On Spirituality and Polish Catholicism

Spirituality has been always important to me. Since I was a little girl churches had a special appeal to me. They still do, even if the reasons are perhaps different now.

It was only natural that being born in Poland, the country that has always been a catholic country, I equated spirituality with being religious in the catholic sense. The liturgy has been so mysterious and beautiful. I loved the way the clergy was dressed and I absolutely loved the aroma of burning incense.  I wonder if the incense is still being burnt during masses. My parents would not take me to church very often, I suspect they were not all that religious. However, while visiting my grand parents in their village, every Sunday my grandmother dressed me in my best dress and I was ceremoniously taken to the church. My grandmother, holding my hand, walked proudly through the main street nodding her hello to the met villagers. She was showing her granddaughter off. Being a dressed up doll was definitely not the part I liked to play. In addition the church in the village was not what I considered a proper church. It did not have stained glass windows and it was too light and sunny. No real atmosphere. But the worse thing was that the Sunday mass with my grandmother was a social exercise rather than a spiritual event.

Later on, when I was a bit older and could decide if and when to go to the church, I rarely selected Sunday mass for a church visit. More often it was a lonely visit to an empty church of my liking. I lived in a rather small town and the choice of churches was not that spectacular, but the main town church fully met all my expectations. It was big, dark, had beautiful stained glass windows, dark frescos through the whole church and many old paintings and sculptures in the aisles. The nave was also very special. The vaulting was painted in navy blue and covered by golden stars. It was like a starry night sky. Two thirds of the way from the main entrance a big cross divided the nave. Behind the cross was another altar, sculpted in silver metal. Knowing the excesses of wealth of the Catholic Church the altar must have been at least silver plated if not solid silver. It was enchanting to me. In those times churches were never locked up. Now they are most of the time.

As a teenager, I visited the church when I had some problems. It may have been problems with a teacher, a friend, or the parents or a boyfriend.  Whatever my problems may have been, I thought of them as serious at the time. Serious enough to walk quite a distance, to sit down in my favourite pew and pray. My payers were really meditations, only I did not know the concept of meditation then. I was sitting in the cool, dark church for a while, looking up at the paintings of  saints, asking for a solution. I always left uplifted having some plans how to resolve my dilemma. At that time I felt a catholic. In fact I was quite a religious girl, observing some religious practices. I needed to feel that it was a power above me. A loving force.

Then, some observations came and brought confusion to the young mind and made me think critically about clergy. The first disappointing surprise came during a sermon on virtue of self-denial and beauty of living in poverty. I knew the preecher and was very surprised that he was saying things that were so different from the way he led his life. Outside the church, he wore elegant suits, drove an exclusive car and liked good food and good wine. I could often see him promenading in his civil cloth waving his beautiful walking stick with a silver handle.  He did not need any help of a cane unless to create this debonair image. He definitely did not practiced what he preached. I could not understand the discrepancies, I but stopped listening to sermons at those rare occasions when I attended a mass. I declared them as false.

Another surprise was to discover that celibacy is too difficult to live by many priests. I saw priests at social occasions in the company of their housekeepers. They looked and behave the same as married couples. I thought it was strange and my mother giggled when I expressed surprise.

When I recall the stories, I am amazed by my naivety and innocence. 

This was going to be a short introduction to write about Catholicism in Poland, but it turned out to be self-indulging reminiscence of my start to spiritual transformation. I will come back to the subject in one of my next posts. Being in Poland one can not stop observing and evaluating church issues. Too much of that shows in news and is present in politics. And this is not pretty.

New Warsaw

My previous post was quite nostalgic, I am told. How else could it be when I was writing about meeting my old friends, talking with them about old times and visiting old places in Warsaw? It had to be nostalgic, but now, I think it is time for balancing the old with a new.

Warsaw has changed dramatically in the recent years. Luis Vuitton, Boss, Armani and other exclusive shops display their goods behind beautifully washed, gleaming, huge windows. This is a new side of Warsaw. One can see many very well designed, spectacular buildings that compete for attention to its height with the old Palace of Culture and Science still defending its Warsaw record of 231 meters. The building is not loved by all as this is a very ostentatious example of Stalinist architecture and the times Poles want to forget. Still after 60 years it became an integral part of the town. I would be sorry to see it disappear.

