Archive for December, 2004

Christmas Eve, Mount Athos and taxis in Thessaloniki

Published on December 24, 2004 in Orthodoxy and travel. 0 Comments

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.

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 from the seaport

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.

Simonopetra

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!

Red Dresses, Jodie Foster and Justice

Published on December 21, 2004 in law. 0 Comments

This afternoon I drove to a neighboring county to pull some documents I need for a lawsuit I’m about to file. It takes about 45 minutes to get there, over mountains and through passes, so I always have a lot of time to think. Being a lawyer, a lot of times I end up thinking about justice.

The county I was driving to is certainly one that will bring justice to mind. A very mountainous, scenic county, it is also a place that has historically been poor. About 90 percent of the land is owned by the Forest Service, so the people live in the narrow valleys. Even now, there is not a four lane road going in or out, so it is relatively isolated. I have tried a lot of cases over there through the years, and I enjoy going there. But you never know what surprises are waiting.

I learned this early. One of my first cases after I got out of law school was there, and involved a family feud over Grandma, or more accurately, over Grandma’s farm. It had been in court before I got involved, a hearing which degenerated into a fist fight among family members, that landed the whole crowd in jail. The case was rescheduled for a few months later, and in the interim I entered the fray.

The day of the hearing, I arrived to find the courtroom fairly well packed. A lot of people were milling around behind the bar, muttering to each other and looking darkly at their opponents. The most notable thing about the crowd was..well…that they looked like hell, not to put too fine a point on it. Unkempt, dirty hair, lots of overalls. The only exception was one youngish female, with 1980s big hair and a very short red dress and high heels. You could have taken her out of the county, and she might have passed.

The State, in its wisdom, had sent an experienced judge from Charlotte to preside over the mess. His mane of snow white hair was matched only by his stern judicial temperment. The bailiff opened court, and the judge hauled himself up onto the bench, and gazed out at the restive crowd. He knew what had happened last time, and it was plain that if it happened again, he would deal with it. After a moment, he motioned the lawyers to the bench. As we gathered around, he said “If trouble breaks out boys, the one in the red dress is mine.”

Sad to say, there was no trouble that day, but clearly the pursuit of justice had caused trouble before. A distinctive feature of the courtroom up there is a very large painting which hangs behind the judge’s bench. It shows blindfolded Lady Justice, holding a set of scales and a sword. She is wearing an unusually diaphanous gown, which due to a miracle of static cling, is molded to her body in such a way that the interested observer can discern that she has the full quota of feminine proturbences and crevices. Good thing she’s in the picture. If she walked into the courtroom like that, she would be locked up. On the plus side, you will be relieved to know that Lady Justice shaves her arm pits.

To her left, a woman (blonde, of course) is on her knees in supplication, hands folded as if in prayer. She bought her gown at the same store as Lady Justice, and has a worried expression on her face. That expression is apparently caused by the figure on the other side of Lady Justice; another woman, brunette this time, who has partly stripped down for action, and is waving a bull whip in the air. Clearly, she intends to inflict damage onto Blondie. Lady Justice appears to be undecided. If she rules for the brunette, one presumes the blonde girl is in for a world of ouchies. But, the lawyers wonder, what if she rules for Blondie? Does that mean that she gets to whip the brunette? It looks like regardless of who gets the nod from the static cling queen, somebody will rue the day. As if to accentuate the point, there is an actual bullet hole in the painting, under the feet of the dominatrix brunette. The lawyers speculate that one of Blondie’s defenders wanted to make the mean girl dance. In any event, that painting has been there for who knows how long. So you can imagine what a blow it was when Jodie Foster had it taken down.

That came about when Jodie came to the county to film her movie, Nell. Part of that film was shot in the courtroom. The production company did a lot of needed sprucing up in the old room, but also took down the painting for the several months they were in town. That was quite a blow to us lawyers. It just was not right to try a case without being under the spell of that rather compelling portrait. You would get up to give your closing argument, and take your theme either from the pathetic blonde, or from the gleeful brunette. That picture kind of summed up the whole affair. In any event, Jodie finally finished her movie, the production company left town, and the picture reappeared. All was right in the world.

