Finding My Voice Through Letters

Ahh...back in Oxford, after three weeks in Macedonia. And guess what? So far, based on the four hours of daylight I have thus far experienced, it isn't a hard transition! It is a beautiful, sunny day with blue sky, and while some of my comrades have commented upon the heat, 26 degrees celsius is NOTHING compared to 40, even when you do take England's relatively high humidity into account (yes, I can now appreciate temperatures in centigrade!). I plan to spend my next few English days getting some odds and ends completed, meeting up with people, maybe even making a quick get-away to the Lake District; but also on the list is trying to come to grips with my experience in Macedonia these past three weeks. As anticipated, it was remarkable--and I do not use that word flippantly. I have seen God produce such fruit in myself and others... Again, it's hard to put all the emotions into words, but--for the sake of posterity, if nothing else--I will try.

Stepping onto the tarmac of Skopje Alexander the Great International Airport, I wondered what the heck I was doing there. The first thing was the heat. The Oxford I had left was in the hardly balmy upper sixties (I was still thinking in Fahrenheit at the time); here it was in the mid-nineties--and this was at night!

Secondly, while the airport and the nice, if rather silent, passport control officials looked the same (maybe they do all over the world, now that I think about it...), everything else seemed fearfully unfamiliar. Kosta and Nada, the founders of the Balkan Institute for Faith and Culture, were not even in the country, and I would be met by Roska, with whom I would be staying. I had met her, I'm sure, fleetingly in March, but amidst the swirl of faces that paraded by during that week I must confess I didn't remember her. We had corresponded via Facebook, and even had a near-collision in Granada a few weeks ago (oh yes, I haven't blogged about that yet, sorry!), but I was not at all comfortable in my ability to recognize her face. Then, to make my anxiety even more acute, my bag was just about the last to be offloaded. The very nice Macedonian man who had been making passes at me the entire flight (good-naturedly, and not at all in a creepy way) had long-since departed, and I was having frantic flashbacks of my luggage-less Paris existence. When my brown Pierre Cardin suitcase appeared through the plastic flaps, I had already started upon the tried-and-true bargain-with-God-method of prayer. I snatched it up--as well as one can snatch a sixty-pound bag of that size--and rushed the hundred feet outside (benefits of a small airport), hoping against hope that my hitherto untried memory for faces would prevail.

Thankfully, it didn't need to. (more to come)

A Pilgrimage for Pulter

Given the content of my most recent postings, you may think the title of this blog is a little inconsistent. But today I attempt to remedy this state of affairs, committing an act of transgressive geographic dissonance by planting my feet firmly back in that glorious Jerusalem of "England's green and pleasant land"--even while battling 100+ degree temperatures in Macedonia.

What better place to land than in "pleasant pastures" that William Blake himself would have been proud to own: Hertfordshire. This glorious county is a mere thirty miles from London, but could hardly feel more different from the "monstrous ant-hill on the plain / Of a too busy world" Wordsworth described (I seem to be in a very Romantic mood today). Rolling hills, furrows carved into farmland at the very dawn of ancient Briton, roofs thatched with local materials in the same manner as Shakespeare's--this is the Hertfordshire of which I speak.

But I am getting ahead of myself. What was my purpose in even breaching this country landscape, you may ask? Well, even more gloriously than its fourteenth-century thatched houses (I kid you not), Hertfordshire is famous to me as the birthplace and homeland of Lady Hester Pulter (1605-1678), poet, manuscript writer, and daughter of Sir James Ley, who can himself claim the titles of judge, privy councillor, Lord High Treasurer, and--most relevantly for you literary folks--tributee of Milton's Sonnet X.  She is my idol, and I am her Pultergeist. That is, I am one of the small, but growing number of literary scholars (using the term loosely, in my case) dedicated to more fully understanding this beautifully fascinating individual. Both my Princeton thesis and my Oxford master's dissertation have used Pulter's mid-seventeenth century manuscript as their primary source, and I hope to continue writing about her to some degree in my doctoral thesis. Most people focus on her writing in a Civil War context, examining the challenges posed to her royalist beliefs by Charles I's plight and subsequent execution.


