Nancy's Sabbatical

While on Lesvos in the small community of Skala Eresos, this gay-friendly place was also a family place. One night, while walking through the center of the village, I was struck by this sight of four young boys between the ages of 7-11.  As far as I could tell, each one of them had a cell phone. Each one was looking at his phone. As Cathy, the Greek woman on the plane said, “What can you do?”   True confession:  I looked at my electronic devices almost daily. It was nice to blog and take photos. However, when we are in Michigan (June 3-16) what do your think?  How about if I have a one day fast from the cell phone and the iPad?  That sounds like something a pilgrim needs to do, fast from the phone.  OK...  a new idea for the next leg of our journey.   Love and prayers, Nancy

Now that I am in US, I regret not taking more photos of children. There is the fact that I would need permission to really post photos of kids, so with that I won’t feel quite as badly. I do want to write a bit about these photos. We arrived on Patmos on Sunday. On Monday we got our rental car. The owner of the rental car business is Katerina. Her business is called Katerina’s cars. When I went to her storefront, her daughter was with her. You are looking at Katerina and her little girl. Most of the Greek names are 4 syllables or longer. Her mother told me the daughter’s name a few times and I should have written it down. This little girl was very friendly and we visited a bit. It was a week day, but a holiday, (May 1), so children did not have school. The man who owned the house we rented on Patmos had a wife and one child, a ten year old daughter. Then, we got to know Yanni who I wrote about earlier. He is 37 and recently married with one child, a 4 month old girl. Panos w...

Greetings to all who continue to read this blog. Thank you for your interest. I realize this could get boring after a while. I have felt the love and prayers of family, friends and folks from Messiah and First Lutheran Churches. When a person travels, of course, there are always things that could go wrong. Reflecting on the five weeks in Greece, I can only see the grace that has surrounded Robert and me. We feel so thankful to have had such a gift.  My two girlfriends Jodi and Lynn, are still both working. Jodi has gone back to her job as a psychologist today at the Hennepin County Medical Center. Lynn works as an RN at University of Minnesota Medical Center and starts three 12-hour shifts of work tomorrow. That is how travel is for most working people. To have a three month sabbatical is a priceless gift. I am stopping now and trying to be a Pilgrim.. and simply say, “God, thank you so much.” The flight from Athens to MSP is quite long. Robert and I sat in two middle...

Still on Patmos, my girlfriends Jodi, Lynn and I, stopped into an art gallery. The woman who was working there had a lot to say. I am going to do my best to paraphrase her comments. I am 63 years old and have lived here for 38 years. I was born in Australia and my husband is from Patmos. We love living here very much. The quality of life is still good; however, much has changed since the economic crash. We used to be able to travel back to Australia every year. We had a coffee shop and by the end of the tourist season we made enough money to travel.  As our economy got worse, our trips lessened to every other year. Now we are lucky to go to Australia once every sixth year. The economic crash affects everyone. I am still happy however. I have my horse, my husband and my painting. This art gallery had many of her paintings. ‘I just can’t stop painting horses!’  She made the observation that on this small island of Patmos, families can still have at least some sort of qua...

Below is a response I received to my presentation: Date: May 23, 2018 at 4:41:47 AM CDT To: Nancy Hanson  Subject: Re: Thank you for attending last night Thank you so much Nancy for your presentation, your work, and your kindness.   It was a very nice experience for us all to meet you. You reminded to us the importance of spirituality in some way. It is a great part of our lives that we limit only in religious practice. And those of us who are dissapointed by the greek orthodox church, or those that do not find connection with any official religious group, we do not find the way to connect with our spirituality in a conscious way.   It has been also very helpful for me to meet you. In these days that we get confused in order to chose our dissertation subject, you reminded to me the importance of searching on spirituality, so I will focus my thesis on a religious group of women and their night dreams and visions.   Let us have some time and ...

