Mists on Mt. Athos

By William Capitan

Alex, a first-generation Greek American struggles with conflicts between his Greek heritage and the secular world. He meets Pan, a Greek American comfortable with his heritage. Despite differences, they bond and travel to Mt. Athos. Alex vainly seeks material gain. Pan secretly seeks a miracle for his terminal illness. On the way, chance encounters, such as meeting fortune-teller Despina of astounding powers, open Alex to realities unknowable in his intellectuality.
In a monastery, both men experience unfathomable mystery in the liturgy and ask a priest, a physicist, and a psychiatrist on their own spiritual quests to help reconcile their clash of ordinary experience against religious experience, the meaning of religious ritual, and the apparent clash of Holy Scripture with common sense. Both men return home wiser. Pan has a brief episode of new health only to lose it and eventually die. Alex contemplates the death of his friend in the light of their experience on Mt. Athos, and resolves his conflicts in healing faith.
The story challenges secular emptiness and the barriers to faith among the unchurched. The action is experienced existentially, making the content, though philosophical at times, accessible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984512178

William Capitan

William Capitan was born of Greek immigrant parents and baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church. He holds the B.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan and the M.A and Ph.D. degrees philosophy from the University of Minnesota. His post-doctoral study includes residencies at the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Bexley Hall, Gambier, Ohio; and an American Council of Learned Studies Fellowship, Paris, France. He has taught philosophy at the University of Maryland, Oberlin College and held administrative posts at American colleges. He is president emeritus of Georgia Southwestern State University. He has authored and edited books, articles, and reviews on philosophy, art, and religion. He is a sailor, a licensed captain, and a volunteer in the Coast Guard Auxiliary having served as Commander of Division 10, Coast Guard District Seven. He studies the Greek New Testament and watches Turner Classic Movies. He has travelled extensively in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia. He is a widower and has a daughter, an attorney and judge, and son, an attorney and bank officer, and four grandsons.

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Copyright © 2018 by William Capitan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/29/2018

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Contents

Front Inscription

Chapter I Alex Meets Pan

Chapter II Pan and Alex Get Acquainted

Chapter III Friendly Enemies

Chapter IV A Day of Atonement?

Chapter V A Party Tonight

Chapter VI A Peculiar Visit

Chapter VII To Greece

Chapter VIII In Athens

Chapter IX To Northern Greece

Chapter X Alex Reawakes

Chapter XI Wiser Men Are Homeward Bound

For my brother Jim of unwavering faith.

Front Inscription

James 4:14 (NRSA) What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Chapter I

ALEX MEETS PAN

Alex finished lunch at one of those country buffets where quantity covers a multitude of culinary deficiencies—too much salt, primarily. He was new in town and looked carefully before he chose the restaurant, and despite too much salt and pork fat, he ate more than he should, like every Greek boy was taught by his mother. Eating more than enough was the way to return thanks for the showers of maternal adoration.

He paid, walked out the door, looked around, and realized someone was greeting him. Who could it be? Aside from the few university acquaintances who overlooked him at lunch that day, he had met very few people during his first week at his new post.

He turned and saw a tall, overall large man repeating, Hello, Professor.

Ah! He surmised it might be—the Mediterranean appearance was giving him away—Paniotis Tsongas, the wealthy Greek businessman. Soon after his arrival, Alex was told by his department colleagues that Pan was not only wealthy but also an influential man with political connections.

Pan came closer, saying very politely, almost obsequiously, You are the new psychology professor at the university. Alex noticed not only the manner not befitting a man of such repute but also the striking height and weight, very black hair, dark eyes, and strong large white teeth, making Pan even handsome in a way.

Yes, I am Alex Pappadakis. I mean, no, I am not in psychology. I am in political science.

Excuse me. I was told about you by one of my friends in the psychology department. I have a number of faculty friends, and that is how I heard about you.

I arrived a few days ago from Utah.

Utah?

Yes, that is where I did my graduate work and …

Welcome. I am very pleased to meet you. I am Paniotis Tsongas. I had heard that you were coming.

Looking at each other for a few awkward moments, each knew the other was of Greek origin, but for unconscious and unspoken reasons, neither of them wanted to bring out the fact. Maybe Paniotis did not want to be too engulfing. Also, Alex didn’t want to go into it at all or he didn’t want to at the moment or he felt his heritage continued to be a burden to him. He had tried to put his heritage behind him and to grow up American. He had tried reinventing himself with varying degrees of success. While his parents taught respect for the old country and his teachers seemed to respect his background, Alex felt patronized by it all.

