Athens Post, Finally

In the Acropolis Museum, from the top of the Parthenon

The train ride from Thessaloniki to Athens was even more amazing than I had hoped. The beauty of trains is that the tracks are beneath you, so all you see is the unspoiled mountains and meadows (and in this case, ocean and snow as well). Somewhere among all those mountains, I figured, was Mount Olympus. I thought it would be near Athens, but later found out we had passed it closer to Thess.

I hadn’t intended to rely on the kindness of strangers, but it turned out to be inevitable and much needed. It was supposed to be the express train, but turned out not to be. I couldn’t understand anything that was announced, though I did know to listen for “Athena.” Still, it was 9:00 and dark when we approached Athens, and I had no idea how to get to the metro station and Syntagma Square. 

But a sweet man sitting nearby figured out my puzzlement. He handed me a metro ticket from his own pocket, and said, “Wait—I will show you.” He helped me and my baggage off the train and showed me the way into the station (not obvious) and on to the subway and then wished me a pleasant stay in his home town.

First thing I saw emerging from the Metro

                He wasn’t the only one, though. After the metro ride I emerged in Syntagma Square, and the first thing I smelled was lingering smoke from the riots several days before. The first thing I heard was heckling and shouting, and the first thing I saw was a row of policemen with shields above where I had just stepped out, guarding the way to what I later found out was the parliament building. Down below, demonstrators were shouting. Lots of people were watching. Time to move on quickly.

                I had a map, but didn’t know which way was what. A man at a kiosk, an Egyptian, decided not just to point the way, but to take me there. And I am glad he did, because I never would have been able to navigate the narrow alleys and turns with the confidence he showed. When we arrived, the hotel was completely draped in tarps—its exterior was under renovation—andthere was nothing but a small sign to identify it. Thanks, strangers!

                So my window view was a tarp, but otherwise the room was charming, as were the employees, who directed me to a tiny restaurant a block away where the locals go. The waitress was running efficiently among the two rooms and porch, not wasting a moment. Later when it slowed down she told me she had lived in Athens all her life and had never visited the acropolis. I was that way about the LBJ Library in Austin, but the acropolis?

The street where I lived

                The next morning was a clear and cool Sunday. As I set out to find the acropolis, masses were going on at the little Greek Orthodox Church of the Metamorphosis on my street and at all the other churches along the way. Loudspeakers sent the chanting into the streets, and occasionally church bells rang. It was a beautiful way to start a day. Other than the churches, all was quiet enough to ponder what it must be like to attend worship that is one long continuous, melodious chant of praise, how that might form one’s visions of the world and of heaven.

Caryatids holding up part of the acropolis

The approach to the acropolis is a wide brick avenue separated from the rock itself by a small park of pine trees filled with birds. The acropolis itself is like a small Masada, a fortified outcropping of rock jutting straight up on all but one end. There a wide staircase lined with columns once welcomed visitors, and still does. The little temple of Athena Nike is the first structure one sees, followed then by the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, a complicated building best known for its six porch columns in the shape of young women (called Caryatids) who hold up the roof on their heads. People had been living on the acropolis since Neolithic times, but it reached its architectural pinnacle only after it was completely destroyed by Xerxes I of Persia in 480 B.C.E. (This is the same Xerxes who supposedly makes Esther his queen, though there are some historical problems with both that story and what happened to Athens). The temple is dedicated to the virgin god Athena—“Parthenon” means “virgin” in Greek. I don’t know why I never made this connection before, but there it is. Down the slope from the acropolis is an ancient theater dedicated to Dionysus. But this isn’t just any ancient theater—this is where the works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes first played. Wow.

                It’s hard to describe what it is like to be there, in a place so well known to western civilization, where democracy first emerged, back when people were sparse on earth. Israelite civilization developed around the same time, but somehow didn’t manage to leave quite so many works of literature and records of their deeds—though what they did leave has enjoyed considerably more readership. I wondered what it was like to worship a goddess, and what effect her reputation might have had on the lives of real women. The period of Athens’s sovereignty was relatively short and often interrupted, but its effect on the imaginations of peoples since has been overpowering. Even on that Sunday morning people from all over the world were exploring the temples, pondering their guidebooks, and looking out across the city below.

                Very close and about half as high, and not anything as spacious, is Mars Hill, or Areopagus, where Paul delivered his speech against idols according to Acts 17. From there you can look down to see the Agora, and beyond it the Roman Forum, built by Julius Caesar, and Hadrian’s library—and then you can go down the path to find them. 

