don't have anything worth keeping. I love my family and friends, but I've never felt "in sync" with any of them. And I have always felt like a lonely lost little boy on a long journey in an alien lang. And Orthodoxy has confirmed it. It feels close to the time where I can join others who are already taking journey of the lost through this cloud of unknowing towards God. Can you help? Please?