I just heard a heartwarming love story on NPR. I don't like schmaltziness, but this was real and very touching.
4. Reflections on Faith
February 14, 2012
February 05, 2012
January 13, 2012
January 10, 2012
September 27, 2010
Bad Words
Warren G. Harding looked presidential. He even had a voice that sounded presidential, yet when people took time to examine what our 29th president had to say, the substance seemed sadly lacking. William Gibbs McAdoo, a political adversary who ran for the presidential nomination for the opposing party, said of Harding that his pompous words “were in search of an idea.”
Several years ago I visited a church where the minister led communion in what McAdoo would call, Warren G. Harding style: so many beautiful words; such lovely imagery; yet nothing substantial. I wondered, “How often do I speak like that minister? How often are my words mere clichés in search of substantial substance?”
In the book titled, Bad Words for Good, Tony Proscio humorously lists examples of words that are used excessively or inaccurately by foundations to define themselves and their mission. Foundations are far from alone in there pompous use of words. Ministers, teachers, non-profit fund raisers, and many others suffer from the over-use and misuse of words. Proscio suggests that even gifted writers with a literary flair can be guilty of the Warren G Harding style.
Pressure for gibberish is pervasive. Those writing grants to seek financial support from foundations find it necessary to match their language to the stated goals of the foundation. We who preach want to be faithful to the language of our theology. Writers and scholars are compelled to adhere to the language of their discipline. Proscio’s words suggest a question to us all: How much are we sacrificing clear communication in the process?
Proscio offers two very helpful suggestions that can be a good guide for any of us who speak or write. First, explain things in concrete terms. Second, tenaciously test the necessity and fitness of each word choice every time. If we follow these steps, we will communicate clearly.
A mid-career attorney was a fellow student with me in seminary. Although he was very bright, he struggled weekly with theology classes. Mid-semester he came to class elated. He was carrying a theological dictionary. “It’s all nomenclature,” he said. “I’ve been struggling because I don’t understand the language of these theologians.” He pointed to his dictionary and said, “Epistemology means the study of knowledge, Cartesian deals with Descartes’ philosophy, Homiletics means preaching.” For the rest of the semester he took his new dictionary to classes with him and looked up words as the professors spoke.
I decided then, as a young seminary student, that I did not want anyone to require a dictionary to understand me when I am engaged in the culmination of my homiletical process—I mean preaching. I want to communicate clearly. It takes ceaseless work.
June 23, 2010
June 16, 2010
Another Dog Day
The cab drivers at the Athens dock wanted 20 euros a piece from my wife and me, to return us to the backpacker’s hostile. This was five times what it cost to get to the dock the day before. After fighting the arm tugs of several cabbies, I found one who would transport us both for a total of 15. It was 3 euros more than before, but I resolved it was the best deal I could make.
He guided us to a cab where my wife quickly loaded into the back seat. Another passenger was already there waiting. "You can sit in the front," the driver told me.
"Hey," I said when I saw the lady waiting. I didn't agree to share a cab for my 15 euros. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but he was already off hustling another fair. We waited with the woman in the cab. She was an elegant middle-aged French lady who had traveled the world as a fashion model, and now lived in Athens near her adult daughter. Our trip to the Plaka was filled with delightful conversation. I didn't mind giving the cabbie the extra fee in the end, but I gave him no tip.
In the evening we strolled the streets. I worried that striking wildcats might storm the streets in 
anger over the Greek economy and the plummeting euro. Putting my mind on other things, I asked Cindy, "Do you think we'll bump into George and Ruth here in Athens?"
"In a city of over 4 million!" she responded, "I doubt it. Besides, they are planning to stay near the airport."
As the sun set behind the Acropolis, we climbed a set of narrow winding steps to a rooftop bar to see the shining Parthenon tower over the city. After enjoying the view for a while we meandered along the streets looking for a place for a night time snack.
“Hey, Tim and Terri,” I yelled, seeing old friends from California about to pass us on the street. “Fancy finding you here.”
We spent the rest of the evening with our good friends at an outside café. The ladies ate baklava. I was coaxed into a Greek Ouzo. A dog sat near my feet as we shared together. Halfway through my drink, a dirty little Indian girl with sad eyes came to our table. She was selling a droopy flower. Terri bought one.
Then a begging Indian man came to the table selling a flower of similar appearance. This time Terri said, ”No thank you.”
He stood his ground. “No,” Terri said with more resolve, then turned away.