How one politician lost his job

In one of the buildings of the buildings of the Agora, the two-story Stoa of Attalos, is a wonderful exhibit. One of the collections that stood out to me had to do with the development of democracy. Every year citizens had the opportunity to vote for the politician they thought had done the least for Athens. They used clay potsherds (called “ostraca”) with names scratched on them as their voting ballots. Whoever got the most votes was “ostracized”: banned from office for ten years. A great idea! There was one display of a dozen or more ostraca with the same name on them, looking very similar, as if ready for handing out to willing citizens. I think it was Moveon.org’s first organized political action. 

That evening I visited the new Acropolis Museum. Very impressive building. It is built right over an ancient village that they are in the process of excavating. You can see it below the courtyard and beneath the glass floor, and eventually (they said 2010, but we all know how that goes) they will open it to visitors. Inside are many, many of the statues and works of art that populated the Acropolis. The original Caryatid ladies are there, with a display showing how they are being restored by laser (the ones on the actual acropolis are replicas). The remaining pieces of the pediments and friezes on the Parthenon are there as well, intricate carvings of figures telling stories of Athena’s birth from Zeus’s forehead, her contest with Poseidon for the favor of the Athenian people (whoever gave the best gift won, and unfortunately for him, he wrongly thought salt water might win over olive trees, but since she was a goddess of wisdom she knew better), a battle with centaurs, and a procession of Athenians to worship Athena. Amazing museum.

Making a jail visit

The next day was cloudy and occasionally drizzly. I took a tour bus around town, and then stopped to watch the changing of the guard at the Parliament, in all its glory. I was going to head back to the huge National Archaeological Museum, but instead found myself wandering through the National Garden, which was splendid even in winter. There weren’t so many people there, but some sat on benches reading the news, and others were wandering through as I was. Somewhere in the middle I ran into a miniature zoo, mostly consisting of birds (ducks, geese, peacocks and peahens, parakeets), rabbits, and goats. Somehow two black cats had gotten in among the birds. It was a study in how to drive a cat insane—so much game to hunt, and no chance of success. Somehow also some of the parakeets had gotten out and were hanging around on the tree just outside the cage, and hanging onto the wire of the cage. I didn’t know whether they were looking for a way back in or plotting the escape of their friends. It was a relaxing final day in Athens to wander the garden. 

Athens Happy Train. Unlike Arles's Petit Tran, no smoke belching.

         That evening a theologian friend of Eleni’s picked me up and we had dinner, discussing theology, Greece, and the economy. She said she had lived in England for six years and had returned, and when I asked her if she was sorry now that she was back, she said, “Not at all! My country gave me a good education and start in life, and now that it is in trouble I want to give back to it.” She said a lot of people are suffering greatly in the austerity program—many have lost jobs; home values, pensions, and salaries are cut in half, and taxes are raised. But she also said, “We’ve been living too large until now, and this will get our feet back on the ground.” 

Could be why Greece is in trouble

That’s an interesting perspective that I found resonant with my own sense at home, except that here the suffering seems less widely shared, where there is no medical plan for everyone, and instead some are going without care, as well as without jobs and homes. She was asking me for comparisons with the U.S., but I don’t know enough to say where things are grimmer or how the economic crisis may change us. The returns are still out. In any case, I have to say it’s hard, having seen ancient places whose history is filled with promise and tragedy, beauty and violence, and having visited so many modern places full of both incredible people and terrific troubles, and take anything for granted anymore. Life is full of struggle, full of ambiguity, full of unexpected change and making do, full of challenges to our compassion and our justice—always has been and always will be. And did I say, full of amazing people, everywhere you can possibly go? 

I wish I had the capacity to take in fully all that was in front of me every day the past seven weeks. There was so much and my brain and soul are too small. I will be thinking about this—especially the juxtaposition of so many differing civilizations and so many different ways of making things work—for years to come. It made me more aware of the deficit we face in the U.S., geographically so isolated from the rest of the world, less immediately aware of the ways people beyond our borders live and manage. There were a thousand things to learn a day, and often I was too tired or distracted to give full heed to what was right in front of me. But I hope over time to reflect a great deal more, after I get over the jet lag and the jubilation of being home again.  

Thanks for coming with me on this journey! I wish you enlightening and delightful journeys of your own!

Thessaloniki

Roman Forum

I left Bethlehem at 1:30 a.m. on Thursday via taxi to travel to Ben Gurion Airport (where security was not as brutal as usually is—only the jar of fruit that Rajya was sending to Swopnil got extra scrutiny) to Athens to Thessaloniki by 10:30 a.m. My hotel was brand new, named “Colors.” Very lovely and accommodating. The first thing I did was to take a long hot shower, letting the water stream onto my head and body, and stepping out into a warm bathroom with large towels and a hair dryer. I don’t usually care so much about such things, but after weeks of no hot water, sparing hot water, hot water with guilt, lukewarm or cold water with cold rooms, I hope I will always feel this grateful when enjoying such luxury as a hot shower on a cold day. 

