After a week in Athens getting approval for subsequent teams to photograph biblical manuscripts at the National Library and the University of Athens, Jon and Shannon revived the tourist aspect of their journey by renting a car and driving northward on Greece’s National Road 1 toward Thessalonica and Mount Athos. The “Holy Mountain” indeed, Athos had more monasteries per square mile than any place on earth.

While Shannon snoozed, Jon was ruminating to himself on the why of monasticism in almost every creed in the world, especially including Christianity. In the Old Testament, Elijah, Elisha, and the other great prophets each seemed to have had a desert experience—either alone or with like-minded followers. In the New, where did John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, hold forth? In the wilds of Judea, of course, though near the Jordan for his baptisms. And Jesus himself? Forty days in the wilderness at the start of his ministry, the background for his famous temptation by Satan. St. Paul? Same story. Following his celebrated conversion on the Damascus Road, he spent almost the next three years in the Arabian desert, gearing up for his ministry.

The lure of the solitary tracts, the wilderness, the wastelands. And not just in Judeo-Christianity. Five centuries before the birth of Christ, an Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama had left his wife and nine-year-old son for meditation in the forest to explore the meaning of life. And what was a forest, in terms of solitude, but a desert with many trees? He was there for seven years until he finally found the answer while sitting under the Bodhi tree and became the first “Buddha,” or “Enlightened One.” Zarathustra had had his wilderness experience as well, and the list went on and on.

Clearly, you couldn’t be a self-respecting religious luminary unless a desert experience was in your resume, Jon reflected. But why? Probably it was a case of clearer communication with God when one was in the wilds and far from the blandishments and seductions of life in the everyday world. Jon doubted that God spoke more loudly in the desert; it was just easier to hear him there.

Yet early Christianity was very outgoing and social, and for a time it had even seemed that it might be the first world religion without monks. Then, in the third century, a holy man by the name of Anthony fled into the Egyptian desert for a life of solitary contemplation, until the tour buses full of pilgrims, so to speak, arrived from Alexandria to see the holy hermit and the cave where he lived. Others, similarly inclined, sought out caves nearby and eventually monastic communities were born.

Except for anchorites like St. Simeon Stylites, who climbed atop a pole in Syria and sat there for the next thirty-plus years, monasteries were the rule thereafter. It remained only for St. Benedict, in the sixth century, to provide his famous threefold vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience to guide monasticism thenceforth.

But the monastic to whom Jon and his colleagues owed an incalculable debt was Cassiodorus, the sixth-century monk who had suggested that monasteries not only worship the Lord seven times a day and grow their own groceries, but also recopy ancient manuscripts so that priceless information from antiquity would not be lost. And so it was that monks in the medieval world preserved so much of the past tense of Western civilization.

Now they neared Kalambaka on the plains of Thessaly, beyond the halfway point to Thessalonica, where Jon left the main roads for an inevitable visit to Meteora. They had to take in Meteora, of course, and its series of monasteries that were perched precariously atop huge towers of rock. Quite aside from their role as tourist magnets, the monasteries were second in importance only to Mount Athos itself.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” Jon said as he parked the car at a vista observation point. “You’re about to see something that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before!”

Shannon opened her eyes and gasped. Before them was a sight that came directly out of a fairy tale or fantasy novel. Or was it the most outlandish panorama that Disney artists or Steven Spielberg or George Lucas could ever have contrived? It was as if some colossal device in the earth’s crust had extruded broad, thousand-foot columns of sheer rock that loomed so dizzily over the plains below that the Greeks had named the place Meteora, meaning “things hanging in midair.” And, impossible to believe, atop each of these gargantuan sandstone pinnacles was perched a monastery complex.

“When the Ottoman Turks invaded the Balkans,” Jon explained, “hermit monks sought refuge atop these gigantic rock piles, which were quite inaccessible to the Muslim occupiers.”

“How could they ever have built those structures way up there? Wasn’t that in the Middle Ages?”

“Yes, thirteenth, fourteenth century. The story goes that St. Athanasios, founder of the first monastery, was carried to the top by an eagle.”

They both chuckled.

“Well, truth to tell,” Jon went on, “they scaled some of the cliffs by cutting steps into the rock, though often they used long, rickety ladders lashed together.”

“Horrifying!” observed Shannon, who admitted to a touch of acrophobia.

“There used to be more than twenty monasteries here. Now there are six, and only four are still active. As in all branches of Christianity, monasticism is not exactly overrun with applicants.”

“It’s an incredible view,” Shannon said appreciatively. “Which one are we headed for?”

