Santorini on March 27

Yesterday, we visited the most photographed place in Greece--Santorini (from Saint Irene) one of a ring of three islands that form the boundaries of an ancient caldera. We awoke yesterday morning after a long sail from Athens to Santorini in some roughish water that rocked us all night. I wanted to wake before sunrise to see the sun come up, to see if dawn was indeed "rosy-fingered" in Greece. However we were so close to the cliffs of the caldera ring we couldn't see the sun at the horizon. I did see the whitewashed houses, clinging like eyebrows at the top of the cliffs, clustered in the two big towns of the Oea (pronounced "Ia") and Fira. The strata of rock on the cliffs was beautiful and interesting. We took an early breakfast on the ship where I found my favorite Scandinavian cheese on the menu. They called it Bruno's cheese, but I call it gjetost, made of caramelized goat milk. Yum!

We couldn't leave the ship except via tender boats, since the ship couldn't tie up at a pier. The water around was still very rough and the tenders had a difficult time first pulling up to the ship itself, and then docking at the pier on land. We noticed a couple of people had a rough time. Then very large tour buses drove us up the hill, cutting back and forth in hairpin turns in more stomach turning conveyance to the top of the cliff where we finally got some relief in the spectacular view of the ship below in the harbor.

The cataclysmic volcanic explosion that destroyed the island happened around 1,645 BC and some theorize that it was the source of the myths of the destruction of Atlantis. It may also have been one factor in the downfall of the Minoan civilization. 

At the top of the cliff a road runs from one end of the big island to the other. We drove through the town of Fira, dedicated to tourist shopping and resorts, then to the town of Oea, where we left the bus for a stroll through the narrow sidewalk lined with shops and taverna. There was construction going on everywhere, people getting ready for the high season of tourism that will start on Easter and run through September. It's a very popular romantic destination and we stopped to watch a couple--woman in a wedding dress and man in a tuxedo--trying to photograph themselves with a tri-pod camera. The wind kept displacing her veil, and a local stray cat tried to climb up her wedding dress, making for some amusing comments among the tourists who stood watching the drama. At the end of the road was a small circular stone ruin of a fortification from the middle ages. Along the fence were thousands of padlocks, just like I've seen in other romantic destinations in Europe where couples place a padlock to celebrate their wedding and throw the key off the bridge or the tower to symbolize the permanence of their union. I don't know how old this custom is, but we've seen similar phenomenon now in St. Petersburg Russia, and Munich, Germany. Maybe the practice will be seen in the US soon.

The tour guide told us that before Easter is when all the construction has to take place. As soon as the season opens, there is no more building allowed. All over we heard the sounds of electric saws and noticed wet cement and new fixtures. Many buildings were under intensive renovation and had excavations revealing lots of old stonework underneath. More and more tourists are spiking the demand for luxury accommodations, and the retail mix of high end shops proves it.  This is definitely the money spot of Greek resorts. Everyone wants to build on the top of the cliffs, and hanging down the slope to get the best views of the sunset. From the top walkway, many staircases lead to lower shops and cafes, mixed in with rental units, boutique hotels and private homes, white wash everywhere and lots of blue, highlighted by the Greek flag of blue and white, for the ocean and the waves, according to the tour guide. I thought it an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to necessarily spend much time there--too much crowding for my taste. I can imagine it cheek by jowl with people in the high season.

Back on the bus to retrace our route to Fira we got a taste of the crowding that must be intense in the summer. The only road was supposed to be two-way, but the width of the buses and the parked cars crowded the passage so much that a bus could barely make it through by itself. Then we encountered buses coming the other direction. We couldn't figure out how they were going to make it work. One driver seemed to be challenging the other for the right of way. It took us 45 minutes, of negotiation and wiggling for the buses to pass each other along about 100 yards of road. Our tour guide told us that such occurrances are common in the high season. "This is what happens when only one cruise ship is in town.  Can you imagine when there are six or more?"

We finally made it out of Oea back to Fira. I noticed that the other side of the island away from the cliff side (the inside of the caldera) was gently sloping, with cultivation in grapes and enough space at one point for an airport. Back in Fira at 11 am there wasn't much in the way of sunset to be viewed yet, so we stopped to get some local wine and sagagnaki at a very pleasant place looking out over the sea. A jewelry store, with a very talkative and charming salesman (who turned out to be a second generation Greek American from California) sold me on a Greek key necklace and matching earrings. We made our way along the shopping street of Fira, back to a cable car for the descent of the cliffside back to a port tender for the trip back to the ship, still in fairly choppy water. 

