Day 6 of Greek Island Travel Devotional Tour found us at the island of Mykonos.
The good news is I was off the bench and back in the game today. The bad news is I came up empty but not without many trials and much tribulation.
The Mykonos ticket affair
It started with purchasing the tickets on the water bus to take us from the cruise ship port to Chora, the main town on Mykonos. When a I purchased the tickets, a young Greek handed me paper with three perforated tickets to a sheet. Half the sheets were red and half blue. Blue, he said, are for the trip over, and red for the return. Simple enough.
So, I started tearing the tickets off and handing them out to the GSB team, but I ran out of GSB team members before I ran out of tickets. I turned back to my neo-Hellenic friend and said, I think you gave us too many tickets.
In an agitated manner he said, “You split. I no tell you to split.”
I quickly responded , “You no tell me not to split. How do I know not to split.”
He then explained that each piece of paper was three stages of one ticket to be used at each stage of the short trip from Cruise Ship port to Chora. We then cobbled all the tickets back together, and headed on our way, but not until after one of The Wife’s return tickets had blown into the bay. I suggested she might have to swim back.
After making the trip to shore we noticed we each still had one ticket left–they had only taken two. Then why were we given a sheet with three? In Greek Orthodox Christianity such are called “mysteria” and are used in reference to the trinity and incarnation, things that cannot be fully understood by man.
A Grecian conspiracy
Once on Mykonos I stepped into the first convenience store I saw, and asked the attendance “Milate Anglika” (Greek for “Do you speak English”) and she said, “What?” Apparently, my pronunciation was so bad she had no idea what I was saying. . . . or maybe she didn’t speak Greek.
She said (in English) for cold medicine I had to go to the pharmacy, which was “down the path past the church.” I found the church and went past it but there was no pharmacy. So, I stepped into a jewelry store and asked the attendant–this time in English–“Where is the pharmacy?” She said, “Up the path and to the right.” So I went up the path, constantly looking right (in case “to the right” meant on the right side) then taking the turn in the path to the right. No pharmacy.
Finally I stepped into a luxury watch shop and asked the attendant there, and he said go to the cross street ahead and turn right. I did so and found the pharmacy and some Greek cold medicine. There was no way though that this was the pharmacy to whcih the first two descendants-of-Herodotus had directed me.
I then went back the way I had come to find the rest of the team. When I neared the church I saw a sign for the pharmacy down a street to my right, which is on the left coming from the church, which means it was never “to the right.”
Maybe this is all just a cruel joke Mykonosians play on sick American tourists. They send them on a wild goose chase through the labyrinth of pathways they call a town looking for relief from sickness and disease. Then after the 3,000 tourists leave their little whitewashed island to go back to the cruise ships, they all get together in a local pub and joke about the yanks they yanked around from shop to shop asking for the pharmacy.
I realize none of this has anything to do with the kingdom of God, but someone has to tell you what Rick Steves won’t.
Christ Pantocrater
Mykonos contains many name brand fashion shops, including Hublot, Louis Vitton, and Polo Ralph Lauren, and occasionally it even contains Matt Damon, but there are no martyrs, missionaries, or famous churches that I could find.
The best I could do was find a chapel with Christ Pantocrater icons. These are the Eastern Orthodox paintings with Jesus facing head-on with the Bible in his left hand (authority and Truth) and his right hand up (giving a blessing) and forming the Greek initials for his name with the fingers of his right hand.
Christ Pantocrater literraly means “Christ Lord of All.” It recognizes Jesus’ position as Ruler of the universe. The emphasis on and worship of Jesus as the victorious King of the universe is one of the things I love about Eastern Orthodoxy, that and their emphasis on the resurrection. I found the icon above in the chapel on the shore in Chor on Mykonos today.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Some days are better than others on the GSB travel devotional tours, and I still got to spend time with the Brofessor and the fam. And Jesus is still Christ Pantocrater. So, in that sense there are no bad days on the GSB tours. GS
