Saturday, April 10, 2010

I remember the shrines along the road

I visited there with a Russian-speaking youth group from the USA (lots of kids of Ukrainian exiles) [We got grudging permission, traveled on our way to the USSR, had to stay in a group and play volleyball with Young Pioneers] and I thought--here lives freedom, however fragile. The soul beyond the grasp of the state. The Madonna, the holy family in humble shrines along the road in communist, Soviet-dominated Poland. It was 1972. The Polish pope came to breathe freedom in 1979. Nine days that changed the world. He came to Chicago that year as well. I saw him then.

Katyn. Such a tragedy. There was a resistance to tyranny, snuffed out. A massacre.

So our thoughts are with you, Poland, and our prayers.

We grieve in Chicago
.

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