Back on board, Rollie took a nap, still trying to shake his cold, while I had a dip in the pool and then tried out the afternoon tea served English style, with sandwiches and biscuits.  After a lecture on Greek civilization by a resident historian, we had our dinner with the first group of strangers at the ship's restaurant. A host seated us at a round table with three other couples. I remember that on our river cruise with Viking two years ago, the most interesting part of the trip was being seated with strangers at meals while we had conversations about our places of origin and shared impressions about the excursions of the day. This we did last night, with three other couples from Los Cruces NM, Denver CO and a small town in Eastern Tennessee. I don't know if we'll run into these same folks again on board. (There are over 900 passengers.) On a small river boat you see the same people over and over and have the opportunity to know folks a little better. Not so much on this big ship. But, in the small world department, we found out that one of the couples has a son in the same law firm as our son, Carl, but in a different town. We exchanged those names.

Lessons from Athens

First full day aboard the ship finds us still in the port of Pireaus, with enough sleep behind me to enjoy the day. Took the bus into the main city of Athens had a guided tour to the Acropolis ("the top of the city" in Greek).  A native Athenian, she had the dry sense of humor and extensive knowledge and pride in her city that makes for good tour guides. Highlights of her remarks for me:
Athenians of classical antiquity were justly proud of their accomplishments in mathematics, science, philosophy and the arts, and built the Parthenon over the time span of just ten years, between 447 and 438 B.C. to show their accomplishments. The Parthenon--the temple to the goddess Athena--is just one of many buildings on the Acropolis, but is the one most visible, and the one I think of when I picture Athens. The goddess Athena was the patron goddess of Athens and myth says that she gave to the Athenians the olive trees for the privilege. The olive tree made the civilization possible. It was the fossil fuel of its day, giving oil for lighting, medicine, and lubrication, providing edible fruit and fodder for animals, wood for carving and fuel for pottery making, all while requiring very little labor or water--a most beneficial tree! Thus the olive tree gave the Greeks the leisure time to think, design and write plays and poetry. It gave them wealth. They thought up ways to make civilization flourish, and so it did reaching its zenith under Alexander the Great. What did him in was hubris. "He over did it," said our tour guide. Dead at age 33, Alexander had succeeded in bringing Greek culture to the east, but he never brought wealth and power into Greece.  The guide Elsa ("a Greek girl with a German name") spoke with some sadness about her country, not living up to the glory days of its past. Still she seemed proud to be Greek. I have picked up a book in the ship library by Arnold Toynbee about Greek civilization and culture which seems to proffer the same view: Greeks have a peculiar way of looking at themselves and the past, with their past and seemingly better days behind them, they can be both humble and proud. She wanted us Americans to understand the pitfalls of great civilizations. No age is permanently privileged or permanent blessed. Hubris is the undoing of great countries.

From the Acropolis the views of Athens are spectacular. The guide pointed out the Theater of Dionysius and Odeum of Herodes and Pericles down the cliffs. We could also see the top of Mars Hill, where St. Paul preached to the Athenians, and the agora with its temple to Jupiter.
There is marble everywhere. The steps and walking surfaces up to the Acropolis are polished by millions of visitors' feet and are very slippery. We made our way up, entering the top by the western gate, just as the son was getting higher. It lit up the buildings to highlight them against a pure blue sky.
The main part of the city itself isn't beautiful, in the sense that other European capitals are, like Rome or Paris, but our guide laid this at the feet of the long history of occupation by foreigners--Romans, Byzantines, Italians, and Ottoman Turks--who plundered the city's wealth and never tolerated the flourishing of independent Greek culture. Not until independence from the Ottoman Empire (which Greece was celebrating on March 25, the day we arrived at the city) did an independent Greek country emerge. Now it is part of the EU, which many people regret. Our guide assiduously avoided too much political discussion, except to make some humorous and ironic remarks. The neighborhoods of the city of Athens are jungles of concrete condos, most of which were built after WWII. Their sprawling shapes crawl up the hills. We see lots of shiny cylindars on rooftops which look like solar hot water heaters and tanks. There is very little room for growing things or parking cars, which compete for space in the narrow streets. Some wild olives grow like scrub bushes. Redbud and wysteria are in bloom, as are red poppies. Bitter orange and chopped off mulberry trees complete the streetscape plantings. A little greenspace is found in some small parks tucked in among the concrete condos, many of which are covered by graffitti at street level. Some of that street art is surprisingly good.
Our bus tour of the city took us by many of the public buildings and museums, which are housed in former grand homes of the 18th and 19th century. A Numismatic Museum is in the former home of German excavator Heinrich Schliemann, who excavated Troy and then found a gravesite at Mycenae in the Argolid Peninsula containing 19 body remains and lots of gold from 1500 BC. Read about it in a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine.
We passed by the parliament building and the Athenian Art Academy. We got off the bus to walk in the narrow streets of the Plaka District, lined with shops and cafes and people taking advantage of the beautiful weather and the Sunday holiday. Vendors hawked their wares in close quarters to lots of tourists. There are two Viking ships in port. Only scant glimpses of some small orthodox churches reminded me that this was Sunday. Although the tourists are everywhere, there were a fair number of Athenians out and about, too. After walking near the Museum of the Acropolis and glancing through street level cut outs of the excavations below, Rollie and I sat in a sunny cafe to watch the people and have a little refreshment.

