Some remarkable reportage on Greece PS

When I got to the end of the Vanity Fair article posted earlier this week, I remembered something that happened in our first week in Athens, January 2007. Here's the line from the magazine:

But [Greece] does not behave as a collective; it lacks the monks’ instincts. It behaves as a collection of atomized particles, each of which has grown accustomed to pursuing its own interest at the expense of the common good. There’s no question that the government is resolved to at least try to re-create Greek civic life. The only question is: Can such a thing, once lost, ever be re-created? (Michael Lewis, Vanity Fair, 1 October 2010, final para).

Now I am not Greek and I have not even lived here for four years, but I feel somewhat defensive as I read that. How would you feel if you were Greek, reading such a black-and-white national character assassination?

A few reactions: first, that is not far off a useful summary of human nature. I think we're all at heart accustomed to pursuing our own interest at the expense of the common good. Societies do it in different ways, and some of the ways Greeks do it are just less culturally acceptable in, for example, England. (I'm not sure our civic life is inherently better in England though. You don't find Greek high streets that are no-go areas on Friday nights as you do the length and breadth of England.) But fair enough to an extent - Greece has societal sin. No surprise there.

Second, I really don't know how fair a characterisation of the Greek nation this article is. I'm going to sound it out among some of our friends here. Most people we've got to know here don't hold back about criticising their compatriots (as Lewis points out) so it may be that people don't get as defensive as I think they might - maybe it's spot on.

Third, as I said I was reminded of something trivial that happened nearly four years ago.

Moving these days seems to assume a fair amount of IKEA purchasing and we were no exception - with many, many flat-pack boxes opened and the contents assembled. What to do with the mountains of cardboard? Rubbish collection here takes place each night and you have to carry your stuff to the nearest wheelie bins, in our case just at the end of our short street on the main road. I set out with load upon load and was a little concerned to find the bins already full. There was no way I could leave all those boxes without encroaching on the road itself, or piling up precariously high.

I asked Costas what to do - our friendly neighbour, now in his mid-20s. 

'Costa - should I leave a few here now and some more tomorrow and so on?

'No, just leave them all.'

'But there's too many - it will be a problem on the road.'

'Eh, this is Greece. We don't care.'

This was said with shrug of shoulders and most certainly in the sense of 'someone else's problem - sleep easy my friend'.

Part one - the moving boxes (can't locate picture of IKEA boxes which followed)

Perhaps the lack of civic duty is much more pronounced here. Can it be recreated, once lost?

As we think about teaching the truth about Jesus, the one who is Lord over all of life - including tax demands, litter and illegal software copying - we are beginning to see more clearly the way the gospel will challenge the students who epitomise the 'we don't care' of modern Greece.

This is not important...

...but worth mentioning. I noticed sadly that our favourite Greek beer (Mythos, which very handily allows one to say my Thos and your Thos) has gone up from 86c to 1.06E over the summer. This is still not much for half a litre of ideal companion to our favourite Greek fast food on a hot evening, the chicken giros with everything, but I was therefore chuffed when at the same time as noticing the raging inflation I backed into a stack of 'new product' Hellas Pils, for a mere 59c.

It turns out that this was a bad deal at half the price. The second bottle that we opened, which had a bit of fizz, might have been the collected dregs of other peoples' Mythos. The first bottle (see picture) broke as I opened it. Note the neck and cap. I poured it into glasses through a tea strainer to collect the stray shards of glass, but I shouldn't have bothered as it went straight down the drain once it was tasted.

Something is worth paying for if it is to be richly enjoyed a la 1 Timothy 6.

Some remarkable reportage on Greece

We've been made aware of this article from Vanity Fair (not a magazine to which we subscribe...) and it is fascinating and alarming all at the same time! Have a dip if you'd like some understanding of what's going on here - if the journalist is telling the truth, and if those to whom he spoke were telling the truth!

Going to church Athenian-style

Our local Greek Orthodox church with our local Joel Clark on front steps

The walk to Joel and Hannah’s school takes us past the local Greek Orthodox Church, Αγίας θεράποντας or Ayias Therapondas (this is the best thing I can find quickly for those who, like me, want to know a bit about the geezers who get the privilege of having churches named after them! Read with a pinch of salt or three).

It was a peaceful and relaxed morning and I was ahead of schedule so I popped in to the building for the first time in a while. There were a couple of priests doing their thing at the front, behind the ornate iconostasis, and perhaps 30 worshippers: 20 or so mostly women sitting or kneeling in the pews and the rest, mostly men, loitering at the back (like me). At the same time as I went in one of the mums from school came in, bought a 10c candle, lit it and left, all in the space of 30 seconds.

I went back to take this picture later when the service wasn't on

Two things struck me. The first was how very clearly it was a service. I have deliberately stopped calling our church meetings services. This is a religious word, or a civic word, not a gospel word – when we gather at church we do not partake of a service. Services are things done for us, like meals on wheels, or Watford Gap, or the NHS – good things, or at least necessary, but not really much to do with hearing God speak as a family, communion with Christ, mutual encouragement and an expression of sacrificial love.