Benizelu

Thermaic Gulf

Panageia Chalkeon Church

And it was a cold day. The wind was icy. I walked to a square with a big statue of a Greek leader named Benizelu to meet my friend Eleni, and from there we walked to see the Roman Forum, a Greek Orthodox monastery, the Thessaloniki marketplace, the waterfront, and then to a wonderful restaurant facing the water for a late lunch of salad and various small dishes such as feta cheese and zucchini croquets (the small dishes are called mezze in the Middle East, but here are mezedhes, though it is a common concept from the Turkish period).

Carnival Costume

Then we walked to the Ottoman symbol of Thessaloniki, the White Tower, and then past the museums that I would come back to later to another tower, the OTE telecommunications tower, which had a revolving restaurant at the top something like the Seattle space needle, only covered with cell phone antennas. There we drank hot chocolate and looked at the sights of the city. I also learned—because the servers were all in costume—that this is the beginning of a couple of weeks of Dionysian carnival, eating lots of meat from grills set out on the streets, drinking lots of beer, wearing various odd costumes, preceding the Lenten 40-day fast.

White Tower and Gulf

At the Archaeological Museum

Thessaloniki is the second-largest city in Greece, and is in the far north of Greece, pretty much due west of Istanbul. It sits on the Thermaic Gulf of the Adriatic Sea and was (and continues to be) an important shipping port in the region of Macedonia, which was made wealthy in ancient times in part because there was so much gold mined nearby. The tomb of Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II, was found 80 km. from Thessaloniki in the town of Vergina. The riches of that family were immense, and the exhibit is said to rival that of King Tut. Alexander’s own grave has never been found.

Ancient gold head wreath

Thessaloniki also has the distinction of having received the first letter the Apostle Paul wrote that is still in existence (1 Thessalonians, of course). Churches here occasionally date to the fourth century but mostly the sixth. Greek Orthodox churches are on almost every corner. Inside they are filled with color and light and sound. The city itself is very easy to get around in by bus, and even easier by walking. The people I met were incredibly friendly, even when we couldn’t communicate. I stopped at a little deli nearby my hotel to ask for a salad. The chef looked like Bill Murray. No English, but he was so sweet that I ended up eating there twice.

The city walls, Byzantine with Ottoman additions

Friday morning I walked the sidewalk along the sea, and visited the White Tower, which is a history museum, and the archaeological museum, which is filled with exhibits on ancient Macedonia. Then I went to the Theological Faculty to meet some friends of Eleni who were expecting me, and sat in the office of the homiletics professor Dimitra Koukoura, who it turns out knows my colleague Kathryn Johnson from ecumenical dialogues. As a Greek Orthodox woman, she can teach preaching but she can’t preach in a church. The first student I met was wearing the black robes, headdress, and beard of an Orthodox priest, but he turned out to be from Halifax, Canada. Others, both men and women, were from Armenia and Greece.

Dimitra’s sister is a tourguide. So after some phone calling, Dimitra said, “It’s your lucky day. My sister Eugenia is leading a group this afternoon. Get in a taxi, give this note to the driver, and go meet here in a cafeteria in the upper city by the Byzantine city walls." She had a group of school teachers from all over Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria) and was guiding them in English to two churches. The first was a small little fifth-century church called Osios David. We couldn’t take pictures inside unfortunately, but there was a rich mosaic that dated from the fifth century, which had been preserved because it had been covered up during the Ottoman centuries, when it was converted to a mosque. 

Macarena with candles for the dead

While we were there many women came in bringing bowls of what looked like white pudding with decorations, usually crosses, made with raisins in the top. Eugenia explained that these were “macarena” (in Italian, according to her, “macaroni”). I swear that is what she called them, though I couldn’t find it on the internet, where it was called instead “koliva.” They are made with boiled wheat kernels sweetened with honey or sugar, and are brought to the church, where the names of the dead are recited during a mass. By the time we got to the next church, the very large St. Demetrios Church, the service was going on and we heard one priest singing the Kyrie over and over while another recited the names of the dead. Everyone was huddled over a large table spread with bowls of the macarena, each with a lit candle in them.

Arch of Galerius, 3rd-4th century emperor, whose palace was here

That evening I had dinner with Eleni at her home, and met her husband George and her three beautiful children Angelos, Sophia, and Alice. Angelos is a tenor and wants to be a famous singer. Before he left for his lesson I was treated to his rendition of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You. Beautiful, beautiful voice. I hope he fulfills his dreams.

