Turkish
wall photographed by Boryana Katsarova
National Geographic
National Geographic
I keep being asked what I am giving up for Lent.
I am giving up.
What I mean is this: For a period when my daughters were young, I went to New York one day a week for my job at Voice of America in Washington, DC. I usually brought them back small presents. One evening when I arrived home, the second daughter came tearing down the stairs and began pounding on me, "What did you bring me?" I said, "I can't give you anything if your hands are not open," and then, stunned at the profundity of what I had just said, I dropped the presents.
The gesture of giving up is hands upraised, open. The gesture of praise. Or of prayer. Or even of the presence of angels.
The gesture of giving up is hands upraised, open. The gesture of praise. Or of prayer. Or even of the presence of angels.
We Greeks have no manners. We are not good at saying "please" and "thank you". As a consequence it is less of an exercise in civility, of which we do not possess much, when we do say them. Thank you for all the presents. And please don't ...
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Pavlos