Just a collage

Looking back at two encounters in Christ during the Portland Greek Festival in October, 2007, originally told here in the post and in a comment I later added.

Yesterday I helped a woman who wanted a copy of a prayer that was printed inside the back cover of our service book, ‘O God, who accepted the gifts of Abel, the sacrifice of Noah and of Abram, the incense of Aaron and of Zachariah, accept also from the hand of us sinners these gifts…’ (a prayer based on one in the Liturgy of Saint James, the brother of Jesus). She asked if the prayer was printed anywhere, in a pamphlet or tract, that she could have a copy of. I didn't think so, but I told her I'd copy it out longhand on the back of a tract and give it to her. While I was doing this she told me about herself.

Thelma is sixty-five years old. Her husband is deceased. She does street ministry, on her own, without church endorsement, but also works with churches in various ministries, as the Lord directs. Since her husband died, she has been a missionary, having gone to China twelve times, and many other countries. She was with another elderly lady. She had just made a decision to accept an invitation to join some missionaries going to Mozambique, and will be leaving soon. Besides telling me about herself, she also told me about many things she had encountered in her ministry. It was hard for me to stay concentrated copying this long prayer while listening to her, and my back was starting to ache because I was bent over a low table.

She startled me when she asked, ‘Have you ever been to the Throne Room?’ I responded, ‘No, how do you get there?’ and she told me, ‘When you go to your private room to speak to the Father, become as a little child, and ask Him!’

At another point she asked me if I knew that Paradise (the Garden of Eden) was still in existence. I said, the Bible doesn't say it is not, and the Orthodox Church says it is, so ‘Yes,’ I told her, ‘I know it still exists.’

She asked if I'd ever been there, and I said, ‘No,’ but I told her I'd read of someone who had, the monk Euphrósynos, and asked her if she'd ever heard of him. Her eyes just lit up, she smiled and nodded,‘Yes!’

That really startled me. A non-Orthodox Christian elderly woman missionary knows about an obscure ancient father who was allowed to enter Paradise while still alive! And she also claims that if one becomes as a little child and asks the heavenly Father, He would do even that, and He has done that for her! This may all sound like hysteria, but I was with the woman, and it really wasn't. I don't know what it was, but the Lord wanted me to meet this woman to know that she exists, and I've just shared the story with you.

And here's my other reminiscence…

There I was at my station inside the inner porch of the temple wearing my silly smile and trying to look folks in the eye as they passed by on their way in or out, and there he was, with a hesitant (at first) smile and then a broader grin, Daniel aka Suelo (Spanish for ‘soil’) coming towards me out of the temple. The only thing unexpected was the glasses.

After a few strong man-hugs and hand-shakes, I took a break and we walked down to a nearby park to visit for the first time, sorting out in person what was sometimes a muddled mess in cyberspace. (We had met, and knew each other, only through blogging.) It was a delight to see him in person. That was Saturday evening.

Daniel was thinking he would come to the Sunday liturgy with his friend Satya (who is interested in Greek Orthodoxy), but he went to a Quaker meeting instead. Nonetheless we got together on Monday afternoon at my house near the summit of Mount Tabor, an extinct volcano in the center of Portland.

I was sitting out on the front porch reading the Greek New Testament out loud when a bicycle pulled up. ‘I heard someone speaking Greek, so I knew this must be the place!’ After visiting over a cup of tea, Daniel and I took a hike over the top of Mount Tabor (puff, puff… that was me), and then stopped at the summit for another long, leisurely conversation. After that we walked down the eastward slope of the mountain and back into town, to share a late afternoon lunch of lamb souvlákia (kabobs), rice, taboúli (salad), dolmádhes (stuffed grape leaves), and Turkish coffee at a little Lebanese restaurant, Ya Hala. We walked all the food off during our return to my house on the westward slope, bypassing the summit and skirting the mountain on its northern face, all the while getting to know each other.

Back at the house, I showed Daniel a few things… my office (the cave) with its ‘treasures,’ and where I sleep nearby in the basement, living as a part-time ascetic. Before leaving, we looked through a photographic volume from Agion Oros, the Holy Mountain of Athos in Macedonia, a Christian republic of male-only monastics, an autonomous region under the protection of Greece, and the last surviving remnant of Byzantium. I wanted Daniel to see this and start thinking about the possibility of visiting it someday.

Who knows, since they are moneyless as he is, he might like to stay.