May the following quote from a moving short story by Checkov serve as a reminder to us all to slow down and look beyond the surface in our day-to-day interactions with others...
Help us to slow down enough to see this!
“Iona turned round to tell them how his son died, but at that moment the hunchback gave a
little sigh of relief and announced that, thank God, they had come to the end of the journey. Having
received his twenty kopecks, Iona gazed after the revelers for a long time, even after they had
vanished through a dark gateway. Once more he was alone, once more silence fell on him. The grief
he had kept at bay for a brief while now returned to wrench his heart with still greater force. With an
expression of anxiety and torment, he gazed at the crowds hurrying along both sides of the street,
wondering whether there was anyone among those thousands of people who would listen to him. But
the crowds hurried past, paying no attention to him or to his grief. His grief was vast, boundless. If his
heart could break, and the grief could pour out of it, it would flow over the whole world; but no one
would see it. It had found a hiding place invisible to all: even in broad daylight, even if you held a
candle to it, you wouldn't see it.”
~ from “Heartache” by Anton Checkov
Monday, May 24, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Towards an Asceticism of Hospitality...
Dear Family and Friends,
After having returned from a trip to England (London, Darby, Cambridge and Essex) and a pilgrimage to Mt. Athos, an overarching theme has come to mind which was referenced continuously throughout our journeys. This theme can best be summed up with one word: hospitality. It is something that requires, in my mind, a few prerequisite notions:
A brother said to Abba Poimen:
“If I give to my brother a bit of bread or something else, the demons pollute this act as if it was done out of the desire to be liked by people.”
The Elder replies:
“And even if it happens out of people-pleasing, we will give to our brother whatever it is that he needs.”
And he told him the following parable:
“Two men were farmers and lived in the same city. One of them sowed his seed and produced a small and unclean harvest.
The other was negligent and did not sow, for this reason he did not have any harvest at all. If a famine were to occur, which out of the two would have enough to live?”
“The one who got the small and unclean harvest,” responded the brother.
“Thus, we too,” says the Elder, “let us sow a bit, even in an unclean way, in order not to die from hunger.”
Well, I think that’s all for now.
with much love,
Mike
After having returned from a trip to England (London, Darby, Cambridge and Essex) and a pilgrimage to Mt. Athos, an overarching theme has come to mind which was referenced continuously throughout our journeys. This theme can best be summed up with one word: hospitality. It is something that requires, in my mind, a few prerequisite notions:- That we consider our brother to be our life. Or as others put it, our brother to be our salvation (1 John sums this up pretty well).
- That we leave room in our lives for our brother. This, of course, can take on many different forms, but in our busy society this might have to do with evaluating our jobs, family lives, recreation, and asking ourselves to what extent these are carried out for our own good, or that of others. With a job, for example, the prevailing philosophy nowadays can often very self-centered--everything being set up for success, even if it means stepping on others’ to do so. Our jobs, though, can be transformed in most cases into arenas for practicing this very principle of leaving room for others, even though it may cost us (financially, or in terms of self-respect or reputation etc.). Another aspect of this point, however, which is very important in our day and age is that we leave room for our neighbor in the busyness that is superficially created in our minds. Often the nature of our jobs and our pace of life can be associated with stress that builds up within our minds--the pounding and swirling of thoughts in our heads, whether its remembering an appointment, replaying an intense meeting or conversation, etc etc...All of these things that cause our minds to scatter and eventually snap under pressure, distract us from the still simplicity that is reality. If we clutter our minds with all of these false realities (because they are not actually even helping our every day realities, but only acting as pale distortions of them) we certainly DO NOT LEAVE ROOM FOR OUR BROTHER, which as many fathers say, is a door to meeting Christ. Sometimes humility means slowing down to the point of being able to listen. Often we say, “how can I slow down, I have so much to do.” Two points arise: either we need to re-evaluate how much we are doing in light of eternal values and consequences and maybe try to trim off the unnecessary time-fillers, or we need to come to grips with the fact that it is not the excess of jobs but the internal pace and scatterdness with which we meet these jobs. If we met them with a natural internal pace and one that we singly focused (usually on the prayer of Jesus or something similarly simple), maybe these things would not seem so difficult, and MAYBE they might even take on a whole new level of meaning and beauty...the mundane and even tedious suddenly becoming overwhelmingly brilliant and beautiful.
