"Edwards in Greece" Goes to the US

I made the VERY long trip back to the US starting on Wednesday morning. About 20 hours later, I landed in Philadelphia. We arrived back at my parents' house in Maryland about 9 PM Wednesday night (4 AM my time). This is my first time back in the US since leaving for Greece nearly 2 years ago. The culture is a little bit different -- I'm certainly getting some curious looks about wearing cassock!

A couple things struck me as I was waiting in the Washington DC airport for my connection to Philadelphia. First, I sat next to a guy who was using his super duper cell phone with hands-free and his laptop computer. As I sat down, I heard him say: "Understood. So should we schedule a sit-down to put some meat on this concept?"

I thought: "Do people really speak this way?"

Later, I sat across from a young guy. He was about 27 years old, neatly groomed and dressed, looking very professional. He was clearly on some sort of business trip. It then struck me that he was wearing a wedding ring and somehow it seemed odd to me. I started thinking why that should have struck me as odd. It was because he was a young man in his 20s who was married and had a job! That's why I noticed -- because this would be almost unthinkable in Greece! This guy probably even had his own place to live! And all this before the age of 40! Inconceivable in Greece! ( :

Anyway, my parents live and work on the campus of a very small private school, with about 130 students from 9-12. This morning, I had been scheduled to give a short talk to the religion class about Orthodoxy. It turned into quite an event, with the whole school (including faculty) being invited to attend. In the end, it was about 30 people. Interestingly, one girl is a foreign student from Moldava (Russian Orthodox), and I think she was very happy that someone was trying to explain her religion.

I showed some photos from my trips to Mt Athos and Serbia, and gave a historical timeline for the Church. In the bottom photo, I'm passing around a piece of cotton soaked with the myrrh from a wonderworking icon of the Panagia on the island of Andros.