The Libeskind Sail is to the left of the Palace of Culture and Science

My favourite new building in Warsaw is The Sail of Daniel Libeskind. I did not know the name of the designer before I saw the building and noted its elegant beauty. My first impression was that it is an image of a surfboard. It must have been my Australian association. Quite accurate, I think, even if the designer perhaps did not have surfing in mind. At least not likely.  As I later found out Mr. Libeskind is of Polish Jewish descent and designed many famous and beautiful buildings in the world. I must say that I agree with some of his critics that all his buildings have strong similarities of sharp edges but I am still very pleased that one of his famous buildings is now the Warsaw landmark. The town has now many well and interestingly designed buildings. I am sorry to say that Sydney except for its spectacular Opera House does not have many buildings of architectural significance. To me all recent Sydney buildings are just high, but do not distinguish themselves by interesting designs. Maybe this is a sign of good economical judgment that I generally admire. Beautiful buildings are expensive. But wouldn't we all be sorry if Cathedral of Notre Dame or St. Paul’s were not built because it did not make economical sense? However, I am not in favour of following the equation of The Sale. Construction cost - PLN 700 million and selling price - PLN 215 million. Not a good business.

I could not find a picture showing The Sail from the angle from which it looks like a surfing board.

There are also political changes in Poland that may significantly influence the future of the country. The last week a new president was sworn in and in October the next Polish parliamentary election will take place. It looks that the current opposition will take a power over Poland. I am not qualified to make political predictions but from my perspective a difficult times are looming. I hope my fears are not going to become reality and that positive changes will continue and that I will be looking forward to my holidays in Poland for some years to come.

Celebrating with friends

When I visit Poland these days, Gdansk is my town, but I was a Warsaw girl before I left the country many years ago. I studied in Warsaw, I got my first job there and I worked there and I loved there. Warsaw was my home town for some good and eventful years. Then the time came for the western chapters of my life and I stopped being a Warsaw girl. Sydney and busy work life took over and I became an Aussie for many years. Now I stopped identifying with any particular town and I am at times confused not feeling a true Pole or a true Aussie. For a true Aussie, I always had a funny accent but I felt a Sydney-sider 100% for many years.

Last week I went to Warsaw to visit my family and friends. The friends, I stayed with, live in a suburb good few kilometers from Warsaw, sort of the Parramatta-Sydney distance. I spent most of my time with them and went to Warsaw only a couple of times. 

In Poland one celebrates name-days rather than birthdays and mine is the 26^th of July. Last few years I celebrated the day in Warsaw. One point of the celebration is a lunch with my two student friends. I hope it will become our tradition and continue for many years.

Warsaw has changed so much that this is not my Warsaw any more. The changes are for the better, but naturally and fortunately the town moved on with times but my memories stand still. Thanks God that my favourite historic street Nowy Swiat (New World) has only improved their restaurants and shops but the character of the street is still the same.

We started with coffee and cakes at the A.Blikle cafe which originated in 1869. The name of the place and the décor of dark hardwood and mirrored walls are the same as they were in the old times even if the place has been beautifully rejuvenated since my old Warsaw days.

There is one sad change in the atmosphere of the place since the last year. Tadeusz Konwicki and his friends do not show up at 11:00 for coffee, as it was their custom. This literary, artistic small circle of famous people will not meet any more and one of the Nowy Swiat tradition became a memory. There will be no need anymore to break non smoking rules for anyone at Blikle's.  I think that the next year we will move to the neighbouring patisserie also run by the Blikle family.                       

Tadeusz Konwicki, in the past integral part of Nowy Świat 

After coffee and fantastic cakes, the best cakes in the world (at least for me), we went for a stroll down Nowy Swiat looking for a suitable restaurant and to have a look at the gates of University of Warsaw, our old university.

I went for a few moments of meditation to the Holly Cross Church opposite the university. Chopin’s heart is buried there. Instead of becoming peaceful I became annoyed. Polish Catholic Church has a lot of money and plenty of claims for more. Some of the money was turned into gilding the church interior. To me, the church lost its spiritual atmosphere and became ostentatious. This is bad taste and bad judgment.   