As I drove today, I was thinking about how these quirky things really do define justice. Often, in our single minded pursuit of what we believe is justice, we just look foolish, like the family behind the bar. Other times, we are simply pitiful, begging for mercy, but if the table was turned, we would doubtless gleefully administer the bullwhip. Oddly enough, after trying cases for over 20 years, it is only occasionally that I feel comfortable in saying what justice in a case truly is, as opposed to what I will say on behalf of my client. That is because for fallible humans, justice can never be meted out perfectly. To be sure, there is Justice; but only God is wise enough to administer it. That, I think, is why Jesus, when he looked at the crowd at the foot of the mount, pronounced blessings on the merciful, and upon the peacemakers. He did not dispense blessings upon those who administer or pursue justice.

Clearly, there are times when justice is obvious. But I suggest that is fairly rare. Instead, in almost all cases, justice is better replaced by mercy, and by reconciliation. If that family had approached Grandma’s farm that way, they wouldn’t have become a joke. If Blondie and the Brunette tried it, they would not worry about ending up on the wrong end of the bullwhip. And Lady Justice could go do something about that static cling.

At Christmas, this lesson should be most obvious. What is the Incarnation, but mercy for us? It is not justice, it is purely love. May we, now and at all times, remember that lesson. “Judge not,” said the Savior “lest you be judged.”

The Silence of the Nativity

Published on December 20, 2004 in Orthodoxy. 0 Comments

Driving home from the airport last night, I had the car radio tuned to a station playing Christmas music. I had been enjoying that kind of thing for a couple of weeks now. In our Churches, we do not sing any of the songs normally associated with the season. I still have an emotional attachment to some of those songs: “In the Bleak Mid-winter” and “O Come O Come, Emmanuel” come to mind.

But last night, having listened to numerous renditions of Jingle Bell Rock and all of the Santa and reindeer things, I found that I was tired of it. I turned off the radio station and thought about the true sound track to the Nativity: silence.

In the Orthodox tradition, Jesus was born in a cave. This is consistent with the actual practice of stabling animals in caves, and, in fact, the Church of the Nativity is built over that cave. We have been singing the songs of that event, and we recollect the humble origins of this world changing event:

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One,
and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One.
Angels with Shepherds glorify Him,
the wise men journey with the star;
since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child. (Kontakion of the Feast, Tone 3)

This song, and the others that we sing, are well over 1000 years old. They illustrate how we like to think about concepts that are utterly contradictory, but also utterly true. How can the Unapproachable One be born in a cave? How can the womb of the Virgin hold Him who is uncontainable, who created the very universe? These are mysteries that can only be approached in silence and awe.

There is another song that we sing today, the Troparian of the Forefeast:

Make ready, Bethlehem, Eden has been opened to all.
Prepare Ephratha, for the Tree of Life has blossomed in the cave from the Virgin.
Her womb was a spiritual paradise whence came the Divine Plant.
If we eat it we shall live and not die like Adam.
Christ is born to raise up the image that of old had fallen.

The Tropar is full of mysteries — of the Tree of Life, of the role of the Virgin, of the saving work of Christ.

None of these things may be approached through the clamor of the Christmas season. Instead, we need to heed the advice of St. Gregory of Nyassa. In his Life of Moses, St. Gregory tells us that God’s command for Moses to remove his sandals in the presence of God is an allegory for the command to us to remove our dead skins, our passions, our diversions, and move barefoot and silent into His presence. For us, this week, this season, the Nativity is very Holy Ground indeed.

The Regulars

Published on December 7, 2004 in Orthodoxy, life and law. 0 Comments

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.

Yes, Virginia, there is a St. Nicholas

Published on December 5, 2004 in Orthodoxy. 0 Comments

There may be no more beloved saint in the Orthodox Church than St. Nicholas of Myra. His feast is celebrated on December 6 by Orthodox around the world. This is the same St. Nicholas that later morphed into more familiar personas, including Kris Kringle, Father Christmas and Santa Claus. In reality, he bears little resemblance to these fictional offspring, except for the size of his heart. He was a real flesh and blood person, and his life is intensely fascinating and inspiring.

Nicholas was born in the latter part of the third century in Asia Minor to a wealthy family. As a young man, he gave away his wealth, and entered a monastery. He was later ordained a priest. As a monk, it goes without saying that there was no Mrs. Claus. The icon of the saint shows a thin, ascetic looking man. Eventually he was named as Bishop for the city of Myra, which at that time was an important seaport in what is now Turkey. He remained there until his death in 342.