With the man still standing firm, I suggested, “I think the more you talk to him the longer he’ll stay.” We carried on our conversation with one another, trying to ignore the beggar 
with the worthless flower. It was to no avail. By this time he was like a fish on our line and could not be shaken off.
“Please, please,” he said while fixing his pose as firm as a stone statute.
His persistent closeness next to Terri was too much for her to tolerate. “Shoo, go away,” she said, waving her hand as if shooing away a dog, or cat, or bird. Our dessert experience was becoming increasingly distasteful.
Not wanting our dear friend to be in any further distress, I decided to offer my aid. Mustering all my machismo, I fixed my gaze squarely in the beggar’s eyes, leaned forward with determination, and said with firm resolve, “Leave.”
He stared back sober, resolute and unmoved. I thought I could see the hint of a taunting smile 
in his face. I was now ready to come out of my chair and make him move.
“Calm down, Steve,” Cindy said after I told the man to leave once again.
With a growing disruption brewing around our table, the restaurant waiter came our way. The Greek beggar sauntered off with a dispassionate declaration. “Nice day, American,” he said in broken English.
“Ya, you have a lovely day yourself,” I said with angry sarcasm.
With the exception of this one brief eruption, when I lost myself trying to help Terri, we had a lovely time reconnecting with California friends in Athens. We even talked about visiting them in India next year, where Tim will be doing academic research on Jainism. I’ll need to bone up on my 
manners with street people before then.
We walked Tim and Terri to their five star hotel, then returned to our backpacker’s hostel, happy to be paying so much less for our accommodations. The next morning Tim and Terri departed on a luxury cruise of the Greek Islands. We caught the blue line to the Archeological museum. There we viewed many of the ancient artifacts recovered from the Athenian ruins we had visited two days earlier.
At 1:00 we broke for lunch. We searched the streets outside the museum for some cheap gyros. None were to be found. We settled for some fried pastries with cheese and tomato sauce inside. We ate them sitting on a curb in front of the museum. The greasy meal left Cindy so unsatisfied, that she wanted a salad to dilute and neutralize it. We settled for the upscale café we passed by earlier while hunting gyros. The host sat us by a palm tree on an outside patio. A dog came and sat at the trunk near our table.
The Greek Salad we ordered to share was big enough for two eating on empty stomachs. We barely ate a fourth of it. Using our best sign language we asked the friendly Greek waiter to box the salad for take out. We planned to eat it later in the day when we would be waiting at the Parliament Building for the airport bus.
While the waiter carried our salad toward the kitchen, a fellow employee working at a stand near our table, called him to his side. Our waiter sat our salad down on the stand to talk to his colleague. As they engaged in a conversation with our salad between them, the other waiter cleaned up his workstation and moved dirty dishes all around the salad sitting before 
him. He then took a dirty towel he was using to wipe up his mess and tossed it on our salad.
“Hey,” I yelled involuntarily, nearly jumping from my seat. The dog at my feet wandered off. But the waiter did not hear.
“What are you ‘heying’ about,” my wife asked.
“That waiter just threw a dirty rag on our salad.” I said. “What do you want me to do? I’ve already made one table scene in the past twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I certainly don’t want to eat a salad that has been mixed with the trash,”
The friendly waiter returned our Greek salad in a lovely take-home container wrapped in a bag with a handle for carrying. Together with the return of our salad, he brought the check.
“I have read, Down and Out in Paris and London,” I told Cindy. “I can imagine that there are many filthy unseen practices in the finest restaurants of Athens, just like the scenes described by Orwell.” And then I added, “But when I see things right before my eyes, what am I to do?”
“Pay the bill, Steve,” she said, “and let’s get back the museum.”
We gave exact change for the meal. No tip. And we left the leftovers on the table.
The Greek waiter came running after us with doggy bag in hand. “You leave this! Take!” he said, trying to hand me the the container.
I didn’t take it. “It’s okay,” I said trying not to make a scene.
“Take it, please,” he said, and kept begging me.
“No that’s okay, we don’t want it now,” I replied as graciously as possible.
He begged me with searching eyes.
Finally I said to him, “I saw what happened.” I demonstrated how I saw the rag thrown on my salad.
“Oh,---sorry,” he said limping his head.
I felt horrible that I made him feel bad. “I should have just given the doggy bag to the dog, and left it at that,” I lamented as we returned to the museum.
