The many meanings of the cross
Rob Long
The trick to travel, I have learned, is remembering to shut up and follow the rules. I can usually manage one or the other, but not both.
I was sitting in a small Greek Orthodox church in Nazareth this week — I’m on an extended trip through the Middle East — when I had some deep thoughts I needed to write down in my notebook. That’s what I do when I travel: I think about stuff and write it down, on the theory that ideas and insights that inspire me when I’m surrounded by timeless artifacts of faith and culture are a lot better than whatever occurs to me in line at Chipotle.
The other things I do when I travel are eat and take ironic selfies, but I know enough not to do those things in a Greek Orthodox church. What I didn’t know was that you’re not supposed to cross your legs.
I was sitting in a wooden chair at the back of the church and had crossed my legs, knee over knee, to create a slightly raised flat surface to write on. It was right about the time I was scribbling insights about the nature of grace and forgiveness that an older gentleman in religious garb poked me on the shoulder and pointed to my legs.
“Uncross, please,” he said, in a tone that implied he wasn’t going to say “please” a second time.
I’m not sure if he was a priest or a monk or just what. There are a lot of folks walking around in religious costume in Nazareth. But when I’m in a church and some old guy tells me what to do, I usually comply. If the local rule is to keep your feet flat on the floor, who am I to nitpick? I don’t need to start a religious incident, especially not in the West Bank, where religious incidents can escalate quickly.
For example, I wore a yarmulke at the Western Wall, even though I was pretty sure some of the other fellows praying there were laughing at me behind my back.
Look at the gentile, I’m sure they were saying, look how far in the front he’s wearing his yarmulke! What a doofus! Or words in Hebrew to that effect. I don’t speak Hebrew, but I know for a fact it’s a language rich with ways to insult.
And years ago, when an observant Muslim needed a place to pray on a long-haul flight, I was inadvertently trapped in the bathroom until he finished his devotions and rolled up his prayer mat.
Not a problem. I was happy to wait. It’s a big world, and I celebrate our differences.
Once, in Central Africa, a local shaman smeared chicken blood on my forehead. Well, first, he tore the chicken’s head off, and then, he smeared the blood. I wasn’t prepared for that. I don’t think the chicken was, either. But I nodded solemnly and thanked him and waited until I could discreetly blot away some of the blood that was dripping down my nose and onto my upper lip.
Which is all to say this: I was perfectly willing to uncross my legs in that church, even if it made writing in my notebook physically awkward, if that was the general rule. If it was a sit-up-straight and be respectful kind of vibe they were going after, fine with me.
But after he poked me in the shoulder and barked his “uncross please,” the guy moved to the back of the small church and began making a call on his phone. So I broke the do-it-and-shut-up rule and gave him a look. I gestured to my uncrossed knees and then at his phone like, Seriously, dude? You can make dinner plans, and I’m not allowed to journal?
His response was to glare back at me and then disappear into a little hidden side room — Greek Orthodox churches are filled with these little escape routes, I’ve noticed — at which time I immediately crossed my legs again and resumed writing.
Or tried to resume writing. I had forgotten the specific insights I was trying to record, in the general area of grace and forgiveness and Jesus’s commandment to love your neighbor as God loves you, because I had gotten into a mean-mugging contest with a priest. So what could I do but re-uncross my legs, put my notebook down, and reflect on the many (many, many) ways I fall short of the Christian ideal?
I did that until I got hungry again, and then I went to the little cafe outside of the church courtyard for falafel and beer. That part of my trip through the Holy Land, I’m proud to say, I totally succeeded at.