- That we do not see our spiritual life and our obligation towards our neighbor (i.e. family, friends, co-workers and everyone) as existing in conflict. Someone asked a monk at an active and frequently visited monastery, “how do you keep unceasing prayer active in your monastery with all of the noisy visitors?” The monk replied, “if our prayer ceases as a result of our interaction with the visitors it means that we were not praying for them as we should have been.” Other examples in the Gerontikon show that, in fact, an ascetic’s interaction with guests shows the true state of his/her heart and the fruit of their labors (i.e. whether their labors in prayer were purely out of pride and a sense of human accomplishment, or out of humble recognition that his labors are solely dependent on God’s Grace in transforming his heart in that of Christ’s...one that loves the whole world)Just as we see in the Old Testament with the visit of the Angels and many other examples in every day life, we do not know when we will be hosting Christ or angels. And this is not just an ethical metaphor or lesson but an ontological reality: that when we treat those made in God’s image as we would treat Christ, we are truly meeting Christ (“Lord when did you come to visit us?”). Leaving room for others (i.e. loving them) is an enormous act of asceticism, and requires an upheaval of our own will and a humble taking on and acceptance of the gift of Grace of the will of God in order to carry out this awesome love.
A brother said to Abba Poimen:
“If I give to my brother a bit of bread or something else, the demons pollute this act as if it was done out of the desire to be liked by people.”
The Elder replies:
“And even if it happens out of people-pleasing, we will give to our brother whatever it is that he needs.”
And he told him the following parable:
“Two men were farmers and lived in the same city. One of them sowed his seed and produced a small and unclean harvest.
The other was negligent and did not sow, for this reason he did not have any harvest at all. If a famine were to occur, which out of the two would have enough to live?”
“The one who got the small and unclean harvest,” responded the brother.
“Thus, we too,” says the Elder, “let us sow a bit, even in an unclean way, in order not to die from hunger.”
Well, I think that’s all for now.
with much love,
Mike
Monday, April 26, 2010
Trip to England...
Dear Friends and Family,
Christ is Risen!
The semester is racing by, and we're nearly approaching the final month of classes! The month of May is full of exciting events. On Wednesday I'll be heading to the UK for an Orthodox Youth Festival, and hopefully a trip to the Monastery in Essex. Directly after I return three parishioners from my church in Boston will be coming for a pilgrimmage to the Holy Mountain and Thessaloniki, and directly after that some other folks will be coming, and then a trip to Romania to meet Vera, Teo and Sophia and a journey home with them to Boston for the summer!
Nothing to share in the way of insights, except for the following gem from Fr. Justin Popovich:
"It is essential to create in our people (speaking to the Serbian nation, but really to all of us) the sense that the faith of Christ is a virtue beyond nationhood, being ecumenical and catholic, trinitarian; and that for someone to believe in Christ entails their waiting on Christ, and only on Christ, with every event of their lives."
Glory to Thee for All Things!
with love,
mike
Christ is Risen!
The semester is racing by, and we're nearly approaching the final month of classes! The month of May is full of exciting events. On Wednesday I'll be heading to the UK for an Orthodox Youth Festival, and hopefully a trip to the Monastery in Essex. Directly after I return three parishioners from my church in Boston will be coming for a pilgrimmage to the Holy Mountain and Thessaloniki, and directly after that some other folks will be coming, and then a trip to Romania to meet Vera, Teo and Sophia and a journey home with them to Boston for the summer!
Nothing to share in the way of insights, except for the following gem from Fr. Justin Popovich:
"It is essential to create in our people (speaking to the Serbian nation, but really to all of us) the sense that the faith of Christ is a virtue beyond nationhood, being ecumenical and catholic, trinitarian; and that for someone to believe in Christ entails their waiting on Christ, and only on Christ, with every event of their lives."
Glory to Thee for All Things!
with love,
mike
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
In Light of the Volcano...
Dear Friends and Family,
Today, while reading an editorial in the greek paper Kathimerini entitled "The Lesson of the Ash," something struck home very clearly. In the article the author reminds his audience that we as humans only understand our innate dependence and limitations when the works of our own hands begin to fail us, or when nature intervenes (referring specifically to the recent volcano eruption, and the consequent halt in sky travel all over the globe). His article reminded me quite vividly that we, the "enlightened" ones, have become very sure of ourselves, of our cleverness and capabilities. We undermine reality to philosophize about multiple realities because we have come up with advanced methods to avoid the only true one, one that, if we do not act, meets us with the bitter kiss of death; by taking pain-killers, drugs, "injections" of emotional and sexual highs from various forms of media, among other things, our religion (the avoidance of reality) has truly become our opiate.
