Stanisław Barszczak, Kapłan – Alter Chrystus…
W mej ziemskiej wędrówce odwiedziłem wiele również miejsc związanych z życiem pisarzy, szczególnie polskich. W czasie rozlicznych moich odwiedzin Zakopanego po wielokroć zachodziłem na Harendę, do moich przyjaciół Księdza Proboszcza
mgra Antoniego Staszeczki oraz poprzedniego proboszcza Księdza Kazimierza. To tutaj znajduje się Kościół św. Jana Apostoła i Ewangelisty na Harendzie – drewniany kościół z XVIII wieku, przeniesiony w 1947 roku z Zakrzowa koło Kalwarii Zebrzydowskiej do Zakopanego. Otaczają go soboty. Wnętrze ozdobione jest malowidłami cechowymi, odnowionymi przez Władysława Jarockiego (zięcia Jana Kasprowicza). Obok kościoła znajduje się mauzoleum i muzeum biograficzne Kasprowicza. I tym razem zaraz po mojej kurtuazyjnej wizycie na pobliskiej plebanii zaszedłem do Harendy. Willa „Harenda” – dom Jana Kasprowicza w Zakopanem na zboczach Gubałówki. Poeta nabył go w 1923 roku od angielskiej malarki Winifred Cooper za pieniądze zarobione na tłumaczeniu Szekspira (500 funtów szterlingów). Obecnie mieści się tam muzeum biograficzno-literackie Kasprowicza. Nazwa willi wzięła się od gospody Arenda znajdującej się w Czarnowąsach pod Opolem. Potem Kasprowicz zmienił nazwę dodając góralski przydech h. W gospodzie tej przyszły poeta bywał w czasie swej nauki szkolnej w 1881 roku. Poeta mieszkał na Harendzie tylko trzy lata, zmarł w 1926 roku. W 1933 roku dzięki staraniom wdowy Marii Kasprowicz, Kornela Makuszyńskiego i Leopolda Staffa, powstało obok domu granitowe mauzoleum według projektu Karola Stryjeńskiego, do którego przeniesiono prochy poety. (zapewne w Ząbkowicach, gdzie spędziłem szczęśliwe dzieciństwo, będą z kolei czcić moją pamięć, tym razem w willi Zagłoba) Z inicjatywy żony Marii w 1950 roku w willi powstało muzeum Kasprowicza. W roku 1964 przy muzeum zawiązało się Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Twórczości Jana Kasprowicza, które do dziś organizuje poświęcone poecie spotkania, odczyty i wieczory poetyckie. Z woli wdowy po Kasprowiczu muzeum zachowało wygląd domu z czasów życia poety. Zwiedzający mogą oglądać trzy pomieszczenia: jadalnię, salonik i sypialnię. W części zamkniętej mieściła się bogata biblioteka Kasprowicza, zgromadzona przez niego we Lwowie. Po śmierci poety, żona Maria przekazała zbiory do Poznania gdzie całkowicie spłonęły w pożarze. Nie wiadomo czy zachował się katalog książek, pewnym natomiast jest to, że zniszczeniu uległy cenne białe kruki. W muzeum oglądać można pamiątki rodzinne, przedmioty użytkowe Kasprowiczów, obrazy i pozostałości księgozbioru. Na piętrze domu znajduje się galeria obrazów Władysława Jarockiego, profesora ASP w Krakowie, urządzona przez córkę poety Annę Kasprowicz-Jarocką… Wyobraźcie sobie moja wyobraźnia po chwili biegnie ku Oak Park koło Chicago. I tam też bywałem. Otóż 29 lutego 2012 roku Dom w Oak Park koło Chicago, gdzie spędził dzieciństwo i młodość Ernest Hemingway, został wystawiony na sprzedaż. Cena wywoławcza to jedynie 525 tys. dolarów. Projekt, by trzypiętrowy dom stał się centrum kulturalnym, którego gospodarzami miała być fundacja im. pisarza i pobliski uniwersytet dominikański, nie podołał wyzwaniom ekonomicznym. W domu wybudowanym przez rodziców, Hemingway mieszkał pomiędzy siódmym a siedemnastym rokiem życia. Powrócił do niego na kilka miesięcy w 1919 roku, by leczyć rany odniesione we Włoszech i złamane serce. Zakończony w Europie romans znalazł później odbicie w „Pożegnaniu z bronią”. Należący do Hemingwaya pokój znajduje się na trzecim piętrze dużego, 1200 -metrowego domu z oknami wychodzącymi na południe. I zawsze się tam znajdował, obok pokoi kucharki i wuja mieszkającego wraz z rodziną. Jednak budynkowi daleko do popularności, którą cieszy się posiadłość pisarza na Florydzie w Key West. Muzeum Hemingwaya, Klimatyczne miejsce w sercu Key West. Dużo pamiątek po pisarzu. Można zwiedzać samodzielnie. W domu mieszka kilka kotów, które są swoistą maskotką tego miejsca. W sklepiku kupimy drobne pamiątki i książki. Natomiast Dom-willa Oak Park, odwiedzany od czasu do czasu przez turystów, został zdominowany licznymi architektonicznymi projektami Franka Lloyda Wrighta stanowiącymi atrakcję Oak Park. W 2001 roku od ówczesnych właścicieli dom kupiła za 520 tys. dol. fundacja im. Hemingwaya, która w kilka lat później wraz z Dominican University postanowiła zamienić posiadłość w centrum kulturalne i przywrócić mu świetność. Projekt opiewał na 1,5 mln dolarów i musiał stawić czoła fatalnej amerykańskiej ekonomii. Pomysłem próbowano zainteresować sponsorów i pozyskać w ten sposób środki na spłatę pożyczki przekraczającej 400 tys. Wysiłki