First Parish Bedford UU

Reports from Transylvania

Reflections from a recent trip to our partner church village in Abásfalva, Romania

Delivered during the worship services on Sunday, September 26, 2010

At First Parish in Bedford

A Thought to Ponder at the Beginning:

“Yet for me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle. In that regard, even a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet (in Beijing) or a scratchy revival showing of “Wild Orchids” (on the Champs-Elysees) can be both novelty and revelation: In China, after all, people will pay a whole week’s wages to eat with Colonel Sanders, and in Paris, Mickey Rourke is regarded as the greatest actor since Jerry Lewis…

“For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can’t quite speak the language, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with. All the great travel books are love stories, by some reckoning -- from the Odyssey and the Aeneid to the Divine Comedy and the New Testament -- and all good trips are, like love, about being carried out of yourself and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder.”

—Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel”

Opening Words

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.

—Pico Iyer

A Time for All Ages:  Slides and Commentary

by Rev. Megan Lynes and Isabella Yannoni

Isabella and Emma and I chose some of our favorite pictures to talk about from our visit to our Partner Village called Abásfalva. We want to show you about their life, and especially show you some of the children.

Slide One:  This is Abásfalva. Everyone in this village is Unitarian. The whole village has about 300 people in it. That’s smaller than our whole church community.

Slide Two:  Many people there are farmers. This is a horse cart carrying hay back from the fields. We took this picture out the front window of our bus and we were worried we’d have a hard time getting around the cart, but we made it ok. Only a few pieces of hay fell off. We all waved at each other as we went by.

Slide Three:  In the morning at about 7 AM shepherds come to collect animals from each family’s house. The shepherds take the cows, horses, goats and sheep up to the hills to graze ‘till sunset. Some dogs go along too. You can’t tell from this picture, but actually this was a rather loud time in the day!

Slide Four:  These are some other animals in the village (ducks, cats, chickens)….

Slide Five:  All of us enjoyed milking the goats. Some of us drank fresh goat milk mixed with cocoa powder for a morning treat.

Slide Six:  We especially liked meeting the children in the village. This boy was having fun riding his family’s bike.

Slide Seven:  This boy wove clovers together into braids and sold them to passers by. You can see he’s holding a 1 Leu note. That’s about 30 cents.

Slide Eight:  There’s a river that flows through the middle of the village. These kids were splashing in the river for fun. The river is also the place where some people wash their clothes, or drive their cars in for a rinse.

Slide Nine:  This is a classroom in the school in Abásfalva. You can see the Hungarian alphabet on the wall, and some math on the black board. Isabella is standing near a big ceramic stove that burns wood in the winter. That heats the room.

Slide Ten:  One day we went to a nearby town for a big yearly Unitarian festival. There were speeches and dances. These are some girls from a youth group who dressed up in their traditional Hungarian outfits for the special occasion.

Slide Eleven:  These are the boys from the same youth group. It was a day when everyone felt proud to be a Unitarian. Their outfits remind them of their shared religion and culture.

Slide Twelve:  On the last day we were in the village we wanted to give something to the children as a way to show we care about them even though we live far away. We gave them Silly Bands, which are popular stretchy bracelets that many American kids collect these days. They really liked them, and shared them all around.

Slide Thirteen:  This is a picture of some of the kids in Abásfalva wearing the Silly Bands.

Meeting the children of Abásfalva was definitely one of the best parts of our trip. When we got back to Bedford, their faces stayed in our minds. Maybe when they look at their bracelets our faces stay in their minds. Even though you might not have met them, we wanted to have a way to link our two communities together in our hearts. We have brought a Silly Band for each of the kids at First Parish which you will receive at Ingathering. The idea is that it can be a symbol of our connection to other Unitarians in the world, and a reminder of the children in our Partner Church in Abásfalva.