But equally fascinating to me is the way Pulter integrates these public sentiments with her faith and the constrictions of her daily life. As the mother of fifteen children--all but two of which predeceased her!--Pulter knew what imprisonment felt like, her lying-in periods adding up to over a year of solitary confinement. Even so, her poetry is intimately conscious of the landscape around her, including a poem in which all her local rivers join the Thames in weeping for the lost king.

So when I heard that the house begun by her, finished by her grandson, demolished in the nineteenth century, and rebuilt in the twentieth, actually exists in the very real village of Cottered, which has a parish church with records and even graves of the Pulter family, I had to go. So, I did what any self-respecting journalist-turned-academic would do in such a situation: I went to the internet. I had previously consulted with other Pultergeists, but they were unable to provide me with any detailed information about the house's current owners, or even how to get there. I therefore did a quick Google search and found the contact information for St. John the Baptist Church in Cottered. The very kind reverend then referred me to someone else, who when he isn't playing the church organ is a rather remarkable local historian. He very kindly offered to show me around. So, I bought a train ticket, grabbed my trusty Cymbeline (my bike), and headed off to Hertfordshire.

The first thing I found out (in the next Google search) was that there is no train to Cottered; I would need to go to Baldock, and thence to Cottered. Hence, the need for Cymbeline. But I didn't mind; I retained the romantic notion of a quiet bike ride through the countryside serenaded by ubiquitous birdsong.

Alas, it wasn't to be. I wanted to get to Cottered before my dissertation was due, which meant that I would be riding my bike six miles each way through one of the bleakest Sundays of the year. Now, England doesn't get much full-out rain. But of course, this day it did. Thankfully, my friend Julia had loaned me her raincoat, and my backpack came with a built-in rain shield, so when I did arrive in Cottered, my computer and my torso, at least, were dry. Well, except for the sweat that had accumulated owing to my foolishly warm clothing choices (Hertfordshire is not flat after all, I learned). My hair and my pants (that's "trousers, for you Brits), though, were a different story. Thankfully, I had managed to arrive at 10:30, so I still had half an hour for my hair to dry before the 11am service.

This gave me plenty of time to meet Neville, my host, and look around the church. It dates from the 14th century, and one can literally read England's church history on its walls. When the church was renovated in the not-so-distant past, renovators uncovered a huge mural dating from around 1500. Unfortunately, the colors and details are faded, but I could still make out the image of St. Christopher, complete with, as Neville joked, a shape that is more than slightly reminiscent of a modern red British telephone booth (Dr. Who, perhaps?). This painting had been covered over during the Reformation, when Protestants, eager to remove all signs of their Catholic predecessors, despoiled images, artwork, and even whole churches throughout England. As a result, the whitewashed walls now look pretty bland, but the pity they evoked paled before that I experienced when I saw the size of the congregation. It was a special family service, so it was larger than normal, when parishioners often attend churches elsewhere. The church, the reverend told me, was typical of many English parish churches: Its population was aging with no young one to replace it. Consequently, it was most cost-efficient to have priests serve several different parishes simultaneously; Rev. Leverton currently officiates at five different churches--all of which he visited that weekend!

The service itself, though, was beautiful, with some very cute kids playing the parts of the disciples in a story from the New Testament. It was rather formal in terms of the Anglican order of service, but I had little trouble following along. Then afterwards, Neville showed me around the church, pointing out the graves of Hester's family and some of the more famous rectors (e.g. Anthony Trollope, grandfather of the Victorian novelist).

But my visit wasn't over yet. Neville then took me home, where he, his wife, and I enjoyed an absolutely lovely meal. It was so simple, so heartfelt, and so relaxing that I completely forgot about the single-minded stress of my Oxford life only a few hours away. Chatting over a lunch of salad and cold meats, I started to long that every Sunday could be like this, sharing the humble joys of life with two septuagenarians (at least) who had clearly seen and loved much of it. We sat at their kitchen table, crowded into a room that would be seen as abysmally small by American standards. But the age of the house (hundreds of years), and the care evident in, for example, the collection of commemorative royal teacups and coffee mugs, turned this seeming inadequacy into a pleasant quaintness that wasn't at all lacking.