fundacji podejmowane przez minione cztery lata okazały się jednak niewystarczające. Przed tygodniem dom wystawiono na rynek. Cena wywoławcza to 525 tys. dolarów. Dom, w dużym stopniu zaprojektowany przez matkę pisarza, Grace, imponuje wielkością. Wprawdzie po tym, jak pani Hemingway sprzedała nieruchomość w 1936 roku, w osiem lat po samobójczej śmierci jej męża, który odebrał sobie życie w gabinecie na drugim piętrze, dokonano w posiadłości wielu zmian. Przede wszystkim następny właściciel przerobił go na dom trzyrodzinny, zacierając ślady po rodzinie Hemingwayów. Dopiero w 1974 roku tablicą przed domem ustawioną dzięki inicjatywie fundacji zaakcentowano fakt, że pisarz spędził tu znaczną część swojego dzieciństwa. Choć w innych miejscach na ziemi znajdują się wycinki z gazet o swojsko brzmiących tytułach: Ciało nastolatka w koszu na śmieci, 138 urodziny Związku Narodowego Polskiego, Od ponad 100 lat jesteśmy najbliżej Polonii. Dziękujemy za to naszym czytelnikom i internautom…Zmarł jeden z ostatnich uczestników Kampanii Wrześniowej płk. Bolesław Kowalski. Obchody 100-lecia uzyskania praw wyborczych przez kobiety Wielka Brytania. 2 mln osób odwiedziło już w tym roku Muzeum Auschwitz. Prezydent Trump upoważnił kompetentne osoby do
skierowania Gwardii Narodowej na granicę z Meksykiem…91 latek został milionerem…Płatność paypal lub kartą kredytową…Jesteśmy najstarszą polskojęzyczną gazetą codzienną w USA.Dziennik Związkowy powstał w styczniu 1908 roku jako organ Związku Narodowego Polskiego (ang. Polish National Alliance, PNA) i od tego czasu wychodzi nieprzerwanie, będąc tym samym najstarszą polskojęzyczną gazetą na świecie wydawaną bez przerwy. Od roku 2009 jest jedyną codzienną polskojęzyczną gazetą w Chicago. Jak wspomniałem Wam pewnego dnia spacerowałem w dzielnicy eleganckich willi, usytuowanych w samym centrum Oak Park w Chicago. Tam poszukiwałem słynnej willi Rodziny Hemingway. A swoją drogą powiem szczerze, zakochałem się w tych ‘willach-studiach’ od pierwszego na nie wejrzenia. To dzielnica, w której mieszkają przeważnie Amerykanie, ale i tak jakby ukrywała polskie korzenie. Podobne dzielnice widziałem w Manchesterze, Augsburgu, choć wydaje mi się z kolei, że letniskowe studia można zobaczyć jedynie w Grecji. I tak w Kokkino Nero tuż obok ‘Studia Oasis’ znajduje się piekarnia i sklep spożywczy. Wioska grecka jest znana i lubiana przez polskich turystów. Oprócz wakacyjnego, greckiego luzu, można tu znaleźć wiele polskich akcentów, w tawernie, w sklepie czy na plaży porozmawiać po polsku, zobaczyć polskie napisy na straganach, nawet zamówić polskie dania, jak ktoś zatęskni za schabowym. Wieczorem zapraszają na tańce do klubu King Size, gdzie serwuje się także polskie piwo czy żubrówkę. Okolice Kokkino Nero są bardzo zielone, pełne małych zatoczek, wzgórz porośniętych drzewami oliwnymi. W pobliżu wybija źródełko wody leczniczej (szczawy żelazistej, podobnej jak w Dusznikach Zdroju). Nad morzem znajdziemy kilka sympatycznych knajpek z tanią i dobrą kuchnią. Studio Oasis, ten obiekt usytuowany ok. 200 m od kamienisto-żwirowej plaży. W okolicy Kokkino Nero, znajdują się także inne, bardzo ładne, piaszczyste i dobrze zagospodarowane plaże Koutsoupia i Plati Amos (leżaki i parasole bezpłatnie po zamówieniu czegoś w barze plażowym). Do dyspozycji gości niewielki ogród okalający budynek. Pokoje to niewielkie studia składające się z pokoju dziennego pełniącego jednocześnie funkcję sypialni dla 2 osób, aneksu kuchennego z podstawowym wyposażeniem (lodówka, kuchenka, naczynia i sztućce), łazienki z wc oraz niewielkiego balkonu/tarasu – z meblami ogrodowymi. Apartament 4 osobowy składa się z 2 pomieszczeń (4 pojedyncze łóżka, szerokość 110 cm). Ponadto TV, w większości pokoi klimatyzacja (indywidualnie sterowana, dodatkowo płatna ok. 10 EUR/dzień). Ręczniki i środki czystości we własnym zakresie. Brak łóżeczek dla dzieci.
Wyżywienie tutaj- we własnym zakresie. Ale w sąsiadujących obiektach można zjeść śniadania i obiadokolacje w formie bufetu. Lunch w postaci jednego dania typu souvlaki czy moussaka z dodatkami, zupą dnia, sałatką i owocem na deser. Nielimitowane napoje bezalkoholowe i lokalne alkohole serwowane w godzinach 10:00-22:00 (piwo, wino, ouzo, tsipouro, czyli lokalny, mocny alkohol). Możliwa dopłata do baru w Polskiej Strefie: napoje bezalkoholowe, piwo, wino białe i czerwone (18:00-22:00). Program sportowy i animacyjny w polskiej strefie: nie możesz tego przegapić! Gry, konkursy, sport, imprezy tematyczne, grill oraz nowe wakacyjne znajomości. Wszystko po polsku i z uśmiechem! Zapraszają do zabawy 7 x w tygodniu. Obiekt Oasis posiada bezprzewodową sieć Wi-Fi.
