Sunday Morning Worship

Dear Friends,

I confess my trip to Crete was not born of a long and deep-seated desire to see Greece. Rather, in my wanderings around Riga, I'd found a travel agent I'd really come to like in my neighborhood who told me about the opportunity to see the island. The price seemed right and my yearning to visit a new country could this way be fulfilled. There are few places I would not go.

Little did I know I would land in the heart of what could be a set stand-in for MTV's Spring Break Open Beach Party. The author of my travel guide suggested that those looking for a good time (definition: a time not burdened with the pangs of conscience and memory), should come to Hersonisos. But next time, he wrote, you may want to consider visiting Crete.

Harsh. I couldn't disagree with his assessment, but I did feel compelled to rise above it. With my water bottle in hand and Nikes on my feet, I set out to find the beauty surrounding me -- beyond the T-shirt stands and bawdy disco techs.

I succeeded, I suppose. I know this because each time I wandered away into natural coves and pastures or surrounding small villages, the more obnoxious the sights and smells of my adopted neighborhood became upon return. The more odious the frazzle.

In Matala, I swam in the surf around the "hippie caves."

Outside of the ruins of Gortyna, I wandered into an old-fashioned kafeneio and drank (nearly ate) a tiny cup of Greek coffee in the midst of old men playing cards and shifting around their worry beads on strands of leather.

Taking the recommendation of a travel guide, I ate an exquisite olive-laden dinner of bread, stuffed mushrooms and rabbit in a place simply called Krete. "We locals go there," she told me. This was confirmed when, as I was eating, a man of about forty hopped off his little motorcycle, darkened the opened doorway and bellowed, "Yanni!" in good Ricky Ricardo form. The owner responded with what I guessed to be something like, "I have just the dish for you, my friend!"

North of Hersonisos, I watched two kri-kri playfully head butt each other on a narrow cliff.

I had a staring contest with a forlorn kitty perched atop an abandoned rooftop. (I won, for the record.)

I passed so closely to the living quarters of the locals (perhaps to their chagrin) that I heard an old Greek man pass gas from his hind quarters, his flatulence ricocheting through the hills like Zeus' thunder. He didn't see me, though.

But by far the most memorable experience off-the-beaten-path occurred Sunday morning. Earlier in the week I had stumbled onto the ruins of a second-century Christian basilica on a peninsula overlooking the Sea of Crete. It was haunting in the moonlight, but I vowed to return sometime in the morning.

Sunday I did. I went for church. Don't know if my experience constituted as "church"; I was neither surrounded by four church walls, nor was I absorbed in the body of a congregation. I was alone. I carried my God Calling devotional book and a long-sleeved J-Crew t-shirt.

When I arrived I sat down on the remains of one of the walls, no more than three feet off the ground. The October sun was warm, so I took off my shirt. I leaned back. Closed my eyes -- but not for long. Eyes-shut reverence may be a great way to block commotion, but here I yearned to connect to the natural churn of the water some ten yards below and the hazel blur of the horizon beyond.

I sang a couple youth-group stand-bys: "God of Wonders" and "Sanctuary." How vividly did the image of me being the sanctuary emerge in lieu of any physical bastion or edifice.

I prayed, and by that, I mean I listened.

Responding to the urge to stand (an urge strongly suppressed in too many good churches), I stood and began to slowly circulate around the small rim of the peninsula. A path had been laid out in spite of the dusting of broken glass and moss. Though my meanderings were not carried out in a maze, I thought of the traditions of maze-walking for spiritual enlightenment found both in ancient Celtic and Native American religious traditions.

I thought of the Nigerian proverb, When you pray, move your feet.

Somewhere on the trek, I dug the simple line-picture of an ictus in the sandy soil with my big toe.

I remembered my own experience in youth group when leaders Brad and Christine led us students, blindly and furtively, to a place of safety and cover in the darkened basement of our church building just as early Christians might have done in the fields and furrows now in my eye-shot.

I sang "The Lord's Prayer" and "Amazing Grace." Slowly I returned to my seat.

Planted again, I recited the Prayer of Thanksgiving ingrained in my mind from years of Presbyterian services in Jacksonville. It's a good prayer. I get it now. Something about the "long sought us" line always used to make my friend Allison and I exchange glances and laugh. I smiled at the thought.

I read from God Calling. A little scripture.

Moments later, walking away, I collected offering by picking up as many bottles and wrappers and orphaned bags as my arms could carry. Moving back down the steps, I sang through my own rendition of "God Be With You Till We Meet Again," trying not to let my fingers slide over any of of the sharp edges.

No sooner had I deposited the rubbish in a can did a tin voice from a ply wood booth call out to me, "Hey buddy, how bout an afternoon boat trip? Weather's right!" I smiled, and imagined if his offer would have involved donuts and coffee, I may have taken him up.

Was I moved? You bet. Did I want to be? Absolutely. Perhaps expectation is among the greatest key ingredients to seeking the Divine, a God who has "so long sought us."

In spite of my "thin place" of solitude and meditation that morning, the absence of warm-bodied, if overly-perfumed, persons sitting beside me in worship left me feeling a little divested. (And, no, by now, I'd already put my shirt back on.) I recounted the minor annoyances that had sprung up in and around the church-work I'd done the last six years. Like tiny grains of sand in a mighty wind, the little granules had not hampered the progress, but at best, had caused me to rub my eyes and refocus.

Looking back, I am humbled to see that some of the tiny grains of sand had been kicked up even by me on what had been a relatively smooth and level path.

This day, no one was around to engage me at all.

Freedom, and isolation.

Maybe what God is teaching me -- maybe what he taught me that morning -- is a lesson in balance. Of finding good soil between the sea and the rocky coasts. Of engaging in Christian fellowship as rigorously as in Christian worship. Of basking alone in sunlit presence without a glimmering guilty thought of selfishness.

The bread is meant to be broken together. That is clear.

But the wine, like blood, like Spirit, is found running within.

Yours,

Tim