We talked for much longer than I had envisioned, but shorter than I wished, and then Neville gave me the grand tour of the village. I just couldn't believe the ease and frequency with which he pointed out thatched-roof houses dating from the English renaissance itself. The village seemed to have been crystallized in a time-proof snowglobe (without snow, of course), buildings proudly yet artlessly proclaiming their noble and ancient heritage, Neville pouring over all the details of the intricately-knit community that still knew everything that was going on within its purview.


But then we went to Broadfield. Here, to a certain extent, the snowglobe was broken. Its owners, he told me, are Continental immigrants, and have little contact with the community at large. This is different than it has been, when the owner, a close relative of the royal family, reserved places at a public event (a funeral, I think?) for Cottered residents. Now, though, the family is largely unknown, while getting inside its home is the fervent desire of every Pultergeist. Little remains of the seventeenth-century building aside from the stables, but the foundation is still there, and the house even resembles pictures I have seen in local histories from the period.

The Stables of Broadfield Hall, reportedly the only part remaining of the original seventeenth/eighteenth-century house.

Ok, you caught me: How do I know this if not even Neville knows the family? Well, we snuck in. Neville seditiously drove his red little car right up to the front door, both of us praying all the while that the owners wouldn't emerge to arrest us as trespassers. He even paused to take my picture (though I promptly deleted it later upon viewing my disheveled self). Who knew that history-loving, organ-playing septuagenarians could be so brazen?

The main house. Yep, that's Neville's trespassing car.

Alas, then it was time to go back to Oxford. Thankfully, Neville had been right in assuring me that biking to Baldock was easier than going from it. The route was so one-directional in terms of altitude that it took me less than half the time to return to the station. Of course, it was still raining (had never stopped actually, merely let up a bit around the time we went out to Broadfield). But I had nowhere to get to in particular. All I cared about was getting shower, getting dry, and never getting wet again for the rest of my life.

So that was my visit to Hertfordshire. Perhaps it wasn't the idyllic working vacation I imagined. Perhaps I didn't experience a surge of inspiration that fueled me until I submitted my dissertation. Perhaps I didn't see inside Broadfield Hall itself. But I did experience the world of Hester Pulter, led by one of the most lovely and generous Brits I have yet met. I can now read of "poore Bradfields dreames" with a mental picture fixed in reality. Maybe, in fact, that is more than enough, for as Hester herself says in a poem written when her children were "at London, I at Bradfield", our kingdom is not of this world at all: 

When my freed soul, flies to her place of Birth;

Then am I brave, my foot then spurns this Earth.

My mind being rais'd above these Worldly jars;

Mee thinks I play at football withe the stars 
(Brotherton MS Lt q. 32, f. 56r)

Emerging from the Shell, Part 10: Coda

Ironically, it has taken the entire Trinity term for me to finish blogging about my experiences in Macedonia--to the point where I have finished my Oxford degree and am back in Skopje! There is little left to tell after the preceding post, or at least, there is little left I can tell, given my limited literary capacity. Our group's spring trip to Macedonia in March touched a chord deep within me left unresonant since my trips to Romania and Zambia in high school. I was reminded of this chord a few months earlier, at PEF's missions conference in the spring of 2010. This conference left me profoundly unsettled, after it reminded me of my childhood sense of God's calling me to missions work; written in my uneven, yet earnestly adult-emulating cursive, my fourth-grade journal in my "Posterity Box" records my ambition to be "either a missionary or an archeologist [sic]". When I heard Jon Hinkson preach at Princeton about the legacy of the four Princeton students who founded the Student Volunteers Movement in 1888, therefore, I was abashed. Why, when had I abandoned that childhood dream? What was I doing on this straight and narrow path into English academia? Were all my applications, acceptances, independent work for naught? Should I drop everything and go into missions instead?

I was distraught for days. Though it may not have been evident to those around me, I was torn mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, as I wrestled against what felt like Jacob's angel himself. I was experiencing a battle between the will to stay on the academic, world-sanctioned path to which I thought I had been called, and the will to obey the missions urge that had been reawakened so recently in McCosh 10. I sought advice from those around me--Christian professors, PEF staff, etc.--desperately hoping for insight that would soothe the conflict within my breast.

