Living in Greece, Part 09

Sunday, 12 September
Church as it Ought to Be

Today has been, for us, the best day of all in Greece – so far! The first reason is that we went back to St. Anthony’s Church, about which I will tell you in this post; the second reason is that a piece of the Holy Cross of Christ came to our very own neighborhood church today, about which I will tell you in the next post.

We went to St. Anthony’s Church half an hour earlier than last Sunday, so I was able to find a seat in the very front, where I couldn’t see the crowds and therefore was not bothered by them.

I don’t even know how to begin telling you how wonderful it was. The priest, Fr. Theodore Zisis, is a true shepherd to his people, kind, wise, and above all, holy. He is also a professor in the School of Theology at the University here. (How I wish I could take some of his courses!)

The people are reverent and earnest about their faith. When Fr. Theodore summoned a man from the congregation to go to the cantors’ stand and help sing, the man not only rose immediately to obey, but also, on his way, stopped to kiss the priest’s hand and receive his blessing.

One little toddler, scarcely a year old and barely walking, when she came up for communion, gave the iconostasis a big kiss. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the icons; her kiss landed smack on a painting of a vase of flowers. But she already had the right idea, in general.

Even these people’s complaints and disputes make you smile; during a meeting after church, a very simple woman stood up, in some distress, to complain that she had wanted to pay for one of the frescoes about to be painted on the church walls, but somebody had beaten her to it, and the icon is to depict one of her own favorite saints! So how often do you hear people complaining because they didn’t get to pay for something? The priest very kindly explained how wonderful it was that others shared her devotion to this saint and were willing to underwrite her favorite icon. He himself was delighted when someone signed up before he could to finance the icon of his wife’s saint (the saint after whom his wife is named).

The first remarkable thing about the sermon is what happened just before it. I saw a man take what looked to me like a cell phone and touch it to the icon of Christ, twice, then lay it before Christ’s icon, on a narrow ledge projecting out from the icon screen. Then I saw five other people do the same. These weren’t cell phones, or at least they weren’t merely cell phones, but recording devices. People want to preserve Fr. Theodore’s sermons. And well worth preserving this one was, too!

The sermon was on Joy. The heart of the Christian life is Joy. The pleasures of this world are transient, disappointing, ultimately unfulfilling; Love is the only genuine Joy and Love is another name for Christ. (And for His Father! Yes, God the Father is just like God the Son, who, after all, came to reveal the Father. “Who has seen Me has seen the Father.”)

And the heart of Joy, said Fr. Theodore, is that death has been vanquished. (“How so?” asked a woman during the meeting after church. “We still see everybody die.” So Fr. Theodore explained the difference between bodily death, when our spirit separates from the body, leaving it to decay, and spiritual death, when our spirit separates from God, leaving it to decay. He explained how what we see is only the former, only of the body, and not of the rest of us; and even that is temporary, until the general resurrection. But those who love God will never experience separation from Him, Who is Life, never even have any taste anything more than bodily death.)

Before Christ, said the priest, people lived all their lives in fear of death and without knowing true love, but only natural love, no different from what animals (some animals!) have for their young. Their love is only an emotion. If you are outside of Christ, then for you, virtually the same conditions prevail as in the “Pro-christos,” the era before Christ. But if you are in Christ, you partake of His Immortal Life, the Life of sacrificial Love.

I thought about non-Christians, as for example our dear Muslim friends in Richmond. They are good people, kind people, and yes, true friends to us. But in conversations with them, Demetrios has found out that forgiveness is to them ridiculous. “If someone offends me,” one of them told him scornfully, “that’s his problem!” She’s only going to be your friend, that is, as long as you don’t seriously mess up. Loving ones enemies is equally foreign to them, a thing they cannot see as good or wise. Nor is humility part of their religion.

I’m sorry, but each of these is an absolutely indispensible prerequisite for Love. For spiritual love, anyway, for the Love Christ has made known and kindles in our hearts. Outside of Christ there does not exist this Love, this Joy. For He IS Love, just as He IS Life.

It reminds me of a sad little joke. Two old men are lying next to each other in a hospital ward. One says to the other, “Well, have you understood anything?”

After a moment, the other replies, “No, not really.”

Says the first, “Me neither.”

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall;
I really don’t know life at all.
- Joan Collins.

Of course not, because that’s a false spectrum. Life isn’t about winning or losing, or being up or being down. It’s about Love, which alone brings Joy, and not incidentally, also reveals the meaning – deep and beautiful meaning, too! – of every single thing in this life. It’s about Joy, because our chief enemy, death, no longer exists. There is no separation from God, no separation from immortal Life, no separation from Love, even for His enemies (who may wish there were). And if there’s no death, then (assuming we don’t reject Life), nothing can really harm us in more than our bodies.

After I had taken Communion, I entirely forgot to take a piece of the antidoron, the blessed (but non-sacramental) bread, with which we beak our fast after Communion. A woman noticed this and brought me a piece, or rather, a whole, huge slice. How kind is that!

Near the end of the Divine Liturgy, as the priest is blessing us, the Orthodox sing, “Preserve, O Lord, him [the priest] who blesses and sanctifies us, unto many years!” Usually this song is a formality, or little more. The cantor sings it. Not at St. Anthony’s! The whole congregation sang it, loudly, with great fervor.

When church was over, I was in such a rush to get OUT of there, away from the crush of people, that I also forgot to stop and kiss that miraculous icon I wrote about a few days ago; I walked right by it. OUCH!

We saw Konstantina out in the courtyard. She had just returned from two months in her own country, Canada. The little girl who had kissed the painted vase of flowers was with her; her name is Makrina. Another little girl was there, too; I think she’s the daughter of Maria and Fr. Moses, who (if memory serves, as it may not) are Americans. Anyway, I asked the child, in English, what her name was and she said, “Katerina. In English, Katherine.”

When Demetrios asked Konstantina what was going on in the parish hall, she said, “The lesson.” Ah! Fr. Theodore teaches his people after church. So we went in, I with some trepidation on account of the packed people. A woman carrying a flat box of cheese pies handed me the last one and a man behind us, seeing this, put his own cheese pie in Demetrios’ hands. When Demetrios demurred, the man said, gruffly, “Take it, take it!”

“Women on this side, men here,” another woman told us. The opposite sides one takes in Church; I don’t know why.

I managed again to find a seat at the very front. Front seats are usually the last to be taken, aren’t they? So I wasn’t too very bothered by the press of people. Somebody poured me a glass of water, and two others nodded and smiled at me.

