Celebrations, Day Two

Saturday, 27 October, a Hundredth Anniversary

There was a massive military celebration downtown this morning in honor of the hundredth anniversary (yesterday) of the liberation of Thessaloniki from the Turks. The soldiers, marching, retraced the 1912 route to victory.

I grew up standing by my father’s side when he reviewed his troops, and what I saw on television today wasn’t even as impressive as ROTC cadets. Even any high school marching band can do better. And it’s hard to tell which are less well trained, the men or the horses. One of the horses required two men to control it (more or less), one riding it and the other walking alongside holding the bridle.

In other ways, the event was still grand, though. The first best part of the morning was the raising of the Greek flag over what used to be the government building, followed by the singing of the National Anthem, just as happened in 1912. You could tell the soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines were singing it with all their hearts — noted! — and so were the crowds. The other best thing was when the parade ended up at the Church of St. Minas, which in 1912 was the cathedral church, all the larger churches having been converted to mosques. There, after the Great Doxology, they sang the hymn to St. Demetrios, then the one to the Protectress of Christians with the so-difficult-to-translate title, something like, “To Thee, our Champion Leader”. And then the National Anthem again. All of this, a re-enactment of what took place at this church a hundred years ago yesterday.

There were enormous crowds in all the streets and the proceedings took all morning. Had we known it was going to be such a big deal, we might have gone downtown ourselves. But we didn’t realize and we were still tired, so we only watched it on TV.

There were no fighter jets doing a fly-by; this was a re-enactment and jets would have been an anachronism. The television news says there won’t be jets — or tanks — at the military parade tomorrow, either. We have heard no mention on the news of the unannounced and frightening episode to which we were subjected on Thursday.

Of course it’s great to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the day the City gained her freedom from the Turkish yoke. There’s something hollow about it, though, because the truth is, Turkey could march into Greece any day and take the whole country back in 24 hours. (So why doesn’t she? Ask me and I’ll explain; but to summarize, it’s because there’s no need.)

A quiet dinner at Mena’s in honor of St. Demetrios and my Demetrios was supposed to be the only thing on our calendar for today, but it turned out otherwise.

First thing that happened was, the 4-month-old grandson of our friends Pelagia and George fell from the sofa to the floor while his parents weren’t looking. An alarmed Pelagia immediately phoned Demetrios. Demetrios asked a few questions and then said it sounded like the baby would be fine. He mentioned that we were going to Mena’s house shortly, but promised he would take his mobile phone.

A few minutes later, George rang up to ask could he please take us to see his grandson and afterwards he would drive us to Mena’s. So that’s what we did. The baby was unharmed, no bump, no bruise, and he was even smiling and laughing. Demetrios checked him over, then I held him in my lap 15 minutes. (Two babies in two days!!!) This time I remembered not to ask his name, but I cannot get used to this Greek custom of leaving babies nameless for months and months until they are baptized.

The next thing was, we weren’t the only guests at Mena’s house; her sister-in-law, Eleni, was there from Athens, a favorite person of mine since 1980-something. Mena’s daughters were also there, Liana and Elpida with her husband and two small children. In short, it was not a quiet dinner but a party!

This was the first time I ever really noticed that Liana has her father’s eyes, exactly. When she looks at you, you see Kostas looking at you. It brought sudden tears to my eyes.

And the last thing was, Mena wanted us all to visit Kostas’ grave. So we did, stopping on the way to buy flowers. Mena also re-lit an oil lantern she keeps there and wiped the top of the stone with a sponge. Another friend of hers and ours, yet another Demetrios, has planted flowers and shrubs over the grave, making it into a miniature garden.

I feel quite ambivalent about visiting graves. I’ve never yet visited Arlington National Cemetery where my father’s ashes are buried. The leftover Protestant in me says the person, after all, is not there under the ground; only his body is, or his ashes. The Orthodox in me knows that when God sanctifies a person, that sanctity includes his bodily remains (2 Kings 13:21) and even the clothes of a saint become sanctified (2 Kings 2:14, Matthew 14:36, Acts 19:12). We therefore ought to reverence a saint’s body, in fact, the remains of any Christian. But something in me just does not like visiting cemeteries and lighting candles or burning incense there. Prayers, fine; flowers, okay… I don’t think I myself would be comforted by these sorts of observances, but what do I know? Mena isn’t comforted by them, either, but she hopes against hope that Kostas will be pleased. Or else it’s all she can do about her grief.

Do all these things mean anything to the departed? Well, as a display of love, I suppose they do. Some other part of me observes, however, that the departed are already aware, by the Holy Spirit, that we love them.

I have a feeling I need to be corrected in these matters…

The time changes tonight, so we get an extra hour of sleep before church and then whatever is going to happen, or isn’t going to happen, tomorrow. Tomorrow is Ochi Day, commemorating the day in 1940 when the Italian fascists gave Greece the ultimatum: we invade at dawn unless you surrender now. The Greeks said, OCHI!, NO! The Italians invaded; the Greeks held them back — until the Germans came.

“Ochi Day” is what I call it; the Greeks simply call it the 28th of October, much as we Americans say the Fourth of July.