And then it hit me: There should be no such dichotomy between missions and academia. Who was I to think that I wasn't called, like every Christian, to be a missionary in whatever pursuit to which God calls me? As anyone who has ever broached the upper echelons of higher education will tell you, the academic world is dark, particularly in the humanities. It is a world, in many senses, of irrevocable subjectivity, a world in which the absence of truth verifiable via the scientific method has spawned an unquestionable acknowledgement of the inherent personability--and therefore non-communal relevance--of Truth (however one chooses to define it). This is the world to which I feel God is calling me. And Macedonia was the place where I first glimpsed the slow, yet substantive overturning of that world in action.

Hence, I am now back in Macedonia, volunteering my time with the Balkan Institute for Faith and Culture in any and every way I can. This means, in my case, teaching a writing seminar for young Macedonians and helping edit English-language documents. I cannot be more honored to be here. And I cannot be more excited about what is emerging in this nation.

Rachel Dunn, Macedonian correspondent, signing off.

Emerging from the Shell, Part 9: Recognizing Religion

After our little, ahem, attendance, we were significantly delayed, so we had to emend our plans to visit a picturesque little Macedonian village. We didn’t mind too much, though, since this meant we could eat lunch—at a quintessential ski resort restaurant on the edge of a mountain. Nevertheless, it was an odd sensation to walk into an elegant  log-built chalet, take a seat at tables with thick white cloth napkins, revel in the postcard-esque view of a crumbling one-room church at the edge of a massive lake—and realize that we were the only non-residents for miles around. The town in which we stopped, like so many others through which we passed, was completely deserted. No doubt this was because of the season (few people like to go to a ski resort in summer), but it was eerie nonetheless. Of course, beautiful rainbow platters of roasted vegetables and salad put our minds at rest—and we got great service. :) 

But the floor was Kosta’s, and he used it to deliver a concise, yet fascinating look at the history of the Balkans. I will confess I do not remember a quarter of his narration—in addition to being a perceptive Macedonian native, Kosta’s dissertation research explored the history of the Macedonian church—but I clearly recall being amazed at the centuries of military back-and-forth the region has undergone. Everyone lauds Cyril and Methodius, the Christian brothers (and now saints) who gave us the “Cyrillic” alphabet in the ninth century, but there is little agreement on anything else. One empire after another has swept through the Balkans, and as Kosta narrated, I could almost imagine a force of battle-hardened troops sweeping over the mountain headed toward us across the valley. But then the incongruence of imagination and memory compared to the present: my eyes fell on the series of national flags outside of the resort, and I was again reminded of the stillness that pervaded the entire valley, and of the materialism that renders even political differences moot. 

Then it was off to Tetovo, where we stopped to view the celebrated “Painted Mosque.” After my travels to India with Princeton’s Religious Life Council, Islamic houses of worship are not new to me, and the mosque itself wasn’t that large. Yet it was impressive for the incredible quantity of artwork adorning its walls. To be honest, it reminded me of a house built of colorful playing cards; I half-expected it to collapse at any moment.

Perhaps this recollection of my RLC days was what made the subsequent experience feel so, well, academic. Kosta had been in contact with the leader of the Bektashi  Muslim sect quartered in Tetovo, and he had arranged for us to meet the dervish (a Bektashi community leader—he doesn’t whirl, though) and be introduced a little more to Macedonia’s religious climate. The visit certainly did that. Kosta warned us that he had no idea what to expect, other than dinner and an interesting experience. What we got was far more. We arrived at around seven o’clock, by which time it was already dark. But it doesn’t seem that Bektashis are big fans or electricity, or maybe their “inner light” is enough, for Benny, our host, led us around the complex in darkness. First he showed us the open building where they prayed in community. But the Bektashis are also one of the least powerful Muslim sects, and the official discrimination that Benny (and Kosta) acknowledged appears in the form of Muslims of other sects coming and using the building for their own prayers. As a result, the Bektashis are outnumbered in their own prayer-room. But they, espousing a seemingly genuine desire for peace, refuse to make restrictions—even if such restrictions would not, as I presume, be deemed justification for further discrimination against the group. 