Back on the ship we noticed that the cruise director would be acting as chaplain to lead a brief prayer and meditation (Christian, non-denominational) prayer service at 6pm. About 30 people gathered (in the disco, no less) to be led by cruise director Aaron, who said that although he was not an ordained person, he was from Texas. That's probably all the qualifications a person needs to be a chaplain on a cruise.  The worship was familiar, in a pan-mainline protestant sort of way, and included a prayer of confession, the Lord's prayer, and singing Amazing Grace. The cruise director admitted to a history in church choirs, and later we learned that he was a part of the ship's entertainment company, with a nice baritone voice.  It was good to mark a Sunday in this way, with worship and prayer. It's a rhythm I need.
Unlike the Viking River cruise that we took two years ago, this group seems to be almost all white Americans, with a few Brits thrown in for good measure. The only people of color I've seen among the guests are a couple we met on the bus coming in who said they live in Topeka KS now. Their accents led me to surmise they were originally of some south Asian country. On the other hand, the service staff are almost entirely people of color, from all over the world, many from Pacific rim countries. There are a smattering of Norwegians, mostly in guest services roles.  It's odd to see such a segregation of cultures between guests and service people...another point of wondering for me.

On the Road Day 1, or is day 2?

Fat Tuesday--Making the Time Count

This is the last day of the first month of my sabbatical--one-third over all ready. It also happens to be my mother's birthday and Mardi Gras--Fat Tuesday. Sabbatical time use and the marking of time is on my mind now that I've only two months of my sabbatical left. During the past month I've rearranged my schedule to do different things, but it hasn't been as easy as I thought it might be. The beginning of Lent, oddly enough, has brought to mind a time-use discipline that will help. I'm giving up FaceBook for Lent, but I'm picking up a daily post to this blog.
In the reallocation of time that I'm experiencing during my sabbatical time, it's this difference in my use of time that is proving to be the most challenging. Without the rhythm of a 50-hour work week since February 1, it has seemed that my weekly discipline of time use is up-ended. I find it harder than I thought to change habits that have been my practices for so long. What use of time is the best, now that I don't have to commute, study to prepare a weekly sermon, call on parishioners, design weekly worship? All those seemingly mundane tasks are where I've found the practice of the presence of God as my calling as a solo pastor. When all that is gone, it seems like there are vast expanses of time to be filled, with vast choices for how to do it, but very little guidance on how to make those choices. So where is God now?
Discipline in the use of time has never been my strong suit, but this is where my sabbatical challenge is now, for remaining two months until May 1.
The season of Lent has always been the church's time to call to mind the reorientation of one's life to God. This is the root of the practice of foregoing something for Lent, to make room for something else, something that will keep one's attention to God. So it is with the use of time.
So celebrate Fat Tuesday with all your heart, and use it as a time marker to make tomorrow a different kind of day. Nothing like the present to make a change for the future
!

A Sign From God?

