The bum knee has me laid out. Most everyone is gone from the house to their family huddle-ups — just me and the precious Cretan, both equally inept at food-making. The normally chit-chattering back-atmosphere of passers-by outside Mun Su Am has been reduced to the sudden ambience of a tomb. Ah, there, now, are some ancient bells, pre-auguring the Midnight Mass in the cathedral unfolding. As the minutes pass, ever more layers of bells are added on. Every church in this ancient city now, it seems — they’re all filling now the dark empty night. The spirit opens. There is this still vastness, covering all things and in all things.

What’s a monk and a Greek to do in a Zen center without people? We have already done evening practice. It’s back to the editing lap-desk with heating pad installed and stoking.

Morrissey’s eternal bleating comes to mind, a revelatory Christmas Carol from hell: “The devil will find work for idle hands to do.” Even on Christmas Eve.

“A day without work is a day without eating.”

Someone caught me here fuelling up on Christmas Eve after a few hours of hard mental work on these current projects. This is the only meal of the day, as usual, so we make it count: a large bowl of homemade broccoli soup loaded with ghee and coconut oil, fresh garden salad with a block of feta cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and fresh German bread with slabs of real Irish butter. Everything is centered around helpful portions of organic locally-made kimchi – – the best, most living kimchi I’ve experienced in 30 years of eating the stuff. (It can be delivered Europe-wide from http://www.completeorganics.de — it’s the best kimchi that either I or our resident-Korean have ever experienced.)