Then Benny introduced us to the dervish, the highest-ranking Bektashi member present in the absence of the Baba. They then led us to a strange little wooden structure housing the grave of the founder of the Bektashi community. This, I think, was where I and the rest of the group began to feel just how distinct we were from our amiable, yet definitely un-Christian hosts. They instructed us to take the step into the building with our left foot, for the right was unlucky. Then we were to enter the grave-room, also with the left foot, where we saw the cloth-draped coffin of the religious leader, surrounded with candles and a colorful portrait. Frankly, it was awkward. Not only did I make a mistake and enter the room with the wrong foot, but they invited us to maintain a silence and say a prayer if we wished. I don’t know about the others, but I felt no urge to pray—except perhaps that Benny and the dervish would see what foolishness such demagoguery was. I felt distinctly aloof from the entire proceedings, like when I visited the Jain and B’hai temples in India.  I pitied Benny, the dervish, and the other Bektashis, for they could not see how futile it was to reverence a man who was only man. I felt, I now realize to my extreme shame, almost a slight disdain, for such reverence paled before the God that I knew, a God that was intimately man, yet simultaneously and infinitely God.  As Benny told us to exit the room, bowing, keeping our fronts to the grave, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for people whose faith is premised upon so much requisite ritual for a corpse that will never rise. 

But then we went into dinner. On a purely carnal level, it was story of tantalization. We sat down at long tables, decked with more national flags and surrounded by pictures of the Baba with heads of state ranging from European presidents to American ambassadors. Just as interesting to me, though, was the heaping bowl of fresh apples—which one of our hosts promptly removed. It felt like a long time since lunch, and apples are, after all, my favorite. But they were cleared away, and before our places were set and the dinner was served, we had to go through what seemed an exceedingly long and laborious ceremony. Prayers were said, and then a bowl of salt was passed from one person to the next (with the left hand), into which we dipped our fingers for a pinch of salt. As several people said afterwards, this ceremony exemplified the extreme regulation characterizing the entire meal. We were given precise instructions on how to pass the salt, eat the salt, move our left hand, hold our right hand, focus our eyes, etc. And then we were given raki (or rakia), a clear, hard liquor containing up to 60% alcohol (when home-brewed)—yikes!—that that could only be drunk—and must be drunk—whenever the rather silent dervish gave permission. And when it was drunk, it was drunk in sets of three, symbolizing some Bektashi tenet that I don’t remember anymore. In this controlled atmosphere, I suppose it was not surprising that we were made to wait forever for the meal; it was probably done purposefully to encourage discipline. 

On the one hand, this extreme control felt very relaxing. It is comforting sometimes to eat slowly and swell on mundane, if esoteric actions to keep the mind from wandering to more anxious or less edifying thoughts. I will admit, I felt very peaceful when the evening was concluded. 

Yet on the other hand, the regulation forced us to participate in a ceremony that was actively, explicitly unchristian in origin. Benny encouraged us to pass off overtly Bektashi rituals as Christian ones. “Drink to the Trinity,” he said, for example, when he was dictating the triune sips of raki, which several of us had only managed to abstain from after extended pressure. In a way, though, this felt even more religiously uncomfortable than silently going along with the Bektashi mode of thinking; it seems blasphemous to associate the Trinity with what Bonolo—fittingly, I admitted later—deemed a drinking game. Because of my experiences on the RLC, to which this felt infinitely similar, I probably felt less uncomfortable with the entire evening than many of the group; I have learned to “turn off my Christian brain,” so to speak, and imbibe foreign culture as just that: culture. Yet even the very words I have used to describe this speak to the danger in which this places me. Imbibing too much of such pluralistic, non-Christian jargon and feeling risks dulling the senses to the very tangible differences between our faith, our God, and the one worshipped by Benny in mysticism and ritual. They are not the same, and I’m glad my Oxford group was there afterward to remind me just how distinct they are. Benny and the dervish were really disappointed that the Baba couldn’t be there to meet us and take a picture with us, so they proposed meeting us Sunday morning. But, of course, we had church. So they said they would meet us there. At first, we thought, “What a great evangelistic tool!” But after considering overnight, Kosta and Nada called the tekke and decided it was probably better that the Baba doesn’t show up on the church’s doorstep. Not only did we have no idea what they would do when confronted with a churchful of fervent evangelical Christians, but we were all loathe to become a part of the gallery adorning the walls of the dinner room. To my mind, becoming immortalized on the Baba’s wall would have been tantamount to condoning his beliefs and all that he represents. I am all for standing up for a discriminated minority, but it is much more complicated when that minority’s beliefs are antithetical to your own.   

