Russia ‘98

 

Walking the highways and byways 

of Russia 

as a pilgrim all those years ago,

sometimes a destination in mind 

but more often simply wandering 

free to see what there was to see, 

capturing it with a cheap camera

in the days before digital everything, 

an analog heart in a vast land 

awakening from a deep slumber.

***

Reading “Everyday Saints”

 

I found two bookmarks in the one book which for me is a rare phenomenon.  Like movies, there are precious few books that I’ve revisited in my lifetime.  Something about those initial reactions that I prize maybe a little too highly.  God knows repeated readings of particular books can yield up varied treasures.

But there it is, maybe a hang up but also not an ironclad principle.  “Everyday Saints” by Archimandrite Tikhon is an exception to this rule.  I read it when it was first published in 2011 over a 3 day period when I was bed bound from a particularly nasty flu.  It was the perfect companion because it made the time flow by with little notice.

The stories are vignettes of varying lengths that claim the Pskov Caves Holy Dormition Monastery in Pechory, Russia as their home base and heart, but spread out over nearly the entirety of that vast country as the author travels hither, thither, and yon.  Each story focuses in on a particular person bringing to light their quirks and foibles in the context of the oftentimes inscrutable workings of Divine grace.  It is cliche, but I don’t know of a book that had me literally LOL’ing, becoming tearful at some particularly poignant moment, or gasping in surprise to the extent this one did.

In my twenties I read an inordinate number of books that explored the impact of Communism on Russia, Eastern Europe, and China.  Many of them were nonfiction like Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”, Pu Ning’s “Red in Tooth and Claw”, and “The Private Life of Chairman Mao” written by his personal physician.   But there was also fiction in the novels of Milan Kundera and Boris Pasternak.  I seemingly could not get enough of this type of thing, but with “Everyday Saints” I found something even more intriguing.  Instead of unredeemed melancholy (an addiction of mine) I found something healing and life affirming.  

Like the Bible it is a book that can be read for spiritual nourishment, but is also a collection of simply human stories that could be enjoyed by anyone who shares that humanity regardless of their beliefs. 

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has sagely said: "It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder."  And this is Everyday Saints in a nutshell.

***

Apple Ladder

 

Beauty’s an apple ladder

beholden to red spheres 

of ascending sweetness.

***

Doors of Insanity

Since when did life become 

so fragmented

so pixelated

so prone 

to open the doors of insanity?

***

The Trolley

His body lay slumped across the tracks forming the cross bar of a very long H.  Lucky for him the trams had stopped running hours before.  He’d been drinking for much of the day but now it was the middle of the night and he was on a reluctant journey back to consciousness.  His head felt stuffed with cotton buzzing like high voltage wires when the light appeared over the hill.

Somewhere deep inside his brain some synapses began firing to sound the alarm.  He grunted with pain trying to reanimate his cold and stiff body.  The light appeared to be a ways off but headed in his direction.  His arms refused to obey his commands, only his right leg responded by cocking as if to push off.  The light remained small and steady moving down the center of the tram tracks and he thought he heard a small bell, “da-ling, da-ling.”

It seemed almost upon him even though the light was much too small to be anywhere near, but there it was nonetheless rolling to a stop a few feet away, the size of a shoe box.  It was a red trolley that whistled and rolled back and forth to approximate speech.  As his mind continued to find purchase in reality he tried to remember where he’d seen such a thing before. 

“Da-ling, da-ling” *whistle-whistle* “da-ling” *whistle*.  It was imploring him to come along which he could understand though he didn’t understand how he understood.  

“You want me to come with you?”  It quivered in acknowledgement.  “OK.”  His vision blurred out and things went dark.

***

When he opened his eyes again he was lying in front of a castle that loomed above him in miniature proportions.  “Who is this lying in front of my castle?” bellowed a small frozen-faced figure leaning over the castle wall above him.

“It appears to be a ragamuffin, Your Majesty,” answered a smaller version of the crowned figure.

“A ragamuffin?  Who has allowed such a thing in my kingdom?”  Trolley dinged and whistled a confession to make it clear he was the guilty party.  “What is the meaning of this, Trolley?”

At this a woman appeared and knelt down to check on the bewildered man lying there.  “Are you alright, dear sir?”  Looking up she addressed the small man with the crown, “Uncle Friday, he looks like someone who needs our help.  Might I take responsibility for him while he is in your kingdom?”

“Very well, but please find him some more presentable attire, Lady Aberlin.  I don’t want others to get the idea that being unpresentable is appropriate.  I will have no ragamuffins in my kingdom.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”  She helped the bewildered man to his feet and led him weaving past a tree and around a bend so as to be outside of the view of the castle.  “Here’s a good spot.  Let’s sit you down.  You look a little unsteady.”  She assisted him with a kind of controlled fall to a seated position at the base of a stone wall.  

