with certain core questions that might otherwise impede it. Preparation is critical, because meeting God is different from meeting other people. In meeting God, you are not there to sit down and have a drink with Him or to chat about politics or television or how the kids are doing in school (though I suppose you could). You are there to connect and unite with the Creator of heaven and Earth—in Orthodox Christian terms, to be transformed, to participate in the dynamic energies of the divine. So this