“Our appointment is with Father Simonides, the abbot of the second-largest monastery up there to the right: Varlaam.” Jon pointed up to structures that seemed to belong to the heavens rather than terra firma. Varlaam was perched atop a cliff towering nearly twelve hundred feet above the valley below. “With any luck, he’ll give us permission to inventory and photograph their most ancient manuscripts, and maybe he will even persuade his fellow abbots to do the same.”

As they walked to the base of the enormous butte below Varlaam monastery, Jon pulled out his cell phone to announce their arrival. After many nods of the head and choruses of “Nai . . . nai . . . nai,” Jon pocketed the phone and said, “Bad news and good news, Shannon. Which do you want first?”

“The bad, of course.”

Jon was grinning, so even the “bad” news couldn’t be all that devastating. “Well, we were going to drive up to the mesa opposite Varlaam and take the bridge to the monastery, but cracks were discovered at one of the bases of the bridge and it’s closed for inspection.”

“And the good?”

“I couldn’t be happier. They’re going to winch us up in a large netted basket or raft, just as they used to do for people and goods in past centuries.” Jon gestured to the contraption as they walked toward it.

Shannon laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going. If you are suicidally minded, you can go, Jon. I’m staying here.”

“Aw, c’mon, Shannon. It’s perfectly safe. Where’s your spirit of adventure?”

“Where it should be: next to my feet, which are planted firmly in the realm of sanity.”

“Look how sturdy these lines are—one-and-a-half-inch hemp. Now they’re calling to us from the top. Please hop on board?”

Shannon looked very skeptically at the contrivance. It had a small wooden floor, something like a raft that was covered with netting underneath and along the sides. The netting was bunched together at the top, where it was secured to the main hoisting rope cable. Two smaller ropes were attached to each side to stabilize the rig. It was interesting to look at, to be sure, but hardly worth risking one’s life, she concluded.

Just then, a monk came along to join them for the trip to the top. Smiling genially, he climbed onto the conveyance as if it were an Otis elevator. His confidence seemed to melt Shannon’s qualms, and she finally boarded also.

“Hoist away!” the monk called up in Greek.

Slowly the ascent began. Shannon actually enjoyed the first part of their voyage upward because of the spectacular view. But when they were two hundred feet off the ground, she made the mistake of looking down. She gasped and clutched at Jon’s arm.

“No, darling,” Jon soothed. “Don’t look straight down. Just keep looking out over this once-in-a-lifetime panorama.”

“But what’s that clickety-click sound up there?”

“Just the ratchet wheel on the windlass that’s hoisting us up. You always want to hear those clicks.”

“Why?”

“They prevent the winch from turning the other way.”

“In which case we’d hurtle back down?”

“Well . . . exactly.”

“Oh, how delightful! I wonder if that’s ever happened.”

“I understand that the windlass works perfectly. Most of the time, anyway.”

“Jon! Not a time to be joking.”

By now they were over halfway up to the monastery. While the view outward was breathtaking, any glance downward was terrifying. They were higher now than most radio towers, suspended between heaven and earth, and held only by hemp cables that looked quite worn. Now they themselves were also meteora.

Shannon was sorry that she had ever let Jon talk her into this exquisite bit of torture. She cast another glance at the hawsers that spelled life or death for them. “How often do they replace those ropes, Jon?”

He turned to the monk and asked the same question in Greek. When he had the answer, he turned to Shannon and smiled. “He thought the last time was when Lord Byron visited Greece in the 1830s.”

Both men hardly concealed their mirth. Shannon pondered which of them to hoist overboard first, but she decided their weight in the basket was beneficial to her own safety.

The monk then added another comment, which Jon translated. “The brother here was only spoofing,” he said. “As good stewards of property, they replace the ropes only ‘when the Lord lets them break!’”

“Not helpful, Jon!” she cried, Jon . . . Jon . . . Jon echoing across the entire valley. The men, however, were doing a miserable job of trying to stifle their laughter.

Suddenly the clickety-click stopped and the ascent upward was halted. A wind from the west had arisen, causing their rude gondola to start swinging from side to side. “What’s going on?” she demanded, her hands clammy.

Jon asked the monk, then replied, “He says that you should not be concerned. The machine breaks down sometimes, but they’re usually able to repair it in less than twenty-four hours.”

Her heart momentarily stopped. But then her mood changed to one of steel as she said, “Now listen closely, Jon. If I could let go of the edge of this witch’s basket you’ve arranged for me, instead of my holding on for dear life, these two hands would gladly wrap themselves around your throat until you begged for mercy. And the same goes for your new Greek friend there, monk or not! Now get me out of this mess, and I mean now.”