The next morning I went to the Agia Sophia Church and sat for a long time listening to the chanting, which was incredibly beautiful. Then I walked to the Byzantine Museum and walked around for a little while before going to the train station to travel to Athens.    

From Jerusalem to Bethlehem

I didn’t mean to quit writing for more than a week. I caught the disease that was going around our group and for a long time dragged through the days. Better now. So much has happened that last week seems like three months ago.

Monastery of the Temptation

Our group went to Bethlehem on Monday, then to Jericho, Qumran, and the Dead Sea on Tuesday. In Jericho we went to visit the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Temptation, which is perched high on a cliff overlooking Jericho. You could see way across the Jericho valley from there. It was a mystical place. We took a cable car up and still had a climb to make. The site dates from the fourth century, when Constantine’s mother Helena identified it as the location of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. A monastery was founded there in the sixth century. There are thirty or forty caves on the cliff face where monks used to live, but the present monastery dates only from the nineteenth century. 

Wednesday was a free day, and Thursday the group went to visit the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque with Mustafa Abu Sway, and then Jane and I had lunch with him, his wife Eman, and their daughter Rana and grandbaby Amin. It’s always very good to spend time with them.

Friday morning early we took the group to the airport, and then Taleb brought me back in the bus to Beit Jala, next to Bethlehem, to meet Andreas Kuntz, who runs the tour guide program for Dar al Kalima College. I spent Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday afternoons teaching Bible to a small group of first-year Palestinian students studying to be tour guides. 

Marcel, Salma, Mirvat, Fadi, me, and Noor

It was fascinating. Most of them are Muslim, all are young, and there were definitely a few cultural gaps. I had to get used to class starting fifteen to forty-five minutes late, with a few trickling in even later. Though I had sent reading assignments way in advance, preparation for class was spotty. But we read some Psalms and discussed them, we read the book of Ruth, and we read and compared parts of Proverbs and Job. On the last day we had a pretty vigorous discussion of Job. Every once in awhile someone would jump in and explain things in Arabic when they felt someone was misunderstanding.

I also learned from them. I learned that in the Qur’an Job (or rather Ayyub) is a righteous prophet who was afflicted and finally healed by God. I am not convinced that the students liked the biblical story as much as the Muslim traditions about him. But we did have some good debate about whether a story should represent God in the way that this biblical book does.

Sunday at the Sepulcher and Beyond

Hana politely declining the Coptic bishop's invitation to tea

In the Holy Sepulcher courtyard

Spending Sunday morning in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is always fascinating, as it was today. We met Hana Bendcowsky early on the roof at the Ethiopian Monastery, and spent time seeing and hearing (and feeling, and smelling, and in one case tasting) the worship of the Ethiopian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Arabic-Speaking Greek Orthodox communities in the various places, large and small, where they are allotted space in and around the church.

I didn’t take pictures during, but take my word for it—the priests are decked out in finery and the chanted, non-instrumental music, especially that of the Armenians, is glorious. For group after group I have brought to visit the church on Sunday morning, first with Daniel Rossing and now with Hana, it is a mind-altering experience.

The building itself is ugly from the centuries without renovations, because the various groups have such difficulty agreeing on how they will renovate. The edicule built over the place where Jesus’ tomb once lay is in danger of breaking and falling, and most times the church is so jam-packed with tourists it is very difficult to pray or even think about God. But on Sunday mornings worship is going on from so many corners in so many tongues that it becomes a Pentecost experience, guaranteed.

Hana talked at length about the miracle that the groups manage to get along at all, and only have fights every couple of years. We all know that it is difficult enough to get along in our home churches where everyone is supposed to be in the same denomination and the church isn’t a holy site for anyone else. So much harder when there are hundreds of years of history keeping groups at odds with one another, and when the stakes are so high.

View of Jerusalem from Dominus Flevit

When we go to Dominus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives, which commemorates Jesus weeping over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, this is part of what I imagine him weeping over, his own worshippers in future generations whose disagreements make Christianity’s most important site a place of contention.

I have an oft-worn necklace with these Hebrew words from Psalm 122: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they who love her prosper.” It reminds me always to remember and pray. Because if there could be peace in Jerusalem, on any of the many levels where there is not, there could be peace anywhere.

As we were walking through the Muristan toward our lunch appointment, Claudia and Hana in the front and Jane and I in the rear, I remarked that suddenly here we were, two tour guides and two tour leaders, and all four women. But it was just about to get even better.

