Best part of the weather conditions for this week is the presence of some hooded mergansers on the lake near us, a bufflehead among them, and a very noisy beaver slapping its tail about a half dozen times to announce to the geese to get out of the way!
Just call it generosity, or hospitality:
USZKA, Hungary (AP) — It took two days and sheer determination for the family of 27 women and children from Ukraine’s Roma minority to escape the violence of Russia’s invasion and reach neighboring Hungary. Then they faced the next challenge: not being split up by aid groups trying to help.
That all changed when the pastor of a village church took them in.
Edgar Kovacs, who leads the Free Christian Church in the Hungarian village of Uszka, on the border with Ukraine, offered up the only room in his church to house the large family, which had fled from the western Ukrainian village of Didova Hora as Russian attacks intensified.
Kovacs, who is also Roma, said as both a Christian and a Roma, he felt it was his duty to help the family.
“I have a big family, so when we heard on the news what happened next door, our hearts began beating faster, and my whole family and I tried to help,” Kovacs said.
Upon crossing Hungary’s border on Wednesday, the Hungarian-speaking family — 20 children and seven women — was offered accommodation by local volunteers. But, determined to stay together, they turned down offers that would have separated them until Kovacs offered space to them all.
“We’re one family and very concerned about each other. We agreed, whatever happens, not to separate, and we’ve stuck to this,” said Ildiko Kulcsar, who led the family to safety in Hungary. “We’re all in the same place together, thank God!”
Ukraine’s westernmost regions, which border Hungary, are home to some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, many of whom are Roma who share Hungarian language and culture. While Russia’s invasion has not yet extended to Transcarpathia, which is separated from the rest of Ukraine by the Carpathian Mountains, many have decided not to wait for the situation to get worse.
I think it’s safe to say, if you’ve lived in America for any length of time, you’ve probably eaten ice cream. From sundaes and apple pie accompaniments, to root beer floats and the almighty summer cone, its popularity is legion. According to a study conducted by Yahoo Food, ice cream is America’s favorite dessert. (It emerged victorious with 41% of the vote, demolishing the second favorite—cake—by more than 20%.)
No less delicious, but not as common in the U.S., is ice cream’s precursor, gelato. Originating in Italy (and translating to “ice cream”), you’d be forgiven for thinking gelato was the same as ice cream, albeit with a fancier, more sophisticated name—and higher price tag. But the two have numerous differences.
In a nutshell, gelato is ice cream’s smoother, denser, silkier, and weirdly creamier cousin. From the ingredients to the preparation and storage, there are more differences between these frozen treats than you might imagine.
Do you ever hear your mother’s voice in your head? I do at times, and one of the messages I hear most often is, “you don’t have to say everything you think.”
I’ve gotten tripped up more times than I’d care to admit when I’ve ignored that voice. It might be that testy thought that I share in a discussion with my wife when it would have been better to hold my tongue and use my two ears instead. It could be that unkind word about a colleague who is not in the room that gets back to them, leading to a much longer discussion.
Then there are the comments in online discussions. I’ll see that patent falsehood or cruel remark about another person. And it is SO-O-O-O tempting to jump in. Usually, that is a great way to waste a day, leaving me thinking, “why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut.”
I’m the admin for a book page on Facebook (also called Bob on Books). Most of the time it is a pretty pleasant place and most people participate to get away from the unpleasantries of the world, or even the rest of Facebook. We have a “no ad hominem attacks” policy toward any person–politicians, authors, or each other. Yet I still find I have to deal with the comments of the person who uses the most innocuous post to attack a public figure they don’t like (but that others might). I find myself wishing they’d heard their mom saying, “you don’t have to say everything you think.” She probably did at some point.
Then there are the people who like to spoil others’ good time. We may be talking about mysteries and in the middle, someone feels they just have to let us know, “I don’t like mysteries and never read them.” Couldn’t they have just scrolled past?
The one thing I wish I’d asked my mom would have been “when do you speak up about what you are thinking?” There are times when our silence is assent to something that is terribly wrong and against what we hold most deeply. I recall a time in an online conversation where a person known to me in real life as someone who shares my religious convictions was mocking someone for a physical disability. I felt I couldn’t let that pass and wrote that I felt this was unbefitting of his professed faith. I still saw political statements I couldn’t agree with, which was fine–the world doesn’t have to agree with me. But no more like this, and thankfully we are still at least Facebook friends.
Nadya Williams and the desert call:
I am currently completing a book on cultural Christians in the early Church from the first to the fifth centuries CE. And in the last chapter of this book, I examine the movement that Antony represents – the ascetics who abandoned all contact with people in order to pursue holiness alone in the desert. I argue that, ironically, while these Desert Fathers and Mothers were sincere in their pursuit of God, their actions are an example of cultural Christianity, akin to the movement today of Christians who claim to love Jesus, but reject the local Church. Such stories today, in fact, fit a little too comfortably in the booming genre of “quit lit” — the celebration of people quitting, well, just about everything, from jobs to relationships to carbs to, yes, church.
