I already knew the broad outlines of McPherson's three decades in the public eye as an evangelist, healer, pastor, and founder of the USA's first megachurch. Hoffman's book gives a fascinating and balanced account of her life. She begins the book with one of the most dramatic events of McPherson's life—her disappearance from a Los Angeles beach in 1926—but provides historical, biographical, and theological context for her precedent-breaking career as a whole. The author gives us plenty of material from which to draw some connections with Fox.
One important factor that isn't a parallel is, of course, gender. However we feel about McPherson's claim to be empowered directly by the Holy Spirit, she had plenty of talent, giftedness, persistence, and amazing audacity behind her ascendancy as a woman to a status of, arguably, the most famous Christian celebrity in the USA of her time, far beyond her Pentecostal community. There were occasions when she could draw spontaneous crowds of tens of thousands of people, of whom thousands simply wanted to experience her healing power.
Here are some of the points that caused me to compare McPherson and Fox.
They both emphasized the possibility and importance of the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit. Theologically, McPherson was rather a centrist in the spectrum of evangelical Christianity of her time. She didn't deviate much from the fundamentalism of her early Christian experience, but her presentation of Christian faith emphasized grace and intimacy with God rather than legalism and fear of punishment. I think that many of Fox's evangelistic presentations in his itinerant ministry, and his epistles, could have (with updated English) come from McPherson as well.
They both used the communication channels of their time effectively. For Fox and his companions, it was the printing press, which is where McPherson also started, but she became a radio pioneer as well. (Toward the end of her life, McPherson was researching the possibilities of television.) Both of them published constantly, not only to present their own message, but also to argue with detractors. Fox and his movement were, at times, under attack from the Christian establishment and under persecution by their government. They responded nonviolently but certainly not passively as they flooded the market with books, tracts, and petitions. McPherson's disappearance and subsequent very controversial reappearance led to massive campaigns both for her and against her in the mass media of her times, and in the courtrooms of Los Angeles.
Both Fox and McPherson relied on women gifted in administration, fundraising, and oversight. Aimee Semple McPherson's support and accountability person for much of her career was her mother, Mildred Kennedy. For George Fox, Margaret Fell took on this role, alongside her evident gifts as theologian and communicator, and eventually she and Fox married.
In both cases, they developed leadership structures, with boards and committees, and those structures (with major changes over the years) exist to this day. The Foursquare Church continues as a worldwide fellowship, and so do we Friends. We have dispersed accountability and leadership arrangements compared with the more unified and centralized Foursquare structure, and we don't have one official statement of faith as Foursquare does, but we've both managed to take a fellowship that began with a single powerful personality and make it durable.
This leads to another similarity. Both movements have succeeded in honoring their founders without exaggerating their status as heroes. At the end of Claire Hoffman's book, she emphasizes this point about McPherson; there's little evidence of a personality cult around her in the present-day Foursquare Church. Neither is she hidden; she gets full credit for her role in starting the church, but is not an object of adoration. Fox's status among us Quakers is rather ambiguous; we quote him when it suits us, but often leaving out the full context of his intended meaning. In both cases, some of these leaders' more extravagant behaviors and claims have been downplayed since then. Speaking in tongues and healing continue to be expected in Foursquare fellowships, but Fox's accounts of miraculous healings (such as those included in Fox's Book of Miracles) have not led to similar expectations among us.
The expansion of the Quaker movement in Fox's lifetime was remarkable, although in the succeeding centuries we have lost momentum numerically, to say the least. It may be too soon to draw comparisons with Foursquare's growth. Nor did we ever have megachurches or anything resembling McPherson's Angelus Temple. The differences between our two movements may be just as fruitful to explore as the similarities; I just wanted to point out those similarities as I closed the covers of Hoffman's fascinating book. What instructive differences and similarities occur to you?
Something even older: here's an interesting article by Carey Mcwilliams on "cults" in California, from the March 1946 issue of The Atlantic. It was cited in the notes of Claire Hoffman's book.
