Spring in the forest (Knyszynska Forest)

Today spring has really began! Not on the 21th March, but in fact today. It has been sunny, optimistic, warm day. I could not go to the forest by bike, because I am still a little bit ill, so I had a car trip. I wanted to bring a joy and pleasure for my parents, so I taken them with myself and they did not regret.

All those intensive, fresh scents of the firs, pines and junipers, bright blue sky and sunbeams breaking through the trees, pale green of the forest with its trees, herbs and grasses around; mysterious and fabulous roads were phenomenally beautiful after the long, cold and rather grey than white winter – those winter even cross – country skiing was impossible, because lack of the snow.

Knyszynska forest – the place where we went – is one of my favourites forests in Podlasie and even in whole Poland. Although I live close to Bialowieska Forest/Bialowieza Forest – it is only 60 kilometres from Bialystok, I prefer Knyszynska Forest – it starts on the outskirts of Bialystok and ends almost on the border with Belarussia. Living in the downtown I go to Knyszynska Forest by bike only 20 minutes, and when I reach its edge, it looks more or less in this way (more or less, because the place which is visible in the picture below is much farther – about 20 – 25 kilometres from Bialystok – between Bialystok and Michalowo, close to the village named Majdan):

Bialowieza Forest is more gloomy and darker than Knyszynska Forest, less diverse in respect of landscape and types of the forest. Bialowieza Forest lies on the lowland, Knyszynska in some places on the lowland, in other ones on the small or the higher hills. In Bialowieza Forest dominate deciduous trees, in Knyszynska Forest evergreen ones. And Knyszynska is much more inspiring – if I only had more free time I could write fables…

I do apologize for the poor quality of above pictures.

Generation JP II

The anniversary of John Paul II’s death is coming and again – as every year – discussions concerning Generation JP II are going to begin.

I remember the day when Pope died, it was – in some sense – a great day in Poland, almost a kind of feast. People felt united, got kind to each othe, tried to be better. They spontaneously left their houses and met in front of or inside the churches to be together, to pray together, many of them were even unbelievers. That day and some period afterwards people wanted to be together, they wanted to be close and supportive to each other.

It was even a kind of revolution – I remeber that in Bialystok the faith prayed in the cathedral when a priest came and made them leave the church because it was late in the naight, but people resisted him – they told him that church is theirs, not him, and he is not just an official who closes and opens the church. There were more such cases in whole Poland.
Some Polish sociologists and philosopheres proclaimed the existence of generation JP II. Many young people started wearing t-shirts with inscriptions “We are the generation JP II”, many of them named themselves “generation JP II”. It became almost a fashion, but fashion is often shallow, quickly changes and disappears. Unfortunately those enthusiastic declarations did not found reflection in everyday life. For several days, maybe for several weeks people were really better, but shortly after all those positive behaviours started fading, interpersonal relationships worsened and returned to the state as they were before. Still Polish society has the lowest rate of mutual trust (social trust) among European societies – as sociological researches prove.

Sociologists and philosophers declarations turn out to be just a wishful thinking.

Personally I was sceptical about generation JP II. I observed people who proudly called themselves generation JP II and thought it is enough to go to church, to be a member of a spirtual community, attend its meetings, to become a volunteer in a nongovernmental or charity organization, forgetting at the same time about everyday hard work in the field of interpersonal relations, forgetting about being honest, loving, kind, helpful, supportive in boring, everyday situations, not in spectacular ones. Such an everyday improvement in interpersonal relations, in public life, in mutual trust is still absent.

A few days ago I read an interview with a philosopher who told that feast is a short period, that feasts do not occur every day. He tried to convince that improvement in interpersonal relations will come, that too short period has passed to judge if John Paul II’s teaching has really influenced young people.

Let us hope he is right…

Has the world lost interest in Belarussia?

Brutally supressed democratic, peaceful manifestation in Minsk on 25th March 2008 commemorating the 90th anniversary of The Belarus’ Declaration of Independence; cruely beaten young people in the streets, some of them forcefully packed to the buses, arrested, persecutions of independent journalists – these events make up picture of today Belarussia.

