I went to church yesterday. i sat through songs and sermon, smiles and sighs. i shook hands and was introduced. i was given a headset that i struggled to hold over my hair and through it's two small speakers i heard words i could comprehend. i talked to Americans who had come to enlighten the university about Yahweh, and recognized that warm air feeling of the bubble that church can be. I listened to the sermon and as i heard the words broken and delayed replayed in my ears i realized the blessing that i had received by not being given this community to start with. I think that for me church is becoming ambivalent, though i suspect that won't be a surprise for many of you. there have always been things about the world of church and religion i have loved, others which have pierced me and made me red with fury. if you ask the Internet for a definition of ambivalent you'll find something like 'simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings' where as, when you use the word ambivalent in a sentence it normally denotes the object to be ignored. it's a strange and painful yet freeing experience to be sent as a missionary and yet so openly appear to ignore the church structures, or perhaps that's more to the point than anticipated. i have sat through services and lost my thoughts as the language barrier enveloped me, i have praised alone and corporately through fumbled words to the great 'Bog' (Serbian God), but i have discovered the divine more through the conversations than the worship, the faces of the people rather than the eloquent prayers, and i wonder if God is looking at me with that 'told you so' smile that he seems so fond of?
My inbox popped up a small box in the corner of my screen. a new message had arrived. I clicked across to read the content and somehow it made my day. It rained last night. The sky opened and the lights of the city illuminated the falling water making it seem magical. The last few days have seen waves of blossom drifting through the air, great clouds of white fluff like snow caught in a light breeze, I'm sure the hay-fever sufferers will be glad of the dampening down that the rain brought forth. This morning the world had that clean smell, the green foliage looked fresh and jumpers were again pulled out of wardrobe chaos. There is no internet connection in the eho offices today so I sit at home and type and sort, waiting for the clock to tick round before my next appointment, cup of tea depleting beside me. I can't believe it's Wednesday already, the week has shot past and the events of my second Easter weekend are already fading in my memory. Some things in childhood you come to depend on, the school bell that ends a lesson, the smell of yeast and flour as you pass the bakery, the way the sun fails during picnic outings, those many and varied things that one day we will say with nostalgia ‘that it is the way things are supposed to be’. Easter is a bit like that for me. The schools break up, work stops for a yawn like stretch of a weekend and the yellow and green start appearing from the mothers day daffodils to the flower arrangements heavy with blossom’s beauty. Hot cross buns replace teacakes and amongst the yellow chicks, shops fill with hollowed eggs of chocolate stacked high. The problem with Easter is that it’s just so normal, so usual we forget its significance. Wednesday has announced it's arrival upon the week. The sun has not yet withdrawn it's head from the horizontal bed sheet, but the day has been with us for near on three hours already. The flat echo's with soft music and the gentle tapping of the laptops keys as I write this. Behind me the sofa is occupied by a sleeping friend, buried beneath soft white duvet. I've just left her, finally, hopefully, asleep after the trauma of the evening. She said goodbye to her latest love this past day. “See what a morning...” rolls round my head as I walk across the bridge early on Friday morning. The sun shines down for the start of a glorious day and the world feels perfectly content with it's axis. I meet friends eventually and clamber onto the bus that will take us to Belgrade for the day. It's an educational trip that will take us round TV stations and an animation showing. The journey rolls on taking us in a meandering way to the capital almost as if the driver is lost. All the personalities live in a different tongue, with the struggles as old as the world we're in. Wheels roll on tarmac, lovers shall kiss, stewing sulks and silent anger, useless and communicative, we travel along. One station and then another before we get dropped on in the center. Where have we gone and what can happen in this world we are in, the concrete dust and concrete streets zap life and spirit from me as I see their gray boxes. The trivialities of arguments that shaded the morning lose themselves to the few remaining buildings that sit settled in their bombed remains. Upon and within this land of hope where crumbled facades hold life's blood, out come the hope and the frailty into the dirty air like a flood. Somewhere hidden in the cipher I feel the oppression of it all. My legs and strength crumbles as I feel my spirit fall. Shuffling whispers and unfounded arrogance lead me with pride through their achievement and it's shortcomings vulgarity. With intertwined fingers I follow, a private specter, an unresolved soul, gleaning information from that I can't pass through similarly. Upon this wind of whim and undecided steps I wonder and wander like a lost rambler treads. Where have they led me? When slow movements wake me from my slumber upon the bus returning home I feel myself wobble back home along pavement once again familiar. Sleep comes back easily to me. The promise of children's faces springing me from my mattress the following morning. Back to the Roma children, this time alone. But still I find them and the greet me, with cries of my name long before I can see their faces. I sit and do math and English, trying hard to pronounce my faltering Serbian clearly and help them spell English words with Cyrillic characters I myself don't know. Their laughter and enthusiasm are infectious but I must fly, to go home and prepare for my next journey. This time to Temerin to live with, and listen to, the family and playful feuds, the beauty of belonging and the acceptance of a stranger. I stay for Saturday evening and watch the boys play football, spin circles till they fall and celebrate the birth of their friend with presents, beer and barbecued meat. I stay for Sunday and wash my face in flower water and walk with a Catholic Hungarian processions of twigs of catkins waved high in the air. I learn nursery rhymes and hear stories of youth that come alive with the wood of the benches and the paint on the buildings. I see the death of dreams and the future uncertain, and listen all the while to the simplest of language, trying to communicate with such generous souls. I leave feeling blessed by my fortune and the words I heard, carrying spoils of the activities I feel I drifted through. And so the weekend draws it's close along the roadways back again to streets familiar and through the odors of the buses, to the flat I had abandoned. |
The other siteWho is GfeefGfeef is the name that my writings have been under for some years. As far as I know it's unique to me. Originally from the UK, I now live in Serbia but continue to have a passion for childrens and youth ministry. Archives
October 2014
|