It was time for my name-day lunch so I quickly moved into a festive frame of mind. We went to The Culinary Traditions of Poland (Dawne Smaki). Part of the restaurant is situated in the old garden behind buildings of Nowy Swiat. We decided to take a table there. This was a new, rather decadent Warsaw but I could take the change with ease this time. Since the place reminded me of Italian restaurants I saw on films about the high society, we ordered prosecco. Maybe not the most elegant of bubblies but in sympathy with my Italian associations.  

Entrance to the garden part of the restaurant

It was a great name-day lunch, a lunch to remember.

Feministic Observations

There are a couple of reasons why I intend to write about feminism and explore my own feelings and thoughts about the subject.

For some reasons, not that clear to me any more I read many books about Bloomsbury group and books created by its representatives. Virginia Woolf is my main object of attention. I say that the reason of my interest is not even clear to me. It has lost allure in my eyes some time ago but I still read Virginia Woolf’s letters, stories, novels and diaries. There was a time and this was some years ago when I was fascinated by the people belonging to Bloomsbury literary circle. It all stared with the film about Dora Carrington and her love for Lytton Strachey.  It was 1995. I still think that the film was very good and Jonathan Pryce who played Lytton Strachey even got a British Best Actor Award for the role. Then I read a book about Carrington and Virginia Woolf’s name came to my attention. I recalled reading To the Light House in my early Polish times and after seeing the film I decided to read more. At that time I was not particularly interested in her feministic bias. I was too busy working away in the men’s world with no thought that I may have been professionally different to my male colleagues or disadvantaged by being a woman.

Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf. Maybe this was the time when they were engaged, as surprisingly they were for a while.

                                                             

I was brought up in communist Poland and one positive aspect of the political system was that it considered everybody equal. Women were riding tractors, worked as bricklayers and moved up in business hierarchies with the same speed as men did. When I moved into the Western world, I was married to a Swedish person and this nationality also considered women equal to men. I did not have any idea that I may be disadvantaged being a woman or considered being a lesser person. Some sexist comments, I heard in my corporate environment, I considered to be jokes in bad taste and did not get disturbed by them. I was a bit surprised when joining a golf club I was called an associate and my husband was called a member of the club. Somebody said, this is just a tradition, so I let it go without feeling put down. On reflection, this naïve approach of mine might have helped me in my career. I felt more confident than I would have if a thought of not being equal came to my mind.

                                                            

                                         

Then in my corporate world, quotas became a subject of discussions. I felt offended by the idea. I wanted to be assessed on merit, not be patronized by being considered somebody who needs help. You need to help weaker, disadvantaged people and I did not consider women in general as such. Now, I look at it a bit differently. I think quotas are a good idea until such a time when the mindset of societies at large           changes. Women need to catch up at least in some countries and they do need help of quotas.

When, after some years I came back to Poland I realized that women stopped to be equal. They are patronized and considered a second class citizens particularly by the church. Of course, they have their role to play, but it does not involve contribution in the business world. In spite of that there are many successful women in Poland, I am pleased to notice.

With my history and experience, I do not have any doubts that we are all equal even if we have our stronger and weaker points. This however is not related to a gender. There are clever and silly men, there are women geniuses and very silly ones as well.

Reading newly bought Virginia Woolf’s short stories it came to be how recent it was when women were subjected to will of their parents who had “their best interest at heart” when they pushed them out of their homes sending them to a home of a stranger. I know that in some cultures many marriages are still arranged and I even know some very happy ones. But if I could not decide about my life, I would see it as a tragic situation.

                                              

Few days ago, I read a post of Personal Reflections about the Australian Archibald competition winner. An interesting painting even if a bit morbid. The mother of Charles Milsom, the awarded painter, made a remark that it reminds her of Halloween. It was my first impression as well, but the painting is good, especially the straight lines of the face are striking as is the sitter, famous  Sydney barrister Charles Waterstreet. 

