Lessons In Grace
Easter in Greece
After a long winter, we arrived back at our home on Lesvos, Greece. We had planned to return at the end of March, but a last-minute pivot to sell Arizona and move our U.S. base to our cabin in Oregon pushed things back. We landed the night of Easter, on Saturday evening just before the Resurrection. Greek Orthodox Easter is the largest holiday in Greece, and it is not just a day or a weekend. It unfolds over weeks.
The week leading up to Easter in a village like this is powerful. I was not raised religious and I have struggled with many expressions of organized religion, especially in the U.S., where I have seen it used more for division than connection. I have read widely, traveled extensively, and respect other people’s traditions as long as they do not infringe on human rights. What is different here is that religion is not separate from life. It is woven into the daily rhythm of the community. Whether you participate or not, you are part of it.
Each night during Holy Week, chanting fills the air. Our house sits above the center of the village and the sound carries up on the wind, sometimes through loudspeakers, sometimes just voices echoing off stone. You hear it no matter what you are doing. There is something deeply human about it. Chanting, singing, storytelling. This is how people have shared meaning forever.
What I love here is how religion, superstition, and tradition overlap full-time, not just during holidays. Each day of the week has meaning and there are layers to everything. There’s Tsiknopempti, the smoky Thursday of Meat Week. There is the Halloween-like carnival parade earlier in the season. The small rules that people follow without question. You do not pass eggs hand to hand. You do not hand someone a knife or scissors directly. You place them down. Eggs are dyed red on Holy Thursday, symbolizing the tomb, and cracked on Sunday for the resurrection. One day an older neighbor handed me a plate with sugar and wheat berries. It was koliva, a dish shared after a memorial service to honor the dead. You accept it, you eat some, and then you return the plate with something small in it. I still need to find her to bring it back.
I am constantly learning, and people here are generous with their time and patience. It has opened my perspective on how religion can function as something that connects rather than divides. I watch older women make their way slowly down steep hills to church on Sundays. Dressed properly, hair done, handbags on their arms. On holidays, you can feel the entire village move together.
An Unexpected lesson
Traveling back was chaotic. Delays stretched our time in airports, and somewhere in that haze I came across news that the Holy Light was being brought from Jerusalem to Athens, where we were delayed. I knew about the candle lighting at Easter but not the origin of the flame.
The fire comes from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Orthodox Holy Saturday. This is where both the crucifixion (at Golgotha) and the tomb of Jesus Christ are supposed to be located. The fire is brought via lanterns to Athens and then distributed to the rest of the mainland and islands and then to villages. It, like so much here, is steeped in so much tradition and a living, thriving practice that happens to this day. I kept thinking about this history as I boarded the plane.
Imagine my surprise when in the back of the plane on the Sky Express flight I got on was a man dressed in a suit, carrying a lantern with the holy light heading to our island! I was too shy to do anything besides smile at him - awkward in my lack of knowledge about all of this, but I enjoyed seeing this look of absolute joy on his face. Clearly he was honored for this role and his joy radiated through his face as if he truly was the light as well.
As we prepared to depart the pilot went through his standard announcements and then said, “Ladies & gentlemen we have the great honor to be traveling today accompanied by the Holy Light coming from Jerusalem to Lesvos today on this flight.”
There was something so simple in this and I felt tears mixed with overall travel exhaustion welling inside me.
I wondered how it would feel if we could remember every single day that we have the great honor of being accompanied by the Holy Light.
How would it shift our interactions? Our conversations with ourselves? How we spend our time? The grace with which we move through the day? The forgiveness we extend to each other, truly turning the other cheek. Would we seek out what is best in ourselves and best in others and work towards strengthening that which is weak and needs more care?
Later that night, the village lit up with the flame (and lots of fireworks). Candles passed from person to person. People carried the flame home, shielding it from the breeze. Some marked crosses above their doorways with the soot. Others lit candles for neighbors. The light spread, hand to hand, as it always has.
I understand now why that man looked the way he did.
I would like to be that light.
To remember that I have the great honor of carrying something steady within me, not just on nights like this, but in my everyday life. To live with intention. To choose kindness. To move through the world with grace. To give more light.
With Love,
Rose
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Closing Note: Thank you to my friends and neighbors on Lesvos who take the time to help me learn new things. I am learning the language (siga siga, it is harder at this age!) and I am grateful that you share your traditions, culture, heritage, and stories with us. I hope to always be a good neighbor and if I ever get anything incorrect, please correct me so I can learn!