Eventually, there was a stir and everybody stood up as Fr. Theodore entered. He walked straight up to a raised platform in the front, where his chair was, and a table in front of it. On the table, a silver tray had been laid, with a white linen cloth, a cup of coffee, a glass of water, a paper napkin, a cheese pie, a slice of pound cake, and a candy. Isn’t that sweet?

He didn’t touch any of it.

Again he spoke of Joy and of victory over death. I understood enough to be brought to tears, as before during his sermon.

Then he caught us up on some of the scandals going on in the Church, not sex scandals, but liturgical abuses, because, he said, we must be prepared for a very big spiritual battle. He didn’t balk at naming names, either. These are some bishops and some priests to follow and with whom to join forces; and these are the people doing all sorts of unorthodox things.

Then we sang the hymns commemorating St. Anthony, after whom this parish is named, and St. Demetrios, because this city is entrusted to his care (meaning God’s care, through the ongoing ministry of His Saint) and everybody here always sings the hymn of St. Demetrios. And then we departed, blessed to have been a part of this healthy, very alive, parish. Now here is what a Christian Church is supposed to be! We hope to be back every Sunday we are here.

Living in Greece Part 08

Friday, 10 September

It seems to me Americans do not appreciate the pleasant, even delightful side of living at close quarters with other people. I suppose our attitude is a legacy of the frontier days, when people moved west to escape laws and taxes and noise and interference. In the wilderness there was no government; people were allowed to do exactly as they pleased. And ever since then, I’m hypothesizing, Americans have thought of being alone as a form of freedom. If you have 10 acres in the middle of nowhere, you do not have to consult your neighbor about building a fence or cutting down a tree. And the nearer your neighbors are, the more you have to accommodate them, as for instance here in our building, where by mutual consent, we keep quiet every day from 2 – 5 p.m. because that is nap time.

But people who think solitary means free are missing so much, namely, each other! It’s the people who are the life of a place, and sharing their lives is most of the charm of any place.

In this building, Thomai and Zisis know if we are in residence, because they are directly below and can hear our footsteps. (I don’t know why, as we’ve never head anything from above us.) And we know when they’re home because Thomai has a loud voice. If spouses quarrel, we hear it all; if a wife storms out, we see it from our balcony. And we know when she is back home by the fact that her laundry has been taken off the line. And sometimes when spouses people are amorous, we hear that, too, as last year when I thought our neighbor was having a heart attack and only realized she wasn’t about 30 seconds before I was going to knock on her door.

It’s life! Genuine life, with all its beauty and all its warts. It’s people, sometimes sublime, sometimes weak. It’s the ultimate reality show, every person’s drama interwoven with every other’s. It’s almost a tribal life; or as Demetrios puts it, it’s as though we were all one, big family in the whole city – and one extended family in the whole country. Everybody belongs to you, and you belong to them. Their problems are your concern, and yours are their concern. Your joys are part of the neighborhood’s fabric. You follow each person’s progress through life with interest and all good hopes and wishes. It’s like following a set of blogs, except you don’t need the blog because you see and hear it all firsthand, happening in the flesh. That’s exactly what Americans don’t like, isn’t it, everybody more ore less knowing everybody else’s business. But why not? We have nothing to hide. Most people have nothing to hide, or if they do, they still can.  How can you say you want to be one with all people, yet don't want to live too near them???

One communal matter in this building is that we must arrange for our elevator to be updated to conform to the standards of the European Union. Oh, it will still be the same size, still only big enough for 3 people, provided they are all good friends, or one person and two suitcases. But it will be computerized. And I hope its appearance will be improved.

There has been some talk, by the proposed contractor, of doing it under the table to avoid taxes. Demetrios’ opinion, though, seems to have prevailed. He said we should all pay our taxes and if the contractor doesn’t want to pay his or report ours, that will be his problem, but he must give us each a receipt to show we paid ours. Thomai agreed, saying you never know, in such a situation, who might tell, and we’d all be in trouble. Her husband, Zisis, seems to be going along with that, our building’s fearless leader.

Well, the only thing he does fear, and very much, is trouble from Christos over this, as over several issues in the past. (Christos owns the flat across from us.) Well, the issues in the past had similar complications, so Christos had a point, didn’t he? As in the days when we had a communal furnace and Christos measured the oil in the tank as soon as it had been delivered and alleged the oil company was delivering less than we were paying for and accused Zisis of taking a kickback. This time, Demetrios has had to tell Zisis repeatedly not to worry, that he would take the responsibility of sorting it all out with Christos.

Today we went to the open-air market held near us on Fridays. Along with the fruits and veggies and fish, I bought a small dog whistle. I plan to use it with doves. There aren’t any doves coming to our balcony this year as they did in the past, sometimes even wandering into our kitchen. We miss them! So I plan to sit in the park below our balcony and whenever I see a dove, I’ll toss it some food, blowing the little pipe a certain way each time. Once the doves have learned to associate the sound with the food, then I will start doing the same thing from the balcony and see if they learn to come there for food when called. I’ll let you know how and if it works.

Living in Greece, Part 07

Thursday, 09 September

At last I feel I have the house in hand. I’ve scrubbed, on hands and knees, both the kitchen and bathroom floors with hydrochloric acid, which whitens the grout.

I’ve laundered most of the lace curtains and they are many shades whiter than when we arrived. Some of them are easy, as the curtain rods can be lowered via pulleys. But in the master bedroom, I have to stand on tip-toe on the top of a stepladder and reach up as high as my arms can go, to insert all the hooks into tiny loops a the top of the curtains. And each curtain has about 25 loops. Never again!

I’ve vacuumed the oriental rug and all the upholstered furniture. Yes, I know, never vacuum an oriental rug. Tough! The days when I would move all the furniture, roll up the rug, haul it outside, drape it over the clothesline, beat it, then carry it back indoors and move all the furniture back – those days are forever gone. Besides, I don’t think this is one of those rugs. It’s almost certainly machine-made.

I’ve even washed my bottle collection. I save or buy bottles that grab my fancy and some that don’t until I decorate them; I put them atop my kitchen cabinets, to hide some copper pipes that run across. I have about 50 bottles, so washing them all was no small chore. (I need about half a dozen more to complete the collection.)

I’ve laid all the crochet lace or embroidered runners and doilies on the tables and set out the vases and other decorations, and the house looks nice.

The only remaining non-routine task is to wash all the windows and doors.

Having done so much work, I could even begin to imagine myself virtuous, if it weren’t for the crankiness amid which it was accomplished! I’m beginning to relax now and have fun. No more crankiness.