It was 2:15 by the time we checked our bags back at the museum entrance. “We close at 3:00,” a docent said as we resumed our viewing. We had assumed they would be open into the evening like the Acropolis Museum, but it closed at the same time as the ancient ruins.
I made a plan in my mind for get the most of the next 45 minutes. I thought that if we did a swift view of half of our remaining sites, we could wander back looking at the rest, once they started closing things down at 3. No luck with that. They started turning out the lights, shooing us out, and locking up rooms with fifteen minutes to go. At 3 on the nose the front door was locked up.
We caught the blue line back to the hostel where we picked up our bags to head for the airport. We had time to kill before our late night plane to Turkey, so we decided to walk the distance of one Metro stop to the airport bus. We got lost along the way, but with plenty of time to spare we made it to the airport just fine.
There were no significant glitches at the airport. We had to give up some jam at security that we picked up on Hydra as a gift for our friend in Turkey, I had to pass the scanner several different times, and the late night plane across the Aegean was delayed a half hour; but over all, our trip out of town was trouble free. In fact, our entire time in Greece went smoothly. Practically everyone we met was wonderful, with only a few exceptions; the masses managed to refrain from angry protests and wildcat strikes for at least the days we were there; the sights were either beautiful or exceedingly interesting; and the food was fabulous, with only a few exceptions. The dogs were friendly, the cats were tolerable, and I behaved myself for the most part.
June 09, 2010
Cat Island
The TV in the Athens sports bar switched from international football, to the BBC world news service. The news reported the unease mounting over Greek austerity measures. Government officials said cut backs were necessary to save the nation from bankruptcy. Workers complained that it was the government that got them into their mess. Strikers threatened to mount the Acropolis in protest. Transportation workers planned to shut down buses and boats. Our journey to the island of Hydra was now in question.
Hydra was not my first choice. I had originally wanted to go to the Greek Isle of Patmos, off the coast of Turkey near Ephesus. I was looking forward to seeing the historic place where St. John wrote his famous book of Revelation while imprisoned during the first century. When we explored traveling to Patmos, our internet research 
revealed that boat transport to the remote island could be inconsistent in the best of times. We chose Hydra instead, because it is close to Athens and is served by a stable ferry system. Now with the growing unrest in Greece, even getting to Hydra was becoming a hardship.
Hydra, in Greek mythology, was the nine-headed monster slain by Hercules. There is, however, no ancient historical connection of this myth to the Isle of Hydra. Nothing much is known of Hydra’s history before the 15th century AD. This is when people from the mainland sought refuge on the island from pirates and Turkish invaders. Reading about it on the internet made it sound like a pearl in the Aegean.
“I wonder why it’s named after a monster,” Cindy asked after choosing it for a visit. “Maybe they wanted to scare away Turks, or privates, or American tourist,” I conjectured.
From what I learned of Hydra on the net, its glory days were gone. In the 18th century, the island developed a robust fishing community operating out of its secluded cove harbor. In the 19th century the little island contributed 130 ships to make up a third of the Greek navy. This Navy helped win back Greek independence from the Turks.
Today the island people have chosen a quiet life. They have sought to maintain an old-world charm to create a little island paradise. “They don’t even allow cars on the island,” my wife said, with joyful anticipation of our visit.
Cindy looked forward to Hydra’s picturesque hillside town, with narrow stone paved streets lined by white buildings with red tiled roofs. She wanted to go hiking in the island hills dotted with secluded monasteries. “I want a pretty place to relax and enjoy the beauty,” she said. “I don’t want to spend our whole time away just looking at ruins and exploring history.” She wanted a trouble free island getaway. “The place seems so lovely and quaint. So far from the problems of life,” she said. Now getting to our getaway was getting to be a challenge. Getting back could be even more of a problem.
I discussed our dilemma with others in the sports bar as we pealed our boiled eggs for breakfast. “Workers don’t plan to strike til the day after you return,” one local woman told me. “If you make it there, you will probably make it back.”
“You think so,” I said, glancing at the news over her shoulder. The BBC continued to report growing disruptions in Greece. Someone then switched the television from BBC news, back to International Football and we resolved to head for Hydra. We cleaned up our egg shells, packed our bags, and launched out with the hope that political unrest would not disrupt our restful getaway.
