Immigrant Jesus!

It was the final session of the term and the students in the Level One, English-as-a-Foreign-Language class had convinced their teacher to have a party. Although it usually doesn’t take much to get this particular teacher, (or any Albanian, really) to a party, the plan was to study for an hour and then, to have a Christmas party. Janice and I planned our schedule so that we could show up in time for the celebration.

As soon as our vehicle turned on to Dikaiou Street, where PORTA – the Albania House in Athens is located, we could hear the lively music, blaring away. Because this first-year class is larger than most, we offer it in the Gallery, where Albanian artists often display their works. A professional trio (clarinet, accordion & guitar) was providing the music and “the joint was rockin!”

As is too often the case, when we arrived, these adult students showed far too much deference to us, hurriedly making a space of honor for us at the head table. From out of nowhere, plates of delicious, home-cooked food began to appear for us. Raki, the traditional Albanian “home brew” was served and we did lots of toasting, all around.

Before us was an exultant crowd, dancing, partying and enjoying each other. Janice and I have come to know most of these people only since the beginning of the school year. I recognized that they come from a variety of backgrounds. Back in their home country, some were doctors, engineers and professional people, while others did not complete high school. Some have ancestral links to the historic Roman Catholicism of the north of Albania, the traditional Orthodox Christianity of the south or to the Islamic or Bektashi faith traditions from throughout the country. But today, few if any of them have any sort of personal faith of any kind, owing to the fact that, for half a century, their homeland was dominated by a dictatorial, radical, Communist ideology which required them to live as though there is no God. What unites these Albanians is that all are immigrants in Greece; they have come here in search of a better life, despite the reality that Greece historically, has been antagonistic toward immigrants - most especially Albanian immigrants.

The other feature that fuses these good people is that, despite their differing backgrounds, each has found help, hope and wholesomeness through PORTA. At a time in Greece when these qualities are in short supply, PORTA has literally been an open door of opportunity. Indeed, when Edi Rama, the former Mayor of the capital city of Tirana, Albania and the Albanian Socialist Party’s nominee for Prime Minister was recently in Athens, he referred to PORTA as “a bright, shining light for Albanian immigrants in Athens!”

When the music ceased and I rose to make an extemporaneous speech to this disparate, partying crowd, my mind raced as I thought about my improvised remarks, in this context. Albanians are tolerant of my limited fluency in Shqip, their traditional language. But, my anxiousness had more to do with content and context, than language.

We work hard at PORTA to respect all who come through its doors. Albanians know that we have come to them in the name of Jezusi. They understand that, although PORTA’s program includes many things, every, single thing that we do, we do to honor Jezusi! They also understand that we strongly believe in spiritual freedom and that we never attempt to push our faith on them. They know that we always want them to be free to decide for themselves where to place their personal faith. But the party was a Christmas party and I felt an honest urge to speak about what English-speakers sometimes refer to as “the reason for the season!”

But how does one speak of Jesus to a group of people with little apparent need for or interest in religion and even less information about him? I reminded these friends that, like them, Jesus came from an immigrant and oppressed family. Joseph & Mary were forced to abandon the familiar comforts of home at an awkward and inconvenient time when, under the pressure of a tyrannical, foreign government, they left Nazareth and travelled by foot to a destination that must have seemed a lifetime away from familiarity. Although Christians piously sing about this “little town of Bethlehem,” for them it surely must have been a strange place, where they found themselves not belonging, perhaps unprepared, surely unable to secure lodging, certainly unwelcome and definitely required to register for the patently unfair purpose of paying egregious taxes Even before any post-partum adaptations, the fragile, holy family, including the only recently-circumcised, infant Jesus, was coerced into becoming impromptu immigrants again and exiles-on-the-run, when they fled to Egypt, to escape the tyranny of Herod’s imposed, yet insecure power.

Despite the fact that most of these adults have little prior acquaintance with Jesus, my Albanian friends showed an almost immediate empathy and understanding, as I described Joseph’s family and the newborn Jesus in this fashion. The looks on their faces suggested that they had found a painful point of personal connection with this mysterious, incarnational narrative from long ago. They seemed to identify with Jesus and with his story, when described that way.

Of course, it was just one brief moment, followed quickly by the lonesome wail of an Albanian clarinet and the unspoken search for intimacy, hope and personal meaning embodied in traditional Balkan folk dancing. But, my sense was that the distant, bright-shining light from Bethlehem’s star had, once again, broken through the darkness. Hope so!