Have Belarussians obtained proper attention from the world? It seems that answer should sound “no”. What is the reason of such a state? Is it conviction of international community that Aleksander Lukashenko has a real support of majority of Belarussians? During several conversations with Belarussians who came to Poland I heard that this support is doubtful. In their opinion Lukashenko is supported mainly in villaeges, but in towns it is not so obvious. Young, well educated people are against him, they want to live in democratic country, they want to travel without limits, without borders, like their peers from European Union or even from Russia. But do they have enough strength to overthrow Lukasekno’s regime? And it seems that majority of Belarussian society lives in the countryside – it is natural electorate of Lukashenko.

Maybe world has lost interest in Belarussia, because similarly to Russia’s case it does not believe in the society’s will to accept the human rights in these both countries? Or maybe it does not want to irritate Russia which considers Belarussia its natural sphere of interest and influence?

Below I publish pictures of regime officials responsible for cruel suppression of manifestation in Minsk taken from Belarussian portal http://www.charter97.org

One of them – Dimitrij Pavlichenko is suspected by international community of abductions and murders of Belarussian opposition’s leaders – Jurij Zacharenko, Victor Gonchar, Belarussian businessman and social activist – Anatolij Krasovski, and independent journalist – Dmitrij Zavadzki.

Belarussians commemorates today 90th anniversary of independence’s declaration

On 25th March 1918 Belarussians proclaimed the Belarus’ Declaration of Independence. Today, democraticly inclined Belarussians commemorate 90th anniversary of this very important event in their history.

I suppose there are going to be riots, clashes between the participants of the opposition manifestations and governement forces in the streets of Minsk. I have no doubts, no illusions, there won’t be any breakthrough today. Aleksander Lukashenko will not resign even in close future.

But I hope that one day Belarussians will gain a real democratic state. I live only 50 kilometres from border with Belarussia and would like to see the day when this border gets open, open like borders between members states of European Union. I hope one day I will be able to go by my bike to Belarussia without passport and cross the border without soldiers stopping me on the checkpoint.

And the most important thing – I would like to see the day when Belarussians get able to choose thier own governemnt in democratic way and the day when they could openly call their state – “this is really our country where we feel well” and also say: “We live in a country where we can influence our lives and state’s matters. We are not afraid, we are not terrorized, we do not live in fear.”

If I am mistaken with regard to political and social situation concerning Belarussia, let someone put me right.

Easter wishes for all Bloggers and Readers and for myself

Once agian I have failed – I have not been able to devote proper quantity of my time to deep reflection and good deeds during the Lent. Once again I have not found time to prepare myself to Easter as I would like to and as I should. Too many duties, lack of proper mood resulted in unpreparedness. But I do not want to look for easy justifications.

Fortunately, meaning and aim of the Lent reminded me articles read in a Greek catholik magazine “Slovo” from Slovakia. On the other hand I realize that reading it is not enuogh.

Much earlier I resolved to print from the Internet and read reflections on the Lent of the Russian orthodox priest – Aleksander Mien, who was killed in 1990; but lack of eligible mood made it impossible.

I am sure that next year will be better in this respect.

On the occasion of Easter I would like to wish all the bloggers and readers and also myself Unshaken Belief in Another Person, Real Joy, Deep Peace of Mind and Soul, Inexhaustible Goodness, meeting many good and kind people on our way and Grace of God.

Let us not lose our Hope!

Anneliese Michel

Yesterday on Polish public TV I watched documentary dedicated to Anneliese Michel – a German girl who lived in Bavaria, and who – and here is a real problem – who was possessed or mentally ill?

I must confess that I am a rather moderate rationalist and everything try to explain and understand. When I was a student of Law Faculty in Uniersity in Bialystok I had forensic psychiatry’s lectures. Once we – it means me and my two friends – went to psychiatric hospital in Choroszcz to see how it works in practice. We met our lecturer who became our guide in hospital. We had many conversations, and one of them concerned possession. Our lecturer informed us that psychiatric hospital cooperate with priest – exorcist. I could not understand it, I was convinced that possession does not exist, that it is only unrecognized psychic disorder, psychic illness. I knew that region where I lived was one of the most religious regions in Poland, and its tradition, catholic and orthodox church upbringing which people here obtained influenced also doctors, psychiatrists, they were born here, raised, mainly in catholic or orthodox church families, and thier background must impact them. I did not believe in possession and our lecturer was not able to convince me and my friends.