His parents subscribed to the melting-pot idea of Americanism. They were proud to be American citizens while they remembered Greece and kept their Greek Orthodox faith. This worked for them. But Alex noticed how his parents were so very polite to the Americani. You could be English, Scottish, Irish, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and not be other. But Greeks, Spanish, and Italians were outside, actually looked down on. They were the brunt of jokes too. Polish, Czechs, and Hungarians were not mainstream either. Even some of them had had their share of put-down jokes and discrimination during the melting. Native Americans, Chinese, and the few blacks around you didn’t even associate with, let alone look down on. There was little advantage being other in Utah, so Alex had tried to blend in rather than be other, go to church with the Protestants or not at all, leave his parents’ old country behind, and be an American. Besides, there were very few Greeks other than those who came to build the railroads as his father had done.

Maybe Alex didn’t know this then, but he sensed it. And on top of that, he was made to feel other by his parents, saying, Don’t act like the Americani. Remember who we are. They meant this so that they wouldn’t be looked down on. Much of it was a matter of being socially acceptable, maintaining a reputation for being honest, moral, and decent, even if you weren’t Anglo-Saxon. Remember your family honor, and keep your good name. In his struggle, Alex could not see Greek honor for what it was, so Alex had this conflict all his life. Maybe here, in his new environment, he could just pursue his career without ethnic baggage. Maybe in this day and age, all that could be left behind and made a nonissue finally. And besides, how would this affect his progress in his new post? Probably it wouldn’t, but why cloud his hopes?

So—Pan broke the silence—stop by the office sometime. You know, I really like the university. I have many faculty friends, even though most of the people in town think they are communists. It goes back to the civil rights push we had here when the professors stood up for justice. You know, people get all excited when a new doctor comes to town, but when a new professor comes, someone who can teach their kids how to become doctors, they don’t take any notice.

Thanks, Alex said, trying to take this in but not quite getting it. Alex was never quick to understand things or any new situation he encountered. He always felt things were going on, but he couldn’t fully grasp them at the time. Others somehow would move ahead with smart comments and would size up a context but not Alex. He had to assimilate for a while, look back on a situation, and mutter to himself about what he should have said but didn’t and wished he had. Maybe it was because he didn’t know how Americans think and feel, or maybe it was because of the haunting Greek emotions he kept trying to subdue by his adopted empiricism to seek out all the facts, leave initial reactions aside, and be cool and rational. That was American, wasn’t it?

I will. I am just getting my feet wet now, and when I get settled in, I’ll come visit.

The old struggle inside him surfaced. Association with Pan could bring back old patterns of emotional overreaction, could set him as a Greek in the eyes of the intellectual college community, and could risk the status as a professional he had worked so hard to achieve. Not likely, but did he really want to do that? To revive the Greek in him, be cast once again as the Greek? Was it so bad? Probably not like it used to be in Utah back then, but then …

Chapter II

PAN AND ALEX GET ACQUAINTED

As it happened, sometime turned out to be sooner than Alex had imagined.

It was Friday afternoon, his office hours were over, and he really had no place to go, except back to his cell—a small apartment fit at best for a single male professor, with books, CDs, and a few necessary pieces of tasteless furniture required by graduate students during their studies. Alex had not transitioned. He had no money yet from the new post and no friends to invite anyway.

Around 4:00 PM, he made his way to Pan’s office, hoping Pan might be there despite it being Friday afternoon. He had looked up the address, thinking it was some office building where a wealthy businessman might keep an office in his own office building. Alex, rather surprised, discovered at that address was a liquor store. He went in to get directions, in case someone there might know where Mr. Tsongas’s office building might be. The clerk at the counter said, Oh yes, Mr. Tsongas is in his office at the back. It meant the office was at the back of Pan’s main liquor store. Alex was only moderately surprised by this. He would later discover that Pan owned or had owned several stores and had a lock on most liquor stores in town. Following the clerk’s directions, he walked through the store and rather quickly surmised this location sold mostly to working men and women coming by for their TGIF bottle or six-pack.

