God-shaped hole

Right now we are in a small village called Vamos. Since my last update, we went to Chania, Crete, which is the third largest city in Crete and is right on the water. We were there for a few days. We have been in Vamos since last Thursday and will be here until this Thursday when we will get back on a ferry and travel to the Greek islands of Tinos, Mikonos, and Santorini for a week!

The rest of this entry is part of my travel journal that I am keeping for my class. The things that I wrote have been on my mind recently though, and I think it's interesting enough to share with all of you.

I promise I am not usually a negative person, but there have been times on this trip where I have been fed up with people. Nobody in particular, just constantly being surrounded by people and never being able to find personal time has been very frustrating. During the first few weeks of this trip, I diligently did my daily devotions and offered up prayers to God whenever something was bothering me. But as this trip has progressed, I have found fewer opportunities for personal time and time alone with God, and it got to the point of being unnerving.

This kind of thing happens so gradually that it is almost unnoticeable at first. I think the first time I noticed how much I was suffering because of the lack of personal time was at the Orthodox Academy of Crete when we prayed over our dinner for various people we all knew who were suffering. Upon finishing the prayer I felt a sense of revitalization and new awakening and I remembered how good it felt to thank God for the meal and to pray for others. This sparked discussion over dinner that night about how much we miss saying table grace.

The event most recently that has offered me personal time was on Good Friday. I had an awful and frustrating evening because I was trying to solidify plans for my post-semester excursion with Lissie Jacobsen and a bunch of hurdles were presenting themselves in my path. We have to make special reservations on certain trains that will cost extra money. The cost of the ferry isn’t covered by our pass. Hostels are two to three times more expensive than we had budgeted. We can’t find a way to ship our suitcases back home for less than 100 euro per person. All of the above scenarios, and a few others, were causing me angst and frustration. I let this bother me all through dinner and other students on the trip offered me comfort the best they could, but their best efforts weren’t making a difference. I tried to talk myself into a better mood and it wasn’t helping.

That night we were remembering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. During the service I could feel God pulling on my heart and telling me that he was there to help; all I needed to do was ask for it. Some eerie things happened during the service, such as the part where a passage is read and a candle blown out several times in a row, and the first half of the candles all blew themselves out at the correct time. When David Wintersteen was reading, the wind seemed to correspond with his words; when the scene was calm there was no wind, but when Jesus was being crucified the wind picked up and was howling. At one point, the passage ended and a bell rang in the same rhythm in which the passage had resounded. Eerie events like that that made me think about the omniscience and omnipotence of God.

At the end of the service, we were encouraged to leave the place of worship in silence. We were also encouraged to stay in the place for as long as we felt necessary. I spent a solid amount of time thinking things over and offering my worries to God to handle. I prayed that our post-semester excursion will work out fine and that we can find a way to not go completely broke during the trip.

The next day things began to look up. I got an email Christopher in England (who we were going to stay with for a few days) and he told me not to worry about anything there. He said he has already requested leave for the full five days we were visiting and will show us around London, Stonehenge, Cambridge, and other areas we are interested in. He said that he booked a room for us at a great rate. The problem with hostels is also working itself out through talking with various people Lissie and I know who have traveled in Europe before and getting recommendations from them. The suitcase thing is also in progress of working itself out and I am confident it will be OK.

So what has this taught me? I have learned that I need to find times and places to take personal time for myself and time to simply hang out with God. I need to remember that although God is great to come to with problems, he is also a good guy to credit when things go right. I wish that I could go to church every Sunday and attend chapel a few times during the week and I wish I had a strong Christian support system around me on this trip to make things easier, but in turn I am learning a lot about myself and my personal worship habits, which is sequentially making me stronger. I have learned that I don’t have to feel overwhelmed by people and events, and I know that will help me furthermore enjoy the rest of my trip.


And more pictures!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000638&l=bbde4&id=1273320032
These are from Katalagari, Rethymnon, Orthodox Academy, Chania, and Vamos.
Enjoy!!

Icon Sunday

I woke up today with a bit of a negative attitude… not really sure why. I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that it is Palm Sunday and I am in a country that does not celebrate Easter in the same way that I have celebrated for the last 19 years of my life. We have been at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for the last few days, which is exactly as it sounds… a campus filled with lecture halls and the like but also with a significant Orthodox Church influence. Anyhow, the plan was to go to the monastery for their service this morning. Since the Eastern Orthodox community doesn’t celebrate Palm Sunday, I wasn’t really looking forward to the service.

I was pleasantly surprised when we got there. The monastery itself looked exactly like any of the other 15+ monasteries we have visited, but the main church was packed and people were hanging out on the front lawn listening to the service over speakers. We spread out and found places to listen and observe as the service continued.