Deliberating over trip details delayed our take off. We opted for a 15 minute cab ride to the ferry port for 12 euros, over an hour long metro ride with a bus transfer for several euros less. At noon we left behind the dog filled streets of Athens and boarded the Flying Dolphin, a fast ferry that got us to Hydra in ninety minutes.
Cats met us at the island dock. We walked by them towards donkey owners offering us rides up the hill. Passing them all, we followed our written directions up the winding streets to our little hotel called the Mistral. It was owned and operated by a Greek woman from English speaking Canada, and her husband, an Island native.
After settling in our room, we went back to the dock to find a restaurant for a mid-afternoon meal. Taking our seats at an outside café on the Hydra dock, we ordered a Greek Salad to share between the two of us. As we waited for the waiter, a cat came to our table. He too looked ready to share our meal. Cindy instinctively reached out to pet him.
“It’s not the petting type,” I warned, as I grabbed her hand and pointed out the scratches and facial pus on the pussycat. With the delivery of food to our table, two more cats of similar appearance joined at his side to watch us eat. I could do nothing to shoo them away. “Those cats have us out numbered,” I said. “Where’s a dog when you need one.”
After lunch we strolled around the small town. “What’s the population on this island,” I asked an English speaking business owner while Cindy looked around her shop.
“About 2,500,” she said. “Is that cats, or people?” I thought, but didn’t say. “The population swells in the summer,” she added. She went on to tell me about part time residents, and young seasonal employees. My mind was still on cats and dogs.
I thought back to the dogs on the mainland. In Athens the dogs were owned by no one and cared for by everyone. On Hydra, the cats were owned by no one and did not seem to be cared for by anyone either. Their coats were matted and their bodies maimed from fights. They were dirty, ugly, infected looking creatures who wandered the streets in the day, scrounging for food. At night came catfights. With no traffic on the island, their nocturnal noises floated though our open window with the island breezes.
Thankfully there were no cats on the patio at breakfast. The meal featured a fresh omelet as thick as a quiche. It was served with an assortment of homemade breads and jams. Small dishes of olives, cheeses, tomatoes and yogurt were also brought to the table.
With the town cats resting from their nighttime activity, breakfast was now for the birds. A score of sparrows surrounded us on the ground. They flew up and landed on the table while we ate. Cindy shooed them away with her hand, undoubtedly thinking, “Where’s a kitty when you need one.” I didn’t mind the birds. They were better than the island wild cats.
After breakfast, we went to town to buy a few supplies for a mountain hike. We were surprised to see a small garbage truck collecting trash. “I thought there were no motorized vehicles on the island,” I said to Cindy.
“I thought so too,” she replied. “The literature didn’t say anything about garbage trucks.”
“It didn’t say anything about cats either,” I replied.
We had actually talked about trash the previous night. We were on our way back from watching a spectacular sunset from a western facing vista. As we strolled through town in the post dusk hours, we saw busy dockworkers unloading boats and hauling their supplies in carts and on donkeys, to various shops and homes. “I wonder if they cart trash in same way,” I pondered the night before.
“Garbage trucks are the only motorized vehicles allowed on the island,” the hotel owner told us later on when we asked her about it. “They haul the trash in trucks to a dump on the other side of the island,” she said. “How many cats are at that dump,” I wondered.
Our hike out of town was spectacular. The only signs of civilization, was the shrinking coastal cove below us, an occasional hiker, and several donkey trains carting supplies up or down the mountain. Hiking onward and upward, our view of the town disappeared and our ocean view opened up, giving us scenes of a wider world.
Near the mountaintop we came to a line of steep stone steps heading straight up the slope toward the entrance of a monastery. The prophet Elijah could be seen as we ascended the step. He was painted in a concave arch above the doorway that we could not yet see. The man of God was being lifted by a heavenly horsedrawn chariot. With each exhausting step upward, we got closer to Elijah.
We arrived at the Monastery of the Prophet Elijah with heavy breaths and beating chests. Our water supply was near depletion. Inside the front door was a small vestibule with a hospitality station set up on a bench along the side wall. There was a large blue jug with a stack of cups beside it. On the other side, was a Tupperware container, with Turkish Delight. Passing up the candy, we poured ourselves cold water from the jug.
After our water refreshment, we stepped into the monastery courtyard and looked around. It was founded in 1813 by the Greek Orthodox Church and was now operated by a small community of four monks. We caught a quick glimpse of one of them going about his business in the distance.
