It's funny how the big things in life blindside you.
Today I did something different. I got up, showered, and went to Sunday service.
I haven't been to church regularly since I turned 18 because I didn't agree with the church my family attended and I wasn't very motivated to find a new one. I usually work on Sundays, so it wasn't really an issue. Lately, though, I've been thinking of going back if I can find a church that is sufficiently open-minded.
I tried the only liberal religious organization in my town, a Universal Unitarian. The service itself was very interesting, but that's not the reason I'm glad I went.
After the service was over, I stayed for the cookies-and-coffee social gathering. One of the first people who spoke to me was an elderly lady named Maya.
Maya has a very strong accent, and when I tentatively asked when it was from we got into a long discussion. Maya lived in Latvia in the 1930s, and she has very strong memories about the advance of Communism. Her Grandfather was an Eastern Orthodox Priest, and he was sent to a concentration camp especially for priests and ministers. He died there, and they were informed by one of the other prisoners, who wrote to them on a scrap of wallpaper he'd ripped off because they had no paper. Her Grandmother was taken out in the front yard and shot because she asked what the officers had meant when they walked into her kitchen and demanded breakfast (it was five in the morning, and the bread hadn't yet risen).
She told me about how they fled Latvia to Germany, and then the United States. She worked as a maid, then went to school and became a nurse.
After we finished talking, I walked her to her car, and on the way we passed a small flower patch the church cares for. The weather has been unusually warm, so there were just a few bits of green poking out of the pile of grass and leaves. There were also a few small white blossoms. Maya told me that she helps tend to it, despite the fact that she uses two canes to walk.
Bending, she picked one of the white blossoms and snapped it off, handing it to me. She thanked me for listening to her story.
The bloom's in a cup on my desk now. I'm going to press it in a book.
It's one thing to read about things in a book, but there's such a huge difference when you're hearing it directly from a person who experienced it. I'm so honored that she let me listen.
I think I'll go back next week.
I haven't been to church regularly since I turned 18 because I didn't agree with the church my family attended and I wasn't very motivated to find a new one. I usually work on Sundays, so it wasn't really an issue. Lately, though, I've been thinking of going back if I can find a church that is sufficiently open-minded.
I tried the only liberal religious organization in my town, a Universal Unitarian. The service itself was very interesting, but that's not the reason I'm glad I went.
After the service was over, I stayed for the cookies-and-coffee social gathering. One of the first people who spoke to me was an elderly lady named Maya.
Maya has a very strong accent, and when I tentatively asked when it was from we got into a long discussion. Maya lived in Latvia in the 1930s, and she has very strong memories about the advance of Communism. Her Grandfather was an Eastern Orthodox Priest, and he was sent to a concentration camp especially for priests and ministers. He died there, and they were informed by one of the other prisoners, who wrote to them on a scrap of wallpaper he'd ripped off because they had no paper. Her Grandmother was taken out in the front yard and shot because she asked what the officers had meant when they walked into her kitchen and demanded breakfast (it was five in the morning, and the bread hadn't yet risen).
She told me about how they fled Latvia to Germany, and then the United States. She worked as a maid, then went to school and became a nurse.
After we finished talking, I walked her to her car, and on the way we passed a small flower patch the church cares for. The weather has been unusually warm, so there were just a few bits of green poking out of the pile of grass and leaves. There were also a few small white blossoms. Maya told me that she helps tend to it, despite the fact that she uses two canes to walk.
Bending, she picked one of the white blossoms and snapped it off, handing it to me. She thanked me for listening to her story.
The bloom's in a cup on my desk now. I'm going to press it in a book.
It's one thing to read about things in a book, but there's such a huge difference when you're hearing it directly from a person who experienced it. I'm so honored that she let me listen.
I think I'll go back next week.