Another year's worth of "useful theology from a Quaker-shaped Christian," Mark Russ.
Sergey Kadyrov's audiovisual Christmas card from Elektrostal, Russia. Link to video.
Methodists organize Christmas Eve vigil at ICE facility, Portland, Oregon. Source.
For me, the constant theme for this year has been faithfulness to Christian discipleship in a country under occupation.
Enough of these posts over the past year have been on this theme, so it's not necessary for me to belabor it here. I'm just grateful to be part of a faith community that has not surrendered to the intolerable.
Two of this year's high points for me involved my relationship with the land where I was born. In July I was present for the departure of the sloop-replica Restauration, sailing from Stavanger to New York City on the 200th anniversary of the original departure of the first organized emigration of Norwegians to the USA. And in November I received word that my application to regain my Norwegian citizenship had been approved. (It had been lost when I became a U.S. citizen at a time when Norway didn't allow dual citizenship, which it now does.)
By long practice, my last post for 2025 is a selection of the year's posts, one per month....
My 1975 visit to Russia began even before I left London. Shortly after I boarded Aeroflot's IL-62 to Moscow, before I had taken my seat, the airplane began taxiing. The two seats next to mine were occupied by two delightful middle-aged women who had boarded in San Francisco and who now helped wedge me into my seat. Almost all the floor space was taken up by their numerous bottles and packages of goodies (apparently no need to secure carry-on items!), but after a bit of rearranging, I was fine. Soon they were offering me all kinds of yummy pastries, and insisted on adding cognac to my coffee.
It is no surprise that many Americans have not heard of the "network of networks" that compose Independent Charismatics, particularly those centered on Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation. (See this post, Are we agents of Lucifer?, for a brief introduction.) Those of us who just catch occasional glimpses of Pentecostal and charismatic subcultures may find them either absurd or disturbing, especially if we rely on video clips of "preachers gone wild" and the like. We are therefore likely to underestimate the appeal and reach of those subcultures.
Ideally, by paying taxes, we citizens are simply upholding a covenant we have with each other. We have made promises to each other—"to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" (preamble to the U.S. Constitution), setting up a government for these purposes and assigning that government, through our legislature, the practical tasks needed to fulfill those promises. We know that these tasks cost money, so our legislators make a list of those costs and institute sources of revenue, including taxes. That's the covenant: to decide on the tasks needed for the "general Welfare," from which we all benefit, directly or indirectly, and to pay our fair share for those tasks
Looking back at the first principles I proposed back in November, are they adequate for this era of flagrant and gleeful cruelty? I still feel strongly about not dividing our country into pro- and anti-Trump populations, and resisting the degradation of civil discourse. What other disciplines and practices should we consider? For myself, I'm constantly drawn back to Jesus, who was himself mocked and whipped before being crucified. What can we say to those who proclaim faith in Jesus even as they mock and whip others and look to their MAGA audiences for approval? The case for actual evangelism seems more urgent than ever.
Of course the USA is not the only country in the world whose citizens, or at least some of them, believe they live in "the greatest land of all." And, they might even be able to explain why they believe this. In the case of the USA, my idealistic preferred explanation to justify claims of the USA's greatness is John Gunther's famous line that the USA is "a country deliberately founded on a good idea"—an idea whose most succinct expression might be the first three words of the U.S. Constitution: "We the people...."
As an aspiration it is powerful, and it's part of our notorious American exceptionalism, but in these fractious times, are "we" still "we"? And as for "the people," is our government still, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "of the people, by the people, for the people"?
One thing seems clear to me about American patriotism. If it becomes detached from that "good idea," then it degrades into cultish compulsory slogans, chiefly useful for attacking one's political enemies.
As I got more and more acquainted with Quaker ways, I learned that the process of realizing that one "belonged" had various names, especially "convincement" and "conversion." In my own life, conversion came first, earlier that same year, when my reading of the Sermon the Mount, Matthew's version, led me to trust Jesus. I concluded for myself that conversion was a matter of opening my eyes and heart to an inward light that could illuminate a path through life. Becoming convinced, on the other hand, meant that, at least in my specific case, the companionship of Quakers provided the best, most direct guides along that path.