The interior court looked like the inside of a fort. On the ground was dirt. There was no foliage to soften the stark white walls surrounding us. The only thing that freed me from a sense of being imprisoned, was a gorgeous chapel in the center of the courtyard. Inside and out, the religious structure conveyed a combination of grandeur and simplicity. It had a capacity for little more than ten people, but I estimated that a structure like it today, with its vaulted ceilings and inspirational stained glass, would cost well over a million to build. It inspired my prayers.
We left the chapel and existed the inner court through the same vestibule we entered. We drank more water and this time we had some Turkish Delight. The gelatin center was fresh with a ginger flavor. I put 5 euros in an offering box. Cindy helped herself to a wooded prayer plaque with an image of Jesus on the water saving Peter from drowning, and she told me to leave more euros.
We then explored outside the courtyard walls. On one side of the mountaintop monastery was a barn with a couple donkeys outside and several chicken wandering around. No cats. The view from here was spectacular.
As we headed down the hill for town, I calculated the time it would take us to walk back. “We have plenty of time to catch our 4:30 ferry back to Athens,” I said with confidence. “We should be back in half the time it took us to climb.”
Half way down, my knee went out. Our descent from Elijah’s monastery came to a halt. “I have felt this pain before and it passes,” I told Cindy, pointing to the spot where it felt like a knife stabbing. As I waited for the pain to subside, I made tentative movements to test my strength. My knee protested by shooting pangs down my leg. I had worried about wildcat strikes stranding us on Hydra, but now my body on strike threatened to leave us stranded.
The pain subsided and my strength returned. We made it down the hill and to the boat dock with time to spare for a brief lunch with another Greek salad -- and more cats.
June 02, 2010
Dog City
We chewed gum to fight off popping ears on our descent to Athens. While we jawed our Chiclets and vainly looked for the Parthenon out our Delta window, the German Prime Minister was in her homeland preparing a speech about Greece to help ease her political pressures. The words of her speech could possibly alter our vacation plans.
Angela Merkel might be the angel to save Greece from bankruptcy. Then, on the other hand, she might announce a delay in a financial rescue of the Greek economy, causing the value of the Euro to plummet. Although a Merkel delay could personally benefit our exchange rate, it also had the potential to ignite our vacationland with anger, promote civil unrest and unleash violent protests in the streets.
The streets seemed calm enough for a bustling metropolis. We noticed no signs of unrest as we rode the bus from the airport to the city center. When we disembarked in front of the Parliament at Syntagma Square, a pleasant Serbian girl we befriended on the bus helped us transfer to the underground Metro. She spoke only broken English and the grandmotherly woman traveling with her spoke none. As the girl and her companion walked us to the subway station, we watched a pack of barking dogs chase down a departing bus. "Dogs everywhere," she laughed.
The young Serb showed us how to buy and validate our tickets. The two women then went with us down an elevator to the platform of the red line. I assumed they were planning to board the same train, but then our friendly guide said, "You take red to Acropoli. We go blue."
After offering our thanks and saying our good byes, we watched from a distance as the older woman barked complaints at the younger one. "That girl sure was helpful," Cindy said, "but I think her generosity got her in trouble with the lady." “Who knows,” I responded. “She could be angry about anything.”
As we packed into the subway car with daily commuters, I wondered how the Greek economy was holding up, and if transportation on our trip might be impacted.
The red line to the acropolis station was one quick stop away. We could have easily walked if we were familiar with the streets, but the train ride kept us from blindly lugging our luggage on the strange streets. At our subway exit there was no new guide to direct us. With map in hand we navigated past a dog lying dead-like on the sidewalk and proceeded to the Athens backpacker hostel.
We checked into a private room and took a long nap to make up for the lack of sleep on the red eye from JFK. While we slept, Chancellor Merkel gave her speech in Germany. We heard about it on the news, in the sports bar we passed through after our nap.
“Germany will help, if the appropriate conditions are met,” Merkel announced. The conditional tone of her words was devastating in Greece. The yield on Greek debt soared immediately and the value of the Euro was starting to fall.
By the time we hit the streets of Athens, all the ancient sites were closed. “They shut their gates at 3 each day,” a fellow tourist told us.
This didn’t matter to the dogs. We saw them roam freely around the ancient agoras and inside the old grounds of Emperor Hadrian’s library. "That one looks like he's owned by someone," Cindy said pointing to a dog with a collar emerging from behind the fence of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. "I see that he has a collar." I said, “but where's his master?” None was in sight.
