Watercolour, Crete Impression - Hans-Jürgen Gaudeck
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Within the orchestra of Earth’s islands , Crete’s voices are unmistakable. Her sound bursts the score of normality, revealing a world that leads far beyond the horizon of the already seen.
Nothing is impossible on Crete.
One morning I came into a little village near the Psiloritis.A baptizing ceremony was going on in the church. Since I wanted to experience this event very intensely, I mingled with the baptizing community and stepped very closely to the font where the little baby had just been dipped into the water promising eternal life. I murmered the same phrases as the others, and made the sign of the cross when they did. They let me do as I wished.
Finally the ceremony ended and the priest rushed away. I too left the church. All of a sudden the priest’s voice shouted out from the loudspeakers on the church’s tower. He proclaimed that the devil had come and had mingled with the faithful. Everybody looked at me. I was glad that my car was only a few steps away, and used the confusion of the village’s inhabitants to drive away quickly. They really had considered me to be the devil’s incarnation.
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Today I know why. My fingers’ positions while making the sign of the cross were wrong. I should have held three fingers straight and two bent, thus witnessing the Holy Trinity and the two true natures of Jesus Christ, Instead I had stretched out all five fingers. According to orthodox interpretation this meant three fingers for the Holy Trinity, one for the Holy Virgin Mary and the fifth finger for the pope in Rome. By doing it that way, the devil gives himself away.
Years later- it is very early in the morning - I’m inside of a large church on the plateau of Lassithi, looking at the icons. Nobody seems to be there. After about twenty minutes an old woman comes up to me and puts away the bucket and scubbing brush she had cleaned the church with. She asks me to come with her, closes the doors of Earth’s divine embassy, and leads me to her little house on the opposite side. She serves me, for breakfast, all the wonderful food her little kitchen can offer: honey and cheese, eggs and zwieback, jam, fruits, nuts and goatmilk. She hardly says a word, only looks at me and urges me to eat as much as possible. When leaving her I ask:”Why have you been so hospitable to me?” Her answer:” How do I know? Couldn’t you be Jesus Christ who wants to test me?”
I can be both on Crete: devil and God’s son at the same time. And fully human. For this reason, I love Crete.
Klaus Bötig |
