Short Trip to the Edge by Scott Cairns

Author:Scott Cairns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

From there, Nick led me down to the monastery’s actual library—a well-protected, well-lighted vault deep in the cleft of Simon’s rock. That’s where I met Fathers Porfýrios and Makários. Both are active scholars, working largely in editing and translation, respectively. It was Father Porfýrios, however, who determined to give me a tour, and to lead me through a crash course in modern and contemporary Greek poets, assisted by the canny translation skills of Dr. Nick.

I confessed to Father Porfýrios that the only modern Greek poets I knew well were Elýtis, Seféris, and the great Alexandrian Greek, Kaváfy. He approved my selection but suggested that I was missing out on a great deal. Long story made short: after an intensive two-hour tutorial, I resurfaced with a list that will probably keep me busy for at least ten years. He also gave me the name of a professor in Thessaloníki that, he said, I must meet. Later that day, on my way to trápeza, he would pull me aside to hand me a letter of introduction addressed to that professor.

I spent most of the remaining afternoon alone. Strolling with the borrowed book in hand, thumbing through it, I slowly realized that this was the same Yéronda Iosíf whose brotherhood had led the restoration of a great many monasteries and sketes here on the Holy Mountain. The same elder, that is, whose young disciple, Yéronda Ephrém, had served as abbot of Philothéou and now lived in Florence, Arizona, having established some nineteen men’s and women’s monasteries in the United States.

Among the several photos in the book was one of Elder Joseph’s crypt set in a tiny chapel at New Skete, near Saint Anne’s Skete. I determined to visit it during this winter pilgrimage.

That evening, following vespers, trápeza, and the veneration of the holy relics, Father Iákovos called me to his side and suggested that I meet him later for a visit. I was eager to agree, and he told me how to find his dental office. Besides a range of other duties, Father Iákovos, it turns out, also serves the monastery as its tailor and its dentist. I’m not kidding.

I gave Father Iákovos time to change out of his “church clothes” and into the simpler working garb, then wandered down the cobbled path to his office. He was waiting for me, seated on the balcony overlooking the sea. He had made tea for us; it was what the monks call mountain tea, a mixture of mint, floral herbs, and a stalky item tasting of chamomile.

I figured it was time to cut to the chase. I told Father Iákovos why I’d come. After years of saying the prayer, I still hungered for unceasing prayer; I didn’t think I had made much progress—except, perhaps, an increasing hunger to know always that sweet sense of God’s presence, which I have tasted only fleetingly, intermittently.

My frank admission seemed, initially, to stun Father Iákovos. Then he smiled. And then he seemed to relax—which probably seems like a funny

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