After we swam to the rock we made the 90 kilometer journey back to Lesvos by way of one of those hot springs thermal spas. They say you get healed with the water. One of us got our locker broken into - so it is harder to feel the healing when you know you were robbed. All three of us try the idea that we list what we still have (health, limbs, passport, family, friends) we still don’t like it, but try to put into perspective. I met up with professor Costas Canakis. He invited students to come to an informal presentation. The group was smaller than the Athens group, however I got an interesting story from a Greek man. I may not get to finish this but will start. He asked if he could talk with me after class. I said of course. Here is my best recollection-  I grew up in a smaller Greek village and was taught it was a sin to be gay, etc. when I saw the American movie, “Boys Don’t Cry” with Hillary Swank, I realized that my attitudes were similar to the bullies in that movie. Now aft...

Greetings Everyone! Since the last time I wrote, now my girlfriends Jodi and Lynn have joined me. We three had time at Skala Eresos. Jodi and Lynn helped me film three interviews on Monday. I hope to be able to share some pieces of these after I get back to Washburn. Jonas H is so good at editing home movies. In a nutshell, we interviewed Noelle, Lydia, and Jennifer. Each had insightful stories to share. I’ll also send a few photos to Mary and even if we don’t have the headings of the photos yet, I trust you’ll enjoy viewing them. All for now! Love and prayers, Nancy

Greetings Blog Followers, You must be keeping me in your prayers as today was another amazing and beautiful day. There were many parts. I will send Mary a bunch of photos. To narrate the photos, the first woman is Jennifer... and I could tell you about her if I have time, but the main best part of today was hiking with the women travelers from Holland. It was about an hour or more hike up to a church. You will see photos of going up, along the way. It is a goat path. Our leader has done this hike 80 times or so. In case I get interrupted, I will tell you the best part first. Their first language is Dutch, but most all of these women speak English too. Wow. I hiked alongside a variety of the women as we went up and we had nice chit chats. In one case we sang “Ilove to go a wandering.. Valdereee, Valdera, My Knapsack on my back. Right before we got to the top, I sort of started chatting with two of the youngest people in the group (age 29 and 40). I have permission to writ...

I realize that it is a dream to have this sabbatical funding. My situation in being able to travel is something I would not have been able to do without the support of Messiah Lutheran and First Lutheran Churches. Not everyone will be a pastor who got a Lilly grant - BUT, if are able to use money for vacation, which we all know is a luxury some people will never have..... IF you are saving to do a vacation some day... Here are a few ideas about why Greece is a good choice. P.S. No, I am not getting money to write this! Ha. The biggest chunk of money will be the airfare. I need to find out the website Robert used. He found a round trip ticket on a reliable airline for under $800 from Mpls to Athens. My guess is that as the tourist season picks up, these ticket prices go up. Traveling in a time OTHER than June July or August seems to make prices less. If you are a school teacher, that is harder. Once in Greece, this is just one of many ideas. According to our Kos taxi driver the 4...

Greetings all!   My hunch is that for a while now, the blogs will be less.  I’ll give you an outline of the days to come: Saturday, May 19 10:00 am hike with the Holland Women Travelers (see next blog post) (My secret hope is that I get to talk about The Divine Spark with a few of them, but do not want to be pushy...) Pack up and leave Skala-Eresos to drive back to Mytilene. If I leave in a timely fashion and do not get lost, I can join my new friend Kate from South Africa at a hot thermal pool that supposedly has healing qualities and is only 2 Euro.  Then at 7:00 pm tonight, m y two best friends, Jodi and Lynn, arrive into Mytilene. We will be together. Sunday - lazily wake up and talk more with Jodi and Lynn... not much on the schedule, unless I can talk them into going to Skala Eressos which I hope they say yes, then  Sunday, we go back to Skala Eressos. Monday:  Interview Babs and maybe a few more people. Jodi and Lynn wil...