All this was no random accident, I realized. My family's chaos (combined, ironically, with its cult of obedience) and the public agonies of the Viet Nam War era, had already led me to nonviolence and a rejection of authoritarianism. I couldn't say where worldly contingencies and the Holy Spirit's guidance merged in my case. But once I realized that I didn't want to practice my newfound faith all alone, a peace church with almost zero hierarchy was bound to appeal. I wanted to go public. I wanted to belong officially!—whatever that meant.
"... We all hold critical roles...." [Libby Willcomm, on working to rescue now vs working for systemic change.] Exactly. And here's what I would love to see: that "mutuality" would also become mutual accountability and mutual trust. The next time the question of how to prioritize our resources comes up, I hope I'll remember (or better yet, someone else will remember!) to invite us to go around the group and ask how we arrive at our priorities, and how we make our contributions accordingly.
Maybe you have ways I've never heard of, to address the systemic causes or the most effective methods of direct relief. Unless we talk, I might never know. Even if I don't sign on to your priority, I can pray for you, and support you in the direction you've chosen, knowing that our whole community will then be more effective in keeping God's promises ... rather than one-upping each other on which of us have chosen the better path. I think it's also good to let each other know how we arrive at the amounts or forms of giving that we choose.
[Lamorna] Ash makes me think about what a conversation between Francis Spufford and Flannery O'Connor might be like. Her survey of Christianity in the UK ranges from rigidity with a happy salesface, to bass-driven ecstasy, to personal histories of toxic power games, to encounters with mysticism ancient and modern, to utter serenity, and everything in between. Her 60 interviewees have variously been converted, disillusioned, reconverted, with all levels of investment in making—or not making—their personal experiences and confessions congruent with the institution they're in at the moment. She candidly reports how this research and writing project is affecting her own life, even as she awaits a diagnosis on her mother's symptoms that suggest dementia may be coming.
She is not simply reporting on what Christianity looks like to some of her Generation Z contemporaries. She's also wrestling with Christianity's own primitive and sometimes compelling strangeness, and its multifaceted persistence. She thinks about the difference between the Nicene theologians wrestling so deeply with the nature of Christ, and those Christian thinkers of our own era who can't get beyond sex.
[An "EXCELLENT post" from "your favorite blogger."]
Two days ago, I had a chance to hear Howard Macy read his draft chapter on "Blessing Enemies" from his forthcoming book with the working title Living to Bless. This chapter of his book is based on Matthew 5:43-48, but not only: Howard traces the "love your enemies" theme throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bible.
Howard's full chapter is a compelling lesson in why and how we bless our enemies, while not denying the dangers they may pose. Here's the challenge for me: its teachings can be applied to our fractured world this very day, if we're willing.
Yesterday morning on our public radio station I heard Meghna Chakrabarti open her On Point program with these words:
It would later be called the Secret Speech, but on February 25th, 1956, a cold morning in Moscow, no one knew what to expect. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stood before the 20th Congress of the Communist Party and did the unthinkable.
For a few wild moments, before she went on to explain her reasons for referring to this speech, my memories flashed back five decades to my student years at the Institute for Soviet and East European Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. In those years, I studied Russian language and literature, Russian history, and the politics of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. The "secret speech" was a landmark event in Soviet history, and I remember being fascinated by the speech itself and the varied commentaries on Khrushchev's motives, what he should have said, what he should not have said, and the uneven progress of the destalinization efforts that followed.
We Quakers haven't exactly gone through a civil war, but we have had a number of severe divisions, as a result of which (as Kevin [Camp]pointed out) we're often appealing to the same history and the same Quaker language and drawing very different conclusions. Kevin's post urges us not to let divisions demoralize us, and I agree.