We wandered around the Plaka filled with shops and restaurants. Just past a sleeping dog, we came to an Indian man squatting on his haunches behind a board the size of a floor tile. As we approached, the man took a rubber red tomato with a smiley face and threw it onto his board. The tomato stuck with a splat and went flat as a pancake. Then it gradually regained its round tomato shape. The dog kept sleeping, oblivious to the tomato spat.
I stood watching with intrigue, but I didn't buy one. I very seldom buy things on trips, and I certainly didn't need any cheap novelties to start weighing down my carry on pack that serves as my sole luggage.
We passed the man with the rubber tomato two more times in different locations as we looked for a restaurant with take-out gyros. As we looked for a place with gyros, we learned that the letter “g” is silent and the name of the Greek sandwich sounds like “euro”. After purchasing two gyro for three euro, we sat down on a sidewalk curb to eat them. The Indian man followed and set up his board beside us on the cobblestone walk. “Splat, splat, splat,” went his tomato throughout our Greek fast food meal.
After dinner we strolled around the Plaka. We soon saw the tomato welding Indian once again. Pausing to study his face, we noticed he was not the same man. The further we walked, the more we saw other Indians with tomatoes. They rivaled the number of dogs on the streets.
After a night of restless sleep on a hard bed, we ate a complimentary breakfast of boiled eggs and tea at the hostel’s sports bar. The other travelers were by and large young people in their mid-twenties from English speaking countries. Most were traveling alone and were randomly assigned to rooms, male and female mixed, four to a room. We had one of the few private accommodations.
With breakfast completed, we gathered with other guests for a walking tour guided by a cigarette smoking young lady. For five euros a head she showed us around many of the sights we'd seen the night before. A pack of dogs followed our group.
When we came to the arch of Hadrian she pointed out the writing on the arch. “On the opposite side facing the old Greek city it says: ‘This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus.’” She then asked, “Do you know Theseus?” “Isn’t Theseus the legendary founder of Athens?” a future scholar among us answered. “Yes, you are right,” she affirmed. “Hadrian was paying honor to the ancient Greek culture with the inscription facing the old city of Athens.” She then asked, “Can anyone read what’s on this side of the arch?”
While I was doing my best to even see the Greek letters of the inscription, she answered her own question: “Here on the Roman side of the arch it says, ‘This is the city of Hadrian and not Theseus.’”
“So this is where the Greco-Roman world converge,” I said to Cindy as I snapped a pictures of the arch. “Remember Hadrian’s empire once stretched to northern England. We saw his wall when we were there?”
Cindy remembered our trip to the wall and said, “How the mighty fall.”
“The glory of Greece is long past,” said the guide as we looked at the ancient ruins and compared them to the uninspiring architecture of the modern city of Athens. “Let’s go to our next stop.”
A pack of dogs followed us as we hoofed our way from the historic arch to the Zappeion, a building from the mid 19th century that was built by two rich Zappeion brothers. “This was an attempt to recapture at least some of the architectural glory of old,” said our guide as we stood in the large public square outside the building. “The brothers thought we needed an impressive place to sign important state documents and have official governmental events.” She then added, "The building is not significant." I snapped pictures all the same.
As we moved in a pack, guided by our young cigarette smoking guide, the dogs still followed. A college a lad from England asked, "Who owns these dogs?" "Nobody owns them," the Greek guide responded. "But who takes care of them?" the British traveler asked, "They seem well fed and healthy."
"We all do," the tour guide responded. She then proceeded with a story. "Back before the 2004 Olympics in Athens, an agency gathered up all the dogs. They spade them or neutered them, and gave them shots. They then released them to people who said they would care for them. But the dogs were back wandering the streets in no time. Although they are owned by no one, they are cared for by all. They are well fed as you can see, especially after Easter, when they get everyone’s holiday lamb bones."
"Why the collars, if nobody owns them?" a girl from Germany asked in broken English. "That means they've been sterilized," the guide responded.
A dog with no collar followed me to our next stop. We came to a halt where the airport bus left us the previous day. "Here's where all the crooks work; the ones who got us into our financial mess,” said our guide pointing to the Parliament Building by Syntagma Square. "This is the old palace of the king. The present politicians who meet here are no better than he was.”
The guide then pointed to the guards outside the palace. “They are members of the military,” she said. “In Greece, all men spend a compulsory year in the army. My brother did real service on the Iraqi boarder with Turkey. We all think these clowns at the palace are a joke. Watch them if you want.” She then wandered off to roll herself a cigarette.