Yesterday and the day before, I was listening to some boys playing in the little park, and I had to smile when I heard some of them calling, “Achilles, Achilles!” So Greek boys still play Trojan War, I said to myself, just as Demetrios did and as every generation of Greek boys has done for four thousand years!

That was a misapprehension, however; Achilles turns out to be the boy’s real name! How do I now? I heard his mother calling him home for dinner. (Does he have an Achilles’ Heel? Sure; he has two!)

But one kid the other day really did say, “I’ll be Hercules!”

About 8:30 at night, we met Mena and Kostas at a café, where Pelagia and George later joined us.

Pelagia and George both have quite fierce expressions. They’re both retired teachers and Mena says it’s their schoolteacher demeanor. Anyway, they are by no means fierce, but lively and kind. They invited us to go with them next weekend to their seaside summer home, from which they only returned today. They’ve invited us before, but again, it has never worked out before; perhaps it may this time. The only trip definitely on our schedule is to Corfu, where we are to be reunited, briefly, with David and Julia. It’s a stop on a cruise they are about to take.

The good news us, Mena’s daughter Elpida, who has an 11-month old girl, is expecting again in April. Liana, the elder daughter, has at least graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in law. She works in her father’s office as an apprentice and is preparing to pass a battery of exams to be admitted to the bar in Greece.

The bad news is, Mena was robbed yesterday. While she was standing in a tightly packed bus, someone with a razor knife cut into the side of her handbag, made a hole more than big enough to insert a hand, and removed her wallet. She never knew anything was amiss until she got off the bus and the remaining contents of her handbag began spilling out. She’d been carrying 160 Euros. And credit cards. So the first thing she did was go to her bank and cancel all those cards.

The rest of the conversation was about politics. We women had very little success turning it to anything else. Almost every time we tried, one of the men thought of a political angle. It must be some sort of disease. But it did occur to me to wish I could have seen Kostas in court, arguing in his deep, resonant voice, with such passion, such almost Italian gestures, such oratorical flare.

I’d like to see his colleague, Iannis, in court, too, because whatever anybody says always reminds him of some Psalm. Once when Mena and I were with him, he was trying to park his car and somebody else took the spot before he could. Mena shouted at the other driver, “You beast! You animal!” And Iannis sang, “There dwell all creatures great and small.”

There was a street brawl tonight just outside our café tonight. It grew from shouting to punching, and we began worrying someone might get hurt. Three police cars came, plus two police motorcycles. The young men involved had fled by then, but before the police had realized that, we watched them put on flak jackets. Oh, my!

The brawlers returned once the police had left. It was nearly midnight by time they had dispersed. We sat in the café another half hour, then walked home with George and Pelagia, who live near us. It was the first time I’ve ever felt just a tad uneasy walking in this city at any hour of day or night.

Living in Greece Part 06

Wednesday, 08 September
Nativity of the Holy Theotokos

Last night Christos took us to see his good friends, Paul and Chara. Chara (pronounced roughly Kah-RRAH) grew up in Christos. Her husband’s real name is Panagiotis, but he lived 30 or 40 years in America, is an American citizen, and in America, acquired the name Paul.

Chara has bright red hair and brown eyes; she is small and very feminine, and I actually mistook one large color photo of her for Katherine Hepburn. She doesn’t resemble Miss Hepburn in person, but in that picture, in profile, hair tucked up inside a wide-brimmed hat, she’s a double for the actress.

Paul was born of a Greek family in Egypt, and grew up there. He was a banker, but was expelled from Egypt when Nasser came to power and nationalized the banks. He came to Greece, but found out that just as in Egypt he had been considered a Greek, so in Greece he was considered an Arab. So he thought the only place he could be whoever he wanted to be was in America.

He managed New York’s Regency Hotel for many, many years; also the Drake, owned by the same people. He rubbed shoulders with many of the rich, famous, and powerful, and he can tell you fascinating stories for hours on end. I keep telling him to write a book, and he says if he ever does, the title will be, It was Fun! He knew Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy Onassis; he was on very friendly (but not illegal) terms with the Mafia, specifically the Gambino family.

I asked him why Jackie Kenney married Onassis. He said, “The question is why he married her. Why she married him is easy: he gave each of her children ten million dollars and gave her twenty million. The question is why he wanted to marry her, and the answer is,she was a trophy wife. There was more to it, though. He and Robert Kennedy hated each other from the time Robert was Attorney General, because while President Kennedy was still alive, Jackie had had an affair with Onassis. So to marry Robert’s sister-in-law was a slap at him.”

He knew Maria Callas, too, and so many others.

And how did he come to be such friends with the Gambino family? Well, one day he heard an altercation outside his office, accompanied by a lot of obscene language. “So, I go out the door, I see a man about six feet three, and I say to him, ‘Please, step into my office.’ I pour him a little sherry, and I say, ‘You can use that kind of language in your own office or in your home, but please, my customers do not pay such high prices to hear it here.”

The tall man, more than a little surprised, said, “Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“My height doesn’t impress you?”

Paul shrugged. “I can jump and punch you.”

At this, the man Paul later knew as Big Ed threw back his head and laughed.

But there was no more swearing in that hotel and Big Ed had elaborate gifts delivered to the hotel for Paul; and Paul treated him very well. Then the Gambino Family began frequenting the hotel, using it for meetings and so forth.

“One day the big man himself came. He says to me, ‘Paul, I want you to introduce me to the maître-d’ as Mr. Smith.’ Well, of course the mâitre has already recognized Mr. Gambino, from seeing his picture so often in the papers. So, I say to the mâitre, ‘I’d like you to meet Mr. Smith’ and the mâitre says, ‘I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Smith.’ And out comes a hundred dollar bill, into the mâitre’s hands. ‘Thank you, Mr. Smith,’ says the mâitre, and out comes another hundred dollars. ‘So now you know my name,’ says Mr. Gambino, and the mâitre says, ‘Yes, I do, Mr. Smith.’”

Paul has met numerous heads of state, and Patriarch Bartholomew (for whom he has little use) and the Patriarch of Alexandria. In fact, his own spiritual father is going to be installed as chancellor (or something) in Alexandria next month, and Paul and Chara wonder whether we’d come with them for the occasion. We’ve never yet visited them when they didn’t invite us to go to Egypt with them, but it has never worked out. Maybe this time it will; wouldn’t that be a thrill!

With such stories as these we were regaled for several hours, until Christos said he wanted to go home, and I seconded the motion.

Who Are You...

…to Tell Me How to Live My Life?