The following day’s visit to Kosta’s orthodox priest friend the next day thus felt, by contrast, cathartic. The tekke felt rigid, controlled, and empty; even the people preparing food for us in the kitchen were kept largely out of sight. But at the orthodox church, the center of the priest’s efforts to promote religious revival among his parishioners by a return to the Scripture itself, we felt instant welcome, abundant joy, and immeasurable blessing. Our fare there was simple by comparison, just some light snacks of biscuits (aka small, hard cookies), nuts, and other sundries. But I still maintain that the spirit of love there was palpable, embodied in the warm smiles of the matronly women assisting the priest. In the tekke, as in the monastery, the dervish had been called away by a cell phone call; here, our host ignored it, and proceeded to outline in detail his dream of educating his flock in the tenets and active, fervent faith espoused in the Bible. Commitment, he said via Kosta’s translation (though occasionally the priest himself, knowing some English, corrected the latter), is a profound issue within the Orthodox church, and intimately connected with the lack of knowledge regarding what the Bible actually says. So, on his own, this priest put together something similar to an Alpha course, a progressive religious educational model where his parishioners learn to appreciate the historical roots of the Orthodox Church while appreciating even more the Christian faith on which that Church is founded. It was an amazing project, one in which Kosta is actively involved. And it was rendered all the more amazing by the contrast it formed to the Bekhtashism we encountered the previous evening.

Emerging from the Shell, Part 8: Mountains and Monasteries

And Friday dawned. The vehicles were filled. And we set off into the mountains of Macedonia.

For those who have never been to this region of the world (including myself, prior to March), seeing the Balkans in person helps to understand why its people(s) have fought so hard to retain it. From Skopje, one can see the outline of a rugged landscape, can glimpse the snow-capped mountains peering behind the rising apartment complexes, even while marveling at the tangibility of the endemic conflicts embodied in the glowing cross brazenly set atop one of the highest hills. But only when one gets away from the city does one begin to appreciate the country's stunning beauty. The hills reminded me of slightly less verdant Swiss Alps, with a clear timberline, set with extensive mountain lakes fed (presumably) by snow melts.

Yet there was an odd sense of emptiness. Now, with places that have never been inhabited or culled by humans, even the most desolate landscapes seem complete somehow; even the sense of void in, say, northern India feels natural in its stillness. But it is completely different when one drives along lonely mountain roads ragged with vestiges of unfulfilled domestication. Whole towns empty, almost giving a sense of being laid waste, waiting for the arrival of the seasonal tourists seeking (I gather) skiing nirvana.When we stopped for lunch, for example, we entered a huge log-hewn resort boasting of its international bienvenue, and we walked into a dining room the elegance of which matched the magnificent view of the mountain slopes, the sun-reflecting lake, and the tiny church perched on the water's edge. But we were the only ones there. It was like walking into an old west ghost town, only the proprietors here were much younger, better-dressed, and much more capable of quality cuisine.

The land itself also fed my growing sense of incongruity. I initially thought the afore-mentioned streams, for example,were bejeweled with some diligent mountain dweller's week's-worth of laundry. I thought I had returned to Zambia. Only when we got closer did I realize that what we were seeing was trash, loads upon loads of colored cloth, plastic, and other junk washed down the hills, thereafter getting caught in tree branches and rock outcroppings.In retrospect, I should have realized that the country of Skopje's burgeoning urban development was hardly the place to have women doing their laundry in mountain streams and hanging them on nearby trees, but somehow it didn't seem out of place at the time. After realizing what the "clothes" really were, though, I couldn't help regret the vagabond image of the landscape.

