LENT, A FOLLOW-UP: E-pistle One

Last week, after looking with amazement at how publicized and public "Lent" is here in Yekaterinburg (the "food page" of one local called "Lenten" cuisine "fashionable"), I fell to wondering: has anything come about in the USA that, compared to 15 years ago, is as different as the Church's role seems to be in Russia today — and a number of responses came hurtling in from both coasts of the USA. I thought you all would find them interesting reading. I certainly did.

Two of the guys identified themselves as "old farts", but in Waverly Mike's case, it wasn't self-deprecation. It was his credentials. For the change most evident to him is how different US protesters are in 2003. His observations would mean nothing if he were not "an old fart who participated in 60's and 70's demonstrations."

In Washington recently, Mike noted demonstration-participants with "(1) ... high-tech winter gear .... lets us get out in the dead of winter and protest.... (2) cell phones ... one guy on his phone [was] talking to someone else at the march, trying to figure out where each was and how to meet up.... (3) multiple ear piercings [which] would have seemed bizarre back then, [but] today is unremarkable."

The other self-described old fart is in California, where he too has been active in public discourse, but in a more mainstream sort of way. Former east-coaster Andrew witnesses to a different kind of change in the last 15 years, and he is not impressed with what he sees: "political discourse ... [has become] more and more crass.... [As for] religious values ... it's selective lip service and doesn't amount to much from a 'love thy neighbor' perspective. And when it comes to self-discipline, that concept has no religious meaning...." As to the last, he admits there is the limited phenomenon of self-discipline in health/physical-fitness circles, but on the whole he finds Americans getting "fatter and fatter."

Art of Anne Arundel County (that's not an exhibition) looks to yet another category of change. He testifies to "young women act[ing] differently now ... driving as badly as young men ... [probably seeing] their options in life as essentially the same as young men's...."

Mrs. L.H. up in rural Pennsylvania is a good person to poll, for she is only recently back in the USA after almost two decades raising an expatriate family in Europe. She finds "sweeping changes" from "classical church music ... being rapidly replaced by contemporary music" to "Spanish ... the preeminent language in the U.S. school system,... [with] German and French ... disappearing into the woodwork." Also, "people have largely stopped smoking...who'd've guessed that ... 20 years ago?"

Mary C. and Barbara B. are back on how technology has changed our lives. Ms. B. asked rhetorically "Was I checking my e-mail 5 times a day 15 years ago? Was I even using it?" Then there's "books on tape" because B.B. no longer has time to sit and read; and then the microwave — "when something takes more than a minute to cook or defrost, I'm on edge...."

Towson Phyl also has not been blind to change, though it is, she says, "perhaps not so starkly noticeable" as what I reported from Yekaterinburg. And, like West-Coast Andrew, she finds little to rejoice about. Her self-descriptor is "Grump". Change in America, she writes, has "been more insidious in its development, e. g., the dumbing down of America, the conservative stranglehold on news media, the ubiquity of cell phones and the boors who use them — well the list seems endless."

I have no quarrel with any one of you, but maybe — well, maybe there is no comparison between the changes you've observed there and the phenomenon that astonishes me here, and therefore I should never have suggested there might be. But whadda I know?

Listen, if you continue to be interested in hearing more about the different role of the Church in Russia's public arena, then open up the next E-pistle: "The Church Outs Itself From The Sanctuary." I've drafted there more observations under sub-headings: I. The Church Like a Bear, and II. The Church Tells The State Its Duty in Matters of Sex.

If, on the other hand, these e-mails are as aggravating as spam, especially now in these days of war, feel free to press delete on the next mailing.

Be good. Yours, Matthew

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