“Now you stay here and I will find Robert Troll.  He should have some clothes that might fit you.  I’ll be right back, OK?”  He looked at her with a kind of bleary-eyed affection and nodded with an exaggerated bobbing of his head. 

Lady Aberlin disappeared further along the path and he sat there taking in his surroundings as best he could, his head clearing by the minute.  There was a tree and a grandfather clock nearby and it was all starting to look strangely familiar.  It was the image of the trolley that wove its way through the decades of accumulated fog that was his memories.  He had somehow been transported to the Neighborhood of Make Believe.  

***

“My, my, what *is* that smell?”  Above him a ruddy cheeked puppet was whipping her large nose back and forth sniffing the air in an exaggerated manner.  Her fixed eyes eventually found the man, “It looks like someone left a large pile of reeking rags below my museum.”

“Excuse me?” The man said as he looked upward.  “Are you referring to me?”

The puppet pulled back in surprise.  “Well, Toots, you’ve picked an interesting spot to deposit yourself.  Why are you here?”

The man struggled to his feet and steadied himself with the wall in order to look at the puppet more on the level.  “I was banished here by King Friday until I can find more presentable clothes.”

“King Friday sent you packing?  I think I’m starting to like you, Toots.”

At this Lady Aberlin returned with some clothes and handed them to the man.  “I see you’ve met Lady Elaine.  Has she been nice to you?”

“In a manner of speaking” replied the man as he began taking his clothes off to change but then paused, “Is this an OK place to change?”

“Well, I guess it is as good a place as any.  Let’s turn our backs, Lady Elaine, and allow him some privacy.”  

“If it helps him smell better quicker I will gladly do so,” and the ruddy puppet disappeared behind her wall.

***

The man felt ridiculous in the baggy clothes and he refused to put on the hat.  Lady Elaine reappeared at the top of the wall to see if he was still there.  “Well, aren’t you a vision!  Would you like to visit my Museum-Go-Round now that you’re more presentable?”  

The building she was referring to was too small even for her to enter and the man thought she was making fun of him.  She sensed his skepticism.  “Come on, Toots.  I’ll show you how it’s done.”  At this she offered her hand.  As soon as he touched her he felt himself reverse telescoping through the colorful pillars and into the darkness of the open double doors.

He found himself in the middle of a large circular room, a spotlight fixing him in a small circle of light.  Even stranger still he was no longer a man, but a boy.  

“Hello?” He snapped his head around to see where the high-pitched voice was coming from before realizing it was coming from his own mouth.  “Hello?  Is anyone there?”

The curved wall of the room was divided into illumined alcoves of uniform size encircling the boy.  In each alcove was a large framed photo.  He walked towards the one directly in front of him and shuddered as he recognized it as an upraised arm wielding a looped leather belt.  Moving to his right he stood in front of the next photo which was the same arm and belt but slightly lower.  The next one was lower still and the next one lower still until he got to one where the belt had disappeared off the bottom of the frame.  He heard if not felt a loud slap and suddenly burst into tears.  He was halfway around the room and in the next photo the belt reappeared at the bottom of the frame and the pattern repeated, but moving upwards instead of down.

The boy half ran, half stumbled back to the center of the room under the spotlight.  As he watched in bewilderment the wall began to rotate around him like a carousel while he stood stock still in the center.  The images became a single moving image of the arm wielding the belt coming down swiftly and returning up and then back down, over and over again.

  

***

It’s a church basement, light filtering through a high screened window.  His thin wrist is being held firmly above his head as he spins like a ball on a tether trying to avoid getting hit by the belt, his pants around his ankles.

“I’m sorry Mom, I’m sorry Mom, please stop, I’ll never do it again” jumping... panting... sobbing... “I promise, I promise, PLEASE, I promise!”

The slapping sound of leather meeting flesh bounces off cinderblock walls and echoes down a darkened hallway, but not loud enough for anyone else to hear.  There will be no rescue.  It is unbearable, but he must bear it.

***

He felt himself shaking or being shaken.  “Hey, wake up!  You can’t sleep in the middle of the street.”  Through the blur of tears it appeared there was a policeman standing over him and for a moment he thought it might be Officer Clemmons.  

“Wuh?  Sorry, I... I...” head pounding he rubbed his eyes and temples vigorously.  When the flashing spots of light resolved the man was gone.  He found his feet with some difficulty and made his way to the sidewalk just as a tram trundled past at his back.  He turned to watch it disappear into a swirl of fog leaving him alone in the diffuse glow of early morning... “da-ling”.


***