Realizing that once again he had stepped over the line, Jon admitted, sheepishly, “It was only a little joke, honey.”

The clickety-click resumed, and soon they were at the summit. Though Shannon’s knees were wobbly as she emerged from their netted elevator, she refused to give Jon the satisfaction of accepting his help in ascending the final steps to the courtyard of Varlaam monastery.

“Shannon, honey,” he called. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“Later, Jon,” she said through clenched teeth. Honestly, sometimes she wondered if her husband would ever grow up. As much as she loved the man, there were times she could hardly stand to be within ten feet of him.

A violet-robed warden of diminutive stature extended them a warm greeting, and Shannon tried to arrange her features into a more neutral state. The warden showed them to their quarters for the night, and Shannon was pleased to see that the room was nicely appointed—not the monastic cell she had expected—with twin beds and a window looking out over the valley below. Shannon quickly chose the bed away from that window.

By now it was late afternoon, a golden yolk of sun starting to drop onto the western horizon. The vesper had rung, and the brother monks gathered in the monastery chapel to chant their evening prayers. Jon and Shannon, however, were escorted to the refectory, where they were treated to a simple, though tasty, dinner of seafood broth, green beans, white fish, dark bread, and—of course—black olives. A pungent retsina wine, served in wooden goblets, assured them that they were in the very heart of Greece.

Early to bed, Jon finally admitted to her why their “ascension to heaven” was momentarily delayed. On the cell phone, he had asked the brother in charge of the windlass to halt the hoisting for a minute or two when they were near the top “so that they could gather in a final view.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” His voice was contrite. “I shouldn’t have taken your acrophobia so lightly. I really thought . . .” He paused.

“I’m listening.”

“I really thought the magnificent view would take your mind off the circumstances. I didn’t mean to scare you out of your wits. Truly I didn’t.”

Shannon took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time Jon’s enthusiasm had overridden his better judgment, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. Despite his sometimes-childish pranks, she did love him. And she somehow always found it in her heart to forgive him.

“Okay, Jon. I . . . I’ll try to forgive you. But if you want a good-night kiss, you’ll have to come over here. I’m not getting any closer to that window than I have to.”

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Jon appeared at her side. She squeezed over against the wall to make room for him on the narrow bed. He snuggled in and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you, darling. I love you.”

Surrendering to his embrace, she once again thanked God for bringing this wonderful, unpredictable, albeit exasperating, man into her life.

The meeting with Abbot Simonides the next morning went well enough, although it was complicated by the fact that the rotund, white-bearded archimandrite insisted on using his broken English instead of Greek—this in deference to Shannon. In responding to Jon’s manuscript project, Simonides promised to secure the cooperation of the other monasteries at Meteora, but admitted that they were better known for their museums, icons, and relics than their libraries. “Here at Varlaam,” he said proudly, “please to believe it: our museum has a finger of St. John the apostle, and also a shoulder blade of the apostle Andrew, brother of St. Peter!”

Shannon exchanged a glance with her husband that told it all: privately they would share a chuckle over the dear brother’s sincerity, but a simple smile and a nod were far more appropriate here.

“For your purposes, I would go to Holy Mountain,” the patriarch continued.

“That is indeed our plan, Your Grace,” Jon replied. “Mount Athos, in fact, is our next destination. But for the very reasons you mention, the collections at Meteora have been overlooked, I think. If you and your colleagues at the other monasteries here took a complete inventory of your manuscript collections, something priceless might yet be discovered and the world would be in your debt.”

The abbot’s eyebrows arched. Slowly he nodded and said, “Yes, we will do this. We will do this. And yes, let the photo people come too and make pictures of our treasures.”

“We could not ask for more, Your Grace,” Jon said.

Shannon knew that he was probably restraining himself from doing cartwheels in his delight. “We also deeply appreciate your hospitality at Varlaam,” Shannon added. “Ef charisto!”

“Parakalo!” Abbot Simonides replied. “It is nothing. It is nothing.”

“Ouxi! In fact, it is everything,” Jon commented.

Shannon’s favorite memory of their visit to Varlaam was when the abbot announced, in parting, that the crack at the base of the pedestrian bridge from the monastery to the adjoining plateau had been repaired, and that Varlaam’s service vehicle would drive them down to their car. She would not have to risk her life again on that netted raft, since the trip down the cliffside would have been even more terrifying, she assumed, a virtual descent into hell.

God was good! Her husband, on the other hand? Well, the jury was still out in his case.