Jak powiedziałem Oasis gwarantuje doskonałą lokalizację, w samym centrum miejscowości. Kokkino Nero położone blisko gór i nad morzem posiada specyficzny mikroklimat. Klienci czują się w nim dobrze, swojsko. Jedna z najtańszych letnich ofert. Dni pobytu w Kokkino Nero, od drugiego do przedostatniego, to czas na wypoczynek, kąpiele morskie i słoneczne, udział w wycieczkach fakultatywnych itp. Telefony komórkowe działają w całej Grecji. Rozmowy lokalne są tanie, natomiast zagraniczne – dość drogie. Koszty połączeń w roamingu polskich sieci komórkowych prosimy sprawdzać przed wyjazdem u operatora. Kokkino Nero to jedyne miejsce w całej Grecji w którym można poczuć się jak w Polsce. Nie doskwierają tu upały ze względu na bliskość gór i dużą ilość drzew wokół, nie ma hałasu głośnych kurortów. Miejscowość, którą od wielu sezonów upodobali sobie goście z Polski, oferuje unikalne połączenie greckich wakacji z polską fantazją i klimatem jak nad Bałtykiem. Jeśli szukacie spokoju, słońca, doskonałej pogody i chcielibyście mieć polską kuchnię oraz inne smaki znane w Polsce – przyjedźcie do Kokkino Nero. Tu w barach i sklepach gra polska muzyka, w każdej tawernie znajdziecie dwujęzyczne menu, a obsługa chętnie wytłumaczy po polsku czego warto spróbować z greckiej kuchni. Wycieczki lokalne METEORY – ok. 35 EUR Aby tam dotrzeć udajemy się piękną trasą wzdłuż pasma Olimpu, przez największą w Grecji równinę – Równinę Tesalską do miejscowości Kalambaka, położonej u stóp Meteorów, skąd ruszamy na zwiedzanie klasztorów zawieszonych między niebem a ziemią. W sumie wybudowano 24 klasztory (każdy na innej skale). Do dnia dzisiejszego przetrwało tylko sześć – cztery męskie i dwa żeńskie, z których zwiedzimy dwa, a w nich przepiękne ikony, stare rękopisy, fantastyczne freski. W Kalambace odwiedzimy wytwórnię ikon. Zespół klasztorów wpisany jest na Listę Światowego Dziedzictwa Kulturalnego i Przyrodniczego UNESCO. ATENY 1 dzień – ok. 45 EUR. Przejedziemy koło świątyni Zeusa Olimpijskiego oraz Łuku Hadriana. Następnie zwiedzimy Akropol ( Propyleje, Partenon, Erechtejon, Świątynia Nike ). Z Akropolu możemy podziwiać wzgórza: Pnyks, Filopapu, Aeropag oraz Teatr Dionizosa i Odeon Herodosa Attyka. Następnie spacer przez starożytną Agorę grecką oraz rzymską z Wieżą Wiatrów. Później ruiny Biblioteki Hadriana, Katedra Ateńska oraz Plac Syntagma (Plac Konstytucji). Dotrzemy do stadionu Kalimarmaro – tutaj odbyły się pierwsze Igrzyska Olimpijskie ery nowożytnej. Z żalem opuszczamy Ateny. W drodze powrotnej Termopile. OLIMP I PANTALEIMONAS – ok. 25 EUR Wyprawa w najwyższe pasmo górskie Grecji, mitycznej siedziby Zeusa i innych bogów. Pierwszym punktem wyprawy jest wjazd krętymi serpentynami na wysokość 944 m.n.p.m., skąd rozpościerają się piękne widoki na Olimp i Zatokę Termajską. Odwiedzimy Litochoro, malownicze miasteczko położone u stóp Olimpu, a potem przejdziemy wąwozem rzeki Enipeas. Następnie udamy się do starej, malowniczej wioski położonej na wysokości około 600 m. n.p.m. gdzie w cieniu dwustuletnich platanów zobaczymy jak wyglądało życie na Riwierze przed dziesiątkami lat. Na zakończenie odwiedziny w twierdzy zbudowanej przez krzyżowców. WYSPA SKIATHOS – ok. 45 EUR Popłyniemy wzdłuż urokliwego półwyspu Pilion i wyspy Ewii – drugiej pod względem wielkości wyspy greckiej. Celem wyprawy jest Skiathos, urocza wyspa, miejsce wakacyjnych podróży wielu turystów, gdzie klimat wyspiarski unosi się niemal wszędzie i przez moment można poczuć bajkową atmosferę.Dotrzemy do stolicy wyspy – miasta Skiathos, położonego nad malowniczą zatoką i portem. Będzie postój w Zatoce Kukunaries – Zatoce Szyszek – gdzie spędzimy około dwóch godzin na piaszczystej plaży. Koukounaries to najpiękniejsza plaża na Skiathos i jedna z najpiękniejszych w Grecji. SALONIKI – ok. 35 EUR Założone w 315 r. p.n.e. przez macedońskiego króla Kassandrosa liczą sobie ponad 2.300 lat i stanowią okazję do zapoznania się z wielowiekowym przekrojem historycznym uwiecznionym w zabytkach tego miasta. Odnaleźć tu można ślady Cycerona, Apostoła Pawła, Cyryla i Metodego, jak również pozostałości ze świata antycznego. Orientalny bazar, Łuk Triumfalny Galeriusza, średniowieczne mury obronne, nadmorski bulwar z Białą Wieżą oraz przyległym Muzeum Archeologicznym to miejsca, które pozostawiają niezapomniane wrażenia. Po zwiedzaniu będzie też okazja do zakupów w licznych sklepach. WYSPA SKOPELOS – ok. 55 EUR Należąca do Sporad, niewielka wyspa, położona na turkusowych wodach Morza Egejskiego. Skopelos zachwyca bujną roślinnością, tradycyjną architekturą oraz wspaniałymi plażami. Życie toczy się tutaj swoim prawdziwym, greckim rytmem. Skopelos posłużyła jako tło kinowego hitu “Mamma Mia”. Odwiedzimy m.in. Skopelos Town – stolicę oraz główny port wyspy. W centrum znajdziemy zarówno piaszczystą plażę, jak i charakterystyczną architekturę: labirynty kamiennych uliczek, niskie domki z czerwoną dachówką oraz liczne restauracje i tawerny serwujące lokalną kuchnię. JEEP ADVENTURE – ok. 30 EUR Szalona wyprawa dla amatorów mocnych wrażeń, którzy kochają górskie bezdroża, słońce i wiatr we włosach. W górach Ossa znajdziemy wspaniałe krajobrazy i nieprzebrane bogactwo przyrody. Będzie czas wolny na posiłek przy ognisku, a następnie typowo greckie tańce, gry i zabawy zręcznościowe z niespodziankami.(będzie kontynuacja)

Stanislaw Barszczak, Rozważania o grzechu, cierpieniu, nadziei i słusznej drodze…