Yet before forensic psychiatry’s lectures once I attended a meeting with priest – exorcist from Kleosin near Bialystok. He told us a stroy about a girl who was led to him by her parents. She should have been possessed. When she entered a chapel she started screaming, speaking foreign languages which she had never leraned and even languages which had not existed, and her voice was cruelly inhuman, manly and terryfing. Of course I considered it was a psychic disorder which medicine, psychiatry does not know, and has difficulty in disocvering its roots and causes.

But after yesterday’s documentary I started thinking if it is possible that a fragile, delicate, sensitive girl – even if sha was ill – is able to produce such horryfing sounds, voices? Is a human being organism able to create such inhuman sounds, especially a womanly one?

Anneliese was a very religous person, religion was her almost whole life, she probably read a lot of religious books, and maybe all konwledge, all information that she gathered coded itself in her subconscious and during the explosions of her illness some of those things which lived in her subcnoscious let out in the form of frigthening voices, delusions and kind of epilepsy. Maybe, but why none of doctors was not able to treat , to help her?

I think there is a Mystery where a man should give a bow to It.

Reflections on Great Thursday

There are moments in life of human kind when a man doubts in God’s existence, when life overwhlems him or her so much that he or she does not have strength to think of God, when he or she even loses their Faith for longer or shorter periods or even forever. Such states seem unavoidable, sometimes they touch even priests, not to mention laymen. I am not a fervently religious man, though I was raised in catholic family. More than 90% of Poles make up catholics. Unfortuntaly, many Poles’ faith is very shallow and apparent, it happens that it is restricted only to visiting the church every Sunday and only to rituals. Sometimes it lacks deeper background and reflection. No wonder that many young people do not seriously treat their faith, they just do not know what should it be, they do not konw its aim, do not understand its meaning, the do not feel it.

I am 32 years old and my faith is still at the stage of discovering, getting to know, looking for, trying to understand. There are moments in my life when I do not doubt that God exists and sometimes I am not able to maintain its conviction, sometimes I get far away from God – it is not the way that He leaves me, it is impossible, I am sure that I lack smething, but still do not know what – what makes me being far away from God.

Fortunately we often meet in our way people, places, books, magazines, songs, music which confirm that God exists and is close to us, watches us, supports us and never leaves us. For several months I have been reading Slovak Greekcatholic magazin “Slovo”:

http://slovo.grkatpo.sk/

In september of 2007 I visited for the first time in my life Presov – beautiful and picturesque town in the eastern Slovakia. I found there a Greek catholic baroque church in downtown. I entered it with my mother and friend and I get enchanted (I am not sure if it is a proper word). There was a Mass in Byzantine Rite, young and elderly people deeply immersed in prayers, stunning iconostas. After returning to Poland I started to look for information concerning Greek catholics in eastern Slovakia and found website of Greek catholic bishopric in Presov:

http://www.grkatpo.sk/

and on this website also magazine “Slovo”. Fortunatley Polish and Slovakian languages are so similar that I do not have real problems in reading with understanding articles in this magazine. Every time when I read and after reading its magazine I feel that my faith gets stronger.

Slovakian landscapes, villages and towns which I saw, people who I met restored my faith. I cannot explain it – I am not enough religious man to do it, but I have friends who would be able to explain it to me, they claim there are no accidents in human life. I want to believe that in fact it is so.

I am enormously grateful to staff which creates “Slovo”. Thanks to them my faith gets stronger and I have also possibility to learn Slovakian language, to get to know Slovakian culture and history, and especially Greek catholic tradition.

Can Polish – Belarussian relations be good?

Playing scrabble, sipping vanilla – flavoured vodka with my friend in a cosy pub called “Cube” situaeted in the attic of the 19th century house in the centre of Bialystok, we were discussing Polish – Belarussian relations in Podlasie (Poland). We, native Poles, crave for good relations between these two nations living for centuriers in this region. Now these relations are correct, but it is not enough, not for us, sometimes they get spolied, they fail. The roots of this state one should trace back to history, different goals and different interests of Poles and Belarussians.

The mutual, sincere and real respect, deep understanding and emapthy, not to say love (is love possible between nations at all?) – those are things which we dream of.

With regard to love – presently love seems to be only rhetoric, but it should show ideal which we are obliged to pursue. And maybe not “obliged”, but which we WANT to pursue.

Are we naive in our dreams, in our considerations? Are we dreamers? For sure, but it is good to be an idealist, however naively it sounds.