I’ve been told that in England this question expresses a common attitude of the people toward the Church of England. When I first heard it, I was so startled by the question I didn’t know what to say. I was taken aback because this question does not usually arise among the Orthodox. And this is not because we are more pious than they or more trustful of authority or any such thing as that. It’s that the Orthodox Church does not work that way. Nobody, normally, behaves so preposterously as to try to lord it over us. (And if someone in abnormal cases does try to, we usually laugh him out of court.)

We do indeed have among us people who can tell us how to live our lives. Who are they? They are people in such intimate communion with Christ that they have been transfigured into His image. They are so like Him we want to weep with joy when we meet them. (Emily and Ben Harju have a priest in Indiana who is like that.) They are people in whom Christ’s Incarnation continues, people who have given their minds, hearts, souls and bodies to be His, for Him to live in, and their lives are in fact His own deathless Life. They are “Christ with skin on”. Often they have given up all earthly things, too, not just in principle, as all of us are called to do, but in fact. They may have only the clothes they are wearing and literally nothing else. They are humble and mild as a baby, full of compassion and wisdom and charm. They move you in the depths of your soul.

When anyone who loves Christ encounters such a person, he yearns to be more like him, to attain to the same richness of spirit, the same love, the same faith, the same peace and joy. So it is only natural to ask this person for advice on how we may attempt to become who he or she is, Who Christ is.

The thing is, such people will never tell you how to live your life, never tell you a single thing, unless you ask. This, out of respect for you, as well as the realization that unsought advice, however wise, is usually worthless. In fact, it’s worse than useless; it can be detrimental, because it’s better for you not to know the Way than to be told it and reject it.

Showing up for a sermon is of course a form of asking, but you still aren't going to be told how to live your life. Instead, you will hear general advice and elucidation of the Christin teachings. What you do with it will be left entirely up to you. Nobody tries to "bind your conscience" or control your thought or your behavior.

Thus, a holy person will only guide you insofar as you ask him or her to do it. And even then, s/he will only tell you as much as s/he perceives you are ready to hear and heed. You will be offered one baby step at a time, and if and when you do that well, and if you continue to ask, you will be given further advice, tailored with wisdom and compassion, specifically to you.

Now I’ve told you the ideal, but in practice it is not always easy to find this kind of person. Fortunately, also in practice, I only need for my guidance someone a bit further along the road than I am, and finding that person is never difficult!

That’s how it works among us, and that’s why the question so startled me, and why I do not know any answer to it.

A True Tale On this 9th Anniversary

Anne has quite a September 11 tale on her blog. She describes what happened when she tried to be nice to some Muslims today. Please leave comments there.

“My Kingdom is Not of this World.”

We’ve been reading a book called Byzantium, by Judith Herrin. Especially in her section dealing with the conflicts between Rome and Constantinople, she is a remarkably neutral and understanding (probably Jewish?) third party. She’s even got a surprisingly good grasp of the theological points of controversy. She points out that from Rome’s point of view, reunion of East and West always meant submission to the pope. The issue, for Rome, was how to word this, and other matters of disagreement, in such a way as to come up with a formula acceptable to both sides. Put another way (by me, not by Herrin), it was all a word game.

My first reaction was: It’s exactly the same now, a thousand years later!

A recent example of the same tactic: I remember Pope John Paul II asking non-Catholics to explore and discuss with him what they thought the “Petrine Ministry” should be. I said the first thing is, it should actually be a ministry rather than the ultimate form of control (the very opposite of ministry); and the second thing is, it should be genuinely Petrine; viz., should limit itself to the forms of ministry St. Peter actually exercised, and not the things Rome fantasizes he would have done, given the opportunity. Those suggestions were not very well received. Of course not; they defeated the purpose of the question, didn’t they? Because of course the question, underneath the concilatory words, was, "How can we sugar-coat the pill of submission so you can accept to swallow it?"

And my second thought, reading this chapter, was: it’s what you mean that counts. It’s dishonest to try to mask your meaning with pretty or ambiguous words. See The Catechism of the Catholic Church for a prime example of just such ear-pleasing equivocation, a book that contrives to be so vague and in places even so self-contradictory Catholics can use it to support quite a diversity of positions.

That, of course, is what it’s for, “bringing people together”, conservatives, liberals, rad-trads, everybody able to subscribe to the same words, even though by those words each person may mean something quite different from what his neighbor means. This trick, shared words, passes for unity. Shared meanings don’t seem to matter – except one, the meaning of the papacy. The Catechism does make abundantly clear that Catholic “unity” consists of submission to the pope, "the perpetual and visible source and foundation" of it. (Paragraph 882)  Just submit to him and you can keep your precious diversity; who cares? That’s the beauty of it, unity (so called) in diversity, e pluribus unum and all that.

No, what Herrin describes hasn’t changed in all these centuries.

Do you know any pope of the past thousand years who did not aspire to exercise authority, as by divine right, over the whole world? Yet when Christ was offered dominion over all the kingdoms of the world He rejected the diabolical temptation.

That, I think, should tell you all you need to know.

Excitement

There’s a lot of talk among certain of the faithful of the Church of England about getting people “excited about God.” I think I know what they mean, although the choice of word is misleading. What they seek is to foster a personal connection between God and the people. They want there to be a genuine relationship instead of people just coming to church because it’s expected, and going through the forms by rote, with nothing deeper than that happening. To correct this, they change the forms instead of trying to recover their content. They may not know what that content is supposed to be, and/or perhaps may not realize that changing the forms does inescapably alter the content as well. That’s okay with me, as I think both do need changing; I just don’t know if it’s really okay with them. The tired old forms don’t have to be empty or tired or tiresome, provided they have the right content.

These folks try to attract people to God by re-orienting what is supposed to be the worship of God toward serving the people, uplifting them, consoling them, entertaining them, and trying to prevent church from seeming weird, outdated, formidable, intimidating. (There’s obviously nothing wrong with serving the people! It’s a way of serving God, after all. It's just a question of where, when, and how to do it.) I can remember when I, too, was trying hard to demonstrate to the world (and perhaps to myself) that we Christians were hip, up-to-date, with the times, appreciative of and receptive to all the modern trends. Christians are cool!

You have to sympathize with these efforts, I think. We must not imagine these people as enemies of God bent on destroying the faith. I can testify that they are quite the opposite. They are trying hard, by whatever means they can find, to rescue their faith, to rehabilitate it before it disappears altogether, which in England really does appears to be more than a remote possibility. That’s what they mean when they say they want to get people “excited about God”.