It is times like these however, when the surprising silence in the air, reminds us that we do not rule the earth or the skies, but are rather completely dependent to their beck and call. We often only realize this when the rug is pulled out from underneath us (when we lose our ever-present "oxygen" as it were...the system that we have spent lifetimes building) When our economic system, like an enormous teetering mountain, begins to come crashing down upon us, we realize that our are inventions are built on the straw foundation of our human confidence. Human ingenuity is truly a marvel to behold, as we are capable of so much! But a denial of our dependence and a confidence leading back to ourselves, makes it all seems so vain. When we grasp on to our own intelligence and craftsmanship as if it is the ultimate mind, we find in the end, that we have been fooled...but it's often too late.
We, the children of the Enlightenment, call the children of the "dark continent" (or of the pre-settler America's or any other "unenlightened" land) barbarians and fools. We conquered them, educated them, civilized them and taught them a religion that we ourselves would not uphold, only to discover that we had successfully beaten most of the precious, God-given, wisdom out them--wisdom that we could have done well to listen to and to apply!
10 years of higher education often opens the door to...
...a suffocating world of hyper-analysis, inability to smile, and depression. We are so advanced and educated that we are able to (or rather, forced by our diseased minds, to) deconstruct the view of a marvelous sunrise or a breath-taking mountain-range. While we blow our minds up like balloons, filling them with numbers and information, we allow our life-giving organ, our heart, to wither like an unwatered flower in the hot sun. Never before has man been so in need of his Creator. Never before have we been so defiant and desirous to lead our own destiny. But destiny in our hands inevitably leads to confusion and despair. Confusion, because it is not our natural state, and we know this. Despair, because life has a way of showing us that we are not in charge. Beloved friends, let us wake up to this reality and seek within ourselves the answers that have for so long lain dormant and untouched...and that we have been taught to keep that way.
Let us allow the prophetic words of Fr. Justin Popovich (and others) to soak into our very being and lead us to the TRUE Enlightenment:
"The more a man devotes himself to the ways of natural knowledge [whose chief characteristic is its approach by examination and experimentation], the more he is seized on by fear and the less can he free himself from it. But if he follows faith, he is immediately freed and "as a son of God, as the power to make free use of all things." "The man who loves this faith acts like God in the use of all created things," for to faith is given the power "to be like God in making a new creation." Thus it is written: "Thou desiredst, and all things are presented before thee" (cf. Job 23:13 LXX). Faith can often "bring forth all things out of nothing," while knowledge can do nothing "without the help of matter." Knowledge has NO POWER OVER NATURE, but faith has such power. Armed with faith, men have entered into the fire and quenched the flames, being untouched by them"
(Fr. J. Popovich "The Theory of Knowledge of Saint Isaac The Syrian").
We all know that natural knowledge is not evil, but a work of creation at which we can marvel and for which we can give thanks. But just for a moment, let's unplug and go within, let's turn down the noise of our calculations and analysis and see if there is a message in the "un-productive" stillness.
Let us turn from our father the Enlightenment, and become children of Faith, where instead of a fatal and false self-deification we find a confidence and foundation based in a sure, never-failing reality. Then we can marvel at the never-ending sun-rise of our lives as we plunge deeper and deeper into the ocean of true knowledge.
Glory to Thee!
with love,
mike
Today, while reading an editorial in the greek paper Kathimerini entitled "The Lesson of the Ash," something struck home very clearly. In the article the author reminds his audience that we as humans only understand our innate dependence and limitations when the works of our own hands begin to fail us, or when nature intervenes (referring specifically to the recent volcano eruption, and the consequent halt in sky travel all over the globe). His article reminded me quite vividly that we, the "enlightened" ones, have become very sure of ourselves, of our cleverness and capabilities. We undermine reality to philosophize about multiple realities because we have come up with advanced methods to avoid the only true one, one that, if we do not act, meets us with the bitter kiss of death; by taking pain-killers, drugs, "injections" of emotional and sexual highs from various forms of media, among other things, our religion (the avoidance of reality) has truly become our opiate.It is times like these however, when the surprising silence in the air, reminds us that we do not rule the earth or the skies, but are rather completely dependent to their beck and call. We often only realize this when the rug is pulled out from underneath us (when we lose our ever-present "oxygen" as it were...the system that we have spent lifetimes building) When our economic system, like an enormous teetering mountain, begins to come crashing down upon us, we realize that our are inventions are built on the straw foundation of our human confidence. Human ingenuity is truly a marvel to behold, as we are capable of so much! But a denial of our dependence and a confidence leading back to ourselves, makes it all seems so vain. When we grasp on to our own intelligence and craftsmanship as if it is the ultimate mind, we find in the end, that we have been fooled...but it's often too late.