These days, the OCHI has a new meaning.

Traditionally, there are big parades all over Greece on Ochi Day. This year, we were told on the television, there are to be ten thousand police on duty here in Thessaloniki, before and during the parade, including anti-riot squads. Since when is the Greek government no longer encouraging riots (and any other form of disorder)? Maybe since today, as today there have been riots in Paris, Italy, and Spain. There will also be soldiers guarding the politicians and other dignitaries, who last year were hounded out of the reviewing stand by the people chanting, “Thieves! Traitors! Go away!” This year the spectators will be kept a hundred meters from the reviewing stand. There will also be tall fences. Several main streets (not specified on the TV news) will be closed, although they aren’t on the parade route itself. And in the harbor, boats will be patrolling to make sure no protestors come by sea into the restricted areas.

Have a parade and then don’t let anybody see it. That’s how scared somebody is of the people. Never mind last year’s protests here were peaceable.

My guess is that anybody planning a rebellion might not begin it on so obvious a day as tomorrow.

Celebrations, Day One

Friday, October 26, St. Demetrios Day

Thessaloniki has given the Church some 17 saints, including such notables as Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who evangelized the Slavs, and St. Gregory Palamas, who defended theologically the Orthodox experience that God does deal with us directly. But of all the saints of Thessaloniki, St. Demetrios is the best beloved of them all. There are probably more men named Demetrios and women named Demetra here in Thessaloniki than anywhere else in the world.

It was a hundred years ago this very day, on the Feast of St. Demetrios, that Thessaloniki was liberated from the Turks. The population naturally attributed their deliverance to the intercessions of their patron saint, Great Martyr Demetrios. Today, they still flock to the churches on this day with hearts full of gratitude.

We learned the hard way, one year, never to attend the Church of St. Demetrios on his feast day. Our local church, though, was also so crammed full that my claustrophobia got the better of me and I couldn’t go in. When people inside were standing shoulder to shoulder, when the balconies and stairs to the balconies and the aisles and the side chapel were all packed tight, people breathing in one another’s faces, a couple of hundred more people were pressing to get in the door. I set up my little camp stool on the porch, facing the door, where thanks to an over-enthusiastic amplifying system, I could hear every word, although I could see nothing.

A woman came and stood in front of me and opened her purse. For one startling moment, I thought she had mistaken me for one of the beggars who sit outside every church during every service. I was getting ready to protest when she pulled a Kleenex out of her purse and wiped her nose.

I sat there cursing my pride, which would have prevented me from simply accepting the money with thanks, in order not to embarrass the lady.

Eventually somebody did hand me something. It wasn’t money; but something even more startling: a baby. The little girl, about a year old with hair in little brown ringlets, sat in my lap laughing and smiling and pointing at her grandmother, who sprinted down the steps to the sidewalk below, where she retrieved the stroller and hauled it up the steps to the door of the church. I was sorry to part with the child, when we set her back into her stroller.

We had the big meal of the day around 1:00 at the taverna across the street from our flat, joined by Christos and his son Phideas, who also celebrates today, his middle name being Demetrios. Here in Greece, ones name day is much more important than ones birthday. We all had seafood.

We gave Phideas two books about Greece and a heavy sweater. Demetrios inscribed something on the front cover of one of the books. I asked Phideas what his uncle had written, and he said, in English, “That I must remember I am Greek and must struggle to preserve my Greek heritage.” But, he added with a shrug, “I don’t have to fight for my Greek heritage; that’s something I never knew.”

I never thought of that, but of course he pretty much grew up as a European rather than a Greek. I said, “You are still going to have to resist the EU if you don’t want to live in a diktatoria.” He nodded, but it seems clear such matters do not interest him.

It reminded me of a limerick somebody wrote for my husband. I don’t remember whether I ever wrote about Millie in Ormskirk, the artist who painted a picture for us. Well, her husband, Bob, writes limericks. He mentioned having written some for people on their birthdays. Demetrios wished aloud Bob would write one for him. So Bob did, and the other day, sent it by e-mail:

A Doctor Demetri from Greece
Is a man, not of war, but of peace.
But he’s very emphatic,
He’s proud to be Attic!
May his happiness ever increase.

Demetrios hooted and crowed and laughed in delight when I read it to him. He had to wipe away the tears from his eyes, from laughing so hard.

After our little feast with Christos and Phideas, we spent the rest of the day resting in between phone calls, which came every few minutes, to congratulate Demetrios on his name day. It made us realize how few of our friends we have actually seen this trip, on account of (1) being so busy with the new bathroom, (2) feeling we should stay near the newly-widowed Mena most of the time, and (3) a medical project Demetrios has been working on for a month, which I hope to describe to you in detail another time. Poor man is worn out, hasn’t even worked on his book for weeks. The resting today was a great blessing.

Smiling after Death

I commend to your attention the remarkable story of Elder Joseph's Smile, posted here by Emily.  Do have a look; you'll be very glad you did!

Our Prayers

...are with all of you in the path of Hurricane Sandy. We've only heard the briefest of snippets about it on TV, but I see from the Internet Sandy has done quite a lot of damage.