In two periods of my service with international Friends organizations—ten years with Friends World Committee for Consultation and seven with Friends United Meeting—I visited hundreds of Friends communities, and I found among them many Friends who, with varying degrees of stubbornness, would fit Kevin's descriptions of people as different as chalk and cheese according to their preferred interpretations of core Quakerism. But over all those years, I caught glimpses of progress as well. Maybe we won't be reading from the exact same page anytime soon, but there are many Friends who are at least looking at each other's favorite pages....
There's a Russian phrase, both precise and vague at the same time, that translates to English as "in times like these...."
In times like these, we write about Friends' service in Russia with love and enthusiasm tempered with discretion. We don't give names of people and partner organizations. We do emphasize our nonviolent and truthful principles, just as we "harmless and innocent people of God" did in earlier turbulent times—the years of our movement's origin.
As a former member of the board of Friends House Moscow, I appreciated receiving this report on the meeting held this autumn in southern France. I'm grateful for the permission to use it here, with one or two edits. Links were added by me.
Video: On his radio and streaming-video show Full Contact, the acid-tongued Vladimir Solovyov says the mission of Russia is to save humanity on a civilizational level, countering the evil West. Along the way, he makes a point about Donald Trump and Greenland: If the USA deems the annexation of Greenland is necessary for our security, why shouldn't Russia carve itself a piece of land from its neighbors for the sake of Russian security?
On violence and the Bible: John Kinney at Spokane Friends Church. From earlier, here's an interesting exchange among Anabaptists: Why Conrad Kanagy is not a red-letter Christian, and Spencer Bradford on why "Is God violent?" isn't the right question.
A Christmas rerun. One of the comments on this video of a contemporary Norwegian Christmas song: "When I hear this song, it's Christmas... Thank you for that, Oslo Gospel Choir."
There's a Russian phrase, both precise and vague at the same time, that translates to English as "in times like these...."
In times like these, we write about Friends' service in Russia with love and enthusiasm tempered with discretion. We don't give names of people and partner organizations. We do emphasize our nonviolent and truthful principles, just as we "harmless and innocent people of God" did in earlier turbulent times—the years of our movement's origin.
As a former member of the board of Friends House Moscow, I appreciated receiving this report on the meeting held this autumn in southern France. I'm grateful for the permission to use it here, with one or two edits. Links were added by me.
Asked about the massive amount of work the FHM meeting entailed for them, both Miranda and Eli responded in the same manner: “It is lovely to see Maison Quaker so full. It is rare to have such a large group of Friends present all at one time. This makes it really special for us.”
The task of the board was to discern the future strategy of Friends House Moscow. This was no easy challenge. Given that the war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending any day soon—astonishingly, there has already been nearly four years of fighting, rather than the three or four days many commentators had predicted—nothing about the work of FHM can be taken for granted. The board thus needed to answer tough questions. Should we continue the work? And if we should, how do we do so practically, given all the challenges it now faces?
Our deliberations started with a look back in time through the lens of Sergei Nikitin’s history of Quaker relief in early twentieth century Russia, noting that there has been constant Quaker interaction with Russia for more than a century. We then examined how our personal motivations for this work live into the Quaker Testimonies of Peace, Simplicity, Integrity and Equality, before pivoting to look at the current political environment in Russia. We considered how these changes have affected the relationships of Friends to Friends House Moscow, asking whether or not there was continuing support from local and yearly meetings in Europe and the U.S. We agreed that there is still support.
Tight finances mean that FHM cannot do all it would like to, nor meet all the needs of those approaching it for help. Three days of discernment led us to the conclusion that we should continue to support the refugee centre, bolster our publishing work, and maintain our support for the language club.
Three priorities
The refugee centre continues to help the socialisation and education of children whose families have come to Russia in search of a better life and greater security. We have been supporting the Centre since the mid-1990s. The refugees and other migrants come from a wide variety of countries. Once in Russia, they face many challenges, and often need to keep a very low profile, which makes the centre so critical for them.
Our publishing efforts remain central. We have published 22 titles in Moscow, following translation into Russian. “Best sellers” include Plague, Pestilence and Famine by Muriel Payne, The Fruits of Solitude by William Penn, and Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.
