May 18, 2006
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~Being Greek~
By virtue of having grandparents on both sides that immigrated from Greece and being married to a man, born , raised and educated in Athens, me, Basil’s mother, has been asked to bring the snack to school for “Greek Day”.
When your children go to a Classical and Christian School in the Reformed Protestant tradition, “Greek Day” means something entirely different than what it meant to me growing up as a second generation Greek American kid.
As an adult I am acutely aware of my place in the world as an Orthodox Christian. Being Greek is secondary but for the Greek Orthodox Christian they do go hand in hand. Tomorrow I will introduce Basil’s second grade class to the foods of ancient Greece, and no I am not taking in gyros and baklava for the children to taste; if I am going bring in a snack for “ancient” Greek day it will be authentic fare ; figs, flat bread, chick peas, olives and grapes. I won’t be taking any fish or wine but I will treat the children to a modern Greek treat, kourambiedes.
I will also explain to the children that the ancient Greeks became Christians (if you are interested in this subject here’s a book for you, “Converted Hellenism:The transition from Antiquity to Christianity” ) and how the places they read about in their Bibles, the places where the Holy Apostles preached to the ancient Greece, still exist today, that the Churches the apostles planted still exist today that the Church traces it’s roots back to Pentecost and the apostles. That 98% of the Greeks in the modern day country of Greece are Orthodox Christians, that we are proud of the achievements of the Ancient Greeks and their contributions to the world but even prouder to be followers of Christ and that hundreds of thousands of Greeks died for Christ , that the Greeks through the centuries were persecuted for being Christians and that to this day the Church is still alive and well in Greece and it has survived under occupations and persecution since the first century.
Pray for me that I am a good witness to my heritage both culturally and spiritually!
Say a prayer for Basil too! He is Zeus in the play the second grade will be performing tomorrow. But more importantly pray for Basil to always be a good Christian witness and apologists for the Greek Orthodox Church!
Glory be to God for all things!
Comments (8)
Wow! What an opportunity, Lisa. I know you’ll do a great job at presenting this information. Sounds like tons of fun! Will pray for you and Basil.
*lol* You get to my posts fast!!!:p Which version did you end up reading?! The very looooong one or the short version I have up now? I have such a foggy head right now and just kept chatting away. So, for everyone’s sake I trimmed it down. Then I realized in both versions I ended up putting our last name in!!
I think I need to go to bed :shysmile:
I am so jealous! Can I be a second grader in Basil’s school?!
Sounds like you are going to do a wondeful job!! Praying all goes well! You will, of course, have to let us know….
Lisa, you are going to be incredible!! What a teaching ability you have! It sounds so interesting. I LOVE the menu- had to mention that!!!!:) I would love to be there. :heartbeat: I’ll praying for you, and your Zeus. I am sure Basil will be wonderful. We’ll be waiting to hear how it went.
Just out of curiosity, what did you do before you became a mom? I hope I am not prying, just curious:shysmile:
Way to go, Presvytera! The remarks you plan to give sound just great to me. Let us know how it went.
At least Basil attends a *Reformed* Protestant school, which is (I think) marginally more liberal than a fundamentalist Christian school would be — when my kids were in school, our options were public, Catholic, or a generic Christian school with definite leanings towards the Assemblies of God. I’ll be interested in their reaction to your presentation.
And Basil’s playing Zeus in the school play reminds me of a story our priest told me once, about a local public-school teacher calling up his office and asking to bring her children over to our church (Greek Orthodox) so that the kids could see the “gods we worshipped.” I don’t think he returned that call.
I think you’d make a great teacher!
ryc: thank you, the cross is from conciliar press actually, I believe made in Canada or something, it’s wooden and Riley teethes on it:)
Wow, may God grant you wisdom and clarity of speech and grant them the ears to hear! Wish I could come, too! Sounds so fun. :sunny:
Wow!! Everything you wrote sounds great! And the food sounds yummy too!! The kids are going to have a great lesson from you!! Have fun!!!
Well I am back. I hope what I wrote is what I said. I think they got the message though. They were all so cute and grateful too. I took some pictures and will post them at some point. I have to get everyone fed to leave again for the play this afternoon. I saw the rehearsal and the were great.