Where the road ends

The road east of Bellingham ends at a place called "Artist's Point" with views of Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker. We spent the morning of yesterday's beautiful day doing church stuff and came home and thought just maybe we could make it up to the end of the road before dark.  We had promised our friends R&B a trip up in the mountains on a good day and this was the good day.  They were available, so off we went.  I think we wore R out, but I hope it did him good to see some beauty in the world.  Ron is all bundled up in his chair; we tried to drive it for him, but weren't that good of drivers, so he stuck his hand out and drove himself.  We stayed on paved trails for obvious reasons.

that is Mt. Shuksan in the background.  Mt. Baker was visible too.  Often one or the other is blanketed with clouds.  We have never been up there when Mt. Baker was visible before.















 Even from the paved trail there are lovely details and grand views.  The talus slopes are gold and red with green accents on more stable ground.

The rocks previously covered with snow, show the marks of glacial movement or are capped with moss and dotted with small tough plants.  





































Recent snowfall still lay in the shadows.












Mt. Shuksan is probably the most photographed mountain in the state.  It was beautiful in the last light of day reflected in the lake.  The blue of it's glaciers does not show in the picture, but added to the beauty of this lovely spot.

Faith and Art

I suspect any readers I might have are tired of my travel blogs.  They are sort of a delayed journal for me.  Frankly the month since we have been home is not nearly so interesting as the travel.  The tomatoes fell to the  blight - kind of a tomato famine.  The wet spring weather meant no beans or peas.  The abundance of slugs got the basil.  The zuchinni was not so productive when it didn't have a partner (- like me.)  The raccoons are digging up the lawn and competing with the squirrels for the apples and prune plums.  The flickers are pecking on the attic vents.  We have had way too few days of sunshine and I applied for an open position on the school board.  The screening committee passed me through to the interviews.  They are Monday night.   We have a new bishop and David is a counselor.  That pretty much summarizes September at home.  So you see the title of this blog and it's eventual topic could be much more interesting.

While we traveled, I mused on the nature of "church art."  Our churches are relatively unadorned and I found myself a little overwhelmed by many altars and tombs and paintings and windows and ...... I found it disconcerting to go into churches as a tourist and be surrounded by other tourists.  It disturbed me that in some places I didn't feel like an intruder, because it seemed everyone was an intruder.  Other places had a more worshipful feel.  But I started thinking about the art that I was seeing.  I suppose that most of it was commissioned by wealthy men.  Though at least one statue on the Charles Bridge in Prague was  created as a punishment.  I wondered how much of it was an expression of faith; how much was an expression of pride. I wondered if the artist was lost in art for art's sake or if he felt some measure of faith as he worked on these projects.   I thought about how little role religious art plays in the world today. 

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few with you.  Even ordinary seemed ornamented as this door shows.  


Sometimes the meaning is not clear to the casual observer.  These crosses commemorate 27 martyrs in Prague.  











 




Exteriors were not as ornate as interiors, but still....

 Out door statuary honors the saints who brought Christianity early to Ukraine. St. Olga was a royal family member who embrassed Christianity.  St. Andrew prophesied that the "the light of the gospel would come to these hills."  Cyril and Methodius were instrumental in making the Bible available in Cyrillic.











Doors ...

 
                                                   




And floors.....




Compete with windows.....

                         




And ceilings.....
                                        

 

And glowing spaces for attention....

Walls have their share of ornamentation...  The walls of St Francis in Krakow were painted in an art nouveau style with daffodils, pansies and lilies.   This picture was from St. Michael's in Kyiv.  It was pretty dark in there - this was about as good as I good do.

The walls tell stories too.  One church (no pictures) had the story of the creation on the ceiling in the outer area of the larger space, which became more holy as you went further into the space.

One of the stars in most churches were the altar piece paintings or carvings or icons. 

Some were carved wood as is this one in St. Mary's in Krakow, some gold work, some iconic paintings.  They depict saints or scriptural scenes.  They are not always true to the scriptural era.  King David is depicted as a more medieval war hero in this sculpture from Wawel Hill in Krakow.

Many churches had some small macabre feature.

 some of the art was auditory/musical as we heard the sounds of evensong in this small church and the ringing of bells across the cities.

You feel as you travel that Christianity was a significant part of community life.  Statuary in wood ...

and marble....

 

 ... depict Christ.  This kindly looking Christ with an infant  near St. Mary's in Krakow was one of my favorites.

 My favorite painting looked like it could have been painted by Norman Rockwell.  It was in an Armenian church in Lviv.  Notice the recognition of this church man's heavenly friends as well as his earthly friends at the end of his life as his ghostly friends carry candles.

Lastly I will share a description of the picture I didn't take.  Lots of these churches charge a fee to take pictures.  We only paid the fee a couple of times.  A couple of times I regret not paying the fee.  St. Vlodymyrs church in Kyiv was one of these.  It was too dark on the interior to do any photo justice, but the picture I wish I had taken was of a young woman blue eyed woman with reddish blonde hair.  She was dressed in two shades of blue.  The darker shade was pretty much the Ukrainian flag blue.  Her kerchief and pinafore were this color with the plain unornamented underdress a lighter shade.  She was working with a long handled tool with a flat blade to scrape the warm golden beeswax drips from the white and black marble floor into a  black metal bucket.  I think her work was art.  I think we create art in the way we live, if we live with honest work and do it well.  Maybe I haven't been seeing the art all around me.