Introduction and History    Rev. John Gibbons

For Christians, for Jews and Muslims, for Hindus and Buddhists, for pagans, atheists and for Unitarian Universalists, pilgrimage is a religious, a spiritual, a human impulse.

Now it’s a little early in my brief remarks for a digression, but up the Great Road a ways there’s a Shell gas station. Shell’s logo is a bright yellow and red scallop shell. Why is that? I’m glad you asked.

For Christians one of the oldest and most important places of pilgrimage is Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. It is said that there St. James, the Fisherman disciple of Jesus, first brought Christianity to the Celtic peoples. West of the Holy Land, they say, it was in Santiago that James launched the whole Christian franchise. And the next thing you know, the Benedictines built monasteries and hostels to host pilgrims going to Santiago, the beginning of the whole tourist industry. The hotel in the square by Santiago Cathedral boasts that it is the oldest hotel in the world. How many of you knew that?  

So, the symbol of St. James, the Fisherman Disciple, is the scallop shell, and thus it came to pass that many years ago the Shell Oil Company adopted the scallop shell as their symbol, a logo for pilgrims, travelers and drivers. The red and yellow of the Shell logo, by the way, are the colors of the Spanish flag! Are you not glad that you now know this?

Our religious tradition has emphasized, not long-distance travel, but interior exploration. “I have traveled widely,” Thoreau said, “in Concord.” With the poet Mary Oliver, we say, “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”

But, then, there is Transylvania. There is no single birthplace of Unitarianism as Unitarian ideas have arisen whenever and wherever there are reformers who challenge custom, skeptics who question orthodoxy, humanists who reject supernaturalism; whenever and wherever values of freedom, reason and inclusion are affirmed.

It was, however, in Transylvania that these ideas were first called, named, claimed and embraced as Unitarian. In the late 1500’s a preacher named Francis David – who himself was influenced by Italian, Polish and other religious radicals – captured the attention of Transylvanian ruler John Sigismund who then declared himself to be a Unitarian. Contrary to custom, however, Sigismund did not then require his subjects to become Unitarian but instead in 1568 issued the first declaration of religious freedom, called the Edict of Torda because, as Francis David had said, “faith is a gift of God” and cannot be coerced.

Sigismund is sometimes called the first and only Unitarian king in history, but this is not exactly true because the Ottoman Turks ruled the region of which Transylvania was a part. This is instructive because the Muslim Ottomans were more inclusive and tolerant than the crusading Christians of the same era. Sigismund could also be called the only Unitarian gay king in history, but that would be a digression I cannot make.

Francis David did not believe that prayers should be addressed or said in the name of Jesus; no one should mediate or come between the person who prays and God. In its own context, Francis David’s assertion is comparable and as radical as that of Emerson who said that no priest or preacher, holy book, church or tradition should come between any human being and whatever is divine or ultimate. Francis David believed that the church must forever be reforming, changing, evolving. And for these Unitarian ideas he was declared a heretic and banished to a remote mountain-top cell in a place called Deva where he died a martyr.

Transylvania has sometimes been semi-autonomous; for centuries it was part of Hungary. In one of history’s most heartbreaking and resented dislocations, Transylvania was awarded to Romania at the end of the First World War.

Today there are 60,000 Unitarians in 160 congregations in Transylvania. These Unitarians are a double-minority religiously and ethnically: they are Unitarians in an orthodox culture, they are Hungarians in a dominant Romanian culture.

Romania and Transylvania endured the brutality of communism and the megalomania of its dictator Ceaucescu. Transylvanian Unitarians suffered, in particular, when Ceaucescu threatened and nearly succeeded to bulldoze rural, often Unitarian, villages and move their populations to cities to work in factories.

Ceacescu was overthrown and executed in 1989. Our community minister Bill Schulz, then president of the UUA, was among the first to visit after the fall of communism. A partner church movement was revived, following the example after the First World War when American Unitarians helped Transylvanians to replace the bells in their steeples which had been removed and melted down for munitions.