A Cross-Cultural Christmas

Since Thanksgiving Day is a foreign concept in the Balkans, it is easier to get in the “Christmas spirit” earlier here in Athens, Greece. As the usually mild, Mediterranean weather turns cooler and November stretches its long, skinny legs, we’re “putting up the tree” because 2012 will most certainly be our last Christmas as residents of Athens. We’ll be out of the country next Christmas and will be retired and back in the States for Christmas, 2014. To commemorate this 2012 milepost Christmas, we’ll welcome our adult sons and wives and will share this holiday time against the backdrop of the dominant cultures in which we do our work.

Christmas celebrations in Albanian culture are relatively new, at least from the perspective of recent history. Since the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel “as far as Illyria” and since Albanians are descendants of the Illyrians, they celebrated Christmas in some fashion from the beginning. But, thanks to 500 years of Ottoman domination, Christmas celebrations were replaced by Islamic traditions. Then, from the mid-twentieth century, Albania was ruled by a paranoid, isolationist, Communist dictator who insisted that there was no God; churches were closed and Christmas celebrations not allowed.

When we lived in Albania, despite the fact that Communism had fallen a decade earlier, a revisionist version of the holiday “myth” still remained. Ingeniously, the atheistic culture captured the essential social functions of a modern Christmas story and rewrote the script from a secular standpoint. By merging the popular Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve narratives, children anticipate the arrival of the “Old Man of the New Year” - a cross between Father Time and Santa Claus - who brings gifts to good children. Since few Albanians are Christians, the Good News of the coming of the Christ Child in Bethlehem is celebrated by only a small number of Orthodox, Roman Catholic and evangelical believers in Albania.

Until recently, Christmas day in Greece was a minor holiday, when compared with Easter. The pervasiveness of the Orthodox Church, with its preference for celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors (December 8), where presents are exchanged and the Feast of Epiphany (January 6), where young men dive into cold waters to retrieve a cross that has been blessed by a priest, makes December 25 less important.

On Christmas Eve and sometimes later, children travel from house to house, singing “kalanda,” Christmas carols. With small triangles and drums, they receive sweets, figs, nuts or coins. Greeks attend midnight mass and return home for a big family meal. Lamb and pork are roasted and “christopsomo” (Christ bread) is made in large, sweet loaves, with various shapes and decorations, reflecting the family profession. The main symbol of the season is a shallow bowl with wire suspended across the rim, from which hangs a sprig of basil wrapped around a wooden cross. Water is kept in the bowl. Once a day, the mother dips the cross and basil into holy water, sprinkling every room of the house, to keep away the “kilantzarof,” (bad spirits) which appear only during the 12-day period from Christmas to Epiphany.

In recent years, secular Christmas, with trees, Santa images, bright lights and retail sales has arrived in Greece. The largest Christmas tree in Europe is now erected in Syntaugma Square; unfortunately, due to riots, the tree was burned a couple of years ago!

When our kids come this Christmas, we'll attend the Christmas Eve service at our Greek Evangelical church and will sing hymns, read Luke’s account and hear the old, old story of how God loved us enough to come and dwell among us. In Greek, we’ll wish them “Kala Christougenna” and in Albanian, we’ll say ““Gezuar Kristelindje!” “Merry Christmas!”

Holy S**T!

In Athens, we are quite accustomed to leaving the church house on Sunday morning and being met by beggars, hoping to “cash in” on the generosity of folks who have recently been thinking about God, compassion and the call to care for others. Often, a young girl waits near the church gate, asking for money or trying to sell Kleenex. But last Sunday, something novel took place on the sidewalk in front of the church building.

I missed it, because I had to depart early, to make some time-sensitive deliveries and return to pick up Janice in time to make our next Sunday assignment. She was still laughing as she got into the car and said, “Do you see the young man with the rolling cart? He is trying to sell things to the worshippers.”  “Yes,” I said, waxing historical and analytical, “that is happening more and more these days. It is another consequence of the hard economic times in Athens!” 

“But, did you see the shirt he is wearing?” Janice asked. “No,” I responded. “What’s so special about his shirt?” As I looked closer at the man, I saw it on the front of his shirt; as big as Dallas, were these words: HOLY S**T! The desperate and hungry man had stationed himself in the traffic flow, hoping to make a few coins by hawking several small items. Somehow, the language on his shirt seemed a deliberate turn of phrase, intended to enhance his marketing for the church crowd.