Diary Entries

24 October, Wednesday

The very day I was discussing the recipe for rabbit with the Jewish chef, we were served rabbit by Vasilea. I had eaten Vasilea’s rabbit before, so I didn’t hesitate this time; I knew it would be very good. Mena says hers is, too, and she will give me her recipe. Maybe some day I’ll have the courage to try it. It’s considered a delicacy here.

Our new washing machine arrived today and I’ve already done three loads of laundry; the fourth is in the machine, waiting for morning. Petros came today, too, and put a new gasket under the toilet tank, so it no longer leaks. So now all the issues about the new bathroom are resolved and it’s just a matter of awaiting the new door.

The instruction booklet for the washing machine, which has a section in English (hooray!), has the following notices.

Under “Safety Measures”:
Appliance complies with European Directives 73/23/EEC and 89/336/EEC, replaced by 2006/95/EC and 2004/108/EC, and subsequent amendments.

And in the section describing the various wash cycles you can select:
STANDARD COTTON PROGRAMMES ACCORDING TO (EU) No 1015/2010 and No 1061/2010.

Wait, wait! Anonymous, unelected EU authorities even tell everyone who sells clothes washers in Europe how their machines must clean cottons?

Today a major newspaper had this headline: How Our Democracy was Lost. Reminds me of a television documentary we watched last year in England, “How Rupert Murdoch Controlled Britain”. What these stories have in common, of course, is they both came too late.



An Exercise in Terror

12:15 p.m. It’s a quarter past noon on Thursday and as I type this, we in Thessaloniki are being strafed — with fake bombs. So far, thirty or forty fighter jets — or maybe it’s only one, returning time and again — have screamed overhead, skimming the rooftops and in some cases, flying lower than the buildings. (No, surely that has got to be an optical illusion!??) They are shaking everything with a terrifying sound I guarantee is louder than anything you’ve ever heard. Even if you’ve lived on or very near an Air Force base, you don’t get the full effect because these jets stay as low as possible and are already flying faster than the speed of sound. They’re past you by time you hear them coming. They come again and again and again, with such sudden screaming they make you jump every time. They drop things you think are bombs, and the noise could hardly be louder if they were, but they’re only stupid pink flares. Very funny. I see no smoke, no fire anywhere.

12:45 p.m. The fighter jets have gone and now there’s loud, frenzied chanting in the streets. Almost certainly, as usual, it’s related to football (soccer). Bad timing, guys!

6:00 p.m. Among the few people on the street (shop clerks, etc.) with whom we’ve discussed this, opinion is divided. About half think it was a practice fly-by in preparation for Sunday’s big military parade. The other half says no, what happened today has never been done before; it was to frighten us.

It’s been a couple of years since the fighter jets even made an appearance during the parade and I’ve never seen them drop flares or fly so low. Well, it should all become clear come Sunday.

Actually, nobody has even told us for a fact that the jets were Greek; we just assume they were.

Having Fun

We have been having fun but since I find writing about the details boring, it seems logical to suppose you will be equally bored reading about it. We’ve had good meals with good friends (including wild boar, which turns out to be delicious). We’ve had another of our theological discussions. Subject is still death, but the session went far better this time. George and Pelagia took us to their village of Pefkochori on the Kassandra Peninsula and it was wonderful, but it was an exact repeat of what I’ve described before, here.

On St. Luke’s Day, George and Pelagia and Mena and I went to the Church of St. Luke, buried in the countryside about an hour north of here, to visit a monk, Fr. Luke, who is their confessor. (Demetrios stayed home to work on one of his projects.)

Fr. Luke had probably been up all night doing a vigil, because he appeared very tired when we congratulated him after church. All he said was, “Thank you very much,” and, “May you be well!” which is a Greek way of saying goodbye. So we didn’t stay long.

We passed through various picturesque, hilly villages on our way home with names like Five Springs and Many Trees.   We stopped for refreshment at a spa in the little town of Lagada, where there are thermal springs and people go to take the water. We looked around at the spa’s two gigantic swimming pools,.one for children, including a deep end, and one for adults. Inside, we were shown the “Hydro Massage” area, perhaps 40 rooms, each containing a Jacuzzi — or two. A few photos here.

Then this past weekend, Mena took us to Kastoria, where we met our friends who live there: Katerina and Nikos and all four of their parents and their two children. Kastoria is, not counting some seaside places, the loveliest town I’ve seen in Greece so far, and Greece is full of gorgeous places. It sits on a large, blue lake hemmed in by blue mountains. The lake is full of ducks, geese, swans, cormorants, gulls, terns, and its chief glory, White Pelicans. Kastoria is a leafy, gracious town with many houses in the old and uniquely Kastorian style. It’s also a wealthy city, or used to be.

Mostly all we did (besides go to church and take a marvelous walk up into the heights above the town) was be with our friends, which of course is the best thing of all, but what can I say about it?

The children, Spyros and Semiramis, both speak some English, and understand virtually everything. It’s fun to watch them play cards.