The road sign in front of my workplace is our twitter-like mission to the community. The church uses the sign to post messages of encouragement or thought provoking ideas in short phrases that can be read by cars going 30 mph down the road in front of the building. I hope that people reading those messages can use them. Every so often the messages provoke a response from a (usually anonymous) reader--an email message to the church office or a phone call. Never, until this morning, have we had a face-to-face response.
This morning I met a young man in our lobby who came in and asked me, "What's the message?" I didn't get the reference until he asked me again, "The sign. What's the message?"
He was a young-ish, maybe mid thirties, clean cut, not threatening.
I said, "The message is: God loves you," and then I asked him if he would like to pray. He clearly did. We did. He visibly relaxed. I asked him if he needed anything else. (We often get requests for money from passers by.) He said no, that had been enough and it helped. He left as quickly as he had come. It seemed that was all he needed--just reassurance that the God of the universe did indeed love him, in all his particularity, whatever that happened to be this morning. Such a simple message and so life giving. Words on a sign, and a response--God signs. We need all the signs we can get.

Morning After Prayers

An influence in my father's and grandfather's spiritual life was the pastor, professor, and theologian John Baillie. His classic book of daily prayers Diary of Private Prayer has guided the prayer life of many Presbyterians. It's a book of 31 days' worth of morning and evening prayer, one for every day of the month. The copy in my library is one that came to me from my father's library when he died.
This is the prayer for the morning of Day 9, updated for today's language:
Here I am, O God, with little power and less influence. But I'm lifting up heart and voice to you before whom all created things are as dust and vapor. You are hidden behind a curtain of what we can sense, incomparable in your greatness, mysterious in your power. Any yet here I speak with you as a child to parent, as friend to friend. If I could not so speak, then were I indeed without hope in the world. For it is little that I have power to do or to ordain. I am not here of my own will, nor of my own will shall I pass from this life. Of everything that will come to me this day, very little is of my own choosing. It is you, O Hidden One, who will appoint my lot and determine the bounds of my habitation.  It is you who has put power in my hands for some things and not for others. It is you who keeps the threads of this day's life and who alone knows what lies ahead of me.
But because you are my Divine Parent, I am not afraid. Because it is your own Spirit that stirs within my spirit, I know that all is well. What I desire for myself I cannot attain, but what you desire in me you can attain for me. The good that I try to get for myself, I can't get, but the Good that you will for me, you give me the power to do.
Dear Divine Parent, take this day's life into your own keeping. Control all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and me them skillful to serve you. Take my feet and make them swift to do your bidding. Take my eyes and keep them fixed upon your deep beauty. Take my mouth and make it eloquent to tell of your love. Make this a day of obedience, a day of spiritual joy and peace. Make this day's work a small part of the work of the Kingdom of my Lord Jesus, in whose name these prayers are said.

OK, Ladies.  Time to put on our big girl pant suits
and go to work.

Approaching Thanksgiving

Walter Brueggemann published Prayers for a Privileged People in 2008. (Abingdon Press) I've admired him for a long time, for his ability to say important things with a few right words, prophet words. The collection is poetic prayers. Picking it up again this morning, I was drawn to the title "At Thanksgiving" and will quote it here in full. Maybe those algorithms that track important words (see my last post) will at lease give Walter Brueggemann a shout out.


Amid football,
family, and
too much food,
we pause quickly and without inconvenience
to remember and to thank.
We remember ancient pilgrims
who followed dreams of alabaster cities
and financial opportunity;

We remember hospitable first nation people
who welcomed them, and then lost their land;
We remember other family times
filled with joy and
filled with anxiety, and
old scars still powerful.
We thank yo for this U.S.venue of
justice and freedom,
and are aware of its flawed reality;
We thank you for our wealth and our safety,
and are aware of how close to poverty we are
and how under threat we live.

We gather our impulse for gratitude today,
grateful to you and to our ancestors,
grateful to you for our families,
our health,
our government,
our many possessions.

We gladly affirm that
"All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above,"
But we yield to none in a sense of self-sufficiency,
our weariness in needing to share,
our resentfulness of those who take and do not give.

Your generosity evokes our gratitude,
but your generosity overmatches our gratitude.
We are ready to thank,
but not overly so;
We remember our achievements,
our accomplishments,
our entitlements,
and our responsibilities
that slice away our yielding of ourselves to you.

Move through our half measure of thanks
and let us be, all through this day,
more risky in acknowledging
that we have nothing except what you give.

You have given so much--not least your only Son.
Gift us the gift of dazzlement and awe
that we may rejoice in our penultimate lives
and keep you ultimate all the day long,
relishing the wonder of your self-giving love.