It is ironically appropriate that Antony chose an abandoned fort as his place of refuge, but not for reasons that he thought. Various pilgrims and others who were fascinated with the idea of running away from society and moving into the desert, slowly began trickling into the vicinity of his fort, effectively surrounding the shut-away saint. In his fort, Antony was living increasingly under siege from like-minded quitters. Perhaps he put an extra bar on the gate.
The siren call of the desert, as Antony’s besieged existence reminds us, was strong for many Christians in Late Antiquity. As Athanasius, who published a best-selling Life of Antony noted, “the desert became a city.” It appears that he was not exaggerating. A travelogue, Inquiry About the Monks of Egypt, is a narrative first-hand account of a trip that seven monks from a Jerusalem monastery took around Egypt in 394-395 CE. The narrator, who chose to remain anonymous, describes the Egyptian desert in the late fourth century as a land taken over by ascetics, living in hermitages, caves, abandoned buildings, and even (in one case) taking completely over a previously normal pagan city, Oxyrhynchus. …
This warning applies to us as well. It can be tempting to try and live a life of solitude without others. For the sensory-overwhelmed, in particular, the silence of the desert can be a gift. But bereft of the community of others – spiritual, scholarly, neighborly, familial — we are the desert. This is not a good thing. In this season of Lent, may we grow in love, and not give up the relationships that need our support and that, in turn, nourish our own ever-thirsty souls.
(NEXSTAR) – Brace yourself for $10 toothpaste. That’s how much Colgate’s new 3-ounce tube of teeth-whitening toothpaste costs.
Colgate-Palmolive CEO Noel Wallace announced the product at a consumer and retail conference last week, calling premium products “vital” to the company’s ability to raise prices.
“We are launching the Optic White Pro Series in the U.S., the first five-percent hydrogen peroxide toothpaste with demonstrated efficacy to whiten teeth,” Wallace said. “We’re very excited about this launch, which you will see on shelves next month.”
These days we find a growing number of people deconstructing their Christian faith, while others say they no longer believe or have deconverted. The former lops off things that are deemed excess baggage to the true faith, while the latter is a full-fledged leaving of the Christian faith. We could debate whether those deconstructing are also deconverting, but that is not the purpose of this piece. Rather, my desire is to call us to remember what we seem to have forgotten. We Christians need to make a few things mainstays of our faith lest we keep losing our way.
I have my own frustrations with the American church, but I prefer to remain within the historic Christian faith among a community of thoughtful friends. Loyal and wise friends are indispensable to a healthy walk with God.
I often jest that I am a serial doubter, but it is hardly a joke. Doubts about certain teachings of the Christian faith have nagged me for four decades. My first book on the Christian understanding of hell was borne out of a personal struggle. Though I wrote that book nearly thirty years ago, my struggle with hell persists. I assume it and other questions will continue to plague me until the day I die. I take encouragement from Christian, the lead character in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Not only did Christian get waylaid by Doubting Castle, but at the end of his life this true believer’s last steps were fraught with terror. Christian and his friend Hopeful are crossing the final river before entering the Celestial City (=heaven). Christian is struggling with all kinds of doubt about whether he will make it across the river. Ironically, Christian is confident Hopeful is going to make it safely to the other side because Hopeful always had a sure and steady faith. Things are different for Christian. He is convinced that he will drown. Hopeful seeks to encourage Christian by saying that the river’s bottom can be “felt and that it is firm.” That is not immediately apparent to Christian, but he finally finds the river is indeed “shallow and solid.” With indescribable joy, but quite different experiences, the two friends arrive safely on the shores of heaven.
To put it crudely, just because you are a true Christian does not mean that you will die with a smile on your face. Heaven is yours, but you just may go through one final trial to get there. Not easy words to hear, but true ones. Anyone who has been around for the last days of a Christian’s life knows that there can be intense suffering both physically and sometimes even spiritually.
Thank you for making room for serial doubting. A century ago Christians made no room for such, and those of us who lived with doubt could do nothing but try to quell the doubts that ransacked our souls in a world in which there was no allowance for them. Fortunately Jesus was patient with those who doubted. Even after two of them, walking with him on the road to Emmaus, still doubted in spite of his efforts to remind them "of all that the prophets had spoken!" it wasn't until much later when "he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them" that they FINALLY got past their doubts. We'd rather not have doubts, but at least our doubts show that we're thinking about things that matter.
Scot, it’s sometimes hard to tell in these meanderings when it’s you speaking and when you’re quoting.