They mean connected with God. They want people to love God. Excitement, of course, is nothing but sensory stimulation, a hyped-up, outward thing, bodily and emotional. And transient – as I suspect they know, actually. And you need more and more of it to achieve the same effect, and in the end, it wears off no matter how you try to recapture it, and then you are left bored and disappointed and dissatisfied. The whole process usually (in my limited observation) seems to take about 10 to 15 years. Then you begin looking for something deeper, something that more truly meets you at the level inside you where your spirit dwells. Deep calls unto deep.

We don’t really do excitement in the Orthodox Church, do we? Because we are taught to be ever mindful of our sins. Not that we are not deeply conscious of being forgiven, but we are equally conscious of that from which we have been forgiven. We are, in the words of an old Protestant hymn, “sinners whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall.” Or as Christ said, “Whoever has been forgiven much loves much.”

Yet it isn’t mostly the remembrance of past shame and disgrace; it's mostly the current and anticipated future missing of the mark that keeps us sober. For as the only true joy in life is communion with God in Christ, so the only true sorrow is the degree to which that communion, because of our weakness, is still so imperfect, so immature, so pathetic.

When the sinful woman knew her sins to be forgiven, she came and wept at Jesus’ feet and gave Him her best gifts, the precious ointment (bought with the proceeds of prostitution!) together with her heart and her tears, tears of repentance and thanks and joy, tears of love. And He accepted from her this true worship.

Living in Greece, Part 05

Sunday, 05 September

This day has lifted my mood, considerably.

We attended the Church of St. Anthony, where Fr. Zisis is the priest. He looks at once kindly and rather fierce, with his big, gray eyebrows; and he has a long, gray beard and short, curly, white hair. He preached on love, emphasizing that Christians are to love everybody, not just their own families or ethnic groups. And he said no other religion than Christianity was truly philanthropic (loving toward mankind).

The church building is ancient, but I couldn’t tell you how ancient. Byzantine, though. It probably was originally struccoed, but the rendering has been worn away by wind and water, and the stones now show through. Inside, it is rather small, holding about 150 to 200 people with a degree of comfort. The floor is of marble, and the icons are rather, well, rudimentary. The ceiling has exposed beams and above those, a slightly arched ceiling decorated with what looks like folk art. Little squares with medallions in their centers. Another section of the ceiling, above another aisle, has parallelograms in red, blue, and yellow; and yet another long section of ceiling simply has stripes in those same colors. A child could have painted the entire, and that’s exactly what is so touching. Somebody without great skill nevertheless did his very best to honor God.

The pulpit, near the ceiling and reached by stairs that look more like a ladder, is disused. But it’s octagonal, with more of the lovely painted folk art, mostly curlicues, vines, blossoms. It is complete with a place to lay an open book, on the back and spread wings of a carved dove, which in turn sits upon an outstretched human fist. (?)

The most important feature of the church is probably the miraculous icon of the Mother of God. I’ve told you the story of it before, but it’s worth repeating.

One night in 1945, five Greek resistance fighters were being closely pursued by the German SS when they ducked into this church and begged the priest for sanctuary. (He was known to have helped other resistance fighters before.) It’s a small church; there are no hiding places. But Fr. Parthenios (I think that was his name) told them to hide behind the icon of the Theotokos. We’re talking now about five adult men trying to hide behind an icon perhaps two feet wide and three feet tall, at most. In a few moments the Germans were in the church. They forced Fr. Parthenios to light all the oil lamps, which sill left the church quite dim. They switched on their flashlights, which shone right on the face of one of the Greeks. But although they searched and searched, the Germans never found the resistance fighters.

Later, in thanksgiving, the icon was covered in silver, except for the faces and hands, and today it sits in a special shrine, very fancy, painted red and shiny gold. Unless I’m mistaken, the shrine is new since we were here last.

Did the icon work the miracle? Or did the Theotokos? Or did God?

These questions all make the mistake of presupposing an either-or answer. God did the miracle, of course. But God entrusts various ministries to His servants. Furthermore, the holiest of His servants are in such communion with Him, so close to Him, so full of the Holy Spirit, so like Him, that God works in and through them, just as Christ promised, telling His disciples they would work wonders greater than He was working. Moreover, we do not suppose God’s reposed servants to be dead, but still very much alive in Him. In accordance with His promise, they never taste death. “He who believes in Me shall never die…” God does many wonders through His saints, both those we can still see and those we (usually) cannot.

And yes, these servants of God may use material objects, any material objects, to minister to us. Christ used mud and spit. St. Paul’s aprons and handkerchiefs were sent around to the sick, for healing. People sought out St. Peter’s very shadow for the same reason. And sometimes icons are the locus of miracles today.

There were a lot more people in the church than could comfortably fit, as the people know a wonderful priest when they encounter one; so although Demetrios went right on in, I couldn’t. Tightly packed crowds bother me and I begin to feel I can’t breathe. I don’t feel afraid, just miserable. I’m not afraid of small, enclosed spaces such as elevators, either, just crowds, but I suppose that still qualifies as claustrophobia. It grows worse with age. So I mostly stayed in the glassed-in narthex that has been added to the front of the church, and was able to hear almost everything.

Unfortunately, I was quite eager to get out of there afterwards, when the crowds began filling the narthex, so we had no time to look for Constantina and the others we met last time. I didn’t even take the time to do what I wanted very much to do, take the *antidoron from Father Zisis; but Demetrios brought me a piece.

We decided to walk to St. Sophia Square and have a bite to eat there. So we took a table as shady as we could find and enjoyed watching sparrows bathe in the nearby fountain.

Times are hard. It used to be that in the course of your meal in a sidewalk cafe, one or two street vendors and/or beggars would come around soliciting. Today I lost count of how many, but we sat there well over an hour and they came, on average, at least every 10 minutes: African men selling beads, young Chinese women selling cheap toys and trinkets, old men selling lottery tickets, Albanian beggar women with the invariable baby.

One old man came limping along and a woman at a table near ours began shouting at him. “The cane! What’s the cane for, old man? I saw you earlier and you didn’t have a cane, and you were walking perfectly well without one! You no more need a cane than I do!”

As it was a glorious day, very warm but with a breeze, we decided to walk down to the waterfront to have dessert.

But on the way we passed the Metropolitan Church, the Church of St. Gregory Palamas, and outside it was a crowd of people dressed as if for a wedding. “Let’s stop and watch!” I said. “It looks as if these people are waiting for the bride and groom to come out.”

