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It’s Christmas Eve, and we are about to go to the first of the services. It was probably inevitable that today the memory of last Christmas Eve is still sharp in my mind. Last year at this time, we were in Greece. On Sunday, December 21, I had gone on a pilgrimage to Mt. Athos, the spiritual center of the Orthodox world, leaving my wife and kids in Thessaloniki. I was supposed to return on December 23, but for reasons you’ll find below, I did not get back until after dark on Christmas Eve. While we were in Greece, we kept a Livejournal blog for everybody back at home. What follows is (with some additions in italics and a few pictures added) what I wrote that Christmas Eve in a smoky internet cafe in Thessaloniki, my family by my side:
“It’s J, and yes, I’m back in Thessaloniki after a wild ride from Simonopetra. Just to lay the background, on Sunday I traveled to Mount Athos and stayed that night at the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon.
St. Panteleimon is a very large and very beautiful monastery. At one time, it held over 1000 monks, but after the Revolution of 1917, the population dwindled to virtually nothing, since men were not allowed to leave Russia and become monastics. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, however, a stream of men started coming here. Today, there are probably about 70 monks, and there are over 5000 men in Russia who have asked for permission to come and be monks. The monastery is extraordinarily beautiful. When I arrived, they showed me through the complex, and then gave me a cell. Even though I had awakened early that morning to catch the 5:00 a.m. bus out of the city, I was so excited that I had trouble sleeping. It wasn’t helped by the sound of the surf on the shingle beach just outside my window. As it happened, I had only been asleep for a little while when at 12:30 in the morning, a monk walked down the corridor ringing a bell, calling us to the Church. Services continued until after dawn, a daily routine. Here, as at the next monastery, I was undoubtedly the most clueless pilgrim they had ever seen. I speak no Russian and very little Greek. But all of the monks were very kind, and at both monasteries English speaking monks were present, who took me under their wing.
Simonopetra is a very old monastery. It was founded by a hermit, Simon, who was living in a cave nearby. One Christmas Eve as he prayed, he had three visions. The first was of a brilliant star shining just above the top of a huge rock across the ravine from his cave. The second was of the Virgin, Joseph and the Christ Child on top of the rock, under the star. The last vision added angels, the shepherds and the Magi. Taking that as a command, he began building the monastery in top of the rock, hence Simonopetra — Simon’s Rock. I visited his cave, which is kept as a shrine. Inside are a few icons and nothing else. Simon slept on a rock ledge. I had to stay bent over in the cave. This is the place where St. Simon lived and worked out his salvation for many years. It was very humbling to imagine living there alone, in such a wild place.
On Monday, I took the ferry down the coast to Simonopetra, and climbed the 1000 feet to the monastery, which is built on top of a cliff above the Aegean Sea. Tuesday morning, I awoke at 3:00 a.m. for Divine Liturgy, and found that during the night a vicious wind had arisen. It literally screamed up the mountain, and even found its way through the thick monastery walls into the church, where it blew oil lamps back and forth. Although the monks seemed unperturbed, I was concerned, especially when the sun came up, and I could see the ocean. Enormous swells, the entire horizon just boiling. It was no surprise, although a disappointment, to learn that the ferry would not run that day, which was the day I was to return to Thessaloniki to meet my wife and the girls.
That night, I had tea with a new found friend, Father Iacovus (from Boston yet!), and I fretted about getting back to my family for Christmas. The wind was still howling outside as we talked. He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps we will see that the Panagia will open the way for you,” he said mildly, and we went to our cells.
I awoke this morning, and found that the wind had disappeared, although it was still raining. The sea was relatively calm. The monastery gave me a ride to the port of Daphni, where I caught the ferry for the fishing village of Ouranopoulis. During the two hour journey, the wind again picked up, and by the time we reached port, the sea was again extremely rough. It was so wild that the ferry missed its first attempt at docking, and came around for a second try. It missed the pier it was supposed to land at, but came up against another pier. The deckhands were screaming (in Greek) “Jump, Jump for the wharf!”, so that’s what we all did. I thought the monks among us had an unfair advantage, as their robes caught the wind and gave them that extra impetus. Flying monks, indeed.
Mildly exciting journey on sea at an end, my next task was to find the bus to Thessaloniki. I did not know where I would catch it, but as I walked up the hill from the pier, there were two buses waiting. I got on one, and we headed for the city. My next challenge would be to find a taxi in Thessaloniki to get to the hotel. I already knew that getting a taxi to stop in that city is next to impossible. But I got off the bus, grabbed my back pack and….literally walked into a taxi. I got in, along with a monk, the driver and two other people. As we drove off, I was thinking to myself how strange it was to be in Thessaloniki as darkness fell on Christmas Eve, in a taxi cab with these people, and then the radio started playing REM’s “This One Goes Out to the One I Love.” A wonderful end to a bizarre and divinely protected journey.