In 1992 we were partnered with Abásfalva, a beautiful village of 400 people, all Unitarians, where Áron Barabás was and remains the minister. It is situated in a valley where the town across the hill, and the town down the road this way, and the one down the road that way, all are mostly or entirely Unitarian.

More than 80 of our parishioners have travelled there; many Transylvanians from Abásfalva and elsewhere have come to Bedford. Bedford is a well-known place in Transylvania. Entering the village, the sign says “Abásfalva, partner village with Bedford USA.”

Last week I said that learning another language and religion, too, are “messy, frustrating, glorious, cause for despair, unnerving in how it obscures itself and also for what it reveals.” So too is partnership and pilgrimage.

In August, 12 people made the pilgrimage: 5 from our Swampscott church which is partnered with the village next to Abásfalva, and 7 of us: Dawn and Ginny, Isabella and Emma, Megan, and Sarah who, like me, has been many times before.

We started in Budapest, travelled to the cities of Kolozsvár, Deva, Szeben and then we crossed the bridge over the river, left the paved road and bumped over hill and dale, and arrived in Abásfalva where things are messy, frustrating, glorious, cause for despair, unnerving, obscure and revelatory.

I hope I have raised more questions than I have answered. That’s what pilgrimages do.

Reflections (Part 1)

Journey, Abásfalva 2010   Dawn La-France Linden

I, like many others, came to the UU church as an adult. Many of the people I have met here are here to break from the past. Some retain beliefs or practices they were raised with, some do not. Some replace the spiritual heritage they were born into with Unitarian Universalism because it resonates more with who they are. Some claim Unitarian Universalism in order to finally have a spiritual home and some come here to be validated in the use of reason to shape their lives in meaningful ways.

For many, the past is not important. Some actively flee it, some strive to forget it, others have succeeded in forgetting. We live in the here and now.

This summer, for two weeks, I left the here, and in many ways left the now, to go on a journey, a pilgrimage to our Unitarian heritage and to our partner church village, Abásfalva.

Before I left, I was a little uncertain about visiting the Unitarians in Hungary and Transylvania. I wondered, what do these people have to do with me?

In retrospect, I am reminded of a good friend’s recent journey to meet her birth parents, fifty years after they had given her up for adoption. Before she left, she too had questions: who are these people to me? are we connected in any way that is really significant?

My friend knew enough about her family of origin to know that there were many differences in culture and belief; that there were areas of significantly different opinions and practices. She knew there could be awkward questions and unspoken assumptions. And yet, she felt drawn to go. And she did.

I knew enough about Transylvania and the Unitarian church there to know that there were differences in culture and belief; that there were areas of significantly different opinions and practices. I knew there could be awkward questions and unspoken assumptions. And yet, I felt drawn to go. And I did.

The family my friend had grown up in, the one that had adopted and nurtured her, was wonderful. What, my friend wondered, could these strangers have to offer me? Superficially, the two families were quite different. And yet, much of the experience spoke of homecoming. Familiar features on unfamiliar faces, intonation and gestures shared by those who had never met and evocative of those already gone beyond, similarities in temperament and interest between those who had not even known of each other’s existence: all these brought forth a sense of wonder that, indeed, despite the gulf of time and space that had separated them, there was a real connection – deep, honest and meaningful.

Well, I am standing up here and I’m supposed to be talking about my journey to Abásfalva, not my friend’s journey to Indiana. And yet, I’ve already told much of my tale by telling hers.

This church has nurtured me for more than a decade now. When the possibility of this trip came up, I was intrigued. Supposedly, I shared a heritage with these faraway people. From conversation around church I knew there were significant differences in the way our two communities practiced our Unitarianism.

And yet, I found myself moved and proud to hear of Francis David, how his words inspired a city, and how he was martyred for his beliefs. I felt rooted, connected to the past in a deeper way at the tomb of John Sigismund, as I reflected on the declaration of religious tolerance he made in 1568 with the Edict of Torda.