Spyros: Semira, dose mou ena five. (“Semira, give me a five.” The five is in English.)

Semiramis: Den echo ena five. (“I don’t have a five.”) Go fiss!

Semiramis is only three, I think, so she often doesn’t even know what cards she has. She just shows them to her older brother, who takes the appropriate one if she has it.

Spyros lays down his matching cards; Semiramis lays down cards, too, from time to time, not necessarily matching, and the game goes on until they tire of it, neither one having won nor lost.

Nikos, their father, the handsomest man in a country full of gorgeous men, is the only person I’ve met in Greece who has told us he favors the European Union, and highly, too. It was an excellent chance for us to hear another point of view, for three reasons. The first is, he’s a very good man and a serious one, so his opinion is especially worth hearing. The second is, he knows what he’s talking about; he’s a professor, no less, of political science! The third is, having spent most of his growing-up years in Canada, he speaks fluent English.

It turns out I do not really disagree with him. I think he has a dewy-eyed view, is all. He envisions a pan-European state that is brought about by just and above-board means, without cruelty or force, without duplicity or secrecy or thieving or wrecking existing nations, genuinely democratic, and genuinely interested in world peace. He readily admits that what is happening so far is the exact opposite of all that, but says there are two competing agendas and he’s for the other one. Okay. I’ve no problem with that other than thinking it a chimera.

His father, Sypros, now has a blank look on his handsome, blue-eyed face, from Altzheimer’s. Sad to see such an elegant, dapper, sweet gentleman so lost. He can no longer join the conversation. He becomes easily bored and wants to do something else.

Yesterday a thing happened which, although sad, is funny, too. We were eating in a restaurant, and between courses, Spyros stood up and wanted to go outside for a bit. Nobody hindered him.

Sometime later, he came back inside and seated himself at another table, rejoining the wrong family. The funny part is to imagine how startled they must have been! They had accepted him and were treating him as one of their own, however, when we discovered and retrieved him. Apparently they had realized somebody would.

(It reminds me of the time a couple of years ago when Demetrios and I came upon a baptism party. Demetrios and I just sort of slipped in among them, and, um, well, a number of the photos included us.)

Norma, Spyros’ wife, has a hard, hard job, but she is undertaking it with grace, courage, and a positive attitude. Her face betrays her sorrow, but her voice, her words, and her manners do not. She is a great example and inspiration.

We departed in the late afternoon Sunday: up into the mountains, past the signs warning of bears, along the highways rimmed with fences to keep the bears off it, through the valley polluted by the electric company, where they make Greece’s electricity by burning coal, back up into the mountains, through the 13 tunnels under them (15 going the other way), to Berea, where the mountains suddenly end, across the plateau until we could see Thessaloniki spread out below us, and her wide harbor. Smog hung over the city, first time I’ve ever seen it here, and thick enough to turn the sun to deep orange. Into the town, still crowded because a marathon had been held here earlier in the day and home again, exhausted but having had a glorious time.

Tidbits

Christos is doing somewhat better. He began taking the pills and eating the porridge Demetrios gave him. Between the two, he has had very little trouble with his alimentary tract, which encourages him to eat more, and he has put on about 4 pounds, by Demetrios’ estimate. (We bought him a bathroom scale a couple of days ago so he can keep track.) He looks and acts stronger. His complexion isn’t as gray, but is even rather pink. But the most important thing is, he seems to have regained the will to live. Demetrios had to badger his little brother at first to get out of the house every day and go do something enjoyable, if only to take a walk or to sip a cup of coffee by the sea — but now he does it. If you could see the improvement in Christos, you’d have to agree he has a very good doctor!


* * *


There’s an Englishwoman who works right across the street from us. In fact, she owns the convenience store on the corner. Her name is Lorraine, and it is fun for me to have somebody nearby to speak to in English. “Are you married to a Greek, like me?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “In fact, he has that bar over there,” gesturing toward the next corner, on the opposite side of our building.

I put on my best fake smile and said, “You mean The Drunken Duck?”

“Yes; he’s had that about six or seven years now.”

In other words, ever since we began coming here.

Long-time readers of this blog know that the Drunken Duck (no wonder its name is in English!) has been the bane of our existence here. OOPS. No more praying for it to close!


* * *

A wolf, yes, a wolf, has been spotted in the village of Nea Sylatta, where Mena has a summer home we often visit on weekends. Most wolves in Greece have been rounded up and put into a special reserve, so it is unusual to see one on the loose. This one has taken a sheep, maybe more than one since last we heard. I realize the sheep owners are not thrilled, but I am! Pray with me for the safety of the wolf as well as the sheep and the people. How I wish somebody could find it and talk to it, the way Francis of Assisi, in the legend, talked to the wolf of Gubbio, persuading it to kill no more in exchange for being fed every day by the villagers..

* * *

There has been a lot of negative publicity about a new political party in Greece called The Golden Dawn. Most often, the party is accused of being neo-Nazi. Now then, they do use the same salute the Nazis did, but the fact is, that salute, in Greece, pre-dates the Nazis. In fact, it was used in World War II by those fighting against the fascists. The Golden Dawn people also wear black shirts, which is unsettling. I’ve heard that they use a "modified swastika" for their symbol, but in fact it isn't; it's the very ancient Greek key or meander.

