For those who don’t remember from last year Yordanov Den is the holiday in Bulgaria which celebrates the baptism of Jesus (Yordanov = Jordan). A year older and hopefully wiser, this year’s celebration was different for me. I had the extreme luck and privilege to actually visit the baptism site of Jesus in Jordan. I consider myself lucky and privileged not only because most people don’t get the opportunity to visit Jordan but also because for so many years the site was closed to the public due to hostilities between Israel and Jordan (the Jordan river is the border between the two countries). I am thankful that a site which so strongly symbolizes our hope for peace is once again peaceful.
This year in Saparevo as we were waiting for the cross to be thrown into the fountain and the kids to once again dive in after it, I began reflecting on the amazing trip that the Christian religion has gone through to get where it is now. Maybe I have been reading too much from the “Der Spiegel Special International Edition: The Power of Faith” magazine I picked up in Germany (I highly recommend this issue of the magazine. It’s in English and you can order it at http://www.international.spiegel.de/ The whole magazine explores different issues regarding faith throughout the world and encompasses all faiths from Christianity and Islam to Taoism and Atheism. It is very balanced and highly informative). But lately I have been thinking a lot about the role of religion in the lives of people. It is amazing how faiths have crossed varied cultural and geographical boundaries to create a patchwork of beliefs across the whole world. It is also amazing how these faiths have affected and been affected by the cultures where they are found. Speaking specifically of the Christian Faith we have Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants as the three main branches, but from these have sprouted many different branches depending on the place you are talking about. From Catholicism, you have eight branches including Roman Catholic, Byzantine Catholic and Armenian Catholic. In the Orthodox faith you have Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian etc. From the Anglican religion you have British Anglican, African Anglican and American Episcopalian (which itself is right now undergoing many changes based on very heated cultural dialogues) and others. And finally, the Protestants have more branches than I can keep track of, from Lutheran to Baptist to Methodist to Pentecostal.
I think this is a true testament to the desire of people to make sure that they understand faith in the context of their own lives. As the many controversies in faith show today, especially the widening chasm in the Episcopal Church and the changes in the Catholic Church, people are still searching for the truth. Faith has never been static and this search for the ultimate truth has created the beautiful patchwork we see in the world today.
As I was watching the Mass and later pandemonium in the fountain today, I was struck at how beautiful and intriguing this search is. Sometimes everything seems so foreign here; the language, the culture and the religion. And while the faith here seems so foreign to what I grew up with, as the same time the search is the same. Today I saw people worshipping the same God and the same Trinity that I do. I could feel the same piety and love in their hearts as in mine. And I shared with them the same hope that the people who witnessed Jesus’ baptism almost 2000 years ago must have felt. I am still charged about it.
It also inspired something else in me which I have been doubting: my future. The faith I saw today and a story I heard has made me think very seriously about starting a Master’s Degree in religion. The colleague who I joined in Saparevo told me about her personal baptism. Her father was a communist. He was a manager in the coal mine here in Bobov dol and as such was required to be a communist member. My colleague’s grandmother, however, was a committed Christian and wanted to make sure all her grandchildren were baptized. So she took my colleague when she was a baby and had her secretly baptized in the church. Imagine the risk this woman put herself and her family through in order to pursue the Truth. And this made me think of all the old babas I saw ringed around the fountain. How did they maintain their faith through those 50 years? How did those 50 years change the faith of the nation? How have people rebuilt their faith after having it forbidden? And then I realized that these questions go on and on. How does faith grow and change in relation to culture and historical events? I would love to spend more time investigating these questions. Thank you once again, Saparevo, for stuffing my stomach with food and my mind with thoughts!
1 comment:
Andy,
What a positive and powerful reflection about the personal nature of faith. What saddens me most about "religion" and what many people call "faith" is how they do not SEARCH for truth as much as they believe they already HAVE the truth and insist that all others believe as they do -- often using military and/or political force to assert their (as opposed to God's) will.
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