And, finally, in addition to finding a resonance with the historic Unitarianism of Hungary and Transylvania, I found a personal welcome in the village of Abásfalva. I, like those who have gone before me, was greeted like extended family, embraced warmly and made to feel at home. We ate together, and drank together, worshipped together, laughed together, cried together, gossiped together, sang together and then we did it all again. We shared photos, exchanged gifts, made introductions, renewed friendships, delivered letters, the list goes on and on, but I will not.

In the parsonage in Abásfalva, I saw photos with many familiar faces. Some of those faces I can see right now. I also saw a wall-hanging with many handprints. When I looked closer, I found the outline of my eldest son’s hand, placed there ten years or so ago when that wall hanging was made in Bedford – his name in wobbly printing beside it. It was there waiting for me. It’s still there, waiting for you.

Relationships    Virginia Crocker

Jó reggelt – or good morning in Hungarian.

This was the greeting I heard when I came down the outside staircase each morning. And of course I returned the greeting – jó reggelt!

For me the best of our trip was the time we spent in Abásfalva interacting with the people in the village. It was like a mini-Peace Corp experience and very different than the usual trip abroad where you stay in a hotel and visit the important tourist sites. Sure, it was nice to visit all those churches and castles on our way to the Abásfalva, but it was the personal interaction with the people that had the biggest impact on me.

The village reminded me of what small town life must have been like in New England about 100 years ago. I felt like I had gone back in time. The roads were narrow and unpaved, many people traveled by horse and wagon or on foot, there was one very small grocery store, women washed dishes in basins outdoors.  

My host family was an older couple – Their names were Jenö and Eszter-nenny as she was affectionately called. They had three grown children who had all moved to nearby towns. Jenö had been a woodworker and was now retired. (He, by the way, made several of the wooden coat hooks that hang on the back of many of our church doors.) Now that he is retired, taking care of animals and, while we were there, haying consumed a lot of his time. Among their animals were a couple of cows, 20 geese, hens, a rooster and pigs. They have a large garden, and raised or grew much of the food they ate. They worked hard and did not speak English.

However, this couple was warm and generous. In addition to serving me delicious food and speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand, we learned to communicate through sign language. John Gibbons also helped by popping in for visits and helping with translations. While there, I became aware that relationships grow over time. At first, Eszter-nenny served me meals and I ate alone. After a couple of days, Jenö would be sitting at the table when I came downstairs in the morning and would greet me with “Jó reggelt!” and then offer me a shot of palinka to start my day. I no longer ate alone.

In addition to my relationship with my host family, there were other important relationships in the community. We got to know Áron and Edit, the minister and his wife who were our village hosts and had overseen all the arrangements for our stay. We ate some community meals in their home often congregated in their backyard under an apple tree during our free time. Áron was much more outgoing than I remembered him when he and his family visited Bedford several years ago. (This was in part, I’m sure, to his being on his home turf.)

We also were the beneficiaries of strong relationships that have been formed by First Parishioners who have traveled to Abásfalva during the last 20 years. John, Sarah, Rich and Nancy, Sharon, Cathy and others have worked very hard at strengthening relationships with members of our partnership community. I was not just one person traveling alone to a new place, but part of a larger community that has built strong ties over time. This was apparent in the warmth we received from Áron and Edit and visits to other host families. When we, at the spur of the moment stopped in to visit Ilona, Nancy and Rich’s Daugherty former hostess, Ilona greeted us with open arms and offered palinka.

I also became aware that some of you who have never visited Abásfalva have made connections in other ways. For example, on the last day we were there, John delivered a scholarship check to my hostess, Eszter-nenny. The scholarship, which I believe amounted to $300, would pay for one of her grandchildren’s education for a year. Eszter-nenny was very grateful and said to please thank the people who contributed to the scholarship when I returned. Another way some of you have contributed is through camperships.