We, the children of the Enlightenment, call the children of the "dark continent" (or of the pre-settler America's or any other "unenlightened" land) barbarians and fools. We conquered them, educated them, civilized them and taught them a religion that we ourselves would not uphold, only to discover that we had successfully beaten most of the precious, God-given, wisdom out them--wisdom that we could have done well to listen to and to apply!
10 years of higher education often opens the door to...
...a suffocating world of hyper-analysis, inability to smile, and depression. We are so advanced and educated that we are able to (or rather, forced by our diseased minds, to) deconstruct the view of a marvelous sunrise or a breath-taking mountain-range. While we blow our minds up like balloons, filling them with numbers and information, we allow our life-giving organ, our heart, to wither like an unwatered flower in the hot sun. Never before has man been so in need of his Creator. Never before have we been so defiant and desirous to lead our own destiny. But destiny in our hands inevitably leads to confusion and despair. Confusion, because it is not our natural state, and we know this. Despair, because life has a way of showing us that we are not in charge. Beloved friends, let us wake up to this reality and seek within ourselves the answers that have for so long lain dormant and untouched...and that we have been taught to keep that way.
Let us allow the prophetic words of Fr. Justin Popovich (and others) to soak into our very being and lead us to the TRUE Enlightenment:
"The more a man devotes himself to the ways of natural knowledge [whose chief characteristic is its approach by examination and experimentation], the more he is seized on by fear and the less can he free himself from it. But if he follows faith, he is immediately freed and "as a son of God, as the power to make free use of all things." "The man who loves this faith acts like God in the use of all created things," for to faith is given the power "to be like God in making a new creation." Thus it is written: "Thou desiredst, and all things are presented before thee" (cf. Job 23:13 LXX). Faith can often "bring forth all things out of nothing," while knowledge can do nothing "without the help of matter." Knowledge has NO POWER OVER NATURE, but faith has such power. Armed with faith, men have entered into the fire and quenched the flames, being untouched by them"
(Fr. J. Popovich "The Theory of Knowledge of Saint Isaac The Syrian").
We all know that natural knowledge is not evil, but a work of creation at which we can marvel and for which we can give thanks. But just for a moment, let's unplug and go within, let's turn down the noise of our calculations and analysis and see if there is a message in the "un-productive" stillness.
Let us turn from our father the Enlightenment, and become children of Faith, where instead of a fatal and false self-deification we find a confidence and foundation based in a sure, never-failing reality. Then we can marvel at the never-ending sun-rise of our lives as we plunge deeper and deeper into the ocean of true knowledge.
Glory to Thee!
with love,
mike
Monday, April 12, 2010
Inspirational Gem #1
Dear Friends and Family,
A good friend, John M, came and visited Greece in January. In our efforts to “seize the day” while he was here, we briefly recorded (both audio and text) some thoughts and “gems” that we picked up throughout the course of our time together. These gems come from conversations that took place between us, with others (priests, monks, lay people), in “dialogue” with some books that we were reading, and just from life itself. We had intended to send them out bit by bit in the form of a mass e-mail, and still hope to do so, but life has a way of delaying these worthy efforts and making it difficult to complete. Thus, I have decided to start posting them slowly but surely on my blog, so that at least you all will be able to benefit from these moments as we did as well.
The following text is made up of some notes taken during an informal conversation with a local priest and confessor here in town, Fr. Spiridon. We were discussing various topics relating to ministry and work in the Church and this is mostly from the mouth of Fr. S:
We as humans, when we undertake any kind of work, we need to focus on two things: our effort and God’s blessing (hope, prayer, effort) and in trusting that He will complete the work in His time. We need to leave the results (and worrying about them) for God and be happy at all times even when things don’t go our way, knowing that our success lies in our effort and in God’s seeing our effort and blessing it (maybe not in such a way that matches with our understanding of human “results” but still a blessing nonetheless).
We don’t need too much experience or expertise when we begin a particular work in service to Christ and His Church, we just need to strive from our hearts to do God’s will out of love and not worry (i.e. if we are teacher) about how much someone understands something, but instead to focus on our effort and knowing that He will bless.