Z samym sobą nie mam nic wspólnego.Franciszka Kafki jeszcze ‘nie było’ za mojej młodości, słynnego mieszkańca Pragi. Mało kto o nim słyszał. A to on wcześniej powiedział, że wszelka mowa jest poza wartością, gdy jej brakuje wiernosci. Że wszelka wiedza, kompletność wszelkich pytań i odpowiedzi, to wszystko zawarte jest w naturze psa. Każdy pies ma jak ja naturalną skłonność do milczenia, każdy ma skłonność do stawiania pytań…Twoje i moje wycie miesza się w jedno, wszystko ku temu zmierza: zachwycić się, zapomnieć i odnaleść. Wykopałem sobie później dołek na pysk i śpiewałem deklamowałem do niego w taki sposób, że tylko ziemia to słyszała i nikt poza tym ani obok mnie, ani nade mną. Istota ludzka, w gruncie rzeczy lekkomyślna, z natury podobna do unoszącego się w powietrzy pyłu, nie znosi żadnego skrępowania i nawet gdy sama sobie nałoży pęta, wkrótce jak szalona zacznie szarpać swe więzy i wreszcie mur, łańcuch oraz samą siebie rozerwie na strzępy. Słowa są bowiem złymi alpinistami i złymi górnikami. Nie przynoszą skarbów ze szczytów gór ani z głębin kopalni! Stąd nie jest konieczne, byś wyszedł z domu. Pozostań przy stole i słuchaj. Nawet nie słuchaj, czekaj tylko. Nawet nie czekaj, bądz całkiem cicho i sam. Świat sam się przed tobą odsłoni, nie może być inaczej, będzie wił się przed tobą w ekstazie. Jestem doszczętnie pusty i bezmyślny, przejeżdżający tramwaj ma więcej „życiowego sensu”. Nie rozumiem niczego jak należy i jestem przy tym całkiem mocny, lecz pusty. Niedawno, kiedy po raz nie wiadomo który i o tej samej zawsze godzinie wyszedłem z windy, przyszło mi na myśl, że moje życie złożone z dni, które włażą coraz głębiej, aż do drobiazgów, w uniform monotonii, przypomina zadanie karne, kiedy uczeń zależnie od swojej winy musi wypisać dziesięć, sto lub jeszcze więcej razy jakieś jedno, przynajmniej w powtórzeniu idiotyczne zdanie, tylko że w moim wypadku chodzi o karę określoną wyrokiem: „tyle razy, ile wytrzymasz.” Jesteśmy opuszczeni jak zabłąkane dzieci w lesie. Kiedy stoisz przede mną i patrzysz na mnie, co wiesz o moich bólach i co ja wiem o twoich? A gdybym padł przed tobą na kolana i płakał, i opowiadał, co wiedziałbyś o mnie więcej niż o piekle, które ktoś określił ci jako gorące i straszne? Już dlatego my ludzie powinniśmy stać naprzeciw siebie tak zamyśleni i współczujący, jak przed wejściem do piekła. Rodzice zachowują się jak lichwiarze, trwonią kapitał, aby zagarnąć procenty…Często człowiek, jeśli patrzy uważnie, poznaje siebie już po twarzy lokaja u drzwi. Ale od pewnego punktu nie ma już powrotu. Ten punkt należy osiągnąć… Mieć uczucie, że się jest spętanym, a równocześnie inne uczucie, że po uwolnieniu z pęt byłoby jeszcze gorzej, (to coś nowego, a zauważonego w dziejach świata.) Najczęściej ten, którego się szuka, mieszka tuż obok. Osamotnienie niesie tylko kary. Wszystko jawi mi się jako konstrukcja. Jeżeli namaluję tu jednego przy drugim wszystkich sędziów i pan będzie się przed tym płótnem bronił, więcej pan wskóra przed nim niż przed prawdziwym sądem, zauważył Franz Kafka. Oto z kłamstwa robi się istotę porządku świata. Ofiary istnieją, bo istnieją kaci. Z kolei kat ma zawsze złą reputację. A cała wiedza, suma wszystkich pytań i wszystkich odpowiedzi zawarta jest w psie, jak powiedziałem. Chrystus – to przepaść pełna światła… ten, kto w nią spojrzy, musi się w nią rzucić (ale chyba nie Panie Jezu). Człowiek nie może żyć bez nieustannej ufności w coś niezniszczalnego. Człowiek przychodzi na ten świat z krwawiącą raną. Ile szczęśliwych myśli zostaje zaduszonych pod kołdrą, kiedy się samotnie śpi w swoim łóżku, i ile nieszczęsnych snów się nią ogrzewa. Istnieje cel, ale nie ma drogi: to, co nazywamy drogą, jest wahaniem.
Wahanie przed urodzeniem się. Jeśli istnieje wędrówka dusz, to ja nie jestem nawet na najniższym szczeblu. Moje życie jest tylko wahaniem przed urodzeniem się.
Istnieją dwa grzechy główne, z których wywodzą się wszystkie inne: niecierpliwość i opieszałość. Przez niecierpliwość ludzie zostali wypędzeni z raju, przez opieszałość nie powracają tam. Jedną z najbardziej skutecznych pokus zła jest wezwanie do walki. A Jedynie uciekając od świata, można się nim cieszyć. Jeśli się raz wchłonęło zło, to ono już nie żąda, by mu wierzono. Kłamie się możliwie mało, kiedy się kłamie możliwie mało, a nie kiedy ma się ku temu niewiele okazji. Najwyższej koncentracji obcy jest wysiłek…Okazja do malutkiej rozpaczy… Pewnym nie można być nawet starych znajomych. Psy myśliwskie jeszcze igrają na dziedzińcu, ale zwierzyna im nie ujdzie, choć teraz tak szybko pędzi już przez lasy.
Różnica pomiędzy siłą narodu a jednostki jest tak ogromna, że wystarczy, by naród z bliska ogarnął ulubieńca swym ciepłem, co będzie dla niego dostateczną ochroną. Słuszna droga idzie po linie, która nie jest rozpięta wysoko, ale tuż nad ziemią. Ludzie, zdaje się, więcej się o nią potykają, niż po niej chodzą. Świat jest zły i jeszcze mu się to ułatwia. Twórczość jest zawsze tylko ekspedycją w kierunku prawdy.
Tylko nasze pojęcie czasu pozwala nam mówić o sądzie ostatecznym. W gruncie rzeczy jest to sąd doraźny. Pan chce widzieć sens, a dopuszcza się największego bezsensu. To doprawdy może przyprawić o rozpacz. W walce pomiędzy tobą a światem sekunduj światu. Został na nas nałożony jedynie obowiązek negacji; to, co pozytywne, zostało nam już dane (co my Polacy powiemy na to…) Zrozumieć szczęście, to jakby zrozumieć, że grunt, na którym stoisz, nie może być szerszy od dwóch stóp, które go pokrywają. Zwierzenia byłyby najbardziej prawdziwe, gdyby się je potem odwoływało. Być może to nie należy do istoty miłości jeśli powiem, że jesteś najukochanszy dla mnie; Miłość polega na tym, iż jesteś mi niczym nóż, którym operuję w moich wnętrznościach. Miłością jest, że ty jesteś tym nożem, którym ja grzebię w sobie. Zdecydowanie cechą tego świata jest jego przemijanie.