All three of them

The post has a link to video with montage of all winners of the Archibald competition.  I watched the video with full attention as the changes of paintings are very fast, maybe even too fast. After a while I started to feel surprise followed by irritation. Majority of the winners depicted men. I mean a serious majority. I asked myself why? Wrote my comment and that triggered off an interesting discussion in which I played a role of a feminist. I never considered myself as such, but I better start thinking of myself as one.  It might explain this rather long post on the subject of equality. 

Mr. Tusk - Rejtan in European Union

In 1773, a special session of the Sejm (Polish parliament) was convened in Warsaw, by its three neighbours (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria) in order to legalize their First Partition of Poland. That Sejm is known as the Partition Sejm. Rejtan was one of the deputies that tried to prevent the first partition of Poland. He was a deputy to that Sejm, and had explicit instructions from his constituency to defend the Commonwealth. His arguments and protest did not bring results. When there was nothing more to be done to protect Poland from partitioning he made a dramatic gesture of baring his chest, blocking the exit with his own body in a dramatic attempt to stop the other members from leaving the chamber and ending the discussion, leaving Poland to be partitioned.

This image of the famous Polish painting came to mind when I heard from my Australian friend about Mr. Tusk’s action at the end of the Sunday night last chance meeting to solve Greece problems and prevent it from leaving the Eurozone. When Angela Merkel and Andreas Tsipras tried to leave the room breaking up the negotiations Mr. Tusk stepped forward saying : “Sorry but there is no way you are going to leave this room”. Just like Rejtan only he was better controlling his emotions. Times are different.  They stayed and reached agreement, Greece is still in Eurozone.

                                           

I also hope that Mr. Tusk’s action will be successful in the future and that Greece staying in the Union will really make sense. While my way of writing about the situation may seem flippant, this is not how it is intended. Mr. Tusk has been my hero for some time and for the sake of me believing in heroes at all, I hope he continues to be an honest, dedicated and clever world politician. I am sorry that in Poland he has been an antihero for some time now.  

As my ability to write political assessment of the Greek situation is very limited I would recommend Jim Belshaw's analysis. 

Story of a picnic and Châteauneuf-du-Pape

It was a beautiful summer of 1976, the year I lived in France. We travelled from Paris to Cagnes-sur-Mer through my absolutely favourite part of the world - Provence.  My journey companion and my life partner at the time had an ambition to start a wine cellar. Passing through the wine district was an opportunity not to be missed. It was a long time ago so I only vaguely remember being in a wine shop where a jovial monk in a brown habit was serving us. He looked just the part, big round man with rosy fatty cheeks and a red nose to keep the uniform colour skin of his happy, smiling face. We landed up with some cases of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine in bottles adorned with papal regalia. I still like the look of the bottles very much. For me this is one of the best wines and indeed the wine is generally considered to be good. Not only by me having had had such nice memories related to the time and the wine. We tasted the wines before we bought it and we decided that it requires further checking of its quality. So, we bought a baguette and some soft cheese. It should have been cheddar, gouda or fontina to pair the wine but we were not that sophisticated to know that, so most likely it was brie of sorts as it was my cheesy fascination of the times. I was very slim then but the year in France and its cheeses changed the situation somehow and it seems to be a permanent change.

                                    

The man of my life had a lovely and a bit annoying habit of looking for a long time to find a perfect picnic spot. I remember climbing hills in Swedish Fjällbacka hungry and tired  searching for a long time to find a spot from which a coming up sunset could be well seen. I was so hungry and we had everything needed to change it.  A bag of freshly caught prawns cooked on the fishing boat, baguette and a bottle of white wine. All of that and I had to remain hungry.  This is another story though.

Back to the picnic in Chateauneuf-du-Pape ... We found a nice spot on a hill, the man liked his hills, and I had a great time sampling the wine. I must say that I did not know how to drink at that time and I may have got happier than the situation required.  I recently found a photo of myself at the picnic. I have a glass of wine in my outstretched hand, big smile on my face and it looks that I may have been singing out of joie de vivre. I hope that my vocal production was not too loud as singing is definitely not one of my talents. Let’s say that my soul was singing out of joy. A young head and a young wine sometimes result in  intoxication.

