My Covid Walk: 7. Rhodes

Where could I have walked to if I had walked through a year of Covid in one direction instead of round in suburban circles?  Last time to scary Benghazi - but angling more East I could (with some water-walking of course) reached the island of Rhodes.

When Paul had finished speaking (in Ephesus), he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo.  [Acts 20:36 - 21:3]

Paul suffered greatly for the Gospel, but at least had the compensation of the Mediterranean climate (though in his day Rhodes had a lot of snakes).  But now?

It would be difficult to find something missing from Rhodes. The first visitors saw the unique combination of nature, urban landscape, inhabitants, culture and history and made Rhodes famous in all the lengths and breadths of the Earth.  The Old Town is a World Heritage Site, as it is the best preserved medieval settlement in the world. The Street of the Knights and the Palace of the Grand Master will take you atmospherically to other places and other times. 

 

Like all Greek islands, Rhodes is characterized by countless beaches with golden sand, crystal clear blue waters and rare beauty.

Is it Covid-safe?

On or near the UK's current Green List.

On the Plus Side:

Weather, history and natural beauty.

On the Minus Side:

Are there still any snakes?

Has it got a Football Team?

Its oldest Club is Diagoras FC, founded under Ottoman occupation in 1905 as a kind of Greek underground movement.  Hence the unlikely badge which is of a famous wrestler - but definitely at least a free kick.

Has it got a Baptist Church?

No.  Two or three small evangelical or pentecostal churches, at least one of which translates into English if a visitor turns up (according to one reviewer) or not (according to another . . .).

Prospects out of Ten:

Nine.  Thin spiritually and sportingly, but - those beaches and buildings . . .

World Cup Blog 31: Tunisia

Tunisia, not unexpectedly, had a quiet World Cup.  As a land, Tunisia has had a quiet few centuries relative to some neighbours.  It has figured in the many Mediterranean, European and North African changes and challenges - two recent examples were the Arab Spring and the Second World War - without being much remembered in the longer term history of either.

Tunisia takes on a different perspective when we travel further back. Before Tunisia was so called and before it was largely Arabic it was the site of Carthage.  This might seem remote from the World Cup but the Tunisian's nickname is Les Aigles de Carthage so in its way Carthage turned up at the World Cup after all.

Most famous of the sons of Carthage, which in its day dominated the Western Mediterranean, was the great general Hannibal - yes the one famed for the elephant over the Alps.

Carthage had other famous sons too, and two of them - who both were born and died in Carthage - were Tertullian and Cyprian.  By their days, 150 - 250 AD, Carthage was not as great as it had been but was still significant within the Roman Empire.  When Christianity arrived in Carthage it arrived big-time and thus their stories which overlap through the 100 years, reflect the battle between the Roman Emperors and the emerging faith.

Tertullian is remembered for his turns of phrase and his lack of moderation.  He was never canonised by the church because he was mildly heretical regarding the Trinity - but he invented the word Trinity as irony would have it. He is loved for his pithy, bold, even aggressive statements.  Cyprian was the model of moderation (and he in turn was criticised for that) but you will find churches called St Cyprian's but not St Tertullian's.

Tertullian's memorable phrases includes the oft-quoted The blood of the martyrs is the seed by which he meant the seed that grows the church.  Cyprian, for all his attempts to keep the church unified and his moderating between warring factions ended up as one such seed some years after Tertullian's natural death.  A series of plagues was blamed on Christianity and so Cyprian, then the Bishop of Carthage, was beheaded in response to local anger. He was martyred in 258 AD.

Maybe Cyprian would not have been surprised or distressed by this, however.  In a famous - though less famous than Tertullian's frequent sound-bites - quotation he had previously written:

It is a bad world, Donatus, a very bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians. . . and I am one of them.

No Island is an Island

Her Majesty the Queen and dozens of Commonwealth leaders have gathered in Malta - and with some relief one imagines.  Threats have been issued (of course) and security strengthened (of course) but in the whole scheme of things a small Mediterranean island looks like a good idea just now.

Yet even a modicum of historical awareness suggests otherwise for, as we were reminded during our  family holiday in Malta, this is an island whose history is bathed in blood.  In living memory it was the heroics of the Second World War when, as effectively the allied mid-Med military base the island was mercilessly, but unsuccessfully, attacked by Axis forces.

But the really bloody story of Malta is that of the Great Siege - a historical epic of mind-numbing proportions when the Knights of St John, representing Christian Europe and based in Malta, held out against an Ottoman siege by four or more times as many men through a whole summer.

Soberingly, given the cheap view of life demonstrated recently in Paris, a historian wrote thus, 'The disregard of human life among the Ottoman Turks at this time was almost incredible: to try to attain their end in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with callous indifference.'

In five hundred years humanity has not learned very much, for all its apparent learning.

Holiday Pics - No 1 Peace and War

Friends post lovely holiday pictures on Facebook.  Except that about this time in August it is hard to look at another 32 pictures from wherever having seen 932 already!  I virtuously posted only five.  So far.  On this blog I've decided to post some different ones that I can write about.

This picture comes from Malta.  I think it is fairly idyllic though on the wall to the right is a solemn reminder of one of the many great conflicts that the island has been involved in - in the case of the War Rooms here the Second World War.

With a bit of preacher's squeeze-a-meaning there is a lesson here about the transitory nature of this world's idylls.  But I didn't need that.  The point about this picture is that - like all photographs - it is silent.  As no people, animals or vehicles can be seen it even lacks the implied sound that many photos contain.  This was not, however, a silent scene at all.

It was a very hot afternoon. Mad dogs and Englishmen (let the reader decide which I am) went out in the midday sun, locals stayed indoors - as here.  Stayed indoors but did not stay quiet.  At the moment I took this photo two women were having the most ear-splitting row in the building at the top of the stairs.  I mean the sort of row that one half expected to end in a scream with someone being pushed over a balcony.

 

Sunshine doesn't reach the human heart, though it can greatly affect our skein.

Mediterranean

It's that time of year when, in the company of uncomfortably large numbers of fellow-Britons we are off to the Mediterranean.

This picture, from last year in Rome, seems suitably symbolic.

For a start, it was taken in such ridiculous heat that I can remember telling my spouse-photographer to hurry or I would have to move!

Secondly it is of part of a very ancient statue that bespeaks the empire that once straddled the Mediterranean and affected the globe. A little toe the size of my head says it all really.

Thirdly, standing amid history is exactly why my daughter is not and would not want to be with us. This is a very adult vacation. Not adult in the way of the binge-drinking hoards of fellow-countrymen and women who populate various Mediterranean bar strips. Adult in the number of miles walked. For while we will have no hangovers, the repaired little toe on the statue looks, for all the world, like our little toes will look when we've finished hot-footing around another Mediterranean city this week.

Lastly, although I am no lover of the heat, I like the Mediterranean for at least this; that every time I see that sea it brings to mind any number of stories from the Bible whose dramas were played out around its shores and sometimes upon its waves. In fact the P Q R on the plinth stands for 'The People of Rome' and as I'm halfway through preaching Paul's letter to the People of Rome it all seems very appropriate indeed!