The purpose of our outing, though, was more than just touring the countryside. After a few hours' ride, we arrived at St. Jovan Bigorski, an orthodox monastery perched on the very edge of Mt. Bistra, above the banks of the River Radika. The Macedonia tourism website describes it as reminiscent of Mt. Athos in Greece, and it certainly warrants such a comparison. The monastery is a remarkably efficient, self-organized complex, supplemented by visits and supplies from the townspeople nearby. The architecture reminded me again of a central European chalet, complete with the rich contrast of white walls and dark, intricately carved wood, completely consistent with a nineteenth-century monastery built on the remains of an 11th-century church. The complex is in a moment of recovery, though, as it was still being repaired after a fire in one of the buildings. This seems to be a not inconsequential threat. Evidently, being out in the middle of the mountains poses difficulties when it comes to fire prevention and control.

Thankfully, though, the fire had not touched the chapel and the priceless treasures within. I remember reading of old medieval castles and Mediterranean villas that had walls brightly colored with florid paintings and elaborate frescoes, now reduced to the merest suggestion of color on a small section of wall. Well, I imagine those castles and villas may have looked similar to the inside of this chapel. Saints were depicted in vivid color, sheltering centuries-old medieval reliquaries supported by the devotion of orthodox pilgrims. But the pride and joy of the chapel is its iconostasis, the wooden boundary carved by a local craftsman and his son (perhaps sons?) between the main sanctuary and the nave behind where the priests do their consecrated work. It is, by any measure, stunning, with biblical as well as provincial scenes that completely befuddle one's understanding of the laws of physics: How did they carve whole scenes amidst the ivy lattice? How did they get those animals inside without joining multiple pieces of wood? It's simply not possible! Because, by the way, that's one gigantic slab of wood.

Several of us couldn't help remarking afterward, though, that it's a shame so much work and devotion has been dedicated to a structure symbolic of the divide between the lay parishioner and the God he or she worships. After Jesus offered himself on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn, symbolizing that Jesus is now our intermediary between heaven and earth; we need no other emissary. But the iconostasis physically embodies the idea that the priest has a special status in relation to God that is simply unavailable to his flock. How sad that something so beautiful can symbolize something so disheartening.

It would have been nice to try to discuss such issues with one of the brothers. Unfortunately, the brother who was supposed to guide us around received a cell phone call shortly after meeting us and stepped away--for a whole hour! We waited patiently in our little alcove, laughing at how every time we met a religious leader, his cell phone rang. But then the minutes began to multiply, and we waited longer...and longer...and longer.  By the time he returned, his time with us was just about up, as was our time at the monastery. We received the quickest of tours around the main building, before heading out to the van to continue our journey into the mountains. We were, of course, on a schedule, with many more things yet to see.

Slight digression, in honor of Oxford and her Hallowed Examination Protocol

I just received this in my mailbox. The content is so priceless it needs little elucidation. I do want to point out, though, that only in Oxford would an injunction against partying appeal to the recipient's sense of legacy.

Dear Student,

In our “normal” lives, the Proctors are Tutors. In this capacity we should like to wish those of you who are taking exams this summer very good luck.

However, we’re emailing about celebrations after the end of exams. Safety and public order are our core concerns. Of course we want you to enjoy coming out of your last exam.  But we urge you to celebrate responsibly and to show consideration for other students still completing exam papers. Please also consider local residents, including passing cars and the risk to cyclists and pedestrians.  So having worked hard, enjoy finishing your last exam and meeting others from theirs. Closed champagne bottles, flowers and balloons and biodegradable confetti are all fine!

But please – NO FOOD ITEMS or GLITTER or SILLY STRING. In particular, there is no tradition of the abuse of food in “trashing”.  The very idea is a recent invention and one which is particularly offensive in a city where there are many homeless and hungry people.  In previous years some members of the public have been injured by slipping on flour wet from champagne and eggs.  Complaints have been made by shop-keepers whose businesses were affected by mess left on their windows and doorways.  You should also be aware that there have been cases in which potential employers have noted evidence of “trashing” displayed on websites.