Nicholas took part in the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea in AD 325. This council was called to debate the views of Arius, who held that Jesus Christ was not fully God — an early Jehovah’s witness if you will. Tradition tells us that Nicholas became so infuriated with Arius that he slapped him. The other bishops, aghast at that kind of behavior, stripped him of his episcopacy. That night, however, Jesus and the Theotokos appeared in a dream to each of the bishops, telling them to restore Nicholas to his seat. Chastened, they gave him his bishopric back the next day. The council produced what we know today as the Nicene Creed, which is the definitive short statement of what Christianity is.

Tales of his kindness are everywhere. He rescued unjustly condemned prisoners from death. He once saved a poor man’s daughters from being given into prostitution by quietly dropping money for their dowry in through the window of the house — the source of the stockings that we hang at Christmas. By his prayers, he calmed storms and rescued sailors from the sea. Even today, Christian sailors in the Mediterranean will bless each other with the words “May St. Nicholas hold the tiller!” Today among the Orthodox he is considered the intercessor and patron for children and for all those at sea or who are travelling.

Although the Roman Catholic Church took Nicholas off of their primary list of saints (for reasons that I have not figured out), he is deeply beloved by the Orthodox. My brother, who is not Orthodox, is named Nicholas, and I sometimes ponder trying to work a trade with him. In fact, my ruling bishop is a Nicholas — Metropolitan Nicholas of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.

More than Santa Claus, more than any other variation on the theme, the real St. Nicholas exemplifies the kind of Christian life and charity we should all try to emulate. He is a truly wonderful saint.

So a happy name day to His Eminence, Metropolitan Nicholas, at least on the new calendar. At liturgy in the Saint’s honor tomorrow morning, we will sing his troparion — kind of a theme song for the day:

By the truth of thy dealings thou wast set forth to thy flock for the rule of their faith, an example of meekness, a teacher of abstinence. Thus by thy lowliness thou didst attain to the heights, by poverty unto riches. Plead, Father Nicholas, our great high priest, before Christ our God, for the salvation of our souls.

Being wrong isn’t all bad

Published on December 4, 2004 in Orthodoxy. 0 Comments

It was a case of bad news and good news. The bad news is that I went off down a rabbit trail on my Old Testament exam. I was asked to describe theophanies in the OT. A theophany is a revelation of the Trinity. The two that come to mind are the angels that visit Abraham, and the statement early in Genesis about “Let us create man in our image” — the Hebrew being clearly plural.

My error was in getting too expansive with the term, to mean any revelation of the nature and person of God. But that is also the good news, because the reason I did it was that at the time I wrote, I was still under the sway of something I had just read, The Life of Moses, by St. Gregory of Nyassa, the brother of St. Basil.. Written in the fourth century, it is a largely allegorical look at the scriptures concerning Moses. What had captured my attention was Gregory’s analysis of the three ways Moses met God, and how they relate to our experience with God. I also found an excellent commentary on the subject by Matthew Steenburg. Finding it was worth losing some points.

Gregory said that in regard to Moses, there are at least three experiences of particular interest: God in the fire (Exodus 3), in the cloud (Exodus 19:20) and in the darkness (Exodus 20:21). Gregory saw in the life of Moses an allegorical representation of the life of every Christian, of the ascent of the Mountain of Holiness, represented by Mt. Sinai, to deification.

The first revelation, the burning bush, represents the first way we know God. It is a revelation of the existence and holiness of God. Gregory explains:

That light [of the burning bush] teaches us what we must do to stand within the rays of the true light: Sandaled feet cannot ascend that height where the light of truth is seen, but the dead and earthly covering of skins, which was placed around our nature at the beginning when we were found naked because of disobedience to the divine will, must be removed from the feet of the soul. When we do this, the knowledge of the truth will result and manifest itself.

Thus, the initial appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush is but the first and most elementary revelation. It is an interesting observation that Gregory interpreted the sandals — the dead skins — as the old man, the passions, which must be put off before we approach God.

The second revelation, that of God in the cloud, is viewed by St. Gregory as the next phase of the ascent. Having purged oneself of the passions, one then may approach God in a way that surpasses thought or even any sensory perception. Instead, the seeker finds God within his very soul. God is not perceived by sight and hearing, nor is he comprehended by rational thought. Yet despite this progress, the Christian still sees God only vaguely, as if in a cloud.

It is in the final theophany, God in the darkness, that the Christian finds both theosis and, ironically, a true knowledge of the apophatic unknowability of God. In this final place, where there is no light, no senses and no thought, there is only pure contemplation of God. In leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what intelligence thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence’s yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and incomprehensible, and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness.

A profound and meaningful meditation, especially with Liturgy tomorrow morning.

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