Sądzę, że powinniśmy czytać tylko ten rodzaj książek, które nas ranią i przeszywają (…) Potrzebujemy książek, które wpływają na nas… głęboko nas zasmucają, jak śmierć kogoś, kogo kochaliśmy bardziej niż siebie samych…Książka musi być siekierą dla zamarzniętego morza wewnątrz nas. Możesz kogoś, kto ma oczy zawiązane, nie wiem jak zachęcać, aby patrzył przez opaskę, a i tak nic nie zobaczy. Z Tobą mogę mówić swobodniej niż z kimkolwiek, bo nikt nie był przy mnie w ten sposób, jak Ty jesteś, z całą wiedzą o mnie, z taką świadomością, wbrew wszystkiemu, pomimo wszystko. Nie przestrasz się, proszę, gdy poczujesz moje wargi na szyi. Nie chciałem całować, to tylko bezradna miłość… Harde i szczere spojrzenie. Zdaje mi się Mileno, że mamy jedną wspólną właściwość: jesteśmy tak nieśmiali i lękliwi, że każdy niemal list jest inny. Zawsze pragnąłem dwudziestoma rękami naraz chwytać świat, i to nawet dla niesłusznego celu…Aby prowadzić piękną rozmowę, trzeba po prostu wsunąć rękę głębiej, lżej, senniej pod czekający omówienia temat, wtedy dźwiga się go zdumiewająco łatwo. Inaczej wyłamujemy sobie palce i myślimy tylko o tym, jak to boli…I jestem wdzięczny za to, że dano mi na tę drogę tych półniemych, nierozumiejących panów i że mnie samemu pozostawiono, abym powiedział sobie o tym, co nieuchronne… Mrok wieków albo ścisk teraźniejszości. Moja niezdolność myślenia, obserwowania, stwierdzania faktów, budzenia w sobie wspomnień, mówienia i współprzeżywania rośnie. Kamienieję, muszę to stwierdzić… Kryję się przed ludźmi nie dlatego, żebym chciał żyć spokojnie, lecz dlatego, bo spokojnie chcę pójść na dno. Ale powtórzmy za Kafką, w walce między Tobą a światem zawsze stań po stronie świata… To prawda, tyle samotnych dróg musiałem przejść bez ciebie… szedłem z poetami wreszcie – aby móc w końcu odnaleźć ciebie. Drogi, które wodzą nas za nos, powstają w tym celu, żeby je przejść. Ścieżki są tworzone poprzez ich wydeptywanie. Im dłużej zachowujemy się zdenerwowani przed drzwiami, tym jeszcze bardziej bywamy obcy. Miłość jest tak bezproblemowa jak pojazd. Jedynym problemem są kierowcy, pasażerowie i droga. A droga jest wahaniem się, to już wiemy bynajmniej. Skąpstwo jest rzeczywiście jednym z najbardziej wiarygodnych oznak głębokiego nieszczęścia. Pierwszą oznaką początkowej realizacji jest pragnienie śmierci. Przedkładam Wam tę myśl pod refleksję na wielki Piątek. To życie wydaje się nie do zniesienia, inne nieosiągalne… Niezdolność do znoszenia życia w samotności, nie niezdolność do życia, wręcz przeciwnie, nie jest nawet prawdopodobne, abym potrafił współżyć z kimś, ale jestem niezdolny znosić to wszystko: napaści mego własnego życia, żądania mojej osoby, napór czasu i wieku, nieuchwytna presja żądzy pisania, bezsenność i bliskość obłędu – tak, to wszystko znosić jestem niezdolny (…) najgorszą rzeczą nie jest przegląd naszych oczywistych zbrodni, tylko tych czynów, które kiedyś uważaliśmy za dobre.
Może przez takie rozważania osłabimy swą odporność, ale trzeba też było koniecznie otrząsnąć się ze złudzeń i widzieć wszystko możliwie jak najjaśniej. Co więcej, czas, który ci przydzielono, jest tak krótki, że jeśli stracisz sekundę, straciłeś całe swoje życie; ponieważ już jesteś zaledwie tak długo, jak tracisz czas. Sztuka (życia) obraca się wokół prawdy, ale istotnie chodzi o to, żeby się nie spalić. Możesz powstrzymać się od cierpienia świata, jesteś wolny i dostosowany do swojej natury, ale być może tylko to powstrzymanie jest jedynym cierpieniem, którego możesz uniknąć. Każdy, kto ma zdolność rozpoznawania piękna, nigdy się nie zestarzeje. Każdy żyje za siatką, którą nosi ze sobą. Tak więc żebyśmy się nie starzeli. Nie marnuj czasu na szukanie przeszkody. A może nie ma tam nikogo… W tym Wielkim Poście znów spojrzałem za siebie. Gdzie są kwiaty z tamtych lat, gdzie mogiły z tamtych lat. Przez te lata posiałem kwiaty, a ’chłopcy’ (koledzy z ławy szkolnej) poszli na żołnierski los. W tym czasie ujrzałem głównych bohaterów tego świata. Chciałoby się rzec: Forza Italia. Naprzód Rzymianie. Zaraz jednak opamiętałem się, zrozumiałem, iż teraz Siła zwycięża rozum, siła przed rozumem. Zobaczyłem radykała, który chce zawsze żeby słońce obracało się dokoła ziemi, a nie odwrotnie. Raz ujrzałem humanistę, on chce prostoty człowieka. Wreszcie patrzę, oto Dionizyjski bohater, ten chce rubasznosci i wesołości świata. A światu i ludzkości został dany jeden tylko znak, mianowicie – znak posłuchu człowieka w osobie Jezusa Chrystusa. W związku z tym jeszcze bynajmniej śpiewam o naszej epoce, odsłaniam Krzyż… Każdego dnia o godzinie 9.37 w nocy górale polscy
rozświetlają krzyż nad Zakopanem, z szczytu Giewontu on mocnym światłem ma rozświetlać dzieje ojczyzny Jana Pawła. Tam gdzie śpiący rycerz spoczywa mocny na grani skalnej z sprzed milionów lat. W tej epoce dziejów rycerz już nie anonimowy. Ten mocny rycerz Azją mógłby być zwany. Z daleka widzialny dla całej krainy, on w trzecim tysiącleciu nowej ery pozostaje symbolem gorącej zawsze, choćby z granitu, ściany ludzkiego ducha. Ludzie, jestem z wami przez wszystkie wieki, jakby to mówił już zawsze. A historia świata zdaje się preferować teraz Azję z jej humanizmem. Europa jakby grubsza i tuczna w tej erze. Ponieważ są autorytety, tym samym zdaje się, że świat stoi w miejscu. W związku z tym niczym ostatni Mohikanin nowej ery przeciągam granice ‘limes’ Rzymu daleko na wschodzie, jeszcze bywam czasami podróżnikiem i obserwatorem współczesnego świata. Jakkolwiek nie jestem przemytnikiem narkotyków. Jestem czysty, liczę tutaj na oczy czytelników, które są kamerą…i mogą widzieć szerzej i więcej szczegółów świata. Zasłona przybytku rozdarła się na połowę, czytamy w Biblii… Osobiście powiem, nie miałem kotary z jedwabiu, jak cudowne dzieci Wschodu. Rodziła mnie matka w bólach. Buddyjscy mnisi wierzą, że co kilkadziesiąt lat ziemię nawiedza cudowne wcielenie Buddy… Nie mnie osądzać świat. Za to na swój sposób opisuję cudowność ludzkiego świata. Pan Janusz Kondratowicz w wojenny czas to pięknie zauważył: Gdy zapłonął nagle świat, bezdrożami szli przez śpiący las. Równym rytmem młodych serc, niespokojne dni odmierzał czas. Gdzieś pozostał ognisk dym, dróg przebytych kurz, cień siwej mgły … Tylko w polu biały krzyż nie pamięta już, kto pod nim śpi … Jak myśl sprzed lat, jak wspomnień ślad, wraca dziś pamięć o tych, których nie ma. Żegnał ich wieczorny mrok, gdy ruszali w bój, gdy cichła pieśń. Szli, by walczyć o twój dom, wśród zielonych pól – o nowy dzień. Jak myśl sprzed lat, jak wspomnień ślad, wraca dziś pamięć o tych, których nie ma. Bo nie wszystkim pomógł los, wrócić z leśnych dróg, gdy kwitły bzy.
