(A divine landscape on Lesvos)
In ancient times, when the gods on Olympos still reigned over the
Hellenic people, there was a god for everything: for love, commerce, war, the harvest,
the army, wine, weather or whatever there was. Each god jealously guarded his
own department, defending it against the trespass of any other god, leading to quarrels
and even wars. The gods were then anything but nice to either their fellow gods
or to human beings.
The Gods ruled with rods of iron and there was no place for charity.
Although sometimes there was the odd god or one of his offspring who would take
pity on humans. Prometheus, a son of Titan Iapetos (god of immortality) gave
humans fire in order to defend them against the many violations of Zeus. He was
soundly punished for that by being tethered to a mountain where an eagle ate
his liver. Even worse, the liver regrew each night and so the eagle came each
day.
The Greek poet Aeschylus visited this myth in one of his plays: Prometheus
Bound. In this play the fettered Prometheus refused all help, because he knew
something with which he could blackmail Zeus. Hermes, God of commerce and
messenger of the Gods also tried to mediate on his behalf, but Prometheus did
not want to tell the secret. The enraged Zeus gathered together all the Gods of
the weather who caused such bad weather and natural disasters that Prometheus
perished by falling into an abyss.
But let us go back to the beginning of this play, when humans still lived
in dark holes, always afraid of the fury of Zeus and his threats to destroy
them. Prometheus was apparently a nice guy because he decided to help the people.
He stole fire from the gods of Olympos and when presented with this phenomenon humans
could better defend themselves and developed hope for the future. In the play this
kind character of Prometheus was, for the first time, given the name philantropos, from which the
word philantrophy comes. Charity in Greek is philantrophia (love [philos] and humanity [anthropos]), and so I
suppose we could say that Prometheus is the God of charity and Greece the
homeland of charity.
Greece is no longer a country awash with charity. Lots of inhabitants
depend on charity but you cannot call the government a philantrophic one: most
victims of this on-going crisis are the poor.
Poverty at Christmas is not funny. In December money is spent like
water, lots of people are shopping for sweets and presents and others spend
money on holidays or to visit family. But when you don’t have the money to do
these things the festivity days are less joyfull.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, some celebrate it as
a celebration of light, but Christmas also means days of forgiveness and
charity. Look at all those big tearjerker Christmas movies where poor or
unhappy people are presented with some hope for the future, just like when Prometheus
gave the people a new future with the gift of fire.
There are hundreds of charity organisations to which you can give money.
But I always say: Change the world, start with yourself and your own
environment. In Molyvos there is a charity organisation called the syllogo i
agape. It was set up in 1920 and started with helping the wounded soldiers in
the Greek – Turkish war of 1919 – 1922. Since then its members, mostly village
women, take care of the poor. In present day Molyvos some people still have no
money for food or heating. And that is what they really need, because the cold
has settled on the island and even though the sun shines a lot, causing beautiful
clear days, they remain cold. And even though the moons milky-bright light
illuminates the landscape there still are dark days around Christmas.
Let this Christmas bring lots of beautiful stories.
I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014
(with thanks to Mary Staples)
© Smitaki 2013
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