Feet From Jesus

Anonymous

Another fabulous day here in Greece!  Definitely filled with food, friends and laughter.  After a long journey to Dafni Monastery on the Metro, we arrived in our separate taxis and to our great horror, found the large gate to the Monastery closed.  It was only, I think, by a stroke of sheer luck that the wonderful woman came and opened the gate to let us inside.  She then instructed us to go see the video on the mosaics, because we weren't allowed in the church as it is under restoration, presently.  As you can see in my photo, it is definitely a construction zone as scaffolding is surrounding the entire building!  "It would be difficult for you to go inside."  The woman inferred.  "No kidding!" I thought to myself as I gazed up at the building.  Dr. Ihssen and my fellow students had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not going inside this historical building.  Little did we know, all we had to do was ask.  Moments later we were being led up the scaffolding seeing the sights of Dafni.  We saw amazing mosaics of the Anunciation, Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus and mosiacs of famous biblical figures such as Zachariah and Aaron.  We were definitely wowed as we made our way up and up and up, but this certainly was not the grand finale' by any means.  We finally made it to the top of the scaffolding, and saw the largest depiction of Jesus I, personally had ever seen.  After seeing it, I definitely understand why the Orthodox subsscribes to the type of worship that they do.  Being there underneath such a powerful image gave me a sense that those who consider themselves atheists are, quite frankly, missing out.  There is just such an understanding of beauty when you can witness something like I witnessed today that others just cannot have.  We were mere feet from this powerful image, and I must say, I could definitely feel a presence surrounding me as I stood on that scaffolding.  This is a feeling, as I can say for most of this trip, that I wont be able to get back once I head home.  Home seemed a loooong looong way away today as I stood beneath that image, I can say that.