Greetings Everyone, You have just heard about my Thursday more than anyone would ever care to hear.  I forgot that I had written about Thursday on Thursday night before bed.  So this morning I wrote to you all about Thursday.  You know everyone by heart. You saw that Liza’s partner is Niki.  I forgot her name until I read yesterday’s blog.   One more time, I could not have blog entries if not for Mary Childs, blog editor extraordinaire.  I told her that she could quit this unpaid job at any time, so she could have her life back.  [From Mary: I can do cut-and-paste well, so I'm good!] I just got a knock on my hotel room door. The man to spray for cockroaches is here... so I will leave now.  You are too good to read this. Some days I have no one reading.  We have had over 5 tho.  WooHOOOOOO.  Bye!   Love and prayers, Nancy

Hello Blog Friends! Two more things happened yesterday, that I must tell you. I got to have lunch with Noelle, the woman from Holland. I gave you her photo yesterday. She just turned 60 also and also is here to rest and recover. She had cancer a while back and Holland helps those with illness with a more extensive health coverage than what we have.  Noelle’s monthly cost for her health insurance is something like 125 Euro and we Americans pay more like from 700-100 dollars per month to get coverage that is not nearly as good as what Noelle has. Anyway, I should stop talking about this since I am No Expert at all. So, great lunch with Noelle who is traveling with the Women Travelers from Holland. Noelle gave me the schedule of events, so I can see if perhaps I might get to join them tomorrow when they have a walk to a church somewhere...  We talked about all sorts of things.  Then she is on the Women Traveler email list and got a text telling her group to...

Greetings! There may be days when I write nothing and today I am writing a lot. Sorry, if you are getting bored.  I suppose i am recording this a lot for myself, as i don’t want to forget.  Rather than try to write succinctly, I am sort of rambling just in case, someone taps me on the shoulder, then I will abruptly leave the blog for something real life! Ha.   So, first the true confession. Due to not wanting a heavy suitcase Pastor Nancy did not bring a Bible.  I did not even bring my beloved Jesus Calling devotional book. Instead I bought a lightweight little book called The Message promise book. It is one of those collections of Bible verses based on topic. So this morning, I thought to myself, “Nancy jeepers, you need to read the Bible!”  So I chose the topic of love and read several verses. All were great, and i was sitting outside by that fisherman who feeds cats and birds.... and all of a sudden I got tears in my eyes while reading Ephesi...

After a good night of sleep, I got up early and decided to walk around the town and see if I could catch the sunrise. I also had some quiet time and read some great verses on love which I also hope to blog about. But, while sitting near the water, I heard two cats fighting and felt so worried that one cat was hurt and bloody. But, what could I do?  Well my curiosity got the best of me and I walked to the scene of where I heard the cats screaming. It had all calmed down, but near this area was a fisherman named Anastasio. His wife is from England. He is Greek, but spoke some English so I got to learn a few things from him. He said that the cats have territories. He thought the fight was about a cat who came from another area came over here to pick a fight.  As a fisherman, he went out already this morning at 3:00 am and he was picking the fish out of his net. When he has little tiny fish, he throws them to the cats, so he has a routine. The cats know and they a...

On Thursday, as I was finishing up a walk, I stopped at a place that rents beach chairs with umbrellas so you can enjoy the sea and still have shade. I was checking the prices and met Liza and her partner.  I will find her name, but it is eluding me right now. These two women were so much fun! They are here on a holiday to celebrate their third wedding anniversary. Marriage is legal in England. They’ve been together for 8 years, married for almost 3. They love this place and have been here before. We started talking and one thing leads to another. They liked the idea of The Divine Spark , so I told them I’d find them later and bring them a copy. Well, later... got away from me and by the time I went to find them on the beach, they were gone. But with modern technology, we exchanged emails so I wrote to them and they wrote back. They ended up coming to my hotel and I wanted to show them my groovy room with sea view. Then we talked for about 20-30 minutes about a whole bu...

Greetings all!   In a bit more than 24 hours, I can’t believe how many beautiful things have happened. I am still grateful that I have a cell phone. Next, the ferry ride included seeing land that was probably Turkey, but I do not know for sure. Also, a nice sunrise. Arriving onto the island of Lesvos went well. I had booked a rental car and it was very near the ferry terminal. Getting the car went well. Then I had to drive through a city of about 25,000 and the rental car people did not speak a lot of English. Mainly, the young man said, no problem. Well, then he hooked me up to WiFi and we did the google maps thing. So, with that little google map voice, I got through the city of Mytiline in the rental car, on the way to Eresos. It was only about a 90 Kilometer drive. When I told a few Greeks where I was going they all said, “Really? That is a long way.” I thought to myself, when we drive to Duluth from Washburn it is about 70+ miles which is close to 90 Kilometer,...