It got me to thinking: What exactly is “Holy S**T” anyway? Now, keep in mind: I have an earned doctorate from a reputable seminary; I have done post-doctoral study; I have studied theology and taught it for many years. And, what is more pertinent, I have had much practical experience with S**T, both inside and outside the church, But no one has ever told me what qualifies as Holy S**T.

Was our sidewalk entrepreneur actually trying to target his potential customers by wearing that shirt? I honestly doubt it. Was the shirt his not-so-private estimate of the quality of the merchandise that he was selling? Probably not. Was he using that phrase in the way I hear many use it today, as a kind of Robin-to-Batman-like way to express astonishment and amazement!

Or (and I suspect this is more likely the case) did this non-English speaker have any idea what his shirt was “saying”? Perhaps he bought the shirt because of its cheap price or its color. Perhaps, the shirt was a charity item that was given to him. In this Greek language setting, we often see non-English speakers wearing T shirts with messages on them that they themselves are unable to read. My guess is that this is what happened here.

In any event, this T-shirt sermon reminded me of the awful and persistent devaluation of words, these days. In addition to the too-frequent use of profanity and other language previously classified as “dirty words” and the pernicious spread of hate speech, it concerns me that we use words in a most careless manner in this modern day. It seems so easy, in a Face Book sort of way, to be trite and use well-worn expressions, to overstate one’s case or to exaggerate. Some seem only capable of saying what they have heard others say. When we misuse, overuse or otherwise abuse the language, without thinking about it, words always lose their capacity to communicate content and emotion accurately and precisely. When we call ordinary things “holy,” then nothing is “holy.” When we call everything “S**T,” then nothing is “S**T!”

MUNDESIRA!

Mundesira!

It falls to me each year about this time. Others who could do it as well, perhaps better; but each year, it falls to me. While at least four teachers of English-as-a-Foreign-Language at PORTA – the Albania House in Athens are busy welcoming adult students to their classes and orienting them to the year ahead, I have the dubious distinction of giving examinations in our book-lined library. Wannabe students, late arrivals show up with eager hope that this exam will demonstrate that they possess sufficient knowledge of conversational English to place them in an upper level English class. Because they appear after classes are full or during the “drop/add” period, they strive frantically to find a coveted place on our waiting list or, perchance, to score well enough to gain entry in levels two or three.

The filestar (beginner) class is always the most crowded and always the first to exceed the quota. So, each year, students who have only a passing, street-level, acquaintance with English (or less) purport to be “advanced” and strive to prove it on the qualifying exam. At PORTA, as with any educational institution, we have rules and expectations: we have a limited time for registration, a maximum number of students in each class and only two weeks for late entry students to begin classes.

The economic crisis in Greece hits immigrants like these impoverished Albanians first and hardest. Many have lost the two or three part-time jobs they had just a few years ago. Many now have time on their hands. Many see developing a fluency in English as a hedge against the perils of the crisis and a help toward a better job. And, so, in recent Septembers, I have been administering even more placement tests at PORTA. Because we do not charge for these classes, many see them as the “great deal” that they are.

A couple of years ago, when I told Ilir (not his actual name) that there was no room for him in the class, he insisted (Albanians often insist) that “there is always room for one more.” When I said that all chairs in the room were filled, Ilir said, “I’ll bring my own chair!” This year, we have purchased 20 new chairs and now, without doubt, we have no more room.

It is difficult to say “no” to adults who want so anxiously to learn. The unacknowledged messianism which runs beneath much of what I do cries out against ever saying “no.” But I must; for the sake of those recently-admitted to the classes; I must, for the sake of our returning students; I must, for the teachers’ sake; I must, for the sake of acceptable pedagogy! The fire marshal says I must!

While these would-be English students say that they are seeking entry into an English class, you and I know better. We know that their search is actually for something far more fundamental and important than merely fluency in the world’s most popular language. Like Albanian immigrants almost everywhere, they are in search of what, in their native tongue, is referred to as mundesira – opportunity. Repressed and isolated under a dictatorial Communist regime, a desire for mundesira is what led these Albanians to leave their impoverished homeland in the first place. Mundesira accounts for the statistical reality that more Albanians live outside the boundaries of their motherland than within them.

