Almost five years ago

Reminiscences of a Saturday almost five years ago…

When I got back from church services, my son Andrew had gone out for the day. I called his cell phone and, fortunately, he answered. The questions I wanted to ask, of course, I couldn’t. I just wanted to touch him. ‘Where are you, son? Is everything alright?’ He was downtown at Saturday Market (the Portland alternative bazaar) setting up to play guitar. Afterwards, he would be going to his regular coffeehouse to work on some music, and then off to a party with some law student friends of his. Without telling him, I decided to go downtown to see him perform.

When I got downtown, there was my son playing his guitar under a bridge with his back to a wall. The train stops under the bridge and commuters are getting on and off at intervals. Saturday Market looms ahead across the tracks and, against the wall, side by side with homeless people wrapped in blankets for warmth—it was 44°F, and rainy—I stood in my ‘missionary’ outfit—cargo khakis, my bible in one of the pockets, short sleeve shirt, sport jacket. I stood behind him so he wouldn’t see me. Eventually he noticed me, ‘It’s okay, I play for all kinds of people.’ While he played, I silently listened, prayed, and read my bible. When he noticed me, I was reading it, not out loud.

A meditation…

Here he was, playing most beautifully, music he had composed, without regard to whether anyone listened or not. Behind him the homeless reclining in their blankets, smoking, and a prodigal dad among them, standing to stay out of their smoke in the downwind. Before him, a flow of passers-by intent on wares, on the make for flesh, flying their flags, a few stopping to listen and even to throw anything from a few coins to five dollar bills into his guitar case. One unfortunate homeless man kept pitching lighted cigarette butts and leftover crumbs of whatever he was eating at him; but he didn’t notice. How beauty inhabits the fallen world! How the Lord infuses everything with divine beauty, yet we persist either in our homelessness or our busy-ness, only a few noticing, casting a token of our treasure in His direction. And why should we do more? Like my son, dressed poorly, hair unkempt, sitting with ‘bums’ under a windy bridge playing music, the Lord comes among us not with glory and might to force our worship, but in a way we don’t want Him, in a way we can’t accept, meekly offering us the Word of Truth.

I was freezing to death under that bridge. My son’s fingers, how could they keep plucking and strumming those strings? He must be freezing too. As I later found out, his fleece was wet from the rain, and he was really cold. But I stood there, watched, listened, prayed, waiting for him to finish, so I could have a word with him, maybe go for coffee with him.

A youngster toting his guitar stopped in front of him, and listened long and hard. I caught his eye, and winked. He signaled me, and I walked over to him, ‘Are you a talent scout?’ I suppose it was my clothes, my jacket is a gold-toned fabric, and I wear sandals, even in wet weather. ‘Not exactly.’ We chatted a bit, and I told him I was the musician’s dad, come down here to listen to him play live, ‘cause I am tired of listening to his music on CD.’

He finished playing. We hopped the train—it’s fareless downtown—got off and went to a tobacconist first, then walked through an almost downpour to his habitual coffeehouse. Everybody knows him. Though it was still raining pretty hard, we sat outside, so he could have a smoke. We talked a bit.

He told me how Father Paul came downtown and had coffee with him there a few days ago. His friends were a bit confused, thinking Father Paul was some kind of Catholic priest, because he came dressed in his blacks, a cassock-like robe, and talked with a sprinkling of expletives, perhaps to fit in better with the surroundings, which as we know, is unnecessary: young people see through that quickly.

It sounded like the tête-à-tête was mostly learned and philosophical, talking about apatheia, the state of being beyond the passions, and relating it to Buddhist texts. I could have hoped it were otherwise, but God knows what His servants are doing, and why.

Me, I am pretty simple, the Word of God, prayer, and loving the brethren—and being willing to wait. My attempt at communicating meaningfully with my son was, from my point of view, a failure; but I hope not what I said or didn’t say, rather the fact that I came out looking to spend some time with him on his turf and time, will be what counts. Sometimes, it’s what love cannot say in words that counts. Meanwhile…

One of my son’s friends walked up and the talk at the pedestal—well, it’s supposed to be a table—turned to music and technical things I do not understand. So, this young woman next to me, turns to me and asks, ‘What do you do?’

I think she noticed the icon button of Joseph (in Egypt) that I was wearing on my lapel, which intrigued her. I didn’t know this at first, but later it came out. We chatted awhile on books and anthropology sort of stuff, which was of mutual interest, and the subject of the Hopi religious myths came up.
I remarked that to some people these myths would seem very foolish and absurd, but not to me, because I see a lot of meaning in them. Without waiting for me to explain further, she responded something to the effect,

‘Well, they’re nothing as absurd and foolish as this concept of a God who would send his son to be crucified and die for the world's sins, and then come back to life, and fly back up to heaven!’

That really took me by surprise because up to now, we had not said anything at all about Christ or Christianity as religion or history.
I paused, pondering. Then I looked right at her and said, ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean to be disrespectful or anything, but you know, I am a Greek Orthodox Christian, and everything you just said is exactly what I believe in and wholeheartedly accept.’

Without really giving her a chance to respond, I kept talking, and gently told her that perhaps her ideas about what Christians really believe might have been gathered from third or fourth hand sources, and that she ought not dismiss Christ as lightly as that.

There was absolutely no confrontation or bad feelings between us as I talked to her more about the Lord as I know Him and as scripture describes Him. We talked about literature and art again, too, but I think some good seed was planted. We also talked about languages, and Greek in particular.

This young woman was of Korean birth but totally American, not knowing her ancestral language. When I explained a bit why I love Greek as the bible language that helps me understand what the Word of God is saying, she seemed to agree. All in all, this was a pleasant exchange. I gave her a card that has the saying of Elder Porphyrios about how we should see Christ.

Then I gave her my calling card, which has this icon of Christ the Sower on the front, and my information on the back, so she could get in touch with me, if she wanted. She was very much taken with this icon and asked many questions about it. She said that this icon contains all the things she has learned about visual art, and she wanted to know where it came from. I told her that I would try to find out, and have the information ready for her when she found time to contact me.

After this, we both got up to go. I interrupted my son’s music discussion with his friends, told him I was going home, and asked if I could take any of his gear with me. He let me carry home is amp, which weighed a ton! ‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘I used to carry him on my shoulders when he was a little boy. At least now I can bear this burden of his musical equipment,’ and on the several blocks walk to the train stop, and then several more blocks to my car, I rejoiced that I had been given the opportunity to carry this load, knowing well that the Lord is carrying mine.

Rejoice, brothers!
Christ is risen, the first-born of them that sleep!
He is risen indeed!

* * *

Postscript of Today:
Andrew is not only a talented musician and composer, but he is also a trained Byzantine chanter, having studied and practiced in Greece as well as the United States. His position as chanter at the cathedral here in Portland was cut, and so he is available for a position elsewhere. You can contact him at andrewgorny@gmail.com.