We will continue to support the language club. Over the past year we have conducted hundreds of language lessons for students who wish to develop confidence is speaking in public in another language. We view it as a sign of hope that students wish to continue learning another language and that cultural contact with other European countries has not stopped completely.
The way opens
By the time Friends gathered for meeting for worship on Sunday, which included members of the local meeting, board of Friends House Moscow had already spent two days in contemplation and debate, chewing over the difficult issues facing the organisation. There was still a further day to go, but by the time of meeting for worship, we were feeling positive about the future of FHM.
The final day was something of a threshing meeting, as we needed to match our finances to our priorities. Sterling efforts by those of us who understand spreadsheets and IT gave us all a clear understanding that, whichever way up we looked at things, they did not square—there simply was not enough money in the pot to do all we wished FHM to do. We the leading to continue the work, we concluded the three days by committing ourselves both to the budget and to urgent need to raise additional support.
Perhaps the most important support that Friends House needs is the energy and vision of people who may have never heard of this program, and might not speak Russian, but who recognize the need for Friends House and its potential for healing, reconciliation, and encouragement in times like these. If you have follow-up questions or ideas, write to me, and if I don't know the answer, I'll find someone who does. Also see the related link below.
In The Friend: some context for the board meeting described above.
Homeland Security (USA) is proposing to require certain tourists coming to the USA to make available their social network posts for the last five years and all e-mail addresses, personal and business, over the last ten years. Here's the form to read the details and make your comments. In the list of "newly proposed changes" to the data required from travelers, see especially (3) "Mandatory Social Media"; and (4) "High Value Data Elements," requiring data from family members as well as travelers themselves. Deadline for comments: February 8.
The promise of Genesis 3–4 is that despite our best intentions we will inevitably cause ruptures (such as on my second to last day on the field when in a wave of cultural exhaustion I exploded on my closest friends because they asked for money). The aim of cross-cultural service is not solely to avoid such things, though it’s worth our best effort. It is to be sent as ambassadors of the entire Ephesians 2 gospel, true ministers of reconciliation who abide the often mortifying work of repair—the costly reweaving of trust.
Sergey Kadyrov's music, and his scenes and holiday decorations from the cities of Noginsk and Elektrostal. Instant nostalgia, of course. Thank you, Sergey! (The cafe at our former workplace, the New Humanities Institute, appears briefly starting at 1:12; three views altogether.)
A couple of weeks ago I sketched our travels from London, England, to Hampstead, New Hampshire, via Barcelona. As I prepared to publish that post, we were hearing reports of winter conditions predicted for the path of our upcoming train trip home via Boston and Chicago.
As it turned out, we traveled in great comfort (despite being in coach seats the whole three days), but winter weather did cause several delays, particularly west of Chicago. By Malta, Montana, outside temperatures were down to -6 F.
At one time, technical problems and "congestion" got us five hours behind schedule, but we pulled into Portland, Oregon, only four hours late.
I brought an 800-page book with me, and nearly finished it on the train. It was Anne Rivers Siddons's Peachtree Road, a fictionalized social history of 20th-century Atlanta, Georgia, mostly from the point of view of its midcentury elite families. It's a sweeping cultural epic combined with close-up accounts of family dysfunctions and episodes of social failure worthy of Tolstoy. In any case,the book had plenty to keep me occupied.
One moment in Peachtree Road was particularly poignant for me. The author described the impact of President Kennedy's assassination on the idealists in Atlanta's emerging leadership of the early 1960's. I remember the assassination vividly, but at age ten, I had not had any sense of the "Camelot" aura around the Kennedys' White House.
Now, reading the novel, I remembered an incident in my Russian history class at Carleton University. The professor was Carter Elwood, a central figure in Slavic studies in Canada and the world, and an inspiring instructor in the classroom. (And Carleton had no lack of inspiring instructors in Soviet studies—Vladimir Grebenshchikov, Paul Varnai, Halina Stepanovna van de Lagemaat—see last item here, Edward Lee, and others.)
