Leningrad or St Petersburg?

We have been blessed to meet an interesting parade of people through our small B&B. Earlier in the year we had a friend of a friend stay, a retired professor from the USA who had been married for a time to a Russian from Siberia. Her stories were fascinating, and after she went home she sent us an account of her time living in fairly primitive accommodation in Siberia in the depths of winter, along with a Soviet-era picture booklet on Leningrad – which has now reverted to its original name, St Petersburg.

As I looked through the pictures, I realized the glaring omission: not one photo of the stunning Cathedral of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Instead, the booklet boasted pictures of Communist era high-rise cement flats, stark and featureless.

It occurs to me that our perception of beauty depends in part on our ideology, on our view of the world, perhaps. To the graphic designer working on the tourist booklet on Leningrad, the accomplishments of the Communist period could be seen in the modern high-rise flats. Because religion was demoted and believers punished, the glorious onion dome architecture of the Cathedral was dismissed, perhaps deemed archaic and ugly.

When we visited St Petersburg a couple of years ago, I found myself constantly wanting to go back and see the Cathedral from the perspective of the canal, or coming to it from a different angle. Its beauty reminded me of the faith of the builders and those who commissioned them. Its beauty reminded me of the love of our Creator, who humbled himself to be born in the body of a man, so that we can live with him forever. Those Soviet-era flats only remind me of the hubris of political systems – not just Soviet ones.

Fabulous or Ferocious Friday

Freezing temperatures outside - frozen puddles, frost on the bushes, ice on the road. Slick and slippery and treacherous.

Or fabulous. I lift my eyes to the hills. And I see an ice blue sky, streaked by a few streams of grey cloud. I see trees with bare branches lifted high. Although in the forest this morning I encountered a graveyard of trees uprooted by yesterdays ferocious winds, praise the Lord none of the trees on our drive have been tumbled, and all still stretch up to the sky. Long may that continue.

Fabulous. I've spent the morning delivering church magazines, chatting to friends, doing a fair bit of walking, and now about to walk again, to give Dusty her afternoon stretch. She's ready and waiting outside, probably with icicles forming under her nose (only kidding...)

It's all your point of view. Your frame of mind. We've had a dreadful week with technology failures, some not yet rectified. But we've had a special week, seeing Doug and Joey before they head for Oz today, speaking to Jamie and Chrisie, and Robbie, catching up. Hosting a very friendly, wonderful young man from Spain, and trying to help him improve his English (which is pretty good already, I must say...)

It's all in the spin. And the spin determines which direction the next few hours will take. I can feel defeated by the rubbish telephone line and the email problems, or I can feel victorious because of the relationships renewed this morning, and because at the end of the day, all that matters is that I know that in it all, God is with me.

He does care. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. If he didn't, would he have subjected his only, beloved son to torture and hideous death. I don't think so.