Living in Greece, Part 15

Thursday, 07 October

Ioannis, the theologian, and his wife Mena had a “table” tonight, meaning a feast, with Kostas and his Mena, Manolis and Vasilea, and another Demetrios and his wife, Maria. He’s the Demetrios I’ve mentioned in past years, who always brings along his harmonica in his pocket and plays for us. He didn’t bring it tonight, but we weren’t entirely disappointed; he led us all in a songfest after the meal.

My Demetrios didn’t know any of the songs. They were popular during his years away. I felt sad he had missed all those years with his friends, and told him so, but he said he was busy making other friends “—and I met you!” And he added that although there is a chronological gap, “There is no gap in our hearts.” Yes, that’s obvious.

The other Demetrios also kept us laughing with his stories. I’ll just tell you one to give you the flavor. When he was a young man, Demetrios found a wallet in the street. It contained a very large amount of money. He turned it in at the nearest police station. “However – I confess my sin! – I kept twenty drachmas because that was a price of a ticket to the soccer game.”

Well, that theft haunted poor Demetrios for about five years. Finally one afternoon, the police arrived at his doorstep, looking for him. He wasn’t home, but his mother and sister were worried sick when he came home and they told him about it. So was he.

He put twenty drachmas in his pocket and walked to the police station to turn himself in. When he arrived and had shown his ID card, the sergeant at the desk said, “Oh, you’re the one who found that wallet.”

“Yes,” Demetrios admitted. “I’m the one.”

“Well, it’s been five years now and nobody ever claimed it. Here, take it; it’s yours!”

I managed to tell my mom’s pope joke, in Greek, and it was a success, so I’ll retell it here. (Never fear; this is one your Catholic friends will like, too.)

The Pope arrives in New York but his plane is late. He tells his cab driver, “Please get me to Yankee Stadium [this is an old joke] as quickly as you can. Go ahead and speed whenever possible, and don’t bother about the red lights.”

“Oh, I’m sorry; I can’t do that,” says the cabbie. “If I get a ticket, I’ll lose my job, and I have a wife and kids to support. Sorry.”

“Never mind!” says the Pope. “I have a huge mass to say, thousands of people waiting, and I’m late. Get in the back and I’ll drive!”

So they swap places and the Pope runs several red lights before one of New York’s finest stops him.

The Pope hands the policeman his identification.

The policeman goes back to his car and radios headquarters. “I’ve got some mega VIP here,” he says, “and I don’t know what to do.”

“Who is it? The Mayor?”

“No, somebody more important than that.”

“The Governor again?”

“No, somebody bigger.”

“Okay, out with it. Who have you got there?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. But it’s somebody who’s got the Pope for his driver!”

The main topic over dinner was Sex Within Marriage.

I said it seems quite simple; it’s all in how you use it. Like anything else, sex is given to us for our salvation. It’s for bonding the couple and deepening their relationship and their commitment, as well as for having children. And if used that way, i.e., to the glory of God, fine; if not, then it’s sin the same as misusing anything else. (Eating is good but gluttony isn’t. Sleeping is good but sloth isn’t.)

Manolis said the erotic element should always remain in a marriage.

Ioannis the theologian said that was fine, but the better way was for couples, when they’ve completed their families, to live together as brother and sister.

Vasilea, who never hesitates to speak up, although quietly, reminded us of what St. Paul said about not denying one another except by mutual consent for a short time.

I personally think there’s no point in giving up sex just for the sake of being religious or feeling virtuous. (And small virtue in it, either, at our age!)

The point is that hopefully, the time comes when a couple’s bond is at such a profound level, so deep, so intense, so spiritual, that sex, instead of appearing as the consummation of love, as it perhaps did in the beginning, now seems several degrees too shallow. And then you naturally (supernaturally, really) outgrow it – which is not at all the same thing as struggling hard to abstain. Neither is it anything like simply growing too old and tired to care anymore. This is something spiritual and unlike the other, is a condition most of us never reach.

When the evening was over, around midnight, one or two people said, “Ah, Anastasia didn’t understand, all night long!” But I did understand some, and Demetrios helped me by translating some more, and, I said, “I understood the important things. I understood the love, the communion, and that we are all adelphia.”

“Better than that,” said Ioannis. “More than brothers and sisters!”

Yes.