To Saint Paul, The Apostle:

I just returned from a week away in the highlands doing ecology and field work studies (more on that later) and this is my first chance to reflect on our time in Greece.

I wrote a poem while in Athens, after we had climbed the Acropolis (Hill with all the Temples) and then walked the long hill down to the Areopagus (public meeting place and market). This same route was walked by the Apostle Paul, as narrated by Luke in Acts17:16-34.

The Parthenon at the top of temple hill was dedicated to Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom, who, according to legend, contended with Poseidon the god of the sea for the rights for the city. Considering that Greeks look for wisdom, as Paul says, and that we continue to wrestle today with the themes raised by the first Greek Philosophers, it is an aptly named city. (To see how God views Wisdom, read the first few chapters of Proverbs.)

The reference in the poem to "Alexander and the dog-man" is to a story about Alexander the Great visiting Diogenes "the cynic" which literally means the "dog-man" in Greek because he refused to leave the filthy hole on the edge of the city. Alexander reportedly asked him, "What can I do for you?" to which Diogenes replied, "Get out of my light."

However, as my poem laments, wisdom serves God and not man, but we usually don't get it.

To Saint Paul, The Apostle

Today I walked
up the knobby
thronging hill
and saw the remnant of the gods
you cried over --

I looked for the altar
"to the unknown god"
and found it
not among the ruins of ancient Greece,
found it
resting heavy and thick
with uncut stones
jumbled up and resting
like a cairn around my
dead heart.

Upon this altar did I pray,
weeping and crying
for all of us whose
idols now are portable,
who rode them and carried them
up this hill
to ask the ancient question
like Alexander to the dog-man --

I cried for wisdom.

And She came.

Pallas to her holy hill
and held me shaking
gently held me,
told me,
"I still stand on the corner
of First and Main and cry out,
giving wisdom to all who ask."

I begged her to stay,
and she said
"I never left,"
and took my hand pointing
to the white city of 5 million souls,
she said,
"I walk among them, will you?"

Paul, oh Paul,
I wept to see her face,
in helmet stern and joyous
with the dawn of the
very first morning.

We held hands
and walked down to the Agora
to hear you preach.