Ancient Pavement

Golden Dawn Symbol

Here in Greece, I, who despise fascism, am defined as a fascist, simply because I fly the Greek flag.  So when The Golden Dawn is also called fascist, it’s hard to know whether that’s true or just a smear, just propaganda from a government that has good reason to be alarmed by this group.

The Golden Dawn did go around in Athens shooing away unlicensed street vendors who were selling pirated goods. That’s true, and yes, that's taking the law into their own hands. That’s vigilantism. But there’s another point of view, which is that somebody has to enforce the law. The government isn’t doing it.

The Golden Dawn is also accused of being xenophobic, anti-immigrant. Well, you have to understand what is happening with immigrants here in Greece. For just one example, they can come into your house and boot you out; and as the establishment wants the mushrooming immigrant vote, no official will help you. But The Golden Dawn will kick them out for you and return your home to you. They also distribute food and clothing to the needy, although only to Greeks, not to the various immigrants threatening to overwhelm Greece by their sheer numbers.

I don’t yet know what this party is. I’m watching them for myself instead of heeding the propaganda and meanwhile, I’m reserving judgment, albeit nervously. Are they more like Adolf Hitler or Robin Hood?

Robin Hood, of course, was an outlaw.


* * *


For reasons unknown, I’ve lately been humming a song my father used to sing to me, “Daddy’s Little Girl.” He played it on the piano without sheet music and sang to his own arrangement. He must have sung it to Wendy and Barbara, too, later, but that I don’t remember; I only remember him singing it to me.

In his later life, when he hadn’t sung it for years, nostalgia gripped me and I asked him to play it and sing it again. He declined. It hurt my feelings at the time.

We (his family) didn’t know he had dementia, didn’t realize he couldn’t even remember the song itself, much less how to play it.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? We seldom, if ever, really know what is going on in another person’s head, let alone his heart. How many, many things we must be misinterpreting every day! How much misery do we suffer — hurt, anger, jealousy, and such — on account of some mistake?


* * *


In the butcher shop this morning, Ia strange hunk of meat was on display. It was something with a tiny head and its body was chopped into four pieces. I was still puzzling it out when I saw the sign: Kounelli. Rabbit. Ah, sure enough, its tail, complete with fur, had been left on to show that’s what it was. (Maybe to prove is wasn’t cat or rat?)

“I don’t know how to cook kounelli,” I said to the butcher’s wife. The customer standing beside me, an older man who looked as Jewish as it is possible to look, said, “The basis of it is pearl onions and tomatoes. You add some wine…” and he went on, listing the spices and the amounts for me, all with a captivating smile. I didn’t know what all the spices were that he mentioned, and it’s a pity, because, as the butcher’s wife told me when the man had left, “He’s a chef. He has cooked all over the world.”

!

I know the Greek names of the spices I use, but now I am going to learn the rest of them.

Greek Taxes, Greek Myth

WARNING: another rant

 

A current myth is that the Greeks are a dishonest, tax-evading people.

 

The truth is more complex and much worse.

 

First, the economic problem in Greece has very little to do with the general population evading taxes; it’s far, far more due to Greek politicians making off with literally hundreds of billions of Euros of the country’s money. The former defense minister alone is charged with looting 10 billion with a “b” and stashing it in a Swiss bank. (His lawyer says all these charges will be cleared up when his client appears before the judge. When will that be? Whenever his client decides it will be. Oh, and nobody, nobody will tell the defendant what to say or what questions to answer.) Even more, the economic problem has to do with irresponsible borrowing by the government and irresponsible lending by Greece’s creditors. Taxes are a miniscule, microscopic part of the problem.

 

Second, most taxes in Greece can’t be evaded. They’re sales taxes. You pay at the counter.

 

Until two years ago (years after the onset of the economic crisis), there was no property tax for most people. Only the largest dwellings were taxed, and ordinary people like you and me couldn’t afford such properties and/or took care to keep their dwellings smaller than the taxable size. So when you hear about people in the suburbs of Athens with unreported, taxable swimming pools, that’s only the ruling elite (and to this day, nothing has been done about that, nor ever shall be). That’s a red herring; that’s a distraction from the real problem. Most people did not evade property taxes because there weren’t any.

 

Nowadays, everyone pays is supposed to pay property tax. It’s collected for the government by the electricity monopoly company and is included in your electricity bill. You can’t evade this tax unless you want your electricity turned off. Or unless you are rich and privileged, I suppose. “The golden key opens all doors.”

 

There is also an income tax. Pensioners and government employees (together, about half the population) have this tax deducted from their paychecks, so they can’t avoid this one, either. The other half of the people can.