So we stopped and watched, but nothing happened. So we were about to leave when I had another idea, a naughty one. I said, “Let’s go mingle with the crowd and let that photographer include us in his pictures of all the guests! Give the happy couple something to puzzle over when they see the wedding photos!” I was surprised when Demetrios went along with this prank.

We went inside the church, too, where a woman standing in the doorway slipped a little bracelet on my wrist, a cleverly tied contraption of adjustable pink cord, with a pink plastic cross, signifying the christening of a little girl. It’s something like a party favor; it also identifies you as one of the party when you arrive at the reception.

We weren’t wedding crashers after all; we were baptism crashers!

We only stayed a few minutes, leaving during the initial prayers (the triple exorcism) but we did venerate the relics of St. Gregory before we left. (I know, I know. That sounds totally incongruous, doesn’t it?) His bones are in a magnificent coffin, all done up in elaborately-formed brass, sitting atop an equally ornate plinth. The top of the coffin has one corner cut away, as it were, with a square of glass instead of brass, through which you can see one or two large, brown bones, as in arm bones, perhaps.

I love venerating those bones, because I am always conscious of what a huge debt we owe to St. Gregory Palamas, this native son of Thessaloniki, this defender of the Orthodox faith against those who attacked its very core by denying a person could actually have any firsthand experience of God; this Saint who, to that end, articulated perhaps better than anyone before (although they preached and wrote it, too) the distinction between God as Noun, forever unknowable, incomprehensible, and unreachable; and God as Verb, Whom we can know in the most intimate communion, with Whom we can be fully one, in Whom we can be glorified and made like Him.

Then we took our refreshment beside the sea. We watched it turn from gray to blue as the day brightened and brightened; we watched the sparkles dance on its surface; we watched the cargo ships riding at anchor outside the docking area and the tug boats and ferries making their way across the water.

We remembered how my purse was stolen last time we sat here. (This time, as ever since then, it was hanging by a shoulder strap across my neck, not to be removed except back at the house.)

After a most pleasant interlude, we walked a couple of blocks to catch a bus that took us home.

Near our own stop, Demetrios made a small detour to show me something he discovered yesterday: an old drawer laid under a thick shrub, containing a small blanket and kittens. There was only one there as we approached, about 8 weeks old, snoozing. I reached over and petted its head, very gently, and it let me – until it woke up, and then it became skittish. A darling kitty, charcoal gray with four white paws and white chin and belly. I am glad someone is looking after it.

In the late evening, we took another stroll through our neighborhood and along the waterfront, enjoying the feel of the city, still alive and bustling at night. Even small children were still up, playing in the park, riding their bicycles, walking with their dogs. People’s windows were open, their televisions sometimes on, their conversations drifting out into the street. Some shops were open (yes, on a Sunday night) and we spent a longish time looking through the window of a secondhand/antique shop. (Among the other antiques we saw a telephone exactly like one of ours in Richmond, which gave us quite a laugh.) The owner came out and conversed with us for a while.

Delightful to be among them all and part of it all.

Living in Greece, Part 04

We Live Here
Saturday, 04 September

We are not exactly on holiday; we live here. There’s a big difference. Holiday-makers don’t usually have much housework – at least not until their vacation is over — and don’t sit before stacks of paperwork or pay bills or shop for their food, or cook it themselves, or do dishes afterward. Or work on their books or knit or – no, wait, I haven’t had time to knit yet…

Can you tell I’m still in a cranky mood? I think maybe a bit more rest would cure me, but I can’t rest until my house is as it should be; in Demetrios’ word, kanoniko. Thus far, I have only done a hurried job, enough to make it very livable, but I am bothered by the stuff that still needs doing: vacuuming the upholstered furniture, washing the windows and glass doors, and the like. What bothers me worse is that I just can’t do it as quickly and efficiently as I want to, used to. Signs of old age, geramata. Kyrie,eleison!

This afternoon my brother-in-law Christos took us to a super-store at the edge of town called Mega Markt. It’s very like Circuit City, full of appliances and electrical stuff. Christos says, darkly, nobody knows who owns it.

It has a rip-off scheme to keep you shopping there. They don’t give you cash discounts, but if you buy something, they give you a credit against your next purchase at the same store. The amount of the credit varies with how much you spend and the credit never expires.

So…Demetrios bought the television from them a few days ago and was given enough credit to make the new stove we bought today ridiculously cheap. (Our current stove is 35 years old and has only one working burner.)

Once the stove is delivered, the store will give us a credit toward the next purchase. But guess what? Our next “purchase” will be a tiny microwave oven we found there that costs the same amount as the credit.

The idea of getting rid of the old TV was daunting. There are always passing Gypsies calling out for discarded items. The problem was getting it to them, because it’s big and old and very heavy, and Christos says the First Rule of Gypsies is: never, under any circumstances, allow them into your house.

Finally we set the ancient television upon an equally ancient bedsheet and dragged it out of the flat and into the elevator, in which it just fit, together with the two of us. We dragged it thence into the entry hall of our building. Then when we heard the cry of the next Gypsy, we hailed him. Not such a big deal after all.

We still haven’t “done much” to write home about. Give us time to get settled. It takes longer here than in England.

Living in Greece, Part 03

Taking Time to Enjoy Being Here
Thursday 02 September

Mena and Kostas, having tried without success to reach us in England, took a chance and telephoned us here Tuesday night and were happily surprised when we answered the phone. They immediately invited us over, and we went last night. (They’ve invited us to go to their country home in Sylatta this weekend, too, but we are too tired and too busy.)

The conversation was mainly about politics. Okay, I can understand wanting to say some things about that. But why do these two men want to keep saying the same things to each other, day after day, year after year? (Kostas and Demetrios also do this by phone, year ‘round.) I’m so sick of it. So depressing! Isn’t there any other sort of thing to discuss?

Oh, yes, there is: geramata. Geriatric ailments. A favorite among people in our age group. Sigh. Mena’s back is hurting more or less all the time from arthritis. She limps, walking bent. She has let her hair go gray.

My back also hurts more or less all the time, but it seems to be muscular, not in the bones.

Kostas is well; you’d never know he had such a terrible heart operation last year.

We woke up at 9:30 this morning, both still feeling very tired, I suppose from our rough journey to London. It’s unlikely to be on account of the time difference, for it is only two hours. We got dressed and walked the two blocks to the kafenion (coffee shop, but this one also serves certain baked goodies with the coffee) where we had our first bougatsa of the year. Bougatsa is hot, flaky pastry, baked in a flat pan, with a firm custard in the middle. Cream-filled doughnuts are the nearest thing to them we have in the U.S.

The old man who used to run the place wasn’t there. We inquired, and learned he still works there occasionally, but has slowed down.

