Perpetual Change

Zagreb, part II - There

Today, we had a nice breakfast, but were a bit late to church for Morning Prayer, which is much the same as the big group prayer but it is only the people in our Parish. I read at church. Then moderated the small group which turned out not to have a common language; it went well but also missed umph (it gathered some steam the second and third day). Then we went to the city center, but while waiting for the train we went first to tea with some other Ukrainians who were very complimentary of my Ukrainain (their English is also very impressive) and we were served by a funny, wise-cracking Croat tea maiden. They have red tea here, which is really good. (It turned out that we were to hang out a lot with the Ukrainian ladies and even have twice since coming back to Ukraine despite the fact that they live in other towns). Then we had the group lunch and went to prayer all together; it was much the same as the day before.

The tea maiden had asked for my Peace Corps pin, which has both the US and Ukrainian flags on it. I didn’t want to give it up, but later I felt stingy, so I went back the next day, but she wasn’t working and then the pin got ruined/changed at disco on the last night. Another interesting story happened while we were walking to the station. A man in a car stopped to ask us what sounded like “do you know how to get to…?” and we just started to look lost, and he said, “Oh, Taize. Thank you.” And drove off to look for someone else. The scope of this whole endeavour was really amazing.

After the afternoon prayer we went to a seminar led by an Italian nun and an Italian volunteer. It was about refugees from the Balkan Wars. I thought it would be about the wars more, and was a bit disappointed at first. There was some language juggling (ended up with volunteer speaking in English, nun in French, and a Brother from the conference translating to English) and then the first part was rather “preaching to the choir” but as they talked more, and then as we asked questions we understood more. It turned out to be very interesting, because working with refugees really has very little to do with war, and had a lot to do with giving back their dignity. The volunteer related a story about how some refugees just wanted to have them for dinner, not for them to do anything, NOT to talk about the war, just to enjoy their hospitality. They really wanted to do something to help, but then they understood, and how just giving these people a normal evening helps to neutralize at least a bit the horribleness of it all.

After this seminar, I went to silence and confession. There was only a French priest and his English wasn’t good enough to really have a discussion. It wasn’t very fulfilling but my opinions of sin have changed; also, I felt a great disconnect and this type communion/discussion is very important for me for the healing process. Then we at dinner; again, very well organized. Then we went in to prayer early, because I wanted to sit very close for prayer. I wanted to sit alone, so luckily the girls happened to be near us, and they invited Gino over (who understands alone time well), but in his place sat down a young man who turned out to be American (1 of 7, we heard of being at the conference – I brought 2 with me). He is working to rebuild a church in Eastern Germany. He had done two years at the Air Force Academy.

I had hoped for more “umph” up near the front, but it was still lacking, and then they did a prayer around the cross that was rather strange to me. Another Ukrainian recognized me from the conference this summer in early July (remember the speech with the ambassador of Indonesia – see International Youth Municipal Hearings - November 13). We had talked there a bit, but now she was acting strange. She wanted to take a picture with me after the service but while there were still many people praying, and she wanted me to skip and go to some island on the coast the next day. I tried to politely decline; from her face, it was obvious that she thought me a prude. Michelle, who was supposed to have met us in Budapest, but got sick, miraculously walked into the right building and found us; really stumbled upon us, out of 30,000 people. Then we met Nikola, and he drove us all home. We got her a family. I went to the animators meeting and they had me practice singing my part for tomorrow’s Morning Prayer! We had some tea and rum from the Bosnian, Ivytsia (which I think might be their name for John), while we were talking. Then when I got home after 11, I had a whole pizza that Stanka had made because the others had already eaten their share. Slavs can be very pushy with food, but it was good, and Gino sang and played songs on the guitar till we were all so exhausted, that we practically fell into bed.

The next day, the Yuriy got up early and went with some girls from our group to the Dalmation coast. They weren’t supposed to but Jura, the leader, didn’t stop them. I think after his 12 trips, he thinks it is inevitable. The Morning Prayer had real spirit, and I didn’t mess up my sung part! The small group had some interesting discussions. Jura brought up some difficult issues with the criminal who broke into his house. It was rather scary. I consider him so normal and average, but even in his life he has dealt with deaths, shot brother-in-laws, x-rayed pregnant wives, a lonely mother, and newborns, plus his church, work, and civil responsibilities. We broke up though because other groups did, even though we had time and a good discussion going. They should have had groups more spread out, and a short but significant training for animators. So we went to town and ate in a COLD hall. The temperature had dropped and there was lots of fog (magla in Croatian – one of my favourite words). Prayer was small, because many people had skipped out to do other things today, like Yuriy. People have really got into the prayers, at least those left, and the silence – an integral part of this communion – was instantly silent. Gino is very impressive in his talent and caring. He always stops to help or ask and often starts genuine conversations with an ease and earnest that I have rarely seen. He helped a random girl in my town before we left who was struggling with her suitcase on the (good) assumption that she was heading to the trip too; and this day, he helped a physically handicapped boy in the pedestrian underpass to get up the stairs, even though there were already a lot of people helping already.

After prayer, our parish organized a tour of the city which was great, but foggy. It is really an amazing city, and between its structure, and the 30,000 of us walking around, the whole city seemed like an open air museum. I wondered what it would be like the experience this event as a local. Our parish seemed to really like it and showing their city to us. Not to mention Nikola. After the tour, which he came on, he took us to get Slovakian snack called chevapi. I made some comment about going somewhere else at the end of our tour as I thanked the girl who had conducted it and she said, “oh, are you not going back?” and I said that Nikola was taking us somewhere. She asked him where in Croatian, and in the short conversation that ensued, I thought based on tone and body language that she had said that she wanted to come, but couldn’t. I offered in English to bring her some, and she said, “no, you misunderstood. I DON’T eat that stuff, and I don’t think Nikola should either. I liked it though. It is like seasoned ground meat grilled/fried in a special way and served with onions and hot pita bread. It is really very similar to a spiced hamburger. During our time at the café, Nikola told us about his battle with hard drugs and how he had ran one night to an OLD icon at the OLD northern gate to the city. It is called the Lady of the stone gate, and you walk from the open street into this dark, small medieval gate where lots of candles are lit and lots of people are praying and there are even some pews in one corner. We had seen it that day and it has quite an atmosphere. He ran there from his town one night (a trip that takes us 10 minutes on the train) because he was so confused and addicted; and there was a beautiful girl there who comforted him. He thinks she was an angel; he says he has never seen anyone so beautiful and he has never been able to spot her again in Zagreb. He quit drugs that day, and has been very religious since. He wants his family to be more religious and apparently belongs to a somewhat ultra-conservative church but doesn’t seem to pressure anyone. His story was beautiful, but because of it we missed getting to dinner that night, which also meant we missed the distribution of lunches for the next day. We were to be given a packed lunch because the schedule was a bit different and there was only the evening prayer the next day, but the conference was so good at feeding us (read 30,000 people) that I had bits of previous meals in all my pockets.

So then we went to evening prayer, then back to our parish. I went to the animators meeting, while the others went home and they were all singing and playing guitar when I got there this night too.

Labels: Taize

posted by jjs @ 8:37 AM