We joined others gathered behind a view line, to observe the kilt garbed guards with long curly-toed shoes do what our guide called “a silly little march.” They stretched their legs high in the air, revealing holes in the crotch of their leotard leggings.
I inadvertently giggled. My collarless dog companion then nudged next to me, and nestled against my leg with contentment.
Suddenly the dog sensed something beyond us and dashed off to growl face to face at a man headed toward the Parliament a hundred yards away. The dog returned to my side a few moments later, and sat peacefully at my feet. I’ve heard stories of Saint Francis attracting animals to his side, even being able to talk to them in ways they understood. For some inexplicable reason, I had become this dog’s Saint Francis. The dog followed at my side as we headed to our next stop.
This is the Cathedral of Athens where all the politicians come once a year to try and show they are religious,” said our guide, as we came to the church of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the 
Marble paved Mitropoleos Square. “This is also where the babies of important people receive dreadful baptism.” “What’s so dreadful about baptism,” I asked. “They practically kill the kid by dunking him in water. They keep doing it over and over,” she replied. “Don’t they just dunk three times?” I asked. “Ya that’s right! Something like that,” she replied. “It’s a dreadful thing. It was done to me, but I’ll never let them do it if I have kids.” “Why?” I asked. “It could kill them,” she said as she puffed on her cigarette.
She continued with a description of the church, telling us how it had taken 20 years to build after the king and queen laid the corner stone in 1842. “They used the remains of over 70 churches that fell into ruin during the reign of the Turks,” she told us. Then she pointed out the scaffolding around the building. “They put that up in 1999 after an earthquake. Now it is actually reinforcing the building and they can’t figure out how to take it down without causing damage. But it’s safe enough for a visit if you want to go inside.” She gave us a break and started rolling another cigarette.
Inside the cathedral we saw the tombs of two Greek Saints. Philothei was a wealthy woman honored for ransoming Greek women from Turkish harems. We saw her bones in a silver reliquary. In just a few days, we anticipated going to Istanbul where we would visit an old Harems of a Turkish sultan.
In the Cathedral, we also saw the tomb of Gregory V, the leader of the Greek Church in Constantinople who was martyred in 1821 when the Greeks were fighting for independence from the Turks. “We’ll have to ask about him in Istanbul,” I said to Cindy anticipating the second leg of our trip.
When we came outside I looked for my dog. All the dogs was gone. 
Looking around the courtyard, I saw a statue of a religious patriarch. “Who is that?” I asked our guide.
“A Greek Nazi who helped the Germans in the war,” she answered tersely. “He’s not worth talking about and doesn’t deserve a statue.”
She then quickly pointed out a small church in the shadow of the cathedral. “That’s the little cathedral. It was built in the 12th century out of stones and columns from the ancient Greek and Roman temples.” She then added further commentary, “Everything is built from something else around here.”
As we walked to our next stop, I wondered if the old relationship between the Nazis and the Church had been built into the new structures of Greece or Germany. I also wondered about the present political wrangling between the two countries over debt.
My internal reflections on church and politics were interrupted when we came to our final stop. “This is the end,” said our guide as she pointed to the ruins of the Roman agora in the shadow of the Greek Acropolis. With the tour guide’s final proclamation, I pondered Cindy’s previous words, “How the mighty, fall.”
On our way to lunch we passed a restaurant replaying the German Chancellor’s speech from the day before. The watching crowds seemed worried. We found a place away from the news, to fuel up with a gyro and Greek salad.
After lunch we climbed the hill of the Acropolis and toured on our own. This historic flat topped rock that towers above the rest of the landscape has alternated as a fortress, worship center and inspirational gathering place for centuries. It is crowned by the Parthenon, which even in its ruined state, is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen.
Standing on the stone mound of the Acropolis looking down to the west, we saw a small rocky hill without buildings, called the Areopagus. “That’s where the Apostle Paul gave his famous speech to the city of Athens.” I overheard a tour guide telling his group.
“Actually the Areopagus was not just a place,” I told Cindy showing off my knowledge of the Bible, “it was a group of leaders who originally met at the Areopagus hill. In Paul’s day they most likely met down in the Roman Agora that we saw before lunch.” “Oh,” Cindy said unimpressed with my show of knowledge.
