It’s either pathetic or mystic when the highlight of a trip-of-a-lifetime is a visit to a hunk of rock. This metamorphic outcropping sits in the shadow of the Acropolis, just below the Temple of Zeus. To climb to the top of the Areopagus, there are sixteen steps, just sixteen! The same number the Wolfert children climb when their parents whisk them off to bed. The rocky surface is uneven, littered with cigarette butts, and slopes off to a gravelly northern edge where garbage cans help stave off what might otherwise be a little more than a garbage hill.
But, the Areopagus is Mars Hill. Dionysius was an ‘Areopagite.’ THIS is the pivotal geographic point of my sabbatical! Other than Cambridge, of course. J
The Apostle Paul stood on this same spot, we know this for certain. As I looked down at my silver and yellow Sauconys, I imagined Paul’s sandals gripping the slippery limestone-turned-marble stones. As I looked down on the Agora and the Stoa and the ancient artifacts below, I imagined Paul looking down on some of these same sights. The olive trees on the north slope, likely a similar view to his. And the Acropolis with the Parthenon, Erectheion and Temple of Zeus above, all in the same places, though in Paul’s day, in better repair.
As I reflect on this, I want to have something to say, something to write, something to share. I want to tell those who have helped fund this incredible trip and sabbatical that I “have been to the mountain” and have something to say. But this early, I’d be making it up. I don’t know what to say. In fact, I bought a t-shirt to commemorate the moment with a saying from Socrates in Greek, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
But that’s not pathetic. It is truly a highlight. I am in awe, and for the relief and humour of those who know me to never be without words, speechless.
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