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 ...