We never want to be slaves to a program. We make schedules and have a course of action. When you live like that, you are easily disappointed, and you switch things around by saying that, instead of God being in control and giving the blessing, we are in control and wait for God to be obedient to us. We have a list of things to do, and one step at a time, it leads us to become more and more anxious at every step. Anxiety comes when we trust ourselves and take things into our own hands. If you are confident and want to be in control then God says: ok, you can do it on your own? Fine, go ahead, and he “leaves you” to try.
A word of caution: hoping does not mean carelessness and saying that God will take care of everything and so I can sit back and watch, but rather means that we begin with respect and acknowledge that our human attempt is weak and poor and that God will complete and perfect our weakness.
A priest or layperson doesn’t start his labors thinking that he is capable, but rather because he loves the children of God and by his ministry in performing the sacraments (in the case of the priest), he puts his hope in God’s blessing.
The priest in the parish has to first have a fatherly relationship with his parishioners, and then be a teacher, otherwise they won’t listen (this is a mentality that seeks to avoid the trap of guruism).
Teachers have to have the sense of being life-long students, and must have the inspiration and desire to learn from their students. Only in this way will their students respect them. They have to be human first.
More to come!
with love,
mike
A good friend, John M, came and visited Greece in January. In our efforts to “seize the day” while he was here, we briefly recorded (both audio and text) some thoughts and “gems” that we picked up throughout the course of our time together. These gems come from conversations that took place between us, with others (priests, monks, lay people), in “dialogue” with some books that we were reading, and just from life itself. We had intended to send them out bit by bit in the form of a mass e-mail, and still hope to do so, but life has a way of delaying these worthy efforts and making it difficult to complete. Thus, I have decided to start posting them slowly but surely on my blog, so that at least you all will be able to benefit from these moments as we did as well.
The following text is made up of some notes taken during an informal conversation with a local priest and confessor here in town, Fr. Spiridon. We were discussing various topics relating to ministry and work in the Church and this is mostly from the mouth of Fr. S:
We as humans, when we undertake any kind of work, we need to focus on two things: our effort and God’s blessing (hope, prayer, effort) and in trusting that He will complete the work in His time. We need to leave the results (and worrying about them) for God and be happy at all times even when things don’t go our way, knowing that our success lies in our effort and in God’s seeing our effort and blessing it (maybe not in such a way that matches with our understanding of human “results” but still a blessing nonetheless).
We don’t need too much experience or expertise when we begin a particular work in service to Christ and His Church, we just need to strive from our hearts to do God’s will out of love and not worry (i.e. if we are teacher) about how much someone understands something, but instead to focus on our effort and knowing that He will bless.
We never want to be slaves to a program. We make schedules and have a course of action. When you live like that, you are easily disappointed, and you switch things around by saying that, instead of God being in control and giving the blessing, we are in control and wait for God to be obedient to us. We have a list of things to do, and one step at a time, it leads us to become more and more anxious at every step. Anxiety comes when we trust ourselves and take things into our own hands. If you are confident and want to be in control then God says: ok, you can do it on your own? Fine, go ahead, and he “leaves you” to try.
A word of caution: hoping does not mean carelessness and saying that God will take care of everything and so I can sit back and watch, but rather means that we begin with respect and acknowledge that our human attempt is weak and poor and that God will complete and perfect our weakness.
A priest or layperson doesn’t start his labors thinking that he is capable, but rather because he loves the children of God and by his ministry in performing the sacraments (in the case of the priest), he puts his hope in God’s blessing.
The priest in the parish has to first have a fatherly relationship with his parishioners, and then be a teacher, otherwise they won’t listen (this is a mentality that seeks to avoid the trap of guruism).
Teachers have to have the sense of being life-long students, and must have the inspiration and desire to learn from their students. Only in this way will their students respect them. They have to be human first.
More to come!
with love,
mike
Monday, April 5, 2010
Χριστός Ανέστη!
Christ is Risen!