W szczerym polu biały krzyż nie pamięta już, kto pod nim śpi. W szczerym polu biały krzyż nie pamięta już, kto pod nim śpi. Co im powiedzieć? Fakt, że istnieje tylko świat duchowy, odbiera nam nadzieję, ale daje nam pewność. Chrześcijanin bynajmniej to człowiek nadziei, świadek zmartwychwstania Jezusa. Tym bardziej zatem kiedy będziemy klęczeć w tym tygodniu przed umęczonym Jezusem, uwierzmy polskiej nadziei, iż biały krzyż na szczycie Giewontu w dalekiej Polsce pamiętać będzie po wszelkie czasy- historię człowieka początku trzeciego tysiąclecia nowej ery. I niech się tak stanie.

Stanislaw Barszczak, John Paul II Personal History, part second…

Part 3

The door opened off a corridor and there was Pope John Paul II, sitting next to a window, reading his worn-out breviary. With a rigid neck, he had to turn his whole body standing up. And when Dr. Vincent Fortanasce put out his hand to kiss his ring, he shook it with both of his hands, smiling. After a half-hour medical exam with questions to the Holy Father about his growing symptoms, it became “very, very apparent” to the California neurologist, whose specialty is nerve degenerative diseases, that the pope had Parkinson’s disease. He was also suffering cervical arthritis so badly that his stooped neck was nearly locked in one position. The physician figured it was probably from bending over reading the Litany of the Hours in that breviary every day. “But when I talked to him, he asked me why I was there in Rome,” Fortanasce, who shares a medical specialty practice in Arcadia, recalled. “And I told him I was there to work a few weeks at a clinic run by the Order of Malta. ‘But the real reason that I’m here is because I fight for life issues.’” The 70-year-old bioethicist, psychiatrist and board-certified neurologist told the pope how he had been involved in defeating California’s so-called “aid-in-dying” euthanasia proposition in 1992. Now eight years later, his big concern was with biotechnology and the burgeoning stem cell issue, using human embryo cells and cloning to do research. But his medical colleagues and others weren’t listening, which made him feel both utterly frustrated and depressed. Pope John Paul II shook his head as much as he could, observing in Italian that he thought the matter boiled down to eugenics. “He looked at me and he said, ‘Remember one thing. Give without expecting to get anything back,’” Fortanasce recently told The Tidings. “And then he said, ‘Preach without expecting people to necessarily listen.’ And then he followed up and said, ‘The greatest prophets were those who were persecuted because they said what people did not want to hear.’” The pontiff continued in English, speaking in a slow but thoughtful cadence: “To be human, we can expect suffering. And God gave us that suffering for a purpose. Suffering and hardship brings forth character in man. It brings out the best in man’s humanity. It makes an empathetic person. It makes us realistic and less self-centered and helps us because of our experience to want to help others. “Those who never suffered cannot understand human suffering and cannot understand the human person. Nor can they really understand the suffering of the poor or the ill or the old. And they especially cannot understand the place of the unborn. So the unborn are without a voice.” Fortanasce recalls the pope stressing there wasn’t – or shouldn’t be – any conflict between science and the laws of man. In fact, they work together, he pointed out. But humans must realize their limitations and live within them. Because some new scientific advancement is possible, doesn’t mean it has to be carried out. “What he said to me just completely changed my life in that it reinforced what I had believed,” said the Renaissance man, who was a star athlete at Seton Hall University and Yale Medical School and has coauthored more than half-a-dozen books. “I had started to become very, very despondent, you know, because it was so apparent that no matter who I would talk to about these life issues would really listen. They would smile at me and that was about it. They wouldn’t believe that we were actually going to be making clones and we were going to use human embryos and we were going to be experimenting on them.” He also remembers the “tremendous pain” in the pope’s face during the physical examination. At one point, he simply referred to his failing body the same way St. Francis supposedly did as “the poor one.” But there were lots of little grins, too. “He seemed to give me those smiles when I was telling him how severely depressed I was,” the physician confided. “Here I am going to treat him, and he’s treating me, noticing that I am suffering. He’s paying attention to my suffering, and this poor man has cervical radiculopathy [nerve damage], severe Parkinsonism, and he’s worried about me because I’m depressed that nobody will listen to me.” Fortanasce broke up laughing at the memory, still fresh 13 1/2 years later. “You could see the small smiles on either side of his face looking up at me,” he said. “And what I was getting when he was smiling was, ‘Hey, join the club. Nobody listens to me, either.’” After a pontificate lasting 25 years, Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, at the age of 84. The first of two miracles needed for canonization happened to Sister Marie Simon-Pierre in Paris. Upon praying to the popular pontiff, her Parkinson’s disease miraculously disappeared in 2005. We see the paper paper of the Vatican City, Sunday, April 3 – Pope John Paul II died Saturday night, succumbing finally to years of illness endured painfully and publicly, ending an extraordinary, if sometimes polarizing, 26-year reign that remade the papacy. He died at 9:37 p.m. in his apartment three stories above St. Peter’s Square, as tens of thousands of the faithful gathered within sight of his lighted window for a second night of vigils, amid millions of prayers for him from Roman Catholics around the world as his health declined rapidly. People wept and knelt on cobblestones as the news of his death spread across the square, bowing their heads to a man whose long and down-to-earth papacy was the only one that many young and middle-aged Catholics around the world remembered. For more than 10 minutes, not long after his death was announced, the largely Roman crowd simply applauded him. “I have looked up to this man as a guide, and now it is like a star that has suddenly disappeared,” said Caeser Aturi, 38, a priest from Ghana, which the widely traveled pope visited in 1980, on a continent where the Roman Catholic church grew sizably under his reign. He