Thursday, March 31, 2016

THE CITIES. NEW YORK/DENVER, BOULDER, COLORADO/ NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA - repost

NEW YORK, U.S.A. 

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Swallowed by our relatives' huge car, we bumped our way through New York. The contrast with what we left in Italy was appalling. Everywhere we looked, rose the soot-covered apartment buildings with fire-escapes marring their sides. 
  jpeg (103×99) Our patience and stamina depleted by a long air-plane ride, it was hard to maintain an optimistic outlook on life. For the next three months, my parents and I lived in our elderly aunt's living  room. She frowned upon turning on the table lamps in the evenings and watching TV.  All and everything we saw outside her apartment was alien. Moscow downtown was kept clean. On the central streets of New York the wind blew papers and other trash, the din was deafening and the acrid smell from the pretzel carts filled the air. I unfolded a cot at night and parked it in front of the TV.  My parents slept on a large bed in the same room. In spite of the aunt, in the small hours of the morning,  I watched  TV. The hardest thing was to get used to the commercials! 

In due time we moved to Washington Heights, the, so called, Spanish Harlem.                                                                                               
 I studied English, still watched TV and bickered with my mother. I also prayed almost non-stop, but nobody knew about it, except me and Heavenly Father.  


DENVER, BOULDER, COLORADO 
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A stallion ran along with our van, the mane and the tail flying in the wind. The azure sky was boiling with clouds, like only the Western skies do. The horse finally stopped. He bucked and kneaded his hooves in the grass and then shook his head and cheerfully turned back to his herd.  
 I was happy. Simply, happy. For the first time in my life I felt fulfilled. Meeting the like-minded people was just half of it. The other half was having fun while having a purpose. The deeper understanding of God and our - my - role in the scope of history, will come later. They do say, with great knowledge comes great sorrow. Well, that time didn't come yet. I was a part of the Unification Church
                      I was young and capable; the Americans readily opened their hearts to me. It was enough to be happy. I worked with a team of the missionaries from different countries. jpeg (144×90)   We traveled around the U.S., talked to people about God and our church, raised money for our team by selling some product. In under one year I saw most of the Western states. Colorado was my favorite. 
month in the winter at the retreat site in the Rocky Mountains was spellbinding. The snow fell most days. The exhilarating cold and mountain air, the beauty of my surroundings - they helped to believe that I lived the best life there is.                                                                                                                 jpeg (123×92)


SALT LAKE CITYUTAH 
NORTH PLATTENEBRASKA 
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Our trek continued through the West, first Utah and then Nebraska. I'll never forget the people that I met. They heard my Russian  accent and, instead of becoming suspicious or hostile, they welcomed me not only in words but into their homes and hearts. But sometimes things did go awry. 
We were traveling and fund-raising in North Platte, Nebraska. 
Some families there didn't care, what church we were from. They invited us to spend nights in their homes and shared the best that they had with us. Every day we had to get a permit to sell our product for donations. On Sunday the City Hall was closed. The leader of our group went to the Police Dept. and asked the permission to continue working in North Platte. They agreed, but in a couple of hours they rounded us all up and put us in jail
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If I was alone, the tone of this story would be very different. As it was, we stayed together, prayed and sang songs together and, no matter what, laughed together. On Monday morning we were handcuffed two by two (the most fastidious Englishman ended up being handcuffed to a drunk in the overalls covered in puke. I don't think he ever recovered!). The police took us walking to the Court House, handcuffed, through the downtown throng of people hurrying to work
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  This is not really us, and we didn't wear the striped pajamas!
                    
Embarrassing isn't a word for it! After the room and the judge stopped gaping at us, the  seven Europeans, who for some reason ended up arrested in their small town, the gavel spoke: five more hours in jail and (the judge added in jest): "Go and sin no more!"   
The next day we reunited with the rest of our team, driving through North Platte on the way to the next State. We stopped at the jail and decided to take a picture. A policeman drove up then and asked what we were doing. He didn't meet us the day before. We invited him to take a photo with us. Now, when I look at that picture, I feel like we triumphed over the authorities! 
                                                                                                  


NORTH PLATTE JAIL THE DAY AFTER OUR INCARCERATION. I AM THE ONE IN A PURPLE SWEATER.
THE MAN ON YOUR LEFT OF THE SHERIFF IS THE ONE WHO WAS HANDCUFFED TO A DRUNK ON THE WAY TO CITY HALL.

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THE CITIES: ROME/LADISPOLI/FLORENCE/VENICE. ITALY

ROME/LADISPOLI/FLORENCE/VENICE, ITALY 

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I swear, the air smelled like roses. In December! The puddles and the rain didn't matter. The huge bus carrying us from the train station squeezed ponderously through the narrow streets with the cars parked by twos or threes on each side. Instead of watching the street, the driver looked at us, shouting something in Italian, singing and gesturing effusively. One thing about Italy was consistent: my mouth hung open all through my stay there!

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The time in Italy was one of the most significant periods in my life. What astonished me the most was that God's Grace was just there, waiting for me as soon as I looked for it, even without me knowing what I was looking for. Italy's beauty was also there, independent of anyone's thinking or anticipation. It burst forward, radiant and triumphant.   
A woman on the sidewalk crossed herself passing the church. That shocked me. Here faith in God wasn't hidden or sneered at. It was normal, even important part of life here: to believe. For me it was still very new. An acquaintance introduced me to an Italian young man. During our date I told him about my recent spiritual experiences. In the beginning of our meeting he flirted and was behaving seductively. At the end, he only thoughtfully kissed my hands.

                                                                                       
jpeg (120×90)From the time when I first felt God's Grace and love for me, praying was the only thing that alleviated the cultural shock and loneliness. We went to  Vatican for a Christmas mass (not that Christmas or Vatican meant anything to us beyond an interesting cultural phenomena). As the service progressed though, I felt more and more caught up in prayer. My heart (and my eyes) were overflowing. The feeling that  came over me  was of the most tender love and forgiveness.
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We settled in a small town close to Rome, called Ladispoli. The apartment where we lived was right on the side of the sea. It was winter: the salty, cold air of the Mediterranean cleaned the cub-webs from my mind and made me long for  adventures. 
 Everything I learned to cherish from the books or studies was right there in front of me in a little traveling that we could afford in Italy.
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                                                 bearded_slave003.jpg (148×299)   Michelangelo's Slaves in the museum in Florence knocked me out of my misery and stirred my mind to higher aspirations. The St. Marco's Piazza in Venice was a beautiful antidote to the marble-clad heavy architecture of the Soviet era. Instead of the stone it looked like a concoction made from egg-whites and sugar. The Russian immigrants walked around, sighing: "Wow, just like in Venice!" We couldn't believe that we were really there!


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