Although this is a bit late, I hope and pray that everyone who is celebrating Orthodox Easter (both yesterday and continuing through Bright Week and beyond) has a peaceful, joyful few weeks, infused with the renewing Grace of the resurrection of Christ which happened at a particular historic point, but effects us drastically even today, if we would have the eyes to see!
with much love,
mike
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Pig Farmer For a Day
It occurred to me that it's been a while since I've posted a personal segment, as opposed to the occasional translation or interesting quote. The pictures that you will find below were added before the text, because I wanted to give you all a sense of what I had been up to last weekend while it was still fresh. Now, however, a bit of an explanation is due:
Last weekend (i.e. before Holy Week) an American friend of mine, Peter, who has lived for about 1 year at the monastic community of St. Dionyius at the foot of Mt. Olympus GR, invited me to join him for a weekend at this beautiful historic monastery. Because school is out for Pascha, I decided to go for it, and took the train with him to the small town of Litohoro which sits at the base of the renowned Olympus mountain. One can really understand, to an extent, why the ancient Greeks considered it the home of the God's, at least from an aesthetic perspective, as its beautiful slopes and sprawling picturesque valleys provide a mystical contrast--juxtaposing the flat "earthly" agriculture terrain to the looming "heavenly" peaks.
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Due to its mythological significance, the mountain is not as well known for housing the monastery of St. Dionysios, even though it is apprx 500 years old, and famous due to its holy founder, and for its welcoming but austere monastic atmosphere. But in the Orthodox world it is a fairly frequented non-Athonite pilgrimage site, and therefore something that I too had been interested in visiting, but never had a found a good excuse to go. Finally, my time had come :).
So after arriving at the train station in Litohoro, we decided to walk to the monastery and see if someone would decide to pick us up along the way (Peter was fairly well known by the locals as being the representative American staying at the monastery and so it was not improbable that someone would be pass by and recognize him). It was about a 2 hour walk and as we started out we knew that we would not regret it as the fresh rural air blew through our hair and refreshed us (especially me, the urban academic that I have become :)). The walk was paradisiacal to say the least. Going from highway roads with fields on both sides and mountains painting a beautiful background landscape in the distance, to quaint village houses and tiny cobble stone roads, we wound our way through the center and up towards the monastery itself. We passed ancient churches and monuments and were fortunate to have been picked up by a pleasant local who took us through the ugliest part of our journey and gave us a bit of a break from walking. We arrived safe and sound and settled in having found me a room in the guest house.
Peter works with the pigs. He had suggested that I help him the following day, because he really loved his job and thought that I would enjoy it as well. I eagerly accepted his offer, although internally I was curious to see how my city-boy self would fair "wallowing" with the swine; but my idealistic side one over, and I figured that it would be a good break from the books to get down and dirty with the unclean ones.
This was the best decision I think I have made since coming to Greece.
Honestly it was a day full of external filth and internal joy. With ever splash of mud that found its way on my pants, with every lump of manure that oozed betwixt my boots and every speck of dirt that lodged itself behind my ear, I found a renewed strength and energy rushing through me. After I had overcome my fear of being trampled by 100 hungry piglets as I dumped feed into their troughs, I found it rather enjoyable to quite literally rub shoulders with these piggish...pigs, and if they were blocking my way, to give them a loving, but firm, boot out of my way. All day we went from pen to pen feeding hundreds of them (the monastery owns around 600 total, operating one of Greece's few organic pig farms), running around screaming "Roy, roy, roy", which in Greek pig language means, "eat, food, eat, food" or something like that. I got to see how the male breeding pigs, who bore a striking resemblance to some high school football players that I have encountered, would be set up with a couple of females to produce, in the way that comes quite naturally to them, itty bitty oinkers (I say SOME, not all...so no comments about not being PC please ;)).
I guess that if I was doing this all day everyday and had known no other life (like a very kind Albanian fellow that I befriended there), and then I had seen American movies and all of the lazy young people who are seen partying away, I would think that the grass WAS really greener on our side of the fence; but coming from the wealth of American society, and from the cement sterility of urban life, it gave me a new sense of being...just a nice glimpse of another aspect of the life of the world that I don't see too much of at the moment. Maybe someday that will change, life will become a bit more balanced (I pray that this is the case), and I am not unsatisfied with the beautiful life that God has given me in Thessaloniki, but this was a taste of another cuisine that opened up a side of me that needed to come up for a bit of air I believe.
So there it is. Hate to say it, but the highlight of the monastery was the PIGS! Let this be a lesson to all of use: let's not look only what we might consider the cookie-cutter examples of our Faith (the ideal clergyman, that best monastery, the most active parish) to teach us the important lessons. Sometimes its the pigs that make our day! (don't take me too seriously please).
So here's some shots of the the pigs and the monastery! Enjoy!
with love,
mike
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