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Many years passed. We did not empty all the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottles while living in Europe. Many remained and traveled to Australia following us through Trans Siberian railway in the middle of Russian winter. Some of the bottles exploded under pressure of frozen wine, some did not but most of the wine was sour like vinegar when we tried it later in Sydney.

For some reason one of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottles stayed untouched and forgotten. It was stored for about 25 years in the most appropriate place for wine to mature well even during hot Sydney summers. I do not remember why we did not throw it out. Maybe because we forgot about its existence, maybe because we considered it to be off, maybe because I liked the bottle... The wine stayed and later on went with me to my new home after the man of my life decided that he would like to continue without me. 

                                                   

 I was  more interested in the bottle than in drinking the wine but one lonely Friday night I decided that it would be nice to have a glass of wine and there was nothing suitable at home so I opened the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottle expecting that I will get rid of the sour liquid rather than drink it. And suddenly a big surprise, a huge surprise... the aroma of the wine was exceptional, the liquid was amber colour, it tasted like nothing I drunk before. Magnificent! I got into panic... this was not the nectar to be drunk on my own; I thought I should share it with someone! It was late however, past 10pm. A cultured person does not call friends unexpectedly for wine tasting at this time of the day. So I did not call anyone. After a while I got rid of the feeling that I cannot enjoy the wine on my own. The new approach to the situation changed my mood and the wine did the rest. I did not sing, but the joie de vivre was in me again. Sharing is a great thing especially with someone close. This is not absolutely necessary though. Mature head, heart and wine result in appreciation and contentment. Another thought – marvelous things come unexpectedly; we need to notice them when they come and not waste them.

Time with my young cousin

I want to write a post, I promised myself to do it today and I can not find a subject that would interest me and consequently my potential readers. If I do not find a subject that I am interested in, I will write about whatever it may be in a wooden type of a manner. This would not be good at all. At the same time my self-respect and self-esteem rest on six pillars according to Nathaniel Branden. One of the pillars is the practice of living purposefully. In my case it is to be aligned with my goal of passing knowledge and experience through writing and coaching. Writing systematically in this blog is a part of it. It is my exercises in writing. Since today is Monday and this is a small New Beginning, I want to keep promises I gave to myself this morning.  So, here it goes…

The last few days were very interesting and full of new thoughts and experiences. I had a young visitor, my nephew, who stayed with me few days. It is interesting and stimulating to observe and talk to someone who is at such a different stage of life. He has great plans for life and is passionate about chemistry. His studies revolve around developing a substance that may be helpful for people suffering from Alzheimer’s. It seems that chemistry may be fascinating. It was not a subject that made me excited when I was at school or at uni. I now realized that the science of chemistry can have many interesting applications if put in service of humanity. I also have realized that good young chemists may use the science in not too much scientific ways and have a lot of  fun with it.

So we talked a lot, walked, watched movies, cooked, tried new beer and wine, exchanged experiences regarding heart palpitations… It was quite a bag of different subjects and activities and it was fun.

Times and ways of young people obviously changed since I was 22, the age my nephew is now. I like the young people of today a lot. Their way of thinking is so different to that I can recall from the past. They live in a different world, of course. The internet and other technologies shrank the distances, things are instantaneous, one can organize the whole summer holiday sitting in the kitchen and drinking tea with an aunt. And the aunt may even not be aware of what is happening in the background during a seemingly uninterrupted conversation.

Interest in cooking spread across the world. Australia has its My Kitchen Rules and Master Chef cooking competition programs, I promise myself not too watch them any more but so far unsuccessfully. The competitors are mainly young people and they have very good cooking knowledge.  Their techniques improve with the program duration and are quite sophisticated. My young nephew and his even younger brother are very interested in cooking and quite often cook family meals. The roles have reversed. I love it! I had an opportunity to savor a great salmon cooked by Piotr. It was marinated and then cooked in a pesto made of basil, mint, limes, pine nuts, peanuts and honey. Fantastic!

That is what this perfect dish looked like. It was accompanied by Hasselback potatoes a Swedish way of preparing spads.

During my sojourn in Poland, I will have some more opportunities to meet young people. I am looking forward to it.