SOUL FOOD:

My recent travel to the Deep South to visit family overlapped with a couple of events here in Southern California I wanted to attend. Had I been in town, though, I’d have been forced to choose between the two.

One was a conversation on “Orthodoxy, the Environment and Ecumenism,” a discussion among the Rev. John Chryssavgis, who is deacon of the Ecumenical Office of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and advisor to His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople; Eric D. Perl, a Loyola Marymount University associate professor of philosophy; and Douglas E. Burton-Christie, a professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University, which hosted the Huffington Ecumenical Institute event at its Los Angeles campus on Feb. 21.

For decades now Bartholomew I and Chryssavgis as well as other clergy, scholars and theologians have been making the connection between ecology, Orthodoxy and ecumenism.

A book by the often-called “Green Patriarch,” which ties the three elements together, is due to be released by Random House mid-year. I hope to review the volume in this column before then.

The other event also took place Feb. 21, right here in Surf City in the gymnasium of Huntington Beach High School. It was a sort of grand finale to the city’s 2007-08 “Huntington Beach Reads One Book.”

I hope, though, that it will instead prove to be a beginning, a seed planted that will grow with the doggedness of a kudzu vine in the Deep South.

Two weeks ago, Greg Mortenson — author and subject of “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time” — spoke to a crowd, some of whom arrived from cities as distant as Hollywood, San Diego and Palm Springs.

Among them was Consul General Syed Ibne Abbas from the Consulate of Pakistan in Los Angeles.

According to Mary Adams Urashima and Richard K. Moore of the Huntington Beach Human Relations Task Force, which chose “Three Cups of Tea” as the first book for the fledgling “Huntington Beach Reads One Book” program, nearly 2,000 people turned out on a chilly, rainy night to hear Mortenson speak.

Many stood in line for two hours or more to get the best seats.

Mortenson’s tale is the result, in part, of what has proved to be, quite literally, a happy accident.

A mountain climber, Mortenson set out some years ago to conquer K2, the second–tallest mountain in the world.

During the climb, however, he gave up his quest for the summit to aid another climber on his team. Descending the mountain, he became disoriented and ended up in the tiny village of Korphe.

While being nursed back to health, Mortenson discovered the village’s children scribbling lessons in the dirt, in “classrooms” with no teacher and no shelter from the harsh Himalayan elements.

The grateful climber vowed to return to build them a school.

He has since built 55, each like the school in Korphe in some of the most desolate regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The story is remarkable. But lest you think you must do something on the same scale in order to make a difference in the lives of others with whom we share this planet, let me tell you another story.

I returned from my travels just in time to hear the celebrated Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware speak at St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine.

The British-born Metropolitan is particularly known for his books, “The Orthodox Church” and “The Orthodox Way.” On Saturday, he told this story, a parable, to a capacity crowd of 600.

An old woman died and to her astonishment found herself in a lake of fire, on whose shore she saw her guardian angel walking. “This has to be a mistake,” she shouted. “I’m quite respectable. I don’t belong here.”

“Ah,” the angel replied. “Well, let’s see. During your life did you ever help anyone?”

“Yes. Yes,” the woman hastened to answer. “I once gave an onion to a beggar woman who came by while I was gardening.”

“Indeed!” said the angel. “As a matter of fact, I happen to have that very onion here.” Pulling the onion from his cloak (it must have been a shallot, the bishop suggested) the angel extended it to the old woman and, with it, began to pull her from the lake of fire.

Seeing this, others who were also in the lake began to clutch at the old woman in order to be rescued, too.

The onion, the woman thought, could not possibly hold all their weight.

So kicking and flailing to loosen their grip, she shouted, “Get away! It’s my onion. It’s not for you!” And when she did, the onion snapped and she fell back into the lake.

The bishop told the parable to make a specific theological point about God’s salvation and a Christian’s place in the Church. We are not meant to look at either in terms of “I,” “me” or “mine.”

Instead, we are to embrace the words Jesus used in what we call “The Lord’s Prayer:” “we,” “us” and “our.” It is a principle we might apply to all that comes into our hands.

We needn’t sell all that we own, as did Mortenson. We need not build 55 schools.

We simply need to start where we are, sharing what we have, giving from our hearts — as did Mortenson — to those whose need we perceive.

Doing so, we break the spell of self-centeredness and greed.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].