The streets are noticeably cleaner then they used to be, and somehow the sidewalks are not quite such obstacle courses as they used to be, although they still are, just less so. There aren’t as many feral cats as there have been some years, though more than last year. They are lean, but not emaciated, as sometimes in the past. When I get around to it, I will buy cat food to keep in a baggie in my handbag.

Times are hard here. (And, as in the States, the government keeps discovering that the financial problem is ‘worse than we knew.’ If you believe them, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you for more than you knew. Are all our governments perpetually made up of idiots, who just never get it? Not at all! They are very bright people and they know exactly what they are doing. They just prefer us to think them inept instead of dishonest.)

Our favorite fruit and vegetable vendors, Vasiliki and Anesti, have closed up shop. Last year we wrote down their telephone number, however, and we hope we can find it again and get in touch. Anesti was having back pain, leaving him unable to lift the crates of produce. Now we buy from our second-favorite greengrocer, the one whose father tends an ever-growing family of feral cats.

The taverna across the street is still there, The Cry of the Gull. But we can no longer see the logo on the canopy or watch the outside diners from our balcony, on account of the trees.

Nikoletta and Stelios are still at their grocery shop but Nikoletta’s hair is now graying. We stopped there to buy some of her specialties, especially her tarama and some cheeses and salami. We forgot to get some of her wonderful eggplant salad, but will get it another time.

Iannis and Paraskevoula still operate the butcher shop across the street from us. She caught sight of us on the sidewalk and greeted us warmly. We bought some lamb chops from them.

The street musicians still come around, singing and playing the accordion. We haven’t yet heard from the one who, after several years of practice, could only play Blue Danube, but our favorites, the accordionist and the woman with the sweetest, most haunting voice, are still around. They didn’t come close enough this time for me to toss them a euro over the balcony, but I hope they will soon.

It’s strange, crossing streets where people drive on the right! We had become quite accustomed to the English way. Now we still have to exercise extra caution.

It’s also quieter in our neighborhood (even when our windows and doors are all open) than it used to be. One street being closed due to subway construction a couple of blocks away has reduced the noise; there are fewer motorcycles coming through our intersection. We think probably a lot of the citizens are still living in their summer houses in their various home villages, because there are fewer people than usual in the streets. Part of the (relative!) quiet may also be due to the recession, people can’t afford to shop as much or frequent the bars as often. Even the nightly revelry from the Drunken Duck seems a bit quieter. Of course, it’s not yet the weekend!

In the evening, we walked down to the sea, which by checking my journals from earlier years I discover is what we usually do on about our second or third day here. It’s an easy outing for tired travelers. We just sat in the bright warmth, sipped our drinks, and watched children playing. Then as the sun hug lower over the Aegean, we joined the other people walking up or down the promenade, and when we began to grow weary, we came home. A lovely day altogether.

Menace

Ever in search of blood, the Dread Kounoupi has been preying upon the Greeks, killing 30 people so far this year. We all close our windows and/or shutters as soon as the daylight fades.

And what is this much-feared beast? The mosquito, carrying West Nile Encephalitis.

The danger is seasonal, and we hope the season is either over or soon will be.

Living in Greece, Part 02

2nd Anniversary of Dad’s Death
Wednesday, 01 September

It’s now two days since we arrived and Demetrios hasn’t recovered yet from all the tension of that trip. But we have learned a thing or two (or six) about how to do it better another time. First rule of travel in the U.K.: NOT on a Bank Holiday or Bank Holiday weekend.

We found our flat here filthy as always, and I went through my usual conniptions about that. I leave it spotless every time, and it never is when we return. At least, this time, it was mostly just a matter of 14 months of dust all over everything. It wasn’t pistachio shells mixed with rat turds, as one time before. Or blood. It was just coffee spilled down the side of the refrigerator and splashed up on the tiles of the backsplash, and the tablecloth had a huge stain in the middle. The bathroom sink also had built-up soap scum. I don’t know why Christos still uses our flat, as he now lives in his own a mile away. Perhaps he has no air conditioning?

I didn’t even want to unpack until I had done at least some basic cleaning. So I’ve spent the last two days doing both, plus laundry.

It’s good to be back, even if we do have only one tiny bathroom that needs some finishing (well, okay, it also needs complete re-tiling, but that’s a long-term project, and meanwhile it’s, well, decent). There is much else that still needs doing, such as wooden floors re-sanded and refinished, walls and trim painted. We try to think instead of the improvements we have already made up to now: 12 major ones!

We’ve lost something amid all these improvements. We used to live virtually in the streets, at the mercy of weather and noise, because we had no choice but to keep open every window and every door, to catch any breeze we could. The life of this city is outdoors. It’s there people eat, there deliveries are made to shops, there musicians wander by hoping you’ll toss them a euro, there gypsies call out for your discarded items, there the teenagers gather to show off and to flirt, where cats fight and scream and mate, where women hang their laundry and men, not allowed to smoke in the house, come out to do it. We used to feel more a part of it all. We could see and hear what was happening in the streets below and on the balconies across the street, and follow the daily routine of various cats (and people). We could hear the clink of crockery as people prepared and ate meals, and could sniff the delicious aromas. But the double-glazing, though not yet complete, has cut down the noise, as has also the air conditioning. And the trees have grown a lot fuller and taller than they were, blocking most of our once-upon-a-time view.

In short, we now live indoors as much as outdoors. We now have less of a campsite and more of a real home. Not that we’d go back to it, but we loved that campsite! Well, the truth is, we can still have some of it, minus the views, any time we want it, by simply opening all the doors and windows.

But we’re here, that’s the main thing! We’re back in Greece, whose chief annoyance is that people totally improvise their lives and whose chief charm is that people totally improvise their lives. The sky is clear and blue, the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, all our windows and doors are open to the perfect air, and my laundry dries in half an hour or so, instead of in a day and a half in England.

Demetrios went off with Christos yesterday and bought us a television, our old one (as in 30 years old) having given up the ghost shortly before we left here last time. Prices are considerably depressed just now, so it was a bargain. It’s a lot like the television James lent us in England.

Christos helped us set it up. Then we looked through the owner’s manual for operating instructions. There were none. It is just assumed everybody knows how to operate a television set! How about instructions for working the remote, then? Nope, none. We do have a remote in America, but we never did learn how to do more than change channels and adjust the volume.  There must be tons more to learn.

Fortunately, it all seems pretty intuitive. We’ve even learned how to adjust the aspect ratio, for times when images seem too stretched out or too tall and skinny.