Looking beyond the Areopagus and around the city below, I pondered the importance of this place in world history. I was looking out upon the home of the premier city-state. This was the birth place of democracy. This was where men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle influenced centuries of human thought. This is where the Apostle Paul made a famous speech introducing the world to Jesus Christ.
I was stimulated with thoughts for the rest of the day. They twirled in my brain as we toured the gorgeous Acropolis museum, as we ate a delicious Greek dinner at a lovely Plaka café, and as we strolled the streets with the dogs in the refreshing spring air.
As I lay my head to the soft pillow in my hard bed, I offered my nighttime prayers. I prayed that the countries of the European Union could do more than bark at one another. I asked the good Lord to help them find some meaningful solutions for the financial mess in this poor nation with such a rich history. And I thanked God that I could be here. “Thank you for this place and thank you for my wife to share it with,” I prayed. Then I thought of my collarless friend outside Parliament and added, “And thanks for the dogs.”
November 16, 2009
Just War Theory
The chief of the US operations has suggested an increase in troops. Our president is collecting information and seeking to make a wise input about a decision. The various parties are lining up on political sides. But what is the Christian response to all this.
It is my conviction that we not turn to Fox News for the answers; or MSNBC, or the Republican Party or to the Democrats. It seems to me, that if we are to be serious about the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the authority of Scripture in our life, then we must take seriously the love ethic of Jesus.
How does this apply when it comes to the decision our
president faces about mounting violence in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan
Some Christians today say we should be Pacifists. This was in fact the earliest application of Jesus’ teaching on love in the first, second, third and fourth centuries of the Christian Church. But as the Christian Church continued to grow and particularly after the fall of Rome in 410 AD, Christianity became the dominant faith in the Western World. At that time there became a significant discussion within Christianity about the possibility for Christian citizens to serve in a national militia.
In the years between 413 and 426AD Saint Augustine of Hippo in northern Africa, wrote a massive work dealing with Christian social and civil responsibility in the midst of a vastly changing world. His writings are collected in one of the greatest books of all time called The City of God. It’s a tough read for the modern person, but it contains some of the most important Christian thinking on the practical application of the love Ethic for complex decision making.
In the 13th century another one of the great minds in history, Thomas Aquinas, wrote another book called Summa Theologica. In his work, he advanced the discussion of war and peace that Augustine had introduced.
Early Protestant thinkers like Luther and Calvin also wrote on issues of war and peace; grappling with how to apply the Love Ethic of Jesus, always trying to show a Reverence for Life. They have all contributed to what is today called the Christian theology for a Just war.
It seems to me that we as Christians have two main options for applying the 6th commandment in our attitudes on war. We either need to take a Pacifist Stance or we can be guided in our thinking by the philosophy of Just War Theory that thoughtfully applies the Love Ethic with a deep reverence for life.
In these weeks, as Barack Obama considers an escalation of our war in Afghanistan, I want to share a few ideas of Just War Theory. Love should always be the central concern in going to war.
One of the things that Augustine pointed out, is that going to war seldom seems like the loving thing to do, but in fact ther may be a time when love demands war. To illustrate his point Augustine asks readers to consider a man hitting a boy and another man caressing a boy. The first case seems bad, but the man might be a father lovingly disciplining his son; the second case seems good, but the man might be a child molester. Augustine then argues that war may be the Just and right thing to do, although it does not immediately appear to be so.
Here are the components of Just War theory
- A just war can only be waged as a last resort. Augustine,
and Christian theologians who followed him, have argued that non-violent
options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. This is why
we give such honor to men like Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, and to
Nelson Mandela as he got older. These
are people who put their lives in danger, by NOT FIGHTING.
- The violence used in the war must be proportional to the
injury suffered. This point has been at the heart of many of the debates
regarding the Israeli and Palestinian debate.
When a Palestinian mob throws rocks that kill a couple soldiers, and
then Israel
- The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants
and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every
effort must be taken to avoid killing innocent people. I believe that one of the saddest developments
in the theories of war was that promoted and advanced by William Tecumseh
Sherman during the Civil War.
He and the other generals in the north and in the south, did their best to keep the war contained to combatants. At the beginning of the civil war, picnickers would even come out and watch the battles in the safety of the hillsides. But as the war drug on, and Generals like George McClelland refused to fully engage in all out battle, Abraham Lincoln lost his patience and insisted on extreme measures. Tecumseh complied. Anyone who has seen Gone with the Wind, knows what he did.
He burned Atlanta
