That’s a graceful way of handling it! haha, I alienated all of my protestant friends early on because I came on FAR to strong and tried to bring them all along with me, sadly, non of them wanted to hear of it, and I lost a lotta friends! A women who I spoke with early on responded to a question I had with such love and grace; I held her little orthodox baby, and she said baptism is where you receive the Holy Spirit (I believed I was “saved”) so I got offended and said, “You’re telling me that this baby has the Holy Spirit and I don’t?!” I was shocked, she responded, “Well… In orthodoxy, we say that we know where the Holy Spirit *is* but we do not know where it is not”. It was a true answer, and though she likely knew I really did not have the Holy Spirit in me, she tried not to push me far away and make me angry, she waned me to seek.. She tossed some crumbs my way but didn’t force feed me a loaf of bread. I spoke far to easily when I came to the church, as if a 2 month long inquirer knew everything! The longer I am here the more I understand how little I truly know! hah. It is not good to be so prideful and forceful with your “knowledge” or resources, it only pushes people farther away.