We therefore need your help in keeping people safe, and stamping out the abuse of all foodstuffs. No flour, no eggs, no beans, ketchup, let alone rotting food or worse. In addition, pubs may not admit students covered in foodstuffs. Please remember that every pound the University has to spend on the cost of cleaning up means that there is one pound less for bursaries, scholarships, and hardship funds.

Rotting food, vomit, broken glass and other items causing litter are simply not what any of us wants to see. They are a disgrace and potentially dangerous. Please note that the University’s rules are given at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/oxonly/conduct/. The Proctors will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against those who break them.

We hope very much that you will lend us your full co-operation and that you will have a very successful time over the next few weeks.

Good luck with your exams and enjoy finishing and celebrating in College.

Emerging from the Shell, Part 7: From TV to Scenery

So, sorry for the hiatus! I am writing to you on an absolutely STUNNING day in Oxford--so stunning, in fact, that it has all the native Brits somewhat befuddled. I simply cannot remember the last time we had rain, or even a fully cloudy day, and I'm a little worried that all the sun is going to start affecting the people. Who knows, maybe they'll start being, heaven forbid, emotionally demonstrative! My Irish friend frankly admitted that all the sun was making her uncomfortable, but I must say seeing the sun glint off of the shimmering vermillion hues outside my window, or running through blankets of cherry blossoms, or challenging geese for dominance at our picnic spot along the river Thames--well, I can imagine worse fates.

But I must get back to Macedonia, before I forget about it! I believe I left off (roughly) on Thursday. This was our second day of lectures, featuring Deborah on Milton and Helen on TOEFL prep. But the evening was the main event: the Veritas Forum, the very public inaugural launch of the Balkan Institute for Faith and Culture. The mission of the BIFC is, as I may have stated earlier, to bring Christianity out of the shadows into the public discourse. Nowhere was this more explicitly manifested than in the Veritas Forum, a Harvard-founded program that has spread across the globe, bringing Christians and non-Christians together in dialogue on issues relating to faith. For our incarnation, Jonathan gave a fascinating talk about his research into the intersection of spirituality and film. Art, and this medium in particular, he argued, has a unique ability to act as a conduit for profound spiritual experiences. We have all been touched by a particular movie, and many people can relate to the possibility of film as a life-changing experience. God, in other words, can act through art, using people's expressive gifts to communicate important, otherwise inexpressible truths.

It was a fascinating talk, even when broken up by translation. It's just too bad that Jonathan's respondent, a Macedonian academic, couldn't have been disrupted likewise. We had utterly no idea what he was saying--well, except for when we caught words like "Nietsche," or "Marx," etc. Before my mind started to cloud over, and before we all fell into giggling fits at Christian's Macedonian "translation," I caught a surprising number of such words. Evidently, we heard later, the professor went on a long, meandering "who's who" of philosophical thought in response to Jonathan's talk (which only put the latter's presentation in a better light, incidentally).

The Macedonian-speaking audience clearly did not have trouble following the discussion, though, since the question and answer time was active, engaged, and abundant--not just in terms of thoughts, but of people! There must have been over 200 people in the meeting room of the Skopje Holiday Inn (a very nice establishment, by the way), including some inquisitive students who we had spoken with earlier in the week at the Nova School, and who were eager to continue the discussions started there. It was a great cross-section of people, of all demographics, from Christians whose extended lifespans had given them much opportunity to come to know God, to young people who were still exploring matters of faith. Furthermore, the talk was filmed by national television, and since there aren't that many programs to fill its roster, the people of Macedonia will have many more opportunities to hear Jonathan's paper!

The forum was therefore a fantastic experience, not just for the discussions started, but for the exposure it gave to the BIFC. Hopefully Kosta and Nada will now be able to build upon a public perception positively enhanced by the talk.

Friday dawned, though, and with it a whole different experience of Macedonia. From issues of media and culture, disseminated by national television, we went to probably the most distanced place from it: St. Peter's Monastery, an orthodox brotherhood perched high on the side of one of the Macedonian mountains.