As he wended his way back, first through a screen and then around behind reserved cases of beer and liquor, he spotted in the obscurity of the back room a flimsy door marked Office. The whole thing brought back childhood memories of his father’s friend who owned a similar store. He would go visit, and the owner would give him a soft drink. Alex gave a short rap meant to be confident sounding, and he heard Pan’s bold voice, saying, Come in. As Pan saw Alex enter, Alex noted Pan was visibly quite pleased.

Welcome, Professor Alex. What a pleasant surprise. Good to see you again.

Hello, Mr. Tsongas. I just thought I would stop by— Alex was trying to imply by his tone that he had many things to do and people to see.

Before he could finish whatever he was going to say, Pan interrupted, I was just getting ready to have a drink. Care to join me?

Sure, it’s a little early for me, but it’s cocktail time somewhere, he added, blinking as that old cliché slipped out. I can’t believe I said that, he thought, mentally kicking himself for trying to appear a man of the world, which he knew he wasn’t.

Either not noticing or fully presuming, Pan, without hesitation, reached into a freezer chest, pulling out two Styrofoam cups filled with ice; opened a bottle of off-brand scotch, and poured both cups full. Alex gathered the whiskey was something inexpensive, perhaps a slow-selling brand or a free sample from a distributor. Unusual for a liquor dealer? Maybe not.

"Isigeia. That’s Greek for ‘to your health.’"

Yes, I know.

Pan, not surprised, asked, You do?

Well, you must know that I am of Greek parentage.

Pan confessed, Yes, of course, I do. I heard from my friends at the university, you know. Somehow, they heard you were Greek. They asked me at a party if I could find out anything about you through my Greek circle. Well, I do have a lot of good contacts. [He wanted to get that point across.] So I just found out the priest’s name nearest your town in Utah. And do you know what he said?

I can’t imagine.

He said he knew of you but very little. You never went to church, so he couldn’t say much about you. He didn’t know of anything bad, though. He said he would ask around.

"Well, you know, I have kind of put the Greek thing behind me. I never could understand what went on in church. On the big holidays, my folks took us kids. All I remember is a lot of chanting and Greek I didn’t understand and the fasting from midnight until after church the next day. It probably wasn’t such a big deal, but my mother, bless her heart, almost panicked because she couldn’t feed us, I mean, stuff us throughout the night and day. I later found out from Greek kids I met in college that none of them fasted like that. My mother, poor dear, wanted to do what was right and almost drove herself and us nuts.

It was all so much confusion. I thought if that’s religion, I really don’t need it. And when the priests would come to the house for a blessing and request a donation, it was ‘Achtung! Be on your toes and don’t speak.’ My dad knew that as soon as the masticha and sweets were served, he would be hit for some money. He knew he was going to give, and he always did, but he never seemed very happy about it. Maybe now, in retrospect, I think he might not have minded so much. He probably saw giving as his civic duty. He and my mother were very faithful. Orthodoxy was the center of their identity. My mother was super religious, even superstitious about it.

I remember days like that too. As you know, there are no Greek churches in this small town, like your situation. My family always went to the Episcopal Church. We were told that was okay, but we really needed to be members of the Greek church in the nearest city where there was one, and my parents did do that. But being in business here, I am often called on by other churches—even Baptists.

Baptists too? I would have thought they would try to run you out of town.

That’s the funny thing. Maybe one of the reasons is, I give to them. Anyway, most of my customers are Baptists. What else around here?

Then Pan’s large face showed what Alex took as a smile, but maybe like a sardonic look. Pan’s big white teeth were showing. He said, One time, my son, when he was a little boy, called the store from home and said, ‘Daddy, the preacher is here,’ and I said which one, but he didn’t know he said. So I asked him, ‘If it’s the Episcopal preacher, hide the liquor. If it’s the Greek preacher, hide the liquor and the food. And if it’s the Baptist preacher, sit on your mother’s lap until I get there.’

Alex and Pan had a good laugh, letting each other know they were not going to be stuffy over religion and that they were far too urbane for that.

But are you still a practicing Greek Orthodox?

"Well, of course, I am. That’s just the way I was brought up. That is being Greek, isn’t it? And I had the same experiences you had. I understand. But I was lucky. My parents sent me to Greece, and I went to school there.

I know that was a common pattern a while back. I remember a couple of older kids back in Utah going to Greece for a while. They learned Greek and the customs. I envied them then. So you can read and write Greek?

And the main thing is, I can speak it, and I got a good education, even though I never went to college.

"Permit me to say that your good education shows.