You aren't a religious person—or at least, you didn't think you were until an hour ago. You had ducked into this small, Byzantine-era chapel simply to escape the midday heat of the Greek coast. But now, standing in the back behind a forest of flickering beeswax candles, the heat is the last thing on your mind.
It isn’t a plea of fear. As the chant swells, the words shed their literal meaning. The repetition becomes a heartbeat. You look up at the fresco of the Pantocrator in the dome, his eyes wide and haunting, and suddenly, the "mercy" being sung feels like a physical presence—a vast, shimmering ocean of compassion that makes your own life feel both infinitely small and infinitely precious. You aren't a religious person—or at least, you
You feel a sudden, hot prickle behind your eyelids. You try to swallow it down, but the cantor hits a high, mournful ornamentation, a vocal flutter that sounds like a bird trapped in a cathedral. It isn’t a plea of fear