S told me that she had asked for prayers for my return. I thank you all, as well as Father Iocavus for his pipeline to the Theotokos.
Having related that, let me say that Mount Athos is everything you have heard. Only the three people now sitting around me could have brought me back from the Holy Mountain. I am still trying to gather my impressions. For now, suffice it to say that I have never been anyplace remotely like it, nor, on this earth, will I ever.
Tomorrow, up at 4:30 for Divine Liturgy at the church our friends attend. Christmas among the faithful.
May you all have as Merry and Blessed a Christmas as we are having now.”
Sometimes I dream of Mt. Athos. May God bless all of the monks and nuns who pray, day in and day out, for all of us in the world. May each of you reading this have a truly blessed Feast of the Nativity. And remember, the twelve day party starts tomorrow!
Behind my desk is a window which overlooks the steps of the courthouse. On days like today, I can turn around, and watch the people who are standing on the steps, smoking and socializing. They are the defendants and their friends, there to answer for misdemeanor charges. I see pretty much the same faces every time there is court. This is true whether it is traffic court, like today, or what a former assistant DA used to refer to as “yak and smack” court, which is tomorrow.
This regularity has always been true in my experience. Sure, when I started this in 1981, the faces were different: some of those regulars are now in prison, some are dead, some have broken out of the cycle and are doing other things. Of course, there are new regulars, people who weren’t even born when I started doing this. But always, the same faces, over and over again.
It’s not that these people embody evil. While I don’t do much anymore, I used to do a lot of criminal defense, including defending death penalty cases. I can count on one hand the number of times I sat in a holding room and looked across the table and saw pure evil looking back at me. Instead, these are people who, by and large, don’t have the desire or the motivation to live or behave any differently. I would not necessarily hang around with them — drugs, drinking and petty violence and theft are not my cup of tea. But I can’t say that I don’t have my own set of passions which I struggle with. Theirs are just more obvious, and more likely to be against the law.
All of us are called to be transformed, whether we sit at a desk looking out the window, or we are standing on those steps. All of us have an equal need to be transformed. If I ever feel like I have reached a satisfactory point, I will be wrong. The Apostle said that we will go from “glory to glory”. To be perfectly honest, I would be happy to simply get to “pretty good”.
I pray for those people I see, for their transformation and for mercy for them. I pray for the same thing for myself; because when you get right down to it, mercy and transformation are really what all of us need.
Another thing I do in my law practice, aside from the domestic relations work, are guardianships. For some people, I serve as guardian, trying to look out for them and pay their bills. Other times, I serve as guardian ad litem, which means that I am supposed to represent the interests of the person on whom an incompetency petition has been filed. I go and visit the person, talk to their caregivers, read their medical records — try to do enough background work to make sure they actually need a guardian. If you remember some of the 1940s and 50s Bette Davis movies, you’ll get the idea. The court just wants to make sure no one is being taken advantage of.
Often I serve in that role for elderly people, who may be suffering from Alzheimers or the after-effects of a stroke. My favorite ones, though, are the mentally challenged people, especially the Down’s syndrome folk. I’m sure its dangerous to over-generalize, but I have yet to meet such a person who had any guile, any aggression in them at all. In fact they are typically the most delightful people I meet. I remember a man in his mid 40s explaining to me why it was important that his collection of Gilligan’s Island and Beverly Hillbillies tapes be categorized in a particular fashion. A woman in her mid 30s earnestly told me about her stuffed animal collection, who each one was and where on her bed they liked to sleep. A man in his mid 50s sat with me in his room and beamed with pride, telling me about the $10 a week he earned at the local sheltered workshop. You would have thought he was Bill Gates. And my favorite, a woman about 30 who excitedly told me that she was getting baptized the next weekend in the little country church she attended with her folks. She said her mama had told her that, even though she would keep her clothes on, it was like taking a bath so she would be ready to see Jesus.
After such a visit, I am humbled. I love to read theology, and think about the intricacies of, for example, baptism, and of the faith. But the woman put me to shame with her heart-felt love and enthusiasm, and her explanation for what was going to happen was just fine. In fact, I look at my life, spent managing conflict and aggression during the day, and studying my books at other times, and I’m not sure who is better off. Sure, its fun sometimes looking smart. But what I wouldn’t give for a heart as pure as theirs.
Ancient Church 