On November 22, 1973, the tenth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Elwood set aside his normal themes. He talked to us about that brief period of new ideals, energy, and elegance, that Kennedy's presidency seemed to bring, and that were ended so cruelly by Oswald's bullets. With tears in his eyes, he contrasted the Kennedys' Camelot with the state of affairs in 1973, Nixon having just gone on television the previous week to tell us he was not a crook.
We have made this particular three-day railroad trip several times before, but it's not the longest train trip we've taken. That happened in 2011, when we spent four days on the train from Moscow, Russia, to Sukhbaatar, Mongolia. Some pictures from that trip are here, and I described the book I read on that trip, Crazy for God, in the following week's post.
One final note on travel. This year I marked the fiftieth anniversaries of two trips that helped shape my life. The first one was to Mississippi, and the second, to Moscow and Leningrad. More on those trips at From Mississippi to Moscow.
The Friends Incubator for Public Ministry presents an online conversation with Windy Cooler and historian Tom Hamm on bold Quaker ministers. It's this Saturday at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Register through the link on this page.
Two Washington Post items on religion in the USA: "A hidden trend" (new fascination with faith among young people); and Senator Warnock's warning to all of us, particularly Democrats, of the cost of ignoring faith. (Video of Warnock's presentation is available here.)
Is there a moment of truth coming for the USA's NASA and its moon-landing project? Ars Technica's Eric Berger describes a recent congressional hearing in which one credible scientist made his doubts very clear.
I cannot, cannot press "publish" on this post without noting the vulgar inhumanity of Trump on Somalia and Somalis. It is a festering scandal that such a man occupies the White House. Words fail me, so I'll link to The Guardian's Moira Donegan.
In keeping with the travel theme, I'm closing this week's post with a classical pianist from London, Nataly Ganina. She began her musical education at age 5 in Riga, Latvia. We first heard her at a lunchtime concert at St. Olave's Hart Street, London, three years ago, and then again at the same place last month. I couldn't find a video clip from that location, but here she is at Holy Trinity South Woodford last October, playing one of my favorite impromptus from Schubert, as she did again a couple of weeks later at St. Olave.
(I've selected the segment that starts with Schubert's fourth impromptu from Op. 90, but if you have the time, listen to the whole concert.)
"A flag of peace and freedom"—a design for a post-colonial Russian flag. Source.
Since the death of Alexei Navalny, I've not written much here about the theme of the "beautiful Russia of the future." I continue to think about Russia often, and am in touch with some of our friends and colleagues of our years in Elektrostal, but the ongoing war, and the repressive political context, has complicated these relationships, to my sorrow and frustration.
However, I was reminded that this state of affairs won't last forever, Here's the communication I received today, written by two old friends, that reminded me:
Planting Seeds for Healing
A brutal war is raging in Ukraine and near the border with Russia. Will there be a winner in this conflict? I think not. In war, everyone loses. Both sides have lost many lives. The destruction in Ukraine is immense.
All wars eventually come to an end, and this one will not be an exception. When this war is over, the reconstruction begins.
However, it is not just the infrastructure and buildings that must be rebuilt. It is the lives of the people that will need restoring and healing—a return to mental and physical health. For every soldier who is killed, many lives are affected—parents, children, siblings, spouse, friends—and their lives will never be the same. Some sources estimate over one million killed plus many other wounded. There will be a great many people on both sides with unimaginable losses who suffer from trauma, stress, depression, hatred, grief, shame, regret, and many will carry unthinkable physical injuries for the rest of their lives.
Healing is a long-term process which will require dedicated professionals and volunteers who believe that, with compassion and understanding, it is possible to do healing work with individuals and groups. This process begins now in anticipation of the eventual end to this terrible war and the normalization of travel: willing professionals must be located; a sustainable program developed; volunteers
trained; money raised for transportation, office space, supplies, outreach.
