Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Crumbs from the Table

This reference to the story in the Gospels where the woman asks for "crumbs" from the master's table seems appropriate for this leg of our journey. We stopped along our 4 hour drive to call both the monastery Taxiarhados in Volos and also Demetrios Karellas, to see if he had any other suggestions for us, to no avail. Neither answered the phone all day.

Thus, we found ourselves driving into Volos and then through Volos in search of the monastery at the height of the afternoon. It is on the water and there are some pretty spots, but the main city seemed congested with tall, ugly buildings that block out the light. Passing through to drive south along a penninsula was much prettier with sleepy seaside towns. Demetrios had suggested this monastery when I told him I hoped very much for an experience in a monastery where there was a family-type atmosphere (not a big pilgrimage location with lots of people streaming through). I wanted to finish our trip in Greece similarly to how we had begun it in Zakynthos: with some quiet days among the nuns. He told me this particular monastery, named for the Archangels, was pretty large, with wonderful singing and some English-speaking nuns.

We had no idea where it was, and were still unable to reach them by phone. We saw signs for an information center and followed it out of town, only to find it closed for the day. Asking locals, we were pointed in a particular direction up a hill. As we came out from some trees, Grandma and I noticed a huge domed structure gleaming in the sun way, way up on the peak of an extrememly high mountain above us. She half-joked that perhaps that was it. I secretly thought to myself: "Surely not!! Not way up there!"

However, as we began to climb the mountain, it became evident that yes, indeed, this probably WAS what we were looking for. We were climbing Mt. Pelion, the place in mythology where Jason of Jason and the Argonauts was educated by a centaur, taught to be a noble hero, fed on the honey of the gods.

I have a usually-latent fear of heights. It hasn't bothered me too much on this trip, despite the extreme places we have travelled. Riding in a car is much worse for me, and I've driven almost all the time. On this trip, however, there was a point at which I looked over the edge to the seashore way down below, and I felt that certain panic begin to rise in my stomach. In a flash, I could see myself becoming paralyzed and convinced that if I tried to move the car at all we would topple over the side, free as it was of any kind of barrier almost all the way up. I forced myself not to look down, and to keep concentrating on the road ahead, which was wide enough and felt safe.... until we came to a fork and turned right. Just ahead, the road was basically gone. Dust on both sides with a little strip of asphalt down the middle and orange construction tape around us. They were obviously doing construction or roadwork. Was this road even safe to travel on? A policeman passed us going down the mountain, and we figured he would have turned us back if it wasn't passable. Others came down, too, so we forged on up.

I thought about how my friend Nikos would be laughing his head off to know I was driving 40kmph almost the entire way up, and even slower on curves. But it helped me keep my head. Up and up we went, to an incredible height. The car was taking it well. We finally reached a driveway up to the monastery.

Reaching the gate, it was shut fast and locked. I looked at the clock. 4PM. The wrong time to arrive at a monastery in Greece, with the afternoon "quiet time" very common. But it was Saturday and I thought for sure they must have Vespers that people can attend. I parked in the shade and tried to read the sign. Not much luck, but it might say that it is closed from 2 - 5. Emma couldn't believe we were going to sit there on the top of the mountain for an hour waiting for them to maybe open the gate. I couldn't believe she wanted to drive all the way back down the mountain without waiting to see the monastery.

So, wait we did. She painted her toenails. Grandma wrote in her journal, I drew, Basil played with a truck. After about half an hour a little man came out and did confirm that they were sleeping and would be up at 5PM. He also turned on the fountain and had us fill up our water bottles. It was cool and delicious water.

The nun did come with a smile, immediately enveloping Emilia in a hug and kiss. She brought us in and showed us the old church in the middle of the monastic enclosure. It was quiet and cool, with shimmering gold and icons shining like jewels. We venerated the icons and then she brought us into a reception room where she gave us some candies, cookies, and cold water. I asked about staying the night, but she said unfortunatley it was a big feast day for them and they would be full, but she assured me they could write down some names for hotels in the 2 neighboring towns.

We had about an hour to wait until Vespers. Some of the sisters talked with us a little, but we only saw 2 or 3. We explored around the outside of the huge new church that apparently has recently been finished. The views from up there were stupendous, and we were content to stand and look for a long time. One thinks of the Archangels being the keepers of the heights, and in that way this seemed a very appropriate place to be dedicated to them. I remembered visiting the Tor in Glastonbury, a tower at the top of a huge, conical hill also dedicated to St. Michael.