 

There are no private tax preparers in Greece similar to H & R Block or People’s in America. The tax-preparers and the tax-collectors are one and the same and they are much like the despised tax-collectors of the New Testament: they work for the government and they guesstimate decide how much tax you owe. The decision is entirely or almost entirely arbitrary because it has to be; there’s no method for it to become otherwise. Very often, the official takes his unofficial cut and that cut is whatever he determines it is. Often it’s highway robbery. Usually a bribe love offering can lower your “taxes” a little. In short, you couldn’t possibly design a system better suited to encourage tax evasion!

 

And this is not by accident. There’s no reason a government of today couldn’t, if it wanted to, set up some reasonably efficient, modern, non-arbitrary (and dare I add fair?) system of collecting income tax. The only reasons not to are:

 

• if the government wants to steal the money
• or to use tax evasion as an excuse to grab even more control over the people
• or government employees just don’t want that much work.

 

All of these are happening here in Greece. (“We have governed very sloppily casually,” said Mr. Venizelos, the finance minister, attempting to explain the disappearance of a document listing 30-odd alleged thieves in high office.)

 

When you lose faith in your government and conclude, as perhaps most people here have, that it is not a legitimate government but only a crime ring, then you begin to think there’s no use supporting it with your taxes. There’s also no use obeying unjust laws. And then a weird thing happens: you begin failing to distinguish between just and unjust laws and wonder why you should obey any of them. Why pay my parking ticket, you may ask yourself, if the money is going to line the pocket of some already rich thug? And so law loses its moral authority and it all unravels.

 

Luckily for Greece (and Italy and Ireland and Portugal and Spain and other once-prosperous countries of Europe), the EU is ready to step in and knit everything together again, all into one, common, privately controlled regime. You just have to hope your country can survive its membership requirements meanwhile. Better still if it cannot, since the existence of individual nations, we are told, is an obstacle to the dream of a United Europe.

The Television News…

…on Thursday night was full of talk on two subjects. The first topic was how well Greece is doing in the negotiations with the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) and the other topic was all about uniting all the banks in Europe into one.

WARNING: Obviously this post is going to be a rant about European politics, so skip it if this sort of thing disturbs you.

Yes, the news analysts assured us, we’re doing very well in the negotiations with the EU. Does that mean Greece has won some concessions, some relaxation of the ever-increasing hardships the Troika imposes? No, the opposite. It means we’ve already managed to meet 90% of their new demands, showing we are indeed capable and worthy of remaining within the Eurozone. We expect to come to agreement soon on the remaining 10%. We are on track to pay all the remaining debt, and the Greeks should be very proud of this.

The main thing is Europe, say all the politicians of virtually all parties. All our efforts, all the people’s suffering, must be geared to the preservation of the EU. Greece must make great sacrifices to that end. Europe first.

Now in the old days, if you were supposed to be working for your country but were found working for someone else instead, especially someone intent on destroying your own country, well, that was the very definition of a traitor.

And only one bank in all the EU? Imagine! One bank, controlling debt, credit, interest rates, monetary supply; fixing prices and fees, sharing all your account information all over Europe. All over the world, really, because of course American and other non-European banks operating in Europe would have to be merged as well. If the bank decided to charge you 40% on your credit card, you couldn’t escape by changing banks. If the one bank wouldn’t give you a mortgage, there wouldn’t be another bank to try... and on and on. In the old days, merging all the banks into one would result in what was called a monopoly (an anti-competitive, anti-consumer, price-fixing, anti-free-market entity) and a monopoly, at least in America, used to be illegal, as in, criminal offense.

When Greeks call their politicians thieves and traitors, they are not exaggerating. They’re just being terribly old-fashioned.

And Now, Finally, Some Time to Relax!

Friday, 19 October
Our bathroom is finished, more or less. The ceiling, once barely above our heads, is now 11 or 12 feet high. The whole room is tiled up to 2 meters and painted white above that. The tiles are all large, white, and oblong except the shower walls, the base of the shower, and a column in the back corner of the room, which are all done in tiny (1/2 inch?) tiles, very glittery shades of cobalt with some silver tiles mixed in. Yes, it’s as pretty as we had hoped it would be. Hard to believe, at last we have a bathroom that is both functional and truly beautiful!

A woman (the sister of Petros, the contractor) came and gave it (and the whole house) a thorough cleaning and now the bathroom sparkles, literally. It all looks very clean and tidy; there’s more room to move around and more room in the shower. There are three elegant lights hanging down from above.

I only had to spend one night in the Queen Olga Hotel and Demetrios toughed it out at home even that night, with a totally empty bathroom except for the freshly-laid tiles. Not I. Thirty-two Euros were, I say, well worth the single room with no view of the sea and Mt. Olympus, but with a working toilet (Hallelujah!) a tiny but real shower (Praise the Lord!), air conditioning (Glory to God!) a single bed, a TV, telephone, and clean towels. Those were all I needed (desperately ).

