Category Archives: history

From Britain to the the Black Sea….

history, saints, travel, , , , , ,

It is believed by the Orthodox Church that our Lord’s disciple Simon the Zealot was martyred in what is now the Republic of Georgia. I’ve been looking at maps of that world from the first century, but mine is never a systematic study, when I gaze at maps. Rarely do I come away with a clearer idea of geography or topography, or in this case, history. It’s one of those cases of too-muchness, and I no more hope to retain anything in particular than when I enjoy the view of of trees and plants from a hilltop.

After I leave the map I never can visualize where Georgia or the Black Sea are. I should put a map just above my computer monitor, where I could gaze at it more frequently; I might even switch it out for another part of the world every few months.

Did any of you ever see the curriculum called Mapping the World by Heart? I once bought a copy of the original hard copy version for myself, not my children, thinking that I could work on it at least once a week and learn my geography. But no.

What first piqued my interest in the journeys of St. Simon was an article by John Sanidopoulos titled St. Simon the Zealot and Apostle to Georgia, in which he discusses the sources of his name Zealot and also Simon the Canaanite. He might have been the groom at the Marriage at Cana! And he is said to have traveled in Britain. There are photographs in that post of holy sites associated with the saint, like this church in Novy Afon (New Athos).

The article contains no maps, but when I set about refreshing my memory by means of a few, I came across beautiful depictions of different eras, such as this German map below, showing the 12th century in my favorite colors.

The identifying words at left, “Schwarzes Meer” are sweetly evocative of the day I swam in the Black Sea for a few hours when I was 17, near Istanbul somewhere. I wish I had a print of the picture that I took to refer to, but it is indelibly inked on my mind: A brilliant and dark cerulean sea under a cloudless sky; our feet in the warm, clean sand, and my laughing friend Viv, willowy in her swimsuit, with white-blond hair flying in the breeze.

If I ever get back to Turkey, or visit Georgia, I’d like to spend time by the Black Sea again! Whether that happens  or not, it gives me joy to think about the gorgeous places on the earth, and about the many people who have lived out their lives here or there, many of them with faith, all of them by means of God’s multitude of gifts.

Sometimes when I am just walking through my house or garden I am surprised when I notice that here I am, in my place, alive and with work to do, a life to love. God put me here. I exist. Wonders never cease!

Did St. Simon feel this, as he lived out his life, doing God only knows what? There are many sometimes conflicting stories and traditions about him, but when you think of how many years he walked the earth, there had to be at least a few thousand interesting hours and events that no one ever took much account of, which only God and maybe St. Simon remember.

I ran across this stamp commemorating the saint that was issued in Georgia in the 1990’s:

The day set aside for St. Simon the Zealot in particular was back in May, so I am posting this on the day when he is remembered with all of Christ’s apostles. Rejoice, Holy Father Simon!

We remember together.

death, history, holidays, , ,

While the weather was of the wintry-spring sort, cold and rainy, we had a typical Memorial Day in several ways. There was barbecued meat and watermelon served on a red checkered tablecloth, and more importantly, a visit to the cemetery.

None of our friends or family are buried nearby, but not far away in Colorado Springs is the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery, which was the perfect place to visit today. The rain had stopped and it was only cloudy. We walked through the wet grass to read the markers on many graves, and we prayed.

As Liam and Laddie and I were straggling behind along the row of freshest graves, some from as recent as this month, we met a smiling woman leading a poodle, who asked us if we had seen the grave marker remembering an Air Force wife for being a “worrier.” Hmm…. no, we hadn’t! Was the worrier her relative? She said no. I quickly picked up on the fact that she was headed toward a different one of those recent graves, that of her husband who passed last year.

She began to tear up, and apologized for it. I asked if I could give her a hug, and learned that they had been married for 53 years. It was a sweet widows’ embrace that warmed us both on that drizzly morning.

While we had been wandering among the graves, we’d seen a soldier in camo going from grave to grave saluting smartly. After a time he began to play a pennywhistle, and to run through one battle or marching song after another. As we were leaving we sang along with his little flute, “God Bless America.”

Amen.

Natan’s Psalter

church, history, Psalms, , ,

A podcast I listened to at the beginning of Lent encouraged me in my desire to spend more time reading the Psalms. It was Fr. Patrick Reardon’s homily in which he exhorted his own parishioners on three points, one of which was the need to pray more during Lent. He suggested the Psalms, because the use of them is a tradition that was without doubt handed down to us by the Apostles.

Fr. Patrick told the moving story about the book of Psalms that Natan Sharansky‘s wife gave him the night before he was put in a Soviet prison, and how much it meant to him during the many years he spent there. Sharansky’s story of it is on the site of the National Library of Israel, where I found this photo.

If you would like to listen to Fr. Patrick’s homily yourself it can be found here: “As Though it Were Our Last.”

Intersecting losses make a harbinger.

books, history, quotes, , ,

Five speeches that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave  in the U.S. and in Britain in 1975 and 1976 make the book, Warning to the West. Today I sat on a log at the beach and got on with reading this collection that I’d started before Christmas; a while later I sat in my car overlooking the ocean and finished it.

It’s a nice little book, if you’d like a taste of Solzhenitsyn but don’t feel up to tackling one of his novels or The Gulag Archipelago. He said he prefers to write, but his speeches are powerful, and complement his writings. Taken altogether, these talks present a lot of history “from the inside,” and the perspective of someone whose analysis is based on thorough knowledge. His unique vantage point combines with true wisdom.

In different striking and blunt words to different groups, such as U.S. legislators and BBC listeners, he gives his prophetic message. While he uses details of events that were then recent history to make his points to his audience at the time, the heart of his concerns is ever pertinent and enduring.

“There is a German proverb which runs Mut verloren — alles verloren. ‘When courage is lost, all is lost.’ There is another Latin one, according to which loss of reason is the true harbinger of destruction. But what happens to a society in which both these losses — the loss of courage and the loss of reason — intersect? This is the picture which I found the West presents today.”

-Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn, 1976