Athens, Greece, May 13, 2005

Published in the Journal, The Greek and Cypriot Notebook

Dear K—

This morning I went to a Greek Orthodox shrine across the street from my hotel in downtown Athens. It was a sort of grotto, its four walls covered with golden icons of Jesus and the saints—most of whom I didn’t recognize or understand. It was crowded with young businessmen on their lunch break and grey-haired women in housedresses. There was a pile of amber beeswax candles near the door, and I grabbed one and dropped some coins into the collection box and stood at the end of the line of people waiting to approach the altar. After people planted their lighted candles on the altar, they walked through the shrine, kissing every icon in turn. There was also a pile of paper by the altar where people could write their prayers and drop them, face up, on a small table. The line was long enough to give me plenty of time, but when I got up to the altar I still hadn’t begun to think of what I wanted to pray for. I held back and stared at the scene—a crisscross of lit candles in a box filled with sand under two icons, one of Jesus and one of Mary, the gold-leaf paintings glittering in the candlelight. I could feel the eyes of the others in line on my back while I stared at the flickering candleflames and tried to think of what I could possibly pray for. I don’t know what is best for me, my life is already over-full with joy, and did I really want a new girlfriend? I stood there, my candle lifted, inches from the flame, waiting for something to come to mind. I examined the two candles—one lit, leaping and flaming, and one aloft and separate, cold and inert, not yet alive. It was just a lump of wax and string but when I touched it to the flame it would burst into light. Composed of only a wick to hold the flame and wax to fuel it, it was designed solely for this moment when it would be touched by another flame and come to life. And once lit its light would rise through the tiny shrine, flickering through the room, making the icons blink. And when another candle came close enough to touch its flame, it would pass the fire and light onto it, and it would burst into flame and become what it was designed to be, what it had been waiting to become, its purpose revealed to it only through the touch of another’s flame. This was something it could never do on its own—it needed to be touched by a candle that had once been just a lump of wax and string but had been touched by another candle, beginning the process that would lead to its eventual end. Jesus, I whispered, set fire to my heart.