We still don’t have a washing machine because it broke after 4 loads of laundry. That’s a long story and part of it has to do with the fact that the instructions came in Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Czech, Polish, Croatian, Ukrainian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, and Estonian – but not English. Or French or German, which I could perhaps have deciphered. Greek, yes, but Demetrios was exhausted and, well, it wasn’t his fault, or mine either. But between us we made some sort of horrible mistake, still aren’t sure what, and when at last we were able to open the lid of the washer, we found the drum absolutely mangled. We had to buy a whole new machine (why is another long story) which we did today. Different brand, same brand I used to have before all this began but in a small version. English instructions. To be delivered Thursday afternoon. Hope our clothes supply can hold out until then. I’ve been doing some things by hand – as most of the world’s women have done throughout most of human history, I remind myself. (Nausicaa, the mythical princess in Corfu who met Odysseus, had been doing the palace laundry at the time. She and her maidens had brought it down to the sea and spread it out over the rocks in the shallows and they danced over the laundry until they were tired and it was clean. Who but the Greeks would think of that? I wish I could dance over mine.)

The other unfinished business is, the bathroom still has no door! And that’s because what started out as just a bathroom door – you know, plain, pre-fab, off-white door minus any decoration – somehow turned into a Work of Art.

It began because the space for the door isn’t a standard height or width. (This is an old building.) We needed a custom door. (That’s “bespoke” for you Brits.)

And then Demetrios noticed that the man selling plain doors didn’t seem to have any of very good quality.

So we went to a store near Mena’s house that we’ve noticed for years. There you can see a downright confusing array of doors with panels, swirls, squares, diamonds, lines, whatever, in dozens of different colors and quite a range of sizes. You can even have a photograph enlarged and worked into your door. We still wanted just a plain, off-white door to match all our other interior doors, just better quality than we had seen so far. And custom fitted.

And then the man showed us the glass doors. Glass, for a bathroom door? Well, not glass you can see through, but frosted glass, textured glass, solid-colored glass – and fusion glass. It’s highly textured, colored art glass, and we fell in love with it, specifically with some containing our cobalt blue, plus splashes of other colors.

We couldn’t afford to have a whole door in it, and that might have looked odd anyway. But we are having this glass put in what would be the top panel of the door if it had three panels. Which it hasn’t because it’s still, otherwise, a plain, off-white door. To be delivered – ouch! – the first week in November.

Until then, the doorless bathroom is slightly awkward, but then, there are only two of us. We manage rather easily to give one another all the privacy we need, if not all we’d like.

Anyway, for now everything’s done that can be, and we are free at last to start having some fun! We have been, mind you; here and then; I just haven’t had time to write about it yet. I shall soon. But for now, we’re off to Kastoria tomorrow and Sunday with Mena, Renna, and Theodosios.

St. Demetrios Day will soon be here (October 26) and we need to start planning that, as well. And two days after that, Ochi Day, which after last year’s events on that day, ought to be very interesting indeed, no matter what happens or doesn’t.

Norse Seers

Just don’t even try to tell me that in the olden days, God never revealed Himself except to Israel, or that knowledge of Him was/is only to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Then, as now and always, God revealed Himself all over the place, to all men as far as they were able and ready to receive the revelation. Some people had more of the Truth than others, but nobody has ever had any monopoly on It Him. Rob Bell, in his book, Love Wins, speaks of (but doesn’t substantiate or supply examples of) missionaries who went to faraway places to preach Christ, and the natives, as surprised as the missionaries, said, “Oh, is that His name? We’ve always worshipped Him.” You already know from the book of Acts that the Athenians had a statue to the Unknown God. I’ve already written recently about the ancient Greeks who expected Christ’s coming; now I find out, so did the ancient Norsemen.

The Norsemen knew perfectly well their gods would ultimately fail, eventually die. But they also knew what would happen after that. From Edith Hamilton’s wonderful book, Mythology:

The Frost Giants and the Mountain Giants who lived in Jötunheim were the enemies of all that is good. They were the brutal powers of earth, and in the inevitable contest between them and the divine powers of heaven, brute force would conquer.

But such a belief is contrary to the deepest conviction of the human spirit, that good is stronger than evil. Even these sternly hopeless Norsemen, whose daily life in their icy land through the black winters was a perpetual challenge to heroism, saw a far-away light break through the darkness. There is a prophecy in the Elder Edda, singularly like the Book of Revelation, that after the defeat of the gods, – when

The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,
The hot stars fall from the sky,
And fire leaps high about heaven itself,

– there would be a new heaven and a new earth,

In wondrous beauty once again.
The dwellings roofed with gold,
The fields unsowed bear ripened fruit
In happiness forevermore.

Then would come the reign of One who was higher even than Odin and beyond the reach of evil –

A greater than all,
But I dare not ever to speak his name.
And there are few who can see beyond
The moment when Odin falls.

How’s your throat doing? Mine has a lump in it.

Reason and Orthodox Christianity

Check out Fr. Stephen's wondrous post on the relationship between reason and Orthodoxy. You can find it here.

The Suffering of Odin: Paying the Price

I’ve been reading Edith Hamilton’s wonderful book, Mythology. Most of the book is about Greek mythology, with some Roman thrown in. But Part Seven is about Norse mythology. Norse, as Hamilton points out, means Teutonic, and Teutonic includes the English and many of us today.

Norse mythology differs from Greek in that it predicts the eventual triumph of evil over men, over all the earth, over Valhalla, and even over the gods themselves.