Then there was this simple church in Lviv, with Linoleum floors and stacking chairs and simple lines.  It is the home to two branches.  All the art was simple reproductions from the church catalog.  It seemed quiet and reverent and worshipful in a way that all those ornamented churches did not.  There were no tourists, just a young man cleaning the building before he left for town for the temple dedication.  Cleaning it for the people who would be unable to leave town who would watch from Lviv.  Not unlike the beautiful young woman cleaning beeswax - living life as an art devoted to Christ.

Auschwitz

We did go there.  I had mixed feelings about being a tourist in such a tragic place.  It seemed painful to be in a place were people suffered so much because of one man's mania and many men's fears.  It seemed painful to be truely free in so many ways under the ironic sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei"

I don't know if you will be able to see it in the blog picture, but I also thought this tuft of dandelion seed caught in the barbed wire spoke of freedoms curtailed.

Rows of brick buildings  or wooden buildings seemed maybe "not so bad" until you saw inside the bunks about the size of a queen size bed and used for eight or more people.  "Not so bad" until you imagine the grassy areas being only muck and mud.  Not so bad until you imagine winter and almost no food and forced labor and  separation from loved ones and fear...

"Not so bad" until you see the trees where the overflow of imprisoned people  waited for days without shelter. 

"Not so bad until you see guard houses and

rows of barbed wired and imagine the machine guns directed at those wearing striped clothing and colored stars on their arms to identify the "crime" of their nationality or ethnicity.

until you see the train tracks where people were unloaded like cattle or the pile of prosthetic arms and legs and feet, crutches and back braces or the portrait after portrait of shaved heads.  ... until you recall the names filling the walls of the Pinkus Synagogue in Prague.

"Not so bad" until you see pits filled with ash...

The Jews remember.... but they were not only Jews.  They was Roma and Sinti and Poles and Russian prisoners of war.

                                  They were People... Human... Men.... Women... Children... Babies

                                                                          Remember

Kyiv, Ukraine Temple Dedication and Cultural Celebration

Someone told David that this was the best place to take a picture from.  He may have been right.  The reason for this Eastern European trip was to attend with Nathan the temple dedication of the Kyiv, Ukraine Temple.  Because we are not official members of the temple district we were invited to attend a session in the stake center in central Kyiv.  We did that and then found our way out to the temple for the afternoon.  The mashrutka driver dropped us off at the corner of the temple.  He saw us and asked if that was where we were going.  I suspect he had many passengers that day.  It was a kindness on his part to drive a little further down the road before stopping.  I don't know what the people waiting at the regular stop thought.  We had a great meal with Ann & JD who have been called as full-time temple worker missionaries, watched from their window overlooking the temple for a while, then joined the many people who came out between dedicatory sessions.  I think many of the local people attended multiple sessions.  They certainly were not eager to leave the temple grounds when it was all over.  JD says that people come and walk around and sit on the benches until it is dark most days.  It is a place of beauty and peace in a chaotic city.  The day, the weather, the occasion and the people were all beautiful. 

The Landscape even is designed to appeal the Ukrainian people.  They apparently love all types of sunflower and the crab apple tree is the "tree of paradise" if I recall rightly.

Nathan enjoyed meeting many old friends and making some new acquaintances in the between times and at the cultural celebration the night before.  This picture was taken on the metro - an old friend.  Even on the metro after the Saturday night program he met old friends.  It took a long time for people to leave the event, they were so glad to see each other and to meet each other.  President Monson promised the young people participating that they would see blessings come from their participation.  Just the new friendships would be one of those blessings.

The Cultural Celebration featured regional dances from the several nations that are part of the temple district and told the story of Christianity in the Slavic lands.  Without language skills I was pretty much on my own to understand the narrative portions, but the dancing and music was beautiful.  It needed no interpretation.  I was moved as the story unfolded to learn that the Slavic people were the first to be able to read the Bible in their own language.  When the story unfolded to the point that the LDS missionaries came to Slavic lands the entire mission came up through the audience the the strains of "Hark, all ye Nations"  and a standing ovation from the audience.  People living in foreign lands only vaguely know that missionaries make a sacrifice to serve.  After all the missionary lives like they do, so it is a common thing for them.  They may recognize the time it takes to serve a mission, but they KNOW that what was brought was so  valuable.  The missionaries are heroes to those who have accepted the gospel.  It was a new perspective on missionary work for me.

I was flattered when someone assumed that I might speak Russian or Ukrainian and asked me to take their picture.  Here we are checking out the picture.  Than meant that at least I didn't stick out as "too American"
- well at least until it was clear that I could only respond to them in English.

Immediately after the dedication the crew began working to get the temple ready for Monday.  Temples are not normally open on Mondays, but this one was full to the brim and overflowing, with many who were coming for the first time.  Many of those had no escorts to guide them so you know the temple workers were busy.  We were able to attend a temple session on Wednesday.  We had waited until they were not quite so busy.  We didn't want to take anyone's place that might have come from far away with a need to return home.
Again in the temple we met people Nathan knew and were able to see Ann & JD one last time before going home.  It is a beautiful temple.

Nathan took the picture that follows.  I love it for the contrast of the Lord's house with those Soviet style apartment building in the background.  The apartments are just across the freeway.  The Lord has such good things in mind for us - better than we can think of for ourselves.