was born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland. He was 84 years old. Beauty will save the world, John Paul spoke in Vienna. Hospitalized twice since Feb.1 and suffering for a decade from Parkinson’s disease, John Paul’s health hit its last crisis on Thursday, when the Vatican announced that a urinary tract infection had caused a high fever and unstable blood pressure. In the next day, his kidneys and cardio-respiratory system began to fail. On Saturday morning, his chief spokesman, Dr. Joaquín Navarro-Valls, announced grimly that the Pope had begun to fade from consciousness. His last hours were spent, Dr. Navarro-Valls said in a statement early on Sunday, by “the uninterrupted prayer of all those who surrounded him.” At 8 p.m. Mass was celebrated in his room, the statement said, and he was administered the final Catholic rite for the sick and dying for the second time, having already received it on Thursday. He was surrounded at his death by a close circle of aides from Poland: his two personal secretaries, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz and Monsignor Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki; Cardinal Marian Jaworski, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko; the Rev. Tadeusz Styczen, as well as three Polish nuns who have long worked in his residence. His personal doctor, Renato Buzzonetti, two other doctors and two nurses were also there. After a doctor certifies his death, tradition calls for the Vatican camerlengo, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, who will run the Vatican until a new pope is chosen, to call out his baptismal name three times. He then strikes the pope’s forehead with a silver hammer to ensure he is dead. The hammer is then used to destroy the papal ring, the symbol of his authority. The Vatican said the body of John Paul II would lie in state at St. Peter’s Basilica no sooner than Monday. The Italian news agency ANSA reported that his funeral – to be attended by leaders from all over the world – was expected no sooner than Thursday. In the last few weeks before his death, he deteriorated to the point where he seemed, as his spokesman once said, to be “a soul pulling a body” – an example, his supporters said, of the dignity of old age and the value of suffering. Some critics said it was a symbol of a papacy in need of rejuvenation. In his last public appearance, from his window on Wednesday, he looked weak and gaunt, unable to pronounce a blessing to the crowd. Still recovering from a tracheotomy on Feb. 24, a pope known for his great ability as a communicator could hardly speak. From his home country of Poland, to Africa, Asia and Latin America, world leaders and ordinary people alike reacted both in sorrow and some relief that the pope’s long suffering had finally ended. There are more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide. “The world has lost a champion of human freedom and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home,” President Bush said at the White House. “Pope John Paul II was himself an inspiration to millions of Americans and to so many more throughout the world.” In 1978, he came to office as a fit and handsome 58-year-old, blessed with a charisma, intellectual vigor and energy that took him to 129 foreign countries as the pulse of the Catholic Church moved away from an increasingly secular Europe to Africa, Asia and Latin America. He served either the second or third longest of any pope, depending who did the counting, in the nearly 2,000-year history of the papacy. A Pole chosen as the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, he transformed the papacy into a television-ready voice for peace, war and life, from the womb to the wheelchair. He also reached beyond religion into human rights and politics, encouraging his fellow Poles and other Europeans to reject Communism. Many historians say he deserves part of the credit for the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. Even as his own voice faded away, his views on the sanctity of all human life echoed unambiguously among Catholics and Christian evangelicals in the United States on issues from abortion to the end of life. He died just two days after Terri Ann Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose supporters cited the pope’s teachings in long court battles with her husband, who won the right to remove her feeding tube. On Wednesday, the pope was himself fitted with a nasal feeding tube. “This pope will have a place in history,” Giancarlo Zizola, an Italian Vatican expert, said Saturday after his death. “Not just for what he is glorified for now, for attracting the great masses, as a sporty pope — this won’t last. Not even the fall of Berlin Wall, the defeat of communism, because he himself said it would destroy itself. “But he will be remembered for the seeds he laid,” he added. “He will be remembered for his great favoring of dialogue between different religions, for the culture of peace, and the courage to speak against wars. For having saved the values of the West from the West itself. And the human form he gave to the papacy. It is not negative or positive: it is a complete pontificate.” John Paul’s detractors were often as passionate as his supporters, criticizing him for what they said was tradition-bound papacy in need of a bolder connection with modern life if the church wanted to bring back to the faith people in more secular Western nations. “The situation in the Catholic Church is serious,” Hans Kung, the eminent Swiss theologian, who was barred by the pope from teaching in Catholic schools because of his liberal views, wrote last week in an open letter to several European newspapers. “The pope is gravely ill and deserves every compassion. But the church has to live.” “In my opinion, he is not the greatest pope but the most contradictory of the 20th century,” he added. “A pope of many, great gifts, and of many bad decisions.” Among liberal Catholics, he was criticized for his strong opposition to abortion, homosexuality and contraception, as well as the ordination of women and married men. Though he was never known as a strong administrator of the dense Vatican bureaucracy, he kept a centralizing hand on the selection of bishops around the world and enforced a rigid adherence to many basic church teachings among the clergy and Catholic theologians like Dr. Kung. But he defied easy definition: For all his conservatism on social and theological issues, he was decidedly forward looking – too much so even for some cardinals – on the delicate question of other religions.
