Greece, Part 5

The Monastery of the Great Meteoron was in some ways the opposite of Holy Trinity Monastery, described below.  As the biggest of the 6 monasteries that remain occupied at Meteora, this one is the most commercialized with a gift shop, souvenir vendors, a museum, a parking lot, and a huge complex.  

The whole family accompanied me to this place, which was entirely accessible by car--parked along a narrow mountain roadway because the parking lot was more than full.

Great Meteoron was crowded with tourists, unlike Holy Trinity.  Our visit did not entail any hikes or climbs, and it did not feel like a pilgrimage.  More like a field trip.

Admittedly, it was a beautiful place.

Somehow I failed to see the sign outside the oratory and chapel that read "No Photography."  I didn't notice it until after I'd already disobeyed its commands.

Although the Great Meteoron is built for a large community of religious brothers, there are only three monks left here, the same number that remains at Holy Trinity.  But really, doesn't it defeat the purpose of monastic life if your monastery is a tourist attraction?

The chapel here is a much loftier space than the one at Holy Trinity.  But it lacks the somber sacredness of the latter.  Maybe it was just the crowds that made this one feel somehow less holy to me.  During the German occupation of Greece, the Nazis intentionally destroyed and defaced some of the monasteries at Meteora.

The view from a monastery terrace.

Greece, Part 4

From Ancient Delphi, I insisted that we journey into central Greece to an area known as Meteora, where 24 medieval monasteries are located atop these rock formations.  Click on this photo to see Holy Trinity Monastery, way up on the top of that rock in the center of the photo--a place where I made a solitary pilgrimage.

I say that I "insisted" on going to Meteora because no one else in my family was at all interested in Greece's religious sites.  But they did not regret coming to Meteora, where we visited a more touristy monastery together.

Of the 24 original monasteries at Meteora, only 6 remain in use.  I was most interested in the remotest of those 6, a smaller, less popular monastery called 'Agia Triada, or Holy Trinity.  

'Agia Triada called to me because it was accessible by a steep footpath up into the mountains from the town where we were staying.  The path afforded wide views out over the countryside below, and you could even see a few of the other monasteries from some spots.

I also liked the fact that Holy Trinity was less popular than the larger monasteries--which were indeed overrun with tour buses and cars and souvenir vendors.  

After about a mile-long uphill hike through steep, shady forests, the path emerges onto this long walkway carved in stone.  See the town far below.

Upper and upper you go...

After the quick woodland hike, I arrived at the monastery door just before opening time.  I was saddened to learn that photography was not permitted in the holiest and most beautiful parts of the interior--the oratory and the chapel--but this place?  This place did my soul good.

Its quiet, its seclusion, beauty, and peace were all wrapped in smoky incense... If I could carry its mountaintop seclusion and serenity forever in my soul, it still wouldn't be long enough.  

John the Baptist...my favorite saint.  He makes frequent appearances in Greek religious art.

It was not easy to capture the monastery on an iPhone camera, but I don't think any camera would have been up to the task--its terraces and gardens, its chapels and icons, its vistas and cloistered walks.

The guard was very vigilant about preventing visitors from taking photos in the sacred places of the monastery, which I did not attempt to do.  But I did light a candle just outside the chapel to St. John the Baptist.  It was not unlike consulting the Delphic Oracle in my earlier post.

Most of the monastery was off limits.  I wish I'd sat longer in its peaceful chapel, enveloped in incense and surrounded by the faces of angels and saints.

There are three monks left at Holy Trinity.  Can you imagine sharing a place like this with two other people...and a bunch of tourists every day 9:30 to 3:30, Thursdays excepted?

Holy Trinity appeared in the 1981 James Bond film, "For Your Eyes Only."  Now I'll have to watch that movie, which I haven't seen since I was a child and don't much remember.  This may have been my favorite day in Greece.  As much as I loved spending time with my grownup daughters, the solitary mini-pilgrimage to 'Agias Triadas will come back to me again and again.

Greece, Part 3

From Itea, we went to Ancient Delphi to consult the Oracle of that place.

Alas, she was out of the office... Her office is pictured here.

She sat in a chamber beneath a temple at Delphi, possibly intoxicated by ethylene leaking from a fissure in the cavern beneath her.

Ethylene or no, I was hoping for guidance...and I sought it all the same.

Such a beautiful place in the mountains of Greece.  It's said that the ancient Greeks believed Delphi to be the center of the world and its main spiritual chakra.  The gods released two eagles to fly around the Earth, and they met up with each other here at Delphi.

For all my fear of heights and love of water, I'll take mountains over the beach any day.

There's a museum there, too.  The place was crazy crowded.

 

Greece, Part 2

After Athens, we did a beach day in a village on the Bay of Corinth called Itea.

It's definitely a place where people go on holidays, but mostly Greek people.

The salty water was still and clear.

It was cold, too.  Our Airbnb was in the building on the left in this photo.  It had wrap-around balconies on the third floor.  Itea would definitely be worth revisiting to spend more than just one night.

Greece is arid and mountainous.

And the roads run along these long, steep drops...

 

Greece, Part 1

Athens is a crowded, chaotic, vibrant city where people park their cars on sidewalks and oranges fall unpicked and uneaten from trees in front of cramped tenements.  This was the view from our Airbnb.  Click on it; it's the Acropolis! 

Athens feels like Paris and Douala had a love child... It's got a distinctly Mediterranean feel to it.  It's definitely Europe.  But there's a wild Southern Hemisphere vibe, too.