Demetrios’ project today was to find out why we have no hot water. (Did you notice the priority here, television the first day, hot water the second?) A plumber came and the problem turned out to be just one lever or dial or something that wasn’t set right. Problem solved. That’s good, as I had to take a cold shower yesterday. (In yesterday’s heat, a cold shower was a luxury!)

We had lunch in what used to be a favorite sandwich shop and realized, after we had already ordered, that the new owners are homosexuals and the place is no longer patronized much by straight people.

Now I’m off to the store to pick up a few basics; until now there hasn’t even been time to do that! We’ve only bought bread and butter and water. Oh, and last night we passed a fruit and vegetable stand and laid in some tomatoes and grapes and peaches.


Observation in a Cranky Mood

I know I am not entitled to feel cranky and there is no excuse for it, but I have, these past two days. You know how it is when we’re cranky; we look for complaints.

And I’ve found one. It occurr to me that the mobile phone has brought with it a whole new range of rude behaviors.

I’d post something entitled “Mobile Telephone Etiquette” with a sarcastic, snobby tone (imitating Miss Manners) but God’s looking out for me (and you): I’m tired to write it.

Amy Hits Several Nails on the Head

Here is a post I must recommend to you. It's about being judgmental.

It's also, secondarily, about how to dress for church.  Here's a tidbit that says it all so well:

"...if God can’t love me in my jeans and tank top in church, then He isn’t a God I want to worship anyway...” God looks at the heart, right?

God does look at our heart - yes. And our outward appearance and words testify to the state of our heart. The problem with my acquaintance’s comment is that she disregarded what God says about dressing modestly and appropriate for worship and took on the attitude of:

I am not budging; God can meet me right where I am.

If we were to meet the President of the United States, most of us would not show up in a bathing suit. It’s the same reason I don’t show up to photograph a wedding in a tube top and cut-off shorts. For some reason, though, the worship of our Lord has become, in some places, casual...relaxed... ho hum, irreverent and far from sacred. We are to give God our best, whatever that best may be.

Yes, it is the inward things that are most important. But the outward things are also important, both in themselves and because they reflect and affect our inner selves.

God is definitely worth dressing up for!

Living in Greece, Part 01

Monday, 30 August
Our last week in England…

…was, as predicted, a whirl of teas and dinners and goodbyes.

We dined one evening with the doctor and his wife, the man who may or may not have specialized in abortions; I’ve realized that for practical purposes, it makes no difference to us. They were telling us about the mansion they lived in until recently, with 8 bedrooms and three baths – for a family of 4. It was because their daughters wanted horses, and the acreage was needed, they said. Both daughters became serious equestrians, apparently, but then they grew up and moved away, taking their horses with them. So the doctor and his wife have now downsized. To what, they didn’t say. Five bedrooms, I imagine.

They also enthused quite a bit about vacationing, often, in Dubai. They stay at the Atlantis Hotel on Palm Island. Okay, the island is man-made, in the shape of a palm tree, the trunk of which is a causeway joining the island to the mainland. The Atlantis Hotel has a whole series of (presumably interconnected) walls which are in fact huge aquariums. There is glass flooring, too, at the bottom level. So you can watch sharks glide by as you eat your breakfast. All this, for a mere thousand or twelve hundred pounds per night. Pounds, not dollars and not euros.

In Dubai, they told us, there is also an entire little alpine village, all enclosed, complete with chalets, skiing, falling snow and a ceiling that would never believe wasn’t the real sky.

Oh, the things you can do when you are staggeringly rich, as people are in Dubai.

We had tea and dinner with a couple of nurses from ‘way back when. One of them, Sister Joy Gauntliff, brought with her some photos of the nurses in those days, one photo showing ‘Dr. Theo’ with them.

Sr. Margaret Goodwill is a real livewire, bodily and mentally, highly entertaining, completely dedicated, shrewd. As she was reminiscing, she let this phrase drop: ‘And then, of course, came all those wounded soldiers from Dunkirk…”

Imagine that – meeting someone who nursed soldiers from Dunkirk!

(I was schooled to think of Dunkirk as a glorious episode in the history of World War II, but in fact it was ignominious and horrible in more than one respect.)

We said goodbye to all the Bates – David, Julia, James, with Kim, and Nick – on Friday night, and on Saturday night we took the book by St. Dorotheos to Stuart and Angela. We hope they will find it as delightful and enriching as we have.

Our time in England has been fabulous, thanks largely to the Bates and to Elias and his family, and so many others. We enjoyed every single hour of every single day. And here are the main rules of Life in England, just to recap:

1.) Never leave home without an umbrella, one per person

2.) Remember, when crossing streets, that traffic comes from unexpected directions!

3.) See #1 above.

4.) See # 2 above.

Greece, at Last!
Tuesday, 31 August

The trip from London to here yesterday was uneventful but the trip to London was a nightmare. David and Julia tried to tell us it would be. We are very grateful to have followed their advice NOT to try to get to London the same day as our flight to Thessaloniki.

The first problem was that it was a Bank Holiday weekend. Things weren’t operating normally. The express train to London we had planned to take wasn’t in service that day. Instead, we had to travel to three different places along the route, changing trains each time, and taking a bus instead for one leg, as the rail tracks along that segment were being worked on.

The next problem was delays. One train was delayed because the train ahead of us was late. Another train was delayed because the train ahead of us had broken down, about a quarter of a mile short of the station, and all the passengers had to be evacuated, together with their baggage.

We missed the bus. We did arrive in time for another, but it wouldn’t hold us all, so we had to wait, in freezing wind, for another. (Could’ve been worse; it could have been raining.)

Finally we caught the underground train for the airport, only to find it only went halfway; we had to lug our luggage again to catch the train that went the rest of the way. We boarded that train, and I was still standing up, arranging my things, when the train started up with a jerk and down I went, falling all over people’s feet and bags and everything. A dozen hands reached down to help me. Fortunately, I was not hurt. Rather to my amazement, I’m not even sore or bruised.

At the airport, it took us an hour to find and board the shuttle bus to our hotel.

The woman in reception frowned as she saw our last name and asked, “Is that Greek, or Greek Cypriot?”

“Greek,” I said, “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Her name tag suggested it was because she was Turkish. She clearly found it distasteful to deal with us, and the room she assigned us was at the very end of a series of long corridors, as long a walk from Reception as possible. At least it was very quiet, that wing being otherwise unoccupied.

We arrived in Thessaloniki around 11:00 p.m., only 9:00 English time, and Christos, my brother-in-law, picked us up and drove us home.