There is a registered non-profit in the US that has been supporting projects in Russia and Ukraine for 29 years. Its supporters believe that an intense effort will be needed to answer the call for help from both sides in this war. They want to be involved and are looking for others who want to engage with the creative and inclusive process of assessing needs, connecting with the people in both countries, developing programs, raising funds, and implementing such healing.
Knowledge of the Russian or Ukrainian language is not necessary.
I can vouch for the authors of this invitation and hope that, if something stirs in your heart, you'll get in touch with the authors through that e-mail address.
Quakers have been involved in Russia and Ukraine for many years, dating back to Peter the Great. I know personally some of those who now carry these concerns for healing, but the majority of them are now 70 or more years old. If there are younger Friends with a concern for this part of the world, I'd love to hear from you. (johan@canyoubelieve.me.) And so would those who wrote the invitation above.
When I started studying the Russian language in high school in Evanston, Illinois, I didn't feel alone. It was great fun to go to the University of Illinois campus in Chicago on May 15, 1971, for the Illinois State Russian Contest, and see a whole lecture hall full of high school students with similar enthusiasm. (I won a "Superior" certificate!)
Stats for high school students of Russian then and now are hard to find, but college level enrollments have taken a dive since those years. At their peak (1990), there were about 44,500 students of Russian in the USA. (I wasn't one of them; I majored in Russian at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.) By 2021 the number had gone down to 17,598. And that's before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which I'm sure made the language even less popular among those from non-Russian backgrounds. In my high school years, the Cold War (and the alarm over Sputnik I) gave some of us a sense of urgency, but the current grievous situation hasn't had the same effect.
As writer and critic Dmitri Bykov noted back in 2022, commenting on the full-scale invasion,
It is clear that Russia crossed many red lines. It cannot live any longer as it did in the past. The world will no longer see [in Russia] a place of spirituality, a place of great culture, a place representing victory over fascism.
That may all be true, now and for some time to come, but all the severe judgments, indictments, cultural boycotts, social and economic isolation, and other consequences that this nation has brought down upon itself through coercion, passivity, and toxic cynicism, I can't help continuing to cherish the vision of a "beautiful Russia of the future." And a key component for recovering that beauty is the gift of healing.
It may well be the case that young adults in the United States view Christianity as an impediment to women’s equality, a view amplified by the “Orthodoxy as Masculinity” narrative. But that is not what Orthodox Christianity proclaims.
I'm grateful for a wonderful time in London with our son, and for safe travels back to the USA on two airlines I'd never heard of. Both airlines—Vueling and LEVEL—are owned by the same company that owns British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, and both serve Barcelona, Spain, through which we flew to get to our transatlantic destination, Boston. Although Vueling's A320 had the tiniest pitch of any airplane I've ever flown in, with my knees pressed into the seat in front of me, I was thankful for a reasonable fare for a one-way transatlantic trip.
I'm grateful for the wedding that was the occasion for coming back to the USA through Boston. Our nephew Ben Cabezas married Chris Rainville last Saturday, in Hampstead, New Hampshire. Among the many blessings resulting from the wedding was the biggest reunion of extended family that I've experienced for decades. Best wishes to Ben and Chris, and thanks for the wonderful occasion and reunion. On the most basic level, I'm incredibly grateful for family, wherever they may happen to be today.
Our next stage of travel is planned to start tomorrow: Amtrak trains from Boston to Chicago and then Chicago to Portland, Oregon. We made this trip several times during our Russia years, and are looking forward to those days of continental sightseeing through train windows and the Empire Builder's observation car, along with plenty of time to read and to do my daily Norwegian language homework.
One wintery wrinkle: significant snow predicted along our Amtrak route.
I'm grateful that this is a holiday post, and I can end this post a bit early, compared to my usual length! It's time to celebrate.
Diana Butler Bass: "This Thanksgiving, we do not give thanks. We choose it."
Becky Ankeny on having trust that is based on the character of God.
Micah Bales on adulting in the Kingdom. "This is really good news for us who are just trying to be adults in a world that feels like it’s flying apart."
A tribute to sweet potatoes (one of Judy's Thanksgiving specialties).
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