A Little Rhythm

The bell tolled next morning for prayers at 5AM, followed by the mellow sound of the talendron beating out its invitation. 

 I rolled over and slept some more.  Yet I managed to get up an hour later and still be there for a good hour and a half of morning Orthros, greeting the mosaic of St. Paul over the door as I walked in.  I stood at the same chair and listened to the sweet chanting of the handful of sisters.  The time of quiet prayer refreshed my soul.

Afterwards, Grandma, Basil and I gathered at the table for breakfast at 8:30.  Theophani brought us hot water for our Nescafe, a carafe of fresh milk, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter and homemade apple marmalade, their organic feta cheese, and some cookies and sour cherry juice, which we really love.  

She showed me the little kitchen next to the trapeza where we could wash up our things afterwards.  

I asked her if there was some work we could do that day.  She had

 suggested that we may want to drive over to Lavrio, near which there were two interesting things: some garments and other secondary relics of St. Nektarios and the legendary cliff from which King Aegeus had jumped in grief over the mistakenly supposed death of his son Theseus, thus giving its name to the Aegean Sea.  Emma and I were very familiar with this bit of mythology and I had been torn, wanting to see this cliff but also wishing to stay put here in the monastery for our one day there.  Emma's lack of interest in seeing "just another cliff" made up my mind.  Theophani said she had some nuts we could crack for them.  And so we spent the day with the rhythm of the monastery, which was wonderful.

Basil was completely content all day long with his trucks as Grandma, Emma and I struggled over those nuts for about 4 hours.  Grandma made a lot of headway with the walnuts.  I, on the other hand, have a much greater appreciation for almonds than I ever have before.  I found the nutcracker completely useless against the incredibly hard shell of the almond.  I got through a few with the mallet, 

but many more were impermeable and went flying in all directions, like little almond bullets, when the hammer slammed down on them.  I was afraid I'd injure one of us, so I turned to the pecans, which were done in no time with their thin, brittle shells.  Emma was having a great time throwing her walnuts on the ground to crack them.

We talked about the book Grandma had picked up from my table: Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom.  Over the day or two there she read the whole th

ing.  We talked about prayer.  She talked about what prayer had been and meant in her life, not so much an ascetic practice as Fr. Anthony described with the Jesus Prayer, but more of a constant remembrance of God throughout her life, an awareness of His presence and a solid faith in Him that she has never felt needed to be tested or unduly examined.  I had to agree with her that this is the kind of thing Orthodox prayer is moving towards in its discipline, too.  At the end, it is the remembrance of God that we seek.

Grandma articulated the basic experience of that very well.  For her, this is and has been her own faith and the unfolding of religious belief throughout her life.  As most of us know, remembrance of God is often not something easy, and not to be taken for granted.  But some seem to have been given the gift of faith, or this foundational remembrance of and belief in God, which comes to them almost effortlessly.  Most of my own life I've recognized 

this as well, with only a few times of struggle or doubt that passed relatively quickly.  Perhaps this "gift of faith" is one of the greatest things I've inherited from my mother, something that has permeated and given shape to my whole life.

I tried to explain, not having really experienced it much myself, the deeper understanding of remembrance of God that Fr. Anthony is referring to in his book, the kind of remembrance that the saints seek, who spend their lives in interior pilgrimages much more arduous than what we have endured, just for a taste of that blessed awareness.  I talked to her about the energies of God, the hesychastic way of prayer that is both an art and science for Orthodox Christians, and one that we all must try to embrace to the degree we are able.  I told her about how those who reach a state of illumination, who are blessed with the constant remembrance of God not only in their subconscious, but in their conscious minds as well, about how the very bones of these holy ones are changed and transformed.  We've seen this.  We've smelled the fragrance from the relics and touched the myrrh-soaked squares of cotton from the miraculous icons.

For me, it is hard to just sit myself down in silence and attend to prayer.  Services are much easier, with singing, rubrics, and many words to try and absorb.  But practicing the Jesus Prayer, for me, has been a slow effort of fits and starts.  At times, I build a rhythm and consistency, when the prayer becomes sweet to my mind and heart, and even an effortlessness can attend me sometimes.  And then at other times I let go of that "thread" or habit of prayer and allow myself to be distracted again by the concerns and indulgences of the world around me, dropping a consistent habit of practicing the Prayer altogether.  