The chief god, Odin, has

the responsibility more than all the other gods together of postponing as long as possible the day of doom, Ragnarok, when heaven and earth would be destroyed. He was the All-father, supreme among gods and men, yet even so he constantly sought for more wisdom. He went down to the Well of Wisdom guarded by Mimir the wise, to beg for a draught from it, and when Mimir answered that he must pay for it with one of his eyes, he consented to lose the eye. He won the knowledge of the Runes, too, by suffering. The Runes were magical inscriptions, immensely powerful for him who could inscribe them on anything – wood, metal, stone. Odin learned them at the cost of mysterious pain. He says in the Elder Edda that he hung

Nine whole nights on a wind-rocked tree,
Wounded by a spear,
I was offered to Odin, myself to myself,
On that tree of which no man knows.

He passed the hard-won knowledge on to men. They, too, could use the Runes to protect themselves.

Does this sound familiar, the deity hanging on a tree, wounded by a spear, being offered to himself, for the benefit of men? Is this a foreshadowing of the Christ?

And the dark distortion of it, a gut feeling in many of us that good gifts from above (like “forgiveness”) must be paid for, and paid for specifically in the coinage of suffering – is Norse mythology where that notion comes from? Does the terrible assumption date all the way back to Odin?

That possibility may not be as far-fetched as it first sounds; to me, at least, it appears Norse mythology still influences us today more than we are aware. Consider, for example, that four of our weekdays are named after Norse gods. Tuesday was originally Tyr’s Day; Wednesday is Odin’s Day, Thursday is Thor’s Day, and Friday is Freya’s Day.

Reversible Stripes Knitting Pattern

Here’s a pattern I found on Ravelry.com with which I’ve been quite taken. It’s so simple – only 4 rows – you can catch onto the method of it and memorize it quickly, yet it’s so clever: horizontal stripes on one side and vertical stripes – plus Swiss dots – on the other! Every knitter needs a few reversible patterns in his or her head for scarves and blankets and such. I think we all ought to add this to our standard repertoire, right along with other old stand-bys like garter stitch, moss stitch, 3x3 checks, and ribbing. In fact this is ribbing, with the all-important difference that every 4th stitch is slipped (purl-wise).

Yarn: For a scarf you need about 200 yards of two different yarns. For anything else, buy very generous amounts of yarn, as this fabric will be dense. It does not stretch the way ordinary ribbing does.

This pattern works well with A: one smooth (worsted weight) and B: one fluffy or more textured yarn. You can use white and some bright color or two contrasting pastels, but the pattern doesn’t look as pretty with two bright colors competing with each other. I’m regretting my choice of bright red with bright blue.

Needles: Size 9 or 10 circular for a scarf in worsted weight; or, for a rather thick blanket, size 7 for worsted weight or one size smaller than called for by whatever weight of yarn you use.

Cast on 31 stitches with color B (for scarf) or any multiple of 4 plus 3.

Slide stitches to the other end of the needle and begin Row I at the same end where you began the cast-on. (Two “starting tails” will be hanging off of same end.)

Row 1:
With A – K1, Slip one w/yarn in front, K1, *P1, K1, Slip one w/yarn in front, K1, repeat from * to end, TURN

Row 2:
With A – P1, Slip 1 w/yarn in back, P1, *K1, P1, Slip 1 w/yarn in back, P1, repeat from * to end, SLIDE STITCHES TO OTHER END OF NEEDLE, do not turn.

Row 3:
With B – P1, K1, P1, *Slip 1 w/yarn in back, P1, K1, P1, repeat from * to end, TURN

Row 4:
With B – K1, P1, K1, *Slip 1 w/yarn in front, K1, P1, K1, repeat from* to end, SLIDE STITCHES TO OTHER END OF NEEDLE, do not turn.

Continue until desired length and then bind off with B.

TIP: Whenever you have both yarns at the same end of a row, you will need to be consistent in how you handle them. I like to twist them, bringing the yarn “in waiting” under the working yarn from back to front, then over the working yarn. I then hold the yarn in waiting wrapped firmly around the fingers of my left hand while working the first few stitches with the other yarn.

Another TIP: The right and left edges differ slightly from one another, but the difference only applies to one side of the last stitch. You may not care, especially if you plan to add a border. Variegated yarn (“self-striping” in the UK), as in the photo, will also mask the difference. Using selvedge stitches will not.

Yet Another TIP: Once you catch on to this pattern (test swatch!!), you’ll easily understand how to vary it so you don’t need double-pointed needles.

The Four Most Important Knitting Rules*

*In my opinion

1.) Buy more yarn than you think you will use. You can always find uses for leftover yarn.

2.) Admire your work very often.

3.) Do your gauge swatch (tension square in the UK). Yes, even if it’s a blanket or scarf and you don’t need precise measurements, do your homework. The advantages are more than just getting gauge. You also get used to the pattern, find out whether you enjoy knitting it, and discover where you are most likely to make mistakes. And you end up with a coaster, potholder, or table mat – a little souvenir of everything you knit and give away.

4.) No knitting late at night.