This morning’s observations however were of a service: the priests stood with their backs turned to the congregation, who played no part whatsoever other than to kneel at the appropriate point and perhaps listen. They recited old Greek – quite relaxing to listen to, and at times even intelligible (λάβετε, φάγετε which is ‘take, eat’) – and would have carried on if no one had been in the building. This is a far cry from the one anotherness of New Testament spirituality. When I think about this kind of service, it does seem a little like the kind of service that councils provide. As long as it’s happening everything is OK, but we don’t need to participate in the delivery of it. I’m not saying that is what it’s about, but it does seem so to me as an outsider.

The second thing that struck me is that these services are being delivered daily in thousands of similar settings across the entire Orthodox world. Even though there are only a handful of ‘faithful’ in each service, that’s a fair number of Greeks coming into contact with some kind of words about Jesus. We are led to understand that very, very few Orthodox people have what you might call a living faith, a real, personal trust in Christ and his saving work on the cross. Only God knows the faith or otherwise of any person, and so our speculation is pretty useless. However, while there is little evidence from the way people live to suggest there are many followers of Jesus here, there must at least be a fair amount of spiritual hunger and questioning among these scattered groups.

Though our ministry is with students, few of whom voluntarily darken the doors of (the already gloomy) church buildings here, we would love to get more involved in the home and church lives of those around us in the neighbourhood.

Janice Clark, 14 November 1947 - 3 September 2010

We have just sent a prayer letter out. The first part was the sad news about mum, Janice Clark, who died on Friday 3rd September after suffering with cancer for over a year. Her funeral will be 14th September, with a thanksgiving on the 18th, both in Milton Keynes (ask for details). This isn’t the time or place for many words about her, but I wanted to write three things that we feel very strongly.
 
The first is that to be with Christ is better than to live, and so we are very glad for her because she has entered into God’s perfect rest, where there are no more tears, and we rejoice that she trusted him.
 
The second is that we will miss her very much, because she was mum and we have to wait to take our place in that perfect rest with Jesus and all the faithful who have gone before us.
 
The third is that we are moved and challenged by, and grateful for, a remarkable legacy that she has left. Lengthy tributes elsewhere, but she and dad taught us the gospel as children, taught and modelled contentment in Christ, set us an example of sacrifice for the sake of Christ and others, loved us well, and prayed so faithfully. (Dad showed us her prayer diary last week. It is remarkable in its comprehensiveness and consistency.) She wouldn’t want a focus on her now—her life and death point us upwards not backwards—but she would be thrilled to learn that her example lead to greater love and faithfulness on our part. God-willing, it will. I hope that my own children will look on the example of their mum and dad and know that they too have learned great treasures in such normal ways, and be encouraged that they have been taught by people who have been taught by, among others, my mum.
 
I love the fact that such a great example was set by such normal people, with no whistles and bells. It encourages and reminds me that our years are well spent if they are wasted in the cause of the gospel—not just in glamorous missionary fields, but at kids’ bedsides and around meal tables and in countless caring conversations with all sorts of people, all with the purpose of establishing others perfect in Christ—as she now truly is. And I am encouraged by the knowledge that this great work of making disciples is done by normal people with the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ through open Bibles.
 
I don’t feel the need to look for silver linings in black clouds. The good things are plain to see, and mum’s death (which is really her life beginning as God always wanted it to be: face to face with him, no sin in her, no cause for sorrow, and unendingly glorious and glorifying) brings many of them into sharper focus for us. 

I hope and pray that this encourages and challenges you in the same direction as it has us.

Greece today

On my flight to England to try to see mum before she died I read the editorial in the Aegean Airlines in-flight magazine. Because many people had been asking us during our months in England what the current situation is in Greece I thought I'd post a few paragraphs here because the Aegean CEO picks up on it.

It is no secret that Greece is today facing many challenges. As a country and as a society we are only in the beginning of a very punishing process to re-establish our international credibility, our productivity, our belief in our own ability to restart the development path of our country.
The current situation is clearly the most difficult since WW2., and the international image of our country has suffered.
However, especially because we are in this environment, it is more crucial than ever to project both internationally and locally that Greece, its companies, its people can produce products that are globally competitive in quality and efficiency. Especially during this year, where international organisations have been downgrading ratings and expectations for our country, it is crucial to add a small but, I believe, very promising star [this is talking about the Star Alliance of airlines] on the map, where Greece is to show that aviation services to the country are actually upgraded.
The message is clear: new good things are still coming out of Greece, even now, and it may be happening in many more areas than you think; come and visit the country and see for yourselves.

 

The feeling from business is pessimistic - but the vibe on the street is pretty normal. We expected to see changes but food prices appear to be stable (our local gyros are now €1.90 [that's right, about £1.60 for a quality kebab], 10c up on March, and all other prices are about the same apart from petrol which is perhaps 10-15c/l higher).

Anyway, I'm not economically savvy and I gather that there will be a lag in price increases that's linked to fuel price increases, so we'll see. However, unless you listen to the chat radio or read pieces by businessmen, Greece seems the same as it did last year.