If I sit down for a time of prayer, my second challenge is always keeping my mind focussed on Christ, keeping it away from the awareness of myself and all my questions, thoughts and self-imposed conundrums.  It is a constant effort to re-focus my awareness on God.  I realize how difficult it is for me to truly remember Him and sit before Him and in Him quietly without distraction.  

One of the nuns from America, Sister Theodicte, came and told me they were starting prayers: Hours, Paraklesis, and Vespers.  With some major repairs going on in the monastery, the normal prayer routine was being changed.  More physical manpower was needed to help with the work and both Compline and Orthros the next day would be held in the monastery chapel rather than the main one accessible to us.  She invited me to join them in a small chapel to the Archangels for this afternoon prayer service, however.

It was just Sister Theodicte, another woman who had obviously been there some time and taken on a rule of participating in some of the prayers, and myself.  The chapel was quite new, it appeared to me.  I was very surprised to hear the words: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy..." in English!  She read several more prayers throughout my hour there in the mother tongue we shared.  It was interesting to hear the other woman praying the Trisagion in Greek.  Even as such a novice in that language, I could hear a very unusual accent, probably due to her Asian, maybe Japanese, background.

We were brought a tasty lunch at about 2PM: fried potatoes, a large Greek salad sans cucumbers with small feta cubes, peppery red onions and dark purple nicoise olives, some bread, and a sweet walnut cake infused with honey syrup.  After all the nut cracking, which Grandma valiantly finished even after the rest of us gave up, it was nice to taste a little of the "fruits" of our labors.

The heat was rising again, and that familiar sticky feeling descended on us.  We all went back to the room for a siesta and actually fell asleep.  When we woke, it was cooler.  I took Emma downstairs to search for the kitties and to collect our bags from the car so that we could re-pack a bit before our departure the next day.  Later in the afternoon, Theophani again brought us a huge plate of watermelon and stopped to sit and talk with us for awhile.  A few other nuns had passed by to chat throughout the day.  Sister Theoctiste told us of how she had come from the Midwest twelve years ago, drawn by hearing someone from this area give a lecture in Pennsylvania.  Her heart stirred, she came and stayed.  Sister Theangeli was from Germany.  

In fact, one of the things that marks this particular monastery and the sister monastery of St. John the Forerunner on Mt. Ossa, near Volos, is it's international community.  There are sisters from Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, and America.  And probably some other places I don't remember.  As I told them, it reminds me of Elder Sophrony's monastery in Essex.  Sister Theoctiste told me that they often use a variety of languages in their common prayers.

Although I understood that St. Paul's in Lavrio was Elder Dositheos' first establishment, the proximity of the newly-sprouted town of Plaka and the general growth in that area, just a 40 minute drive from Athens, pushed them to establish a second monastery in the more remote Mt. Ossa.  They had finally moved all the animals that used to be here up there, where they had more space and less activity from outside.  The establishment there is much larger, from what I gather, with maybe 20 or 30 nuns instead of the 6 or 8 here.  They are working toward running an extensive farm there, with organic produce as well as homemade feta, marmalades, herbs, and other products from their own livestock and gardens.  The two monasteries work closely together as one, shifting sisters back and forth as needed.  Apparently the main port of Pireus which serves Athens will eventually be closed and replaced with a huge port already under construction out of Lavrio.  This will certainly increase the traffic more at St. Paul's.  Sister Theophani sighed as she told me this, but then said, "But God knows."  In many respects, this smaller monastery nearer the centers of commerce is easier for people like us to make it to, for spiritual refreshment.  I'm glad it's here.

I went to the church and took photos of all the icons, then worked on drawing as the sun went slowly down.  Grandma read her book, Basil played and Emma chased bugs and other critters, then found a mama kitty behind the church with a tiny mewing calico.  Most of the rest of her efforts throughout the evening consisted in ferrying bits of food to her.

Theangeli asked if I would like to see the icon studio later.  Unfortunately, their work didn't allow her to get back to me, so I contented myself with more drawings, something I'd had little time to pursue throughout our trip.  As we went up to our room for the night, I saw a perfect full moon, as if suspended in the mellowing blue dusky sky.  Beside the bell hanging in one of the archways above our bannister, it seemed to betoken the utter sense of peace and deep tranquility here.