life is beautiful

Once I and my friend/co-parishioner Joseph (we’ve known each other for a few years) went to the Greek monastery of St. Nektarios for a couple of days. The monastery has a little hotel for visitors on its grounds, but it’s a popular place and there were no rooms available. So, we rented a room for two of us in a motel nearby – just to spend the sleeping hours there and go back to the monastery in the morning.

As we arrived at the motel reception, we were both asked to sign in. The gentleman at the desk asked my name and wrote it down. “Your first name?”, he inquired. I said, “Alexander”. Joseph’s eyes became wide as he said: “your name is Alexander?” The man writing down my name stopped and looked up at us, 2 men who rented a room in the motel to spend one night there, very curiously. I explained to Joseph that “Sasha” is short version of “Alexander” in Russian. I guess I never had a chance to mention that before. That was a great moment. We smiled thinking of how it can be perceived.

Then it was Joseph’s turn to sign in. “Your first name?”, asked the gentleman at the desk. “Richard”, said Joseph.

“You’re Richard?” was my bewildered response. I’ll let your imagination go free with the face expression of the clerk.

“Richard” turned out to be his legal first name, while “Joseph” is his baptismal name and that’s how people in the church know him.

We proceeded to the room.

P.S. The monastery and the visit were great, but that's a whole different story. Life is beautiful.