Claudia hadn’t told me where we were having lunch. Imagine my surprise when we walked up to the door of Wujoud ("Existence"), the museum/restaurant/cultural center recently opened by Nora Kort, the Greek Orthodox Palestinian woman who founded Melia, the women’s cooperative needlework project near the New Gate, where I have for years taken groups to buy beautiful stoles, purses, table runners, and other creations cross-stitched by West Bank women.

Nora telling us about Wujoud

I had met Nora last summer when I came to buy a very special gift for Carol Newsom on behalf of all her doctoral students over the past 20 years. Nora had told me then about Wujoud, but I hadn’t seen it yet. Imagine Hana’s surprise as well, because she had been wanting to meet Nora. Imagine Claudia’s surprise when Nora and I embraced and started talking like we were old friends. This is what a small town Jerusalem is, even though it is (at least by legend) the center of the world.

Sitting in the window seat

Nora is a social worker by background and an outstanding leader especially on behalf of Palestinian women. She was one of three women included in the writing of Kairos Palestine, a document written by Palestinian Christians appealing to the churches of the world to help speak out for the freedom and rights of Palestinians, who continue to live (now for 45 years) under Israeli occupation. After lunch she invited us into a meeting room that had been designed and furnished as a traditional Palestinian home, and told us about her work and life as a Palestinian.

Group Photo with Nora and her staff

She told many stories—she’s extremely dynamic. But one that sticks in my mind in particular was about when she was speaking in Houston one time. She was making the point that Christianity has been native to this land since the first century. So many Americans assume that all Palestinians are Muslims (and therefore that they are terrorists, another huge assumption). So the question was asked in Houston, “When did you become a Christian?” Her answer: “Have you heard of Pentecost?” 

 Mitri Raheb, the Lutheran pastor we will see tomorrow, often says that his great-great-great-great-great grandmother babysat for Jesus. This is something very hard to get across: that there have been Christians living here for two thousand years, and that they are in danger of becoming non-existent here because the situation is so difficult, and so many find it easier to emigrate elsewhere to raise their children in peace. Someone said to me as we were leaving, “Oh, now I get it!”

Book Delivery

Elly with the books

Saturday morning we left early on the bus to meet the Rev. Elly McHan at the gate of Augusta Victoria Hospital on top of the Mount of Olives. I had met Elly last summer in Bethlehem, and we had planned this back then. Lutheran churches all over the U.S. had collected children’s books needed in the libraries of the Lutheran schools in the West Bank and sent them to Wartburg Seminary in Iowa, who was sending them over with travelers, usually about five at a time. Elly and I arranged for our group to bring twenty duffel bags of books, 600 pounds, who knows how many.

After all, it is the Sabbath

Wartburg volunteers packed them into boxes and mailed them to each of our pilgrims’ homes. With help from Jo Lucas and Peggy Casteel at First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Indiana, I had raised the money among our group, and friends who had visited Bethlehem, and folks who wanted to support the schools, to pay the airline baggage fees. And our travelers brought them all the way to Tel Aviv, loaded them on the bus. We delivered them to Elly at Augusta Victoria where Elly lives, and she will distribute them among the schools. It felt excellent to be part of such a large project with so many contributors—the churches, Wartburg Seminary, the donors who helped with the fees, and the travelers who brought the books here, and Elly who made it all happen.

We spent the rest of the morning walking down the Mount of Olives, visiting churches along the way, walking across the Kidron Valley, and into the Lion’s Gate of the Old City. I always look forward to stopping at St. Ann’s Church, a crusader church built next to the ancient double pool of Bethsatha (also Bethesda), known in John 5 as the place where Jesus healed the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 

The church is acoustically amazing, and groups love to stand in a circle in the front and sing. So we did. As we sang I remembered with gratitude all the many groups I’ve brought to sing there, the utter surprise on their faces, the awe, and the joy, and the pure beauty of the music. Sometimes another group from another part of the world will join us if they know the song. Sometimes we sit and listen to another. Today we had the church all to ourselves as we sang Hava Nashira, and then Holy Holy Holy. As we were finishing Amazing Grace, a Catholic group came in behind us and sat down. Some of us didn’t know they were there till we finished singing and they began clapping. Then we moved aside and they took our place and sang.

I love the crowded, jostling streets of Jerusalem, the aromas, the sounds, the variety of people, the surprises around every corner. It was a good day to walk the Via Dolorosa, to experience the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. After lunch I took three of the group to the Western Wall, then two of us walked back along Al-Wad street to the Damascus Gate, stopping in a tiny hardware store to replenish our supply of plug adaptors, and at a coffee stand to buy sahlab, a hot thick milky cinnamon drink, and outside the Damascus Gate to take pictures of all the bustle below us.