As Esperinos began, we moved into the church. Being new, it was completely white, with no frescoes at all. The iconostas in front was simple, carved wood, holding fine icons. There were also a few on the large posts, but the vast white space stretched up and out all around us. It was like standing inside a cloud. To me, it was very striking, and I thought of the purity of our baptismal garment, and the purity of prayer.

As the Hours finished and Vespers began, the nuns' voices rose in prayer. Massive bells pealed out, not tolling, but actually ringing a melodious call to the sisters and the villages around: "Come! Come to worship! The time is at hand!" The rich tones sounded cavernous, ringing with rhythm and melody through the church, spilling down the mountainside. I daresay they could hear it in the far villages below along the seaside.

Their chant was pure, like the white walls, and very strong. It was traditional Byzantine chant with an ison, which reminded me of Ormylia, the women's monastery dependent on Stavronikita (on Mt. Athos) which is known for it's Byzantine chant, where the women are strong and deep in their chanting and prayer. As the melody rose, black robes began to swish in from behind me. Nuns came from all sides, purposefully striding forward to join the chorus of voices.

Two choirs: one on each side of the alter. During "Lord, I Have Cried" they alternated singing the verses. I have heard quite a bit of singing in Greece since we have been here. The nuns in Zakynthos all singing together in a sweet and homey way, the nuns of Dau Pendeli with their traditional Byzantine chant executed beautifully in their centuries-old church, the master psaltis in Athens with his grand voice projected throughout the huge church, the single man in Thessaloniki quietly chanting the Psalms. But here, in Moni Taxiarchadon, I was completely transported by the chanting. It was other-worldly, in the same way that pure white space was somewhere else -- somewhere farther than I have ever been before, somewhere farther than I can clearly see or comprehend. It flowed like thick, sweet honey, carrying us on its waves, speaking those ancient words of praise and thanksgiving, lauding the martyrs and saints for whose sake the world continues to revolve on its axis. I felt Paradise creep up around me.

I looked up at the round tiny windows in the dome. I looked at the bent heads with black folds cascading down. I looked at the hand holding the compeskini and telling the prayer again and again: "Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." I looked at the face of the Panaghia in front of me, draped in silver and gold, the gesture of tenderness telling in the shape and movement of her hand.

The Gerondas here, Fr. Antonios, I think, also had a tremendous voice. He was particularly deliberate in his chanting, and one could hear every single word, draw out and given its proper weight. When he called forth the Prokeimenon: "Sofia, Prokeimenos!" it was like a call to battle, the announcement of the great message. Time seemed to stand still for me, as it sometimes does in services. I felt I could stay there all night. And I could not wait for the chance to have Liturgy there the next day. I had been praying to the Archangels and the Panaghia all day to help us find this place, and where we should stay for the extra days in our trip. I felt so full and thankful.

Afterwards, the sister gave us a list of 4 hotels and phone numbers in the nearer and bigger town of Agios Giorgios above the monastery a few kilometers, and another one in the smaller town of Agios Vlaseios down below. As local people gathered outside the church on a small plaza to hear the Gerondas speak, we left, thinking it better to find our hotel and settle in before dark. I asked a blessing from him before leaving to be able to take communion the next morning and assured the sister that we would be prepared and would come in good time for Liturgy.

We headed up to Agios Giorgios, up an even higher road into the familiar narrowed roads of a small mountain town. With steep ascents on either side, the buildings of the town here all clung to the mountainsides and steep stairs led directly from the road up into private homes and dwellings. But so many people!! Where did they all come from? And so much traffic coming and going! Winding our way carefully among the many parked cars, trying desperately to find any of the hotel signs, Grandma looked over and saw a wedding in process at the church down below. Ah, yes. That makes sense. Needless to say, our half-hour's search, including a few unfortunate rabbit trails, ended in disappointment. Absolutely no vacancies in that town that night.

So we drove down to the town below, where we figured that hotel would be happy to see guests, and far enough away from the wedding. I don't know why it was so hard for me to understand the word "No." But it took us about another half hour and the intervention of an English-speaking woman to assure me that there was absolutely no operational hotel or room for rent in that town, and that in fact, I was just calling on the phone the woman I'd just spoken to who had told me she didn't have a room for us. My lack of Greek was seriously apparent up here and we were having quite a difficult time communicating. They suggested the town at the foot of the hill.

