Cape Sounion

 Seventh Monday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

Monday:

OT: 2 Samuel 5:17-25

NT: Mark  6:14-16

Psalter: Psalm 24 (UMH 755)

Tuesday:

OT: 1 Chronicles 11:1-9

NT: Mark 6:17-29

Today is Travelogue Day. We're alternating the travelogue places between what I call "Center of the World Places" and "End of the World Places." Center of the World places offer a lot more for me to write about. I've just finished three weeks on Paris. I can do Cape Sounion in one. I've been there three times, once in the summer and twice in the winter. It's in Greece. 

 

The first time we went there was in summer of 1999. The Greek American taxi driver whom we had lucked into, had taken us to Corinth that morning, then back to Athens. After an afternoon break he drove us east from Athens along a curving in and out seashore. The further we went, the fewer shops and restaurants and people we saw. Before long we were driving in open land reminiscent of Big Sur in California. It's only about a 45 minute drive from Athens to Sounion but seems longer. 

The rocky cape rises up almost like a small volcanic mountain in the ocean. Sitting atop is a beautiful and perfectly preserved Temple of Poseidon (the Greek god of the Sea), built in 440 B.C., during the height of the Golden Age of Greece. Nowhere else is such an old temple so beautifully preserved. 

There is a restaurant across the water just a few hundred feet away. The view looking up to the temple was spectacular--bright blue water, the temple glistening in the sun. The chef took us back to the kitchen and opened all the individual fish lockers for us to select the fish we wanted. All were caught that morning. The first course was Atherini, little sardine like fish, fried and eaten whole. I expected four or five. When th plate came out there was a mountain of about 60 of the little fish. We couldn't possibly eat that much. They were delicious and as habit forming as potato chips. We ate them all. Then came the fish. I don't remember the species, broiled and delicious. 

 

The cab driver then took us across a small peninsula to the foot of the cape. We climbed up, about 70 feet, not steep, to the temple. There were some graffiti. The taxi driver told us the important one to look for, "George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1821." It is authentic. Then we sat on a rock and watched the sunset. Sounion is on all the top ten sunset lists in the world. You look out over the Aegean, small uninhabited islands as far as you can see. The setting sun sends spectacular and constantly changing yellows, oranges, pinks, purples, and reds reflecting off the islands and the bright blue water, darkening as the light fades in the sunset. It's what Homer called the "wine dark sea."

God of islands, peninsulas, and sunset. Help us to see more clearly the beauty of your created nature all around us. Show us ways we can work to preserve your creation. Amen.

Faithfully

Christian