Fr. James Harris
You could’ve heard the yelp in Piraeus.
There was I, wandering along to Bazaar with the two girls in tow to pick up some groceries; when, at the sound of the said yelp, I turned round to observe Rosa, our youngest, sticking out of a manhole in the pavement, one leg in, one leg out, her flip flop dangling precariously into the void below, eyes wide with the shock of it (understandably) and totally unable to extract herself from her predicament. The cover of the manhole was missing; she had not ben looking where she was going as she toddled along behind me and had stepped straight into it, her momentum carrying the rest of her forward. She escaped with only a grazed shin and it’s the sort of thing I’m sure we will laugh about in the future – do you remember the time Rosa disappeared into the pavement? – but I recount it this morning because of what happened afterwards, which I think speaks into our Bible readings this morning.
Nearby on the pavement that afternoon was a Greek family – Mum, Dad and a toddler safely in a pushchair. Seeing the incident unfold, the Dad leaped into action, helping to extract Rosa, delving into his bag for antiseptic wipes, stuffing some waste cardboard into the hole to prevent further mishaps and even going into the shop to remonstrate with the staff as to why they hadn’t reported the hole or done something about it themselves. (I must admit that made it slightly awkward when we then had to limp in there to get our shopping!)
Our relative respective Greek and English were not good enough to have a long conversation but I could tell that he was deeply embarrassed that such an accident should happen to a visitor to his country, perhaps ashamed that money is so tight that the pavements could be left to fall into such disrepair in the first place, and most of all, deeply concerned for Rosa and her wellbeing. She could have been his child. And I think his reaction expressed an understanding of community that meant that, in a way, she was his child – in the sense that all of us belong to one another in some way, we are all each other’s responsibility, each other’s delight, each other’s concern. We are all, after all, children of the same heavenly Father.
I have seen this particularly with children in Greece – they are public property are they not? – and it is endearing and hugely affirming to experience. It’s not something that one experiences in quite the same way in the UK where, for all sorts of reasons, life is more ‘privatised’.
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