Mundesira is also what has brought us to Athens. Because we are blessed to have it in abundance and so many are not, we have come here out of a fierce compassion and a heavenly obligation to be the presence of Christ among Albanian immigrants. Indeed, it is because, in Jesus Christ, we have discovered God’s love and because that love has opened infinite doors of mundesira for us that we are here, teaching English, giving placement exams and doing a variety of other things through a center named PORTA, which, fittingly, means “door.”

Mundesira, for some may be unevenly distributed or woefully delayed by the pragmatic, human realities of budgetary, time and space limits. Mundesira, at least for now, may be easily limited by one’s English proficiency or the lack thereof. Mundesira is often curtailed by the pressing reality that, as human beings, no one, not even well-intentioned and highly motivated Christian workers, has an unlimited supply of it.

For now, at least, we comsole ourselves by the acknowledgement that the mundesira of God’s unmerited favor is spread without limits to all people who are willing to accept it and live in light of it. And the only placement exam necessary is the willingness to ask for it and to trust God to give it.

She Said!

This week, while making conversation with the smiling young woman behind the counter at the fast food place, I noticed that she was working all alone. I do not know whether her colleagues failed to show up for this work shift (not so likely) or whether management had cut the work force down to one person (more likely). All I know is that she was required to do it all; while I talked to her, she worked non-stop -  taking orders, taking money, frying chicken, pouring soft drinks, cleaning tables, going to the supply room for more ice and frozen fries, pouring out used grease and deploying new grease. When the other customers left the counter and she presented me with my order, I said to her, “I can see that you are very busy. Thank you for your excellent service. I hope you get a chance to rest.” With something like a combination of shock and appreciation, she looked at me and said, in her broken English, “What we can do?”

Later that same day, I shared our apartment elevator with the Russian woman who lives upstairs. Before we reached my floor, I asked her, “How are you doing in these difficult times?” With a smile on her weary face, she responded, “I am fine! Crisis is for other people. I am optimist!”

Within just a few hours, presented to me were two quite common responses to the economic crisis that is shaking everyone in Greece. These responses mirror so much that characterizes our lives in this dysfunctional culture at this time. For many, there is resignation in the face of overwhelming difficulty - “What we can do?” And, for others, there is an intentional, personal decision to face the challenges with optimism – “Crisis is for other people. I am optimist!”

Of course, there is both truth and falsehood in these responses. My Russian friend is not “fine” in so many significant ways. She has had her wages cut and her taxes increased. Her future is uncertain. Much of her savings, if she has any, has been eroded by the economic instability and dysfunction of her adopted country; an increasing percentage of any discretionary income she might have is being used to meet daily expenditures. It is, of course, not true that the crisis is just “for other people.” Every person in Greece, including relatively privileged American ex-pats and marginalized Albanian immigrants, is powerfully and practically affected by the rising prices and decreasing opportunity of the current predicament. Everyone I know has asked the existential question in recent months – “What we can do?”

Laying aside these realities, however, I was encouraged by the hard scrabble responses of these two women. My friend at the fast food place has chosen to work harder and to maintain a smile. While this cannot entirely replace lost money or economic potency, it is an admirable response. Likewise, my Russian friend has recognized that attitudes are behavior tendencies. With a positive attitude, one is already leaning in the direction of a redemptive response to difficulty.

In both of these instances, my sense is that these women do not have a personal faith or a believing community to undergird their good responses to the current calamity. May God grant me the courage and discernment to demonstrate respectfully for them the Good News of a God who knows where they are, cares about their circumstances and is willing to strengthen them in their daily struggles!

Operating Margin!

In 1903, when Ernest Pfenning, a Chicago dentist, paid $850 for the first Ford automobile ever sold, he probably thought he was buying a red, newfangled “horseless carriage,” with a two-cylinder engine, no roof, a seating capacity of just two persons and a top speed of 28 miles per hour. What he did not know was that he was singlehandedly rescuing the struggling Ford Motor Car Company from going “belly-up.” When Henry Ford and his fellow investors started their business, they garnered a treasure chest of $28,000 – a good-sized fund for the time, especially when one considers that these monies were all devoted to such an untested notion as a gasoline-powered, private automobile. What Pfenning did not know was that by the time he “ponied up” for that first car, Henry and his investors had spent all of their venture capital except $224!