Visits to our partner village usually involve a community service project. This year, in response to their minister’s request, we hosted a dinner for the elders, which provided a time for them to visit with each other and with us and be served good food. Much to my surprise, on my first day in the village, the minister handed me an invitation to this party that we were hosting. I was somewhat embarrassed to realize that, because of my advanced age, I too would be honored as one of the elders.

In closing, the trip to Abásfalva helped me put things in perspective and think about what’s important in my life. Before I left on the trip, I was trying to make a decision about what color towels to buy for my newly repainted bathroom and feeling annoyed at a friend who didn’t think I should host a summer meeting because I didn’t have air conditioning. I haven’t yet bought the towels and air conditioning is still a low priority, but I’m reminded that friendships matter. I am trying to find more time to spend with family and friends.

Reflections (Part 2)  Emma Currier and Isabella Yannoni

Francis David:

On the fifth day of our travels, we visited the city of Deva, where Francis David was imprisoned and martyred. To reach the citadel on the top of that hill, we took a funicular and climbed a long rickety set of stairs. This was the first time we could see a panorama view of Transylvania – all around there were beautiful foothills, fields, and streams.

In the citadel, we were able to enter the cell where Francis David was kept prisoner. We held a mini-service with the Unitarian minister of Deva. It was a powerful, emotional experience that brought home the fact that we were actually on a pilgrimage and connected to these people.

The entire group of Swampscott and Bedford was able to reach the top, even though there was a wide age range. It brought us closer together as a traveling family and marked the beginning of our religious journey.

Climb /Hike:

On the first morning in the village of Abásfalva, we took a 3-mile hike up to the top of a hill, with the newly constructed cell tower as our goal. The villagers thought we were crazy, wondering why we would want to climb the hill at all, let alone in the 100-degree heat. Some members of our group chose the sane course and turned around, while others continued to put one foot in front the other.

What kept me going all the way to the top was the fact that someone was always in front of me. Though there wasn’t any cheerleading “you can do it,” we sweated, walked, melted, and complained as a team. And it was worth it.

At the top was this amazing view of the entire Homorod Valley. We could see seven different Unitarian villages and the town where some of the high schoolers from Abásfalva hiked to every day during the school year, rain or shine, snow or mud. Looking back, it was an achievement and a “we did it!” experience, though at the time all we wanted was air conditioning.

Confirmation:

The last day of our stay in Abásfalva was a Sunday and it was a confirmation service. The confirmies were five Roma girls, dressed in their traditional costumes, who were very nervous. Their families and neighbors watched and listened intently, while we had no idea what they were saying. But the girls recited and recited and recited memorized answers to questions the minister asked, which they had prepared for all year. I was suddenly very appreciative of our much-less strenuous Coming of Age requirements.

River:

The Homorod River runs through Abásfalva. It generally separates the Hungarian and Roma communities. Every day we went to the river to read, sit, soak, and watch the people go by in their day-to-day lives. By the river, I was able to think and just be, watching the people, animals, and the river.

It was absolutely relaxing, quiet, and peaceful, so different from the business of my life in Bedford, where there is always one more thing to do on the list. The river is an example of the different pace of life. There, with my feet in the water where I finally had the time to learn how to skip stones, I felt a calmness and connection. The people going by would stop and say hello, drive horses, tractors, and cars through the river, or just wave. This river, always moving, always flowing on, was part of their life and community, and I was honored to share it.