Went down. All the way down. No can do. Not a hotel in sight. One would think a beachtown would have a strip of hotels. But the road along the beach was one way going the wrong way and we couldn't see how to get to it. The kids were now quite hungry, it being near to 9PM and dusky. The entire town, it seems, was up at the wedding way up on the hill. Not a single taverna open. We kept driving further and further away from that blessed place, thinking all along that something would pop up. Nope. Not a single thing.

Finally, we found ourselves all the way back into Volos. At least there were hotels. I stopped in 3 of them, none of which had a triple room. I finally decided on the 3rd one just to get 2 rooms if it was a decent price. A halfway decent price it was: 60E. A halfway decent hotel, it was not. The couch I would have to share with Basil was actually tilted backwards. And the decor and everything about it could have been a perfect prop for a B-grade movie on kitsch, or maybe even a horror show from the late 50s.

We pressed on; not as easy as it sounds. Actually, pressed around and around, trying to find the right one-way street to get to a particular hotel sign. We found another strip of hotels and pulled over in a little alley, blocking traffic. I ran in. Told the guy I'd take 2 rooms then asked where I could park the car. He told me to drive around a few streets. Well, that was about it. I began to feel like I desperately needed to get out of that town with all the traffic, darkness, and inhospitable feeling. We were all famished by now. I went in and told the guy our plight, said I just didn't feel like I had the strength to go find a parking place. He told me to go back out on the highway and "very close -- 6 or 7 kilometers" - does that sound familiar? "you will find a nice beach town, easy to get to, nice small hotels." Sounded perfect. We hit the highway.

Grandma was extremely patient, as were the kids. It was now after 10PM. We had no place to stay. We had not eaten since about 2PM, and that was a picnic kind of meal of leftovers. We drove and drove and drove, pulling off now and then, hopeful of finding a town not too far off the highway. After I'd say probably 25 kilometers, we came to a town called Almieros (Almyra) that looked sizable on the map. We followed signs directly to "St. Thomas Hotel" and pulled in.

It was an old hotel, made with cheap materials, rather depressed. The town seemed very small in the dark, we were driving only down small residential roads. But there was a fast-food grill right across the street and he had two rooms across from one another that would work fine. How much? He took me to the desk and showed me his price-list, which said 60E. He crossed this out and wrote with his finger 40E. I sighed a huge sigh of relief, gushed my pleasure and thanks, and unloaded everyone.

I went to pay him and gave him a 50. He put out his hand for more, saying it was 40E for EACH ROOM!! My room had tape over an outlet, no phone, smoke-infested, cheap everything 30 years old, and it was a SINGLE, technically. In the middle of nowhere, 40E!! I was so mad I wanted to cuss him out. I gave him the 100E and went outside, not knowing what to do with myself. Had it been a pleasant place by the sea, I wouldn't have cared so much, but feeling that we were being cheated and being SO very disappointed that we would not be able to return to Taxiarhadon, I was just beside myself for the first time on this trip, really.

I asked Grandma to take the kids across for some dinner and I took a little drive to cool down. I did a little and came back for a few bites of hamburger and fries. Grandma told me to let it go, and I knew she was right.

I laid in bed thinking about all of it. What a bad day. But what a blessed time at the monastery. Why had the Theotokos not answered my prayers and led us to the right place? The hills around Volos have many monasteries. Why didn't she lead us to one where we could stay? Why had the beautiful hope of having Liturgy at Taxiarhadon been taken away from us? Why couldn't I be there?

I went to sleep praying, still clinging to the belief that this all happens for a purpose, that God's will unfolds in our lives in ways we cannot understand sometimes. I asked again that we would be led the next day to the right place for us, to a place where Emma could have the experience of the monastery, where we could all have some peace at the end of our journey. And in the end, I thought about the woman who spoke to Jesus. To our eyes, she seemed degraded, allowed only to gather the words that dropped to her, like a dog eating crumbs fallen from the table. But like her, even though it had been so difficult, I felt that the 2 hours we had at Taxiarhon was enough to fill me for a long, long time.

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