Since I have arrived in Europe, I have banged the top of my head on train ceilings, door lintels, boat portholes, and tunnel walls. I am a tall person, six-foot-three or so, and back home I am usually not very conscious of it, except in obvious places like basketball courts or airplane seats. In Europe these days, I have been forced to be conscious of it, through momentary pain and multiple scabs in my hair.

There has been an invitation concealed in my rather comical head-banging. It is an invitation to remember that these months are a spiritual journey, that, if it is to be genuinely Christian, has to involve an imitation of the Lord.

The doorway to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is tiny. The entrance to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem forces one to stoop. It does not seem an accident that the places where I have banged my head the hardest on this trip have been the monasteries of Mount Athos and of Meteora. Lower yourself: this is the way.