Reflections  (Part 3)  Sarah Dorer and Rev. Megan Lynes

Eva’s Proclamation    Sarah Dorer

In December, 1992, John Gibbons wrote to the Reverend Áron Barabás inviting him and the Abásfalva church to become partners with First Parish in Bedford through the UU Association’s program of Sister Churches that was being rejuvenated. In February, 1993, Áron Barabás sent a response. It read as follows:

“Dear Rev. Gibbons, …What greater joy could a pastor and his congregation struggling with daily cares, and striving to get through the present difficulties in the midst of many worrisome uncertainties have received than to receive your letter!…We are proud that a parish with an esteemed past and principles founded in freedom has chosen us to be their Sister Church…It is a comforting feeling, which brings renewed hope, to know that there is a community that thinks of us, that wishes to partake in our happiness and our cares through a selfless offer of help. It’s a comforting feeling to experience that the erected walls have fallen, that even if only symbolically, we can shake the hand of our far away brethren in faith. We hope that this handshake is not only momentary, lasting a short time, but will turn into a decades-long friendship, a meaningful spiritual contact that will impart blessings not only to us…. We accept your offer, but would like to emphasize the importance of aid in the form of cultural exchange. We invite you, urge you to come visit us, so that you can get to know us personally, and get a glimpse of our everyday lives…We embrace in spirit all members of your parish…in brotherly love, Áron Barabás, Unitarian minister.”

First Parish did indeed accept Áron Barabás’s invitation to start a cultural exchange between the two parishes. The first (of our now seven) church-sponsored trips to Abásfalva was in June, 1994. I have joined each one of these trips and it is due in large because of what I am calling “Eva’s Proclamation” during our first visit.

As we entered the village for the first time in 1994, Eva Laszlo, a young teenager at the time, stepped out of the crowd, dressed in her native costume, and in a voice that I can still hear today, proclaimed the following that she had written to us in English:

“Dear Guests,

This is a great day for everybody present here. After long years of suffering the moment has finally arrived when the world turned its attention towards our small but courageous nation. Though we seem to be a small nation, we are a great one. Patience, suffering, endurance and our love of peace have made us into a great nation. We would like the world to know us as such a people. Our customs all prove this; they testify to our loyalty, of our devotion.

The tolling bells of our churches are like voices crying out to God for this nation - the Hungarians of Transylvania - the Szekely people. These people only ask for love. We would like you to tell the world about our wish for peace. We love you; we have been looking forward to meeting you and will always be loving you and waiting for you.

I give you the Szekely Blessing:

     Where there is faith, there is love

     Where there is love, there is peace

     Where there is peace, there is blessing

     Where there is blessing, there is God

     Where there is God, there is no need!

This is what we have - this is our wealth that we can share with everybody.

We hope from all our hearts that you will spend some unforgettable and very happy days with us. And last, but not least, we would like to thank you for your kindness, concern and the love you have shown for the people for this small, remote corner of the world.”

Her proclamation left me breathless, teary-eyed, humbled, and with new purpose. I did not deserve Eva’s thanks for showing kindness, concern and love to her people. For you see, I had traveled to Transylvania then for purely selfish reasons. I needed an adventure. I had just turned 40, had two school-aged children, was in the midst of making a difficult decision to leave the school where I had been teaching for many years and was resentful that I was always the one to stay home and take care of the children, pets and household when my husband traveled oversees for work (which he did very regularly then). I wanted my own adventure.

Prior to our trip, I did attend the meetings that John convened to teach us a little of the very complicated history of the region and I practiced the ten or so words of Hungarian that Riff Mildram (one of our parishioners) had printed on a little cardboard card for us to take with us. However, I also participated in the kinds of Dracula jokes people still make today when they hear you are going to Transylvania. I had no idea what I was really getting into.

I came back from that trip transformed and promised to myself to become worthy of Eva’s thanks. I have returned many times to the village. Though the years have moved on and Eva is now a grown woman - a professor of molecular biology with two children of her own - her proclamation is timeless. We (all of us) are still welcome to the village whether we have been many, many times or just arriving for the first time. The welcome is still warm and heart-felt. But, we also need to be mindful that we travel not just for ourselves but for the people in her small, remote corner of the world.