The religiosity of the place is everywhere, even though the Greek Orthodox faith is more claimed than practiced.

Here, let's just build all around this decaying structure where the shutters and doors are closed and rotting and trees are growing through the floor.

Check out the decorative flourishes on the tops of the buildings.

I loved the fact that most upstairs apartments have balconies.

The Acropolis made a nice uphill hike amid soul-crushing crowds and under a blazing sun.

As I said to my daughters, faiths are forever morphing and changing, dying and rising as something new, rebirthing and fading away.

A lesser temple at the Acropolis, which simply means "city summit."

Adjacent to the Acropolis is a lower hilltop known as the Areopagus, where the Apostle Paul preached a famous sermon in the Book of Acts about the unknown god.  This is the view of the Acropolis from atop the Areopagus.

A Quick Trip to Lyon, France

This is the beautiful French city of Lyon.  Let me tell you what I was doing there.  

When I was living in Cameroon, lo these 26 years ago, I took in a smart, sweet kid who had a very bad home situation.  He just needed a place to live...regular meals...and someone to care about him. 

This is the basilica on the high hilltop above Lyon.  It's much more ornate than the cathedral down below.

When this kid asked to convert to Christianity, which I did not pressure him to do, I "stood godfather" for him.  He's my godson, but he calls me his father...

That child is all grown up now, just like my biological children, but we still see each other as often as possible.  He lives in Cameroon, and I go there from time to time, and he's come to the US on two separate occasions. 

Here's one of the Protestant churches in Lyon.  The French Reformed Church is essentially Presbyterian, the "Huguenots," and they were severely persecuted for centuries.  

But the Trump administration has banned all travel from 70 countries, Cameroon included.  Not surprisingly, the countries whose citizens can no longer visit the States all have populations where blacks or Muslims are the majority.  Which is to say, my adopted son can no longer come here to see me.

And this is the cathedral church of Lyon, where the bishop has his throne.

And so, we came up with a solution.  We would start meeting halfway between Cameroon and the US, in France.  This was especially ideal because my former housekeeper is now living in France and has been for the past 20 years.  (This "housekeeper" was really more a part of the family than a servant, kind of like Alice on The Brady Bunch.)  I hadn't seen her in 26 years.

I left Cameroon for good in July, 2000--well before social media and WhatsApp.  I lost touch with her and never knew what became of her.  On one trip back to Cameroon, someone told me she'd emigrated to Switzerland.  On a trip to that country in 2006, I looked for her but never found her.

I assumed--with great sadness--that I'd never see her again...until I made another trip back to Cameroon, and found that her aunt was still alive.  She gave me her telephone number.  We've corresponded on WhatsApp, but last week was the first time I'd seen her since the dark days when I got my sad drunken self deported back to America, two and a half decades (and a whole lifetime) prior...

So my godson and I met up at her place.  It was truly a joyous family reunion.  And Lyon is a really lovely place.

I mean, just look at this hotel room.  It has a bedroom and a separate sitting room with a view out over those quaint French streets.

The architecture there is so glorious and old.

The same sitting room by light of day.  It's so...French.

As a fan of sacred spaces, I could spend the rest of my life exploring Europe...

Of course, the churches get a lot more tourists than worshipers.

But there were actually 20 or 30 people just sitting or kneeling in the cathedral--pictured here--praying.  I've never seen so many people praying in a church in France.

There was a mass going on when we went to the top of the hill to visit the basilica on a Saturday evening.  The priest was preaching about the great need to love each other in these times.  

See the basilica high above, presiding over the city streets, just as St. Joseph's presides over my humbler hometown of Oil City?

I HATE it when people put photos of their food on Facebook.  But this fruit here?  It's savory, not sweet, and it's called a safout.  I loved safout.  It tastes kind of like green olives.  It's a common street food in Cameroon, but I hadn't had it in--again--26 years.  Due to the large immigrant population of Lyon, you can buy safouts in the open-air produce markets there.

Another woman I knew in Cameroon many years ago--one of my former housekeeper's closest relatives--spends her time between Lyon and Cameroon.  I saw her last time I went to Cameroon; she's the one dancing in the video below that I took in Ako'akas.  She was the wife of the principal at the school where I worked, now in her 80s.  She gave me this smart outfit to give to my wife...

It did my heart good to see my old Alice-character ("housekeeper") in Lyon--older than when I last saw her, but so, so happy.  She's married to a retired French plumber now, and he's perfect for her.  They're so affectionate with each other.

And here she is with her relative, mentioned above, weeping a little as they bid us goodbye.

It's strange.  I once believed that "relative" to be an evil person.  In my old Cameroon journals I consistently referred to her as "The Wicked and Powerful Madame ****."  (I'm not comfortable sharing her real name here.)  I didn't realize at the time that I was being used as a pawn in a power struggle that predated my arrival in that country.  A certain alcoholic pastor--who hated that woman and her family--happened to speak English.  He had lived in Atlanta in the 1970s and sometimes called me a "Jive Turkey."  Upon arrival in Cameroon, my French was still limited, and so I relied on this guy and ended up falling under his influence.  I should have known better.  He once officiated at a funeral so drunk that he fell into the grave, right on top of the coffin.  But it's strange, the things you'll turn to in a foreign land.  He poisoned my mind against a very sweet, gentle, kind human being...and it took me all these years to realize it.

Oh, the joy of this reunion--my little family from The House Behind the Mango Tree.

I need to spend way more time in France...