Friday, October 14, 2011

Idolatry


On clear days I can see Mt. Olympus in all of its august glory, but on hazy days, during sunset, all I can see is the outline of its majestic peaks. This mountain bears a few millennia of Greek myth, the sacred ground of an ancient religion long dead. As a landscape it holds great beauty – from its snow-covered zenith in the winter to heavy mists in the summer – and to be there, on the mountain, is like being a million miles away from any busy metropolis. I don’t know what it is about the sleepy village that lines the pathways up the mountainside, but it has a sense of character and charm that is often drowned out by the cacophony of an overgrown populace in cities that are bursting at the seams.

I suppose it is obvious that I miss living there, on the edge of Mt. Olympus. Not all mountain villages in Greece are created equal, it seems.