Little did Áron Barabás know how prophetic his words would be when he wrote in 1992, “We hope that this handshake is not only momentary, lasting a short time, but will turn into a decades-long friendship, a meaningful spiritual contact that will impart blessings not only to us.”  Blessings – so many blessings – have already been imparted… We feel so fortunate to be joined in hands and hearts with each other. We don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know that we hope to face it together…for decades yet to come.

The River Flows On    Rev. Megan Lynes

My strongest memory of Abásfalva is of our group walking through the village on our first evening there. The sky was filled with a heavy rain cloud but the sun pressed through, illuminating each house, tree, goose, and grapevine with a warm orange glow. Crossing the bridge above the river a rainbow appeared. Like many things about the trip, I had the feeling that I would never be able to explain later to people at home how beautiful everything was in that moment.

Soon people began to walk towards us on the dirt road. This is the best part of the memory. To my astonishment, I could not tell by appearance who was Roma and who was not. I was not yet accustomed to any clothing differences or styles of interaction. Skin color was not really a differentiating factor because all village elders who’d worked in the sun most of their lives seemed vaguely brown and wrinkled to me. And some Roma children had skin as pale as mine. I was seeing various aspects about each new person I met, but it was not computing as ways to categorize people. I was completely outside of my own brand of cultural learned assumptions and prejudices. This felt like a miracle to me. There were no insiders, no outsiders, and if there was a stranger, it was I. As Scout said in To Kill a Mockingbird, “all people are my people.” I was flooded by relief and excitement. I am not meaning that Abásfalva is free of prejudice. Quite the contrary, I fear they are doing no better or worse than we are in the states these days. But when I lost my usual “ability” to judge others by site or sound, I learned the lesson of a lifetime: to see a person clearly one must use the heart not the eyes. To hear a person clearly, one must share kindnesses not words.

Another aspect of this trip that stays with me strongly is the way that the Unitarians in Transylvania know who they are. For a couple of nights we stayed in the Unitarian school in Kolozsvár. The high school students weren’t there because it was summer, but we saw their pictures in the hall, and we slept in their beds. We put our feet on the same smooth sloping stones of the staircases they travel when school is in session and we felt connected to them. We knew that some of those students were able to attend the school because of financial support we provide. Without seeing for myself where they study and live it would have been hard for me to understand why it makes a difference that we support them to attend. It was so powerful to walk through the halls where thousands of Unitarian young people have come to learn their history, explore their faith, and become fighters for religious tolerance and free thought. Their history is our history too.

On the Sunday that we witnessed the confirmation class in church being drilled by the minister on their catechism, I felt near tears. These fourteen and fifteen year old girls had spent many hours memorizing long answers to over 180 questions and answers about their religion. Though they were quaking in their shoes during the 45 minute inquisition, by the end of the morning, they stood proud and tall, pleased they’d proven to all that they indeed know the pillars of the Unitarian faith. Even if the exact answers fall away through the years for them, I know the essence will remain. I come home to Bedford with renewed hope that our young people here too will also be able to proudly claim their UU identity and faith throughout their entire lives, and that the pillars we offer them are strong enough to weather inevitable storms.

At the center of Abásfalva flows a river. Animals go there to drink, children splash and play, women wash clothes there. All are welcome. One day beneath the shade of the bridge, Bedford pilgrims waded in up to our knees and then because the day was hot, we sat down up to our middles. Somehow we could not resist being immersed in the river, letting it soothe and cool us. Our hope today is that in telling you our stories, you too will feel washed in this Transylvanian river, and know that you are an important part of the journey we are all making together. Like the river, our church partnership flows on, through the seasons. There are many stones left unturned, and we do not always know where the river will lead, but the joy and the mystery are one.

Closing Words

So travel, at heart, is just a quick way of keeping our minds mobile and awake. As Santayana, the heir to Emerson and Thoreau, wrote, “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.” Romantic poets inaugurated an era of travel because they were the great apostles of open eyes. Buddhist monks are often vagabonds, in part because they believe in wakefulness. And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love-affairs, never really end.  

—Pico Iyer