In Eastern Orthodox churches, today is the first Sunday of Lent. My last blog was about a Carnival parade that happened the day before Lent started. Last Monday was called “Clean Monday” because it is the time when everyone cleans up their act from the day before and begins Lenten celebrations. Well the first Sunday of Lent is called Icon Sunday, and the church service ended with a procession of the icons. This means that the important monks and bishops of the church process around the church carrying some icons from inside the sanctuary, but also anybody who cares to participate can bring an icon from their home and process as well. It is a very important tradition in Eastern Orthodox churches and I could tell by peoples’ expressions as they processed that this was very meaningful to them.

During Lent, Orthodox calls for a fast on Sundays until after church, so after the service we all ate a Greek favorite that tastes like cold malt-o-meal that they eat for dessert, and apparently breakfast, too. About two hours later we ate a lunch with the 150+ people who were on the grounds, as well. That was really fun because our group didn’t all sit together—rather we sat in groups of three or four—and were able to converse with some of the Greek people who were there. This was tough because a lot of them didn’t speak English very well, but it was kind of fun to play charades and try to figure out what each other was saying.

So I didn’t get my Palm Sunday service like I really wanted, but I did get a very unique experience to celebrate Icon Sunday at the Orthodox Academy of Crete. My mood quickly lightened and it turned out to be a really good day.

The Academy itself is a really interesting place. It is right on the shore of the Mediterranean about half an hour out of a city called Chania. As I am writing this, I am sitting outside looking over the water and the shoreline reminds me a lot of Duluth from Leif Erickson Park or the malt shoppe. I can see where Spirit Mountain’s lights would be off in the distance and know exactly where the Aerial Bridge should be. In a way it makes me miss home, but it is also a great comfort to think that I am sitting on the boardwalk and am only minutes away from my family and friends.

Enough of the sappy stuff… we have had a wonderful past few days. The weather has been great and I have had a few opportunities to bask in the sun, once being on a beach! Our last night in Katalagari was quite a cultural experience as well. The ladies who run the Country Suites that we stayed at organized an evening of live Cretan music, dancing, and homemade Raki for us to partake in. It was quite an evening! Tomorrow we will go to Chania for a few days and then off to Vamos for about a week before traveling through the Greek Islands.

More pictures! Follow this link for the next installation of my trip, most of which correspond with the last two or three posts instead of the one you are reading right now… I apologize that I am behind in my photo uploading.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000627&l=81043&id=1273320032

Also don’t forget to leave a comment! Put your name in the "Name" box of the “Name/URL” option, or select “Anonymous” and sign your comment at the end, please! If it doesn’t work for some reason, and a few people have told me it doesn’t, don’t hesitate to email me your feedback or comments at emilymeyer13@gmail.com! Have a lovely week everybody and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Carnival!

OK so it has been a week since I updated again. Good news is that my computer was fixed (yay!) so I have all of my pictures back. I also had a bit of computer troubles these last few days when I could not hook up to Ethernet cables, but my wonderful friend Matt Kokotovich is a computer genius and was able to guide me through both of my computer problems these past few weeks. What a lifesaver!

So back to the trip. The most interesting thing that has happened to us over the past few days is participating in the Carnival festivities. Carnival is a celebrated every year before the Easter season. It is like a cross between Halloween and Marti Gras back home. All of the children (and some of the adults!) dress up in costumes. They have parades and play music and dance and drink. We are in Katalagari, Crete right now and went to a nearby town to watch a parade. They had free pastries, cheese, wine, and raki for the parade attendees. They played music until the parade started and our group was dancing.

The parade itself was really interesting. It wasn’t like any parade we have back home. Instead, all of the floats were dedicated to scandals. There was a float about a corrupt hospital, a float about a drug bust, and a group of teenage girls with the word “emo” written on their backs.

All of this happened last Sunday. Yesterday, Monday, was called “Clean Monday,” meaning the beginning of Orthodox lent. Clean Monday is celebrated by a special homemade bread with sesame seeds on it (it was delicious) and a pink caviar type of bread spread called taramosalata. It is also customary to fly kites on this day, so we bought a few kites and went to the top of a mountain to fly them. That was really fun because I haven’t flown a kite for years!

It has been really fun to integrate ourselves into the Greek culture in this way. It was clear that we stick out like sore thumbs everywhere we go, but it is a unique opportunity to have these experiences while we are here.

As a side note, our week in Heraklion was quite interesting. We spent a lot of time climbing castle and ancient city ruins. Here in Katalagari we are focusing more on modern Greek cultures and customs. We had a Cretan cooking class a few days ago and now our Carnival celebration.

We have also walked over 165 recorded miles since the semester started. A girl on the trip has a pedometer and she is a little over 165 miles… but she has forgotten to put it on a few times, so we have gone farther than that. Hooray!

More pictures, too… this isn’t nearly up-to-date, but more will come later!

(Last half are new) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000614&l=3cc59&id=1273320032

(All are new) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000619&l=c8f96&id=1273320032