My priest has invited me to talk about what brought me to Orthodoxy. I don’t have anything interesting to say, my journey was not a profound one. But I can share why I stayed and followed through with baptism.I’ll probably agree to an interview, but I’ll say it here as well. Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov tells a short story called “The Onion.”
A mean old woman dies and her soul suffers greatly in the fire of Hell. Her guardian angel, attempting to save her soul, goes to God and asks for His mercy. God asks the angel if she’d ever done any good deeds. The angel thinks and remembers that she once gave a passing beggar and onion from her garden.
God said, take an onion and tell her to grab hold and pull her from the lake of fire.The angel did as God commanded and took the onion. As the woman grabbed hold the angel began to pull her out of the lake.
As she began to rise, other poor souls grabbed at her, hoping to be saved from their own torment. The woman yelled and kicked at them, “This is mine!” And as she did so the onion broke and she fell back into the lake.
The point of the story is that God gives us EVERY opportunity to be saved. There is not a point where He will not extend His mercy, but it is OUR choice what we do with that mercy. I’ve never felt so much hope as I do in Orthodoxy. Hope for myself, for my non-Orthodox family and friends, and even for those people I am less fond of.
I pray that when judgment day comes, not a single soul will see Hell. And it’s not because I’m a “good person,” it’s quite the opposite. I’m a selfish person and don’t want to be without the ones I love.
Kevin Brownfield 
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