I wonder how things might have turned out differently if Dr. Pfenning had decided that day not to spring for the car, but to go home, think about it some more and talk with his wife about the idea. What if, when Ernie reached the house, his wife reported to him that the kids needed braces and that he should hold off on spending money for a while. Well, okay, since Ernie was a dentist, maybe it wouldn’t have been braces. Maybe his wife’s mother was soon to move in with the family and they would need to spend money remodeling the place. But, you get the idea. What if, in the family council, Dr. and Mrs. Pfenning had decided that “the time was not right” for investing their hard-earned money in some fantastic contraption like an automobile? Not only would Ernest Pfenning have lost his “place” in history and been forced to walk to his office, but it is at least possible that there would have been no more Ford Motor Company!

My point in all of this is that we often do not know how significant our “individual” decisions may be for ourselves and for others, in the “long run.” Neither do we know how close to the edge other individuals or companies may be at any given moment in time. While some think sociologists somewhat naïve by their basic notion of the “social contract,” the truth is that every one of us is intricately interrelated to many others persons and our ultimate fate and fortunes are tied together in powerful and unacknowledged ways.

This topic interests me, especially at the moment, since I live in Athens, Greece, where the economic stability which one often takes for granted is routinely up for grabs, what with the economic crisis, Greece’s dysfunctional way of doing things, the visit of “The Troika,” talk of Greece’s return to the drachma and other items of concern. It helps me to understand why my landlord recently agreed to lower my rent, in deference to these perilous times. Now I understand why my barber has lowered his price for a basic cut by 2 Euro.

The truth is, from time to time, every culture and every person is somewhere perilously close to the end of his/her resources, financial and otherwise. But, we rarely acknowledge it. And the lives of every one of us are intricately related to those of others, but our pride and stubborn and misplaced sense of independence often blinds us.

Only Slightly Eccentric!

Happy belated Aphelion Day! On July 5, a small group of people celebrates this day when our earth is the greatest distance from the sun. Come on! Admit it! Didn’t Thursday feel just a tiny bit cooler to you?

As a part of the recent, festive, out of this world celebration, I was reminded that this old, round ball of dirt and water that we call “home” travels through space in a slightly squashed orbit. I’m certain that Mrs. Davis, my third-grade teacher, back in Stevenson Elementary School in Meridian, Mississippi taught me this, but I have slept since then, learned lots of other, more important “stuff” and have forgotten almost everything that I once knew!

 Indeed, I have been recently reminded that, like the “wheels on the bus” that "go round, round, round,” every one of the sun-girdling planets certainly travels predictably around the sun. But, have you heard? None of them does it perfectly, or in what can be referred to as a “concentric” pattern. They actually orbit the sun, for sure, but they do it in, to lesser or greater extents, imperfect ways. And so, ipso facto, it is most linguistically correct to say that every planet, including our own, is “eccentric”!

I looked it up in the dictionary. Yes, “eccentric” may mean “unconventional” or “slightly strange.” Sometimes this word means “a person of unconventional and slightly strange behavior.” BUT, this word may also mean “of a non-circular orbit.”

Still in the afterglow of the Aphelion Day partying, I have been thinking a lot about eccentricity. If all of the planets are eccentric, maybe I should not deny my own irregularity. I don’t know about you, but I have always sensed that my own personal orbit was slightly squashed, flattened at places. While I try my best to be conventional and normal, I also find points in my life when I must stray from the prescribed circuit. When, after a successful twenty-year career in higher education, I left the warmth and familiarity of academia to become a local church pastor, some said, “He certainly is eccentric!” When, at the end of my fifth decade of life, Janice and I moved our lives from that comfortable home on the lake and all of the pleasures of middle-class, suburban living to a third-world country, with two foreign languages and cultures to learn, at least one person must have said, behind our backs, “Wow! Eccentric people!” Maybe “eccentric” was one of the nicer comments?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in “concentricality”. (My made-up, “eccentric” word!) I always must orbit my life, not around the sun, but around an almighty, compassionate God Who has made Himself most completely known through Jesus, the Christ. But, I honestly do not expect that I shall follow that ambit exactly or precisely, for two reasons. 1. I am a limited human being and I make mistakes – what the Bible calls “sin;” despite that reality, I have been accepted by God, not by my concentricality, but by His all-encompassing grace. 2. I am a unique, one-of-a-kind, human being, created distinctively and individually by that same loving God and given the lifetime challenge of being no one else but myself.

So, if I “march to the beat of a differ drummer,” blame it on Mrs. Davis, if you must. If you think me in outer space sometimes, I’m just travelling with my fellow eccentrics, the planets!