Something New Is Beginning

Erin Doom

Sep 1

4 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

A return to writing and the beginning of Podvig

Dr. Doom's Desk · A Letter

Feast of the Ecclesiastical New Year

Commemoration of St. Symeon the Stylite

Anno Domini 2026, September 1

St. Symeon the Stylite, patron saint of Podvig.

“The journey is too great for you.” ~1 Kings 19:7

Dear friend,

After 28 years at Eighth Day Books and Eighth Day Institute, I have given much prayer and thought to what comes next.

The Work We Shared

For most of my adult life, I have had the privilege of working at the intersection of books, faith, culture, and Christian formation. EDB and EDI were at the heart of that gift. I remain deeply grateful for those years, especially for all the people who shared them with me.

I am proud of what we built together through Eighth Day Institute. I loved introducing people to the Church Fathers and the great books of the Christian tradition. I loved the lectures and symposia, the conversations over beer, the arguments around tables, the friendships that formed, and the community that gathered around a shared desire for the renewal of Christian culture. I still believe wholeheartedly in that mission. And I am extremely grateful to the EDI Board of Directors for all the hard work and resources they have poured into making sure that the mission and work of EDI continue.

The final years were difficult. Financial and administrative strain gradually became exhaustion and burnout. A sabbatical brought temporary relief, but not recovery. Eventually, I had to acknowledge something I had resisted for a long time:

Choosing hard does not mean that every hard thing must be chosen forever.

Years of Silence and Labor

After leaving EDI, I entered a period of silence, a sort of desert experience. Many of you kindly reached out and asked what I would do next. For a long time, I didn't have an answer. I really didn't have much of anything. For the first time in my life, as far as I can remember, I had no desire to read, and I had nothing in me to pour forth in writing...just a vast desert of emptiness and silence. The only thing I knew was that I had to find work and provide for my family.

The silence lasted far longer than I expected. But silence is not always emptiness. As Max Picard wrote in one of the books I have returned to again and again:

"Silence is nothing merely negative; it is not the mere absence of speech....It makes things whole again."

Sometimes it's also the place where a new calling slowly emerges.

During these years, I have worked, struggled, prayed, failed, learned...and even trained and run many miles in those crazy 100-mile mountain and desert races. I returned to difficult physical work, unloading heavy, seventy-plus pound packages at UPS. I became a UPS driver. I began selling water-filtration systems. More recently, I have spent most mornings delivering Amazon packages really early in the morning before beginning my work at Moore Water.

Along the way, I have been forced to confront weaknesses I have spent years avoiding. And slowly, I have begun to understand that this strange chapter of my life was not merely an interruption of my real work. It was part of the work. Something was being formed in me during those years of silence and labor...something that began drawing together questions and convictions I have carried for most of my life.

Something New Is Beginning

Recently, I began writing again. At first, I was simply trying to understand what had happened to me. But then the words began coming faster than I could capture them. Ideas, memories, books, experiences, and seemingly disconnected parts of my life began converging.

One unfamiliar word has kept returning to the center of it all: podvig.

It is not an English word, and it does not translate easily. I am not going to try to explain it today. Over the coming weeks, I want to show you what it has come to mean to me...and why I believe it names something the ancient Christian tradition understood clearly, but modern life has made easy to forget.

Today, September 1, is the beginning of the liturgical year in the Orthodox Church. Ever since the days of the Geek Group's annual retreats in the Colorado mountains over Labor Day weekend (for those who don't know, that group had a key role in the inauguration of the Hall of Men in Wichita), this day has been an important day for me. So it seems like the perfect day to emerge from the desert and begin again.

I simply wanted you to hear from me personally. I am still here. I am writing again. And something new is beginning.

The first piece I want to share is called “Brain on Fire.” It is an attempt to explain why, after such a long silence, I suddenly cannot keep up with everything I want to write...and why I have begun to believe that the seemingly disconnected parts of my life have been preparing me for the work ahead.

I’ll share it with you soon.

In Christ and with gratitude, Erin “John” Doom