While never veering from his belief that Jesus Christ alone was capable saving the souls of human beings, he reached out tirelessly to other faiths, becoming the first pope to set foot in a synagogue, in Rome in 1986, as well as in a mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001. And, as attention turned to who might be the next the pope – would he be old or young; conservative or liberal; Italian, South American or African? -most experts said John Paul-like charisma would no longer be optional. He was a most public man: traveling, bear-hugging, chatting and preaching the value of love with a warmth that belied his often-doctrinaire positions on church issues. “He came across in some ways as a regular guy,” said Michael Walsh, a British biographer of the pope and a former Jesuit priest. “Famous for looking at his watch. What pope looks at his watch? In Britain we’re proud that he used to wear Doc Martin boots. He would watch football, drink a glass of wine.” Though the next nine days will be devoted to praising and burying John Paul II – he will likely be interred aside other popes inside the subterranean grottoes at St. Peter’s Basilica – the ancient institution of the Roman Catholic Church will soon turn toward the future and the selection of the next pope. No sooner than 15 days after his death, and no later than 20, most of the 117 voting members of the College of Cardinals will meet in secrecy below the frescoes of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel to decide who will inherit the seat of St. Peter. So, Elvis Presley musician was drafted into the Army. He was never the same. It was a dark period during which he lost his mother and began the journey to drug addiction that likely ended his life. Scientists now know why people with autism don’t like to be touched. An Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn’t just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope’s April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul’s personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a few days before he died accelerated John Paul’s death, Pavanelli concludes. Moreover, Pavanelli says she believes that the Pope’s doctors dutifully explained the situation to him, and thus she surmises that it was the pontiff himself who likely refused the feeding tube after he’d been twice rushed to the hospital in February and March. Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life…

Conclusion

The medical aspects of the Pope’s final days are clearly difficult to verify from afar, and the Vatican is convinced that the actions of the both its doctors and its Pope were in absolute good faith. Of course, medical opinions can often vary. So too can those on bioethics. Not least, the long illness of John Paul II – and the realities of modern medicine – may force the cardinals to confront an uncomfortable and historic change: whether the next pope should be forced to retire after a certain age. But what did Karol Wojtyla leave in his will? The spiritual work is enormous, but the world goes its way. We see, once again, the rise of openly expressed white supremacy in America. We see growing anti-migrant sentiment in Europe, growing anti-Muslim sentiment in India, growing chauvinism in China, Turkey, Myanmar. And in Pakistan, quite literally the “land of the pure”, we see a murderous attachment to purity so pronounced that no human being is pure enough to be safe… “Bonanza” is an American western television series that ran for 14 seasons from 1959 to 1973, making it the second longest running western series of all-time. The shows title, “Bonanza” refers to a term used by miners meaning a large vein or deposit of ore. The series is sometimes called “Ponderosa”, because of the show following the life of the Cartwrights who live on a 600,000-acre piece of land called the Ponderosa. I’m calling here a few quotes from this series for a better human memory. Adam Cartwright: Let’s go back to the Ponderosa, Pa. This isn’t any of our affair. Ben Cartwright: We can’t ignore the rest of the world. We’re the only stabilizing influence in the country. Deputy Sheriff: I’ll swear you in. Do you?Eric ‘Hoss’ Cartwright: I do. Deputy Sheriff: You are. Ben Cartwright: Feast thine eyes on a sight that approacheth heaven itself.
Adam Cartwright: You been to a lotta places and you’ve seen a lotta things, Pa, but you never seen or been to heaven. Ben Cartwright: Well, maybe I never been to heaven… but heaven is gonna have to go some to beat the thousand square miles of the Ponderosa. Adam Cartwright: As long as it’s ours, as long as we keep it in Cartwright hands…Ben Cartwright: Know anyone that could take it away from us, son? Ben Cartwright: You and your education. Adam Cartwright: Education is progress! Now what have you got against it?Ben Cartwright: I don’t have anything against education – as long as it doesn’t interfere with your thinking! Ben Cartwright: Hey, Joe, do you know the difference between a table and an ottoman? Joseph ‘Little Joe’ Cartwright: Sure I do. Ben Cartwright: Then take your feet off the table! (Hoss rolls his eyes) Eric ‘Hoss’ Cartwright: He’ll never learn to do that…So, history, and a love also, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness. Because they are authorities, it seems sometimes that the world is not moving forward. So, I still imagine a bloodbath. I imagine fleeing. I imagine leaving loved ones behind. This is because I continually do writing ‘Brexit West’, like the last Mohican, who’s dragging the limits of Rome’s ‘limes’ far to the east. I am a priest and a catholic father, and so hope is no longer a luxury for me, it is the most fundamental requirement of my job. As a traveler and observer of the modern world, I’m not a drug smuggler. I’m clean of of it. I am still singing to you about this era of humanity, in order to support the number of people, including anonymous ones, that we have to support. So, come in the boy’s way …Here am I counting on the eyes of readers who are a camera … they can see more details of the world. Where are the flowers from those years, where tombs from those years. I have sown flowers for these years, and the boys went on a soldier’s fate. One day I personally saw the main characters of this world. Strength before reason. I saw a radical man. he wants the sun to run around the earth. Then I saw an humanist who wants simplicity of man. After that one’s like a Dionysian hero, he wants coarseness and joy for the world. …It should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.
Though, for the world and mankind it has been given the only sign, namely – the sign of hearing human…Jesus Christ. Europe is fattening now. But the history of the world is still human Asia with. I live live in Europe. And see I the rise of the West. So, I am still singing to you about this era, and show you the cross of Christ, the symbol of the resurrection of man and the mercy of God. You imagine Polish highlanders, every day at 9.37 pm they make a light on top of the mountain above the city. This is a cross over Polish Zakopane City, which illuminates any darkness of the history of the homeland of John Paul the Great a strong light with. The sleeping knight rests firmly there, on the ridge rock from millions of years ago. And in this era of history no longer anonymous. ‘The powerful knight of Asia’ could be called. From a visible distance he’s being seen, on the entire land in the third millennium of the new era.
how the king of this land prepared for the funeral, and simultaneously as the king carced from the granite of the human body and ‘the bloody’ spirit that is circling over this land, he remains about the virtues of this land always. ‘People, I am with you forever,’ as if the knight spoke at last. A sleeping knight, already for a hundred years, he is with a cross on his face, that was made by the inhabitants of this land. ‘Do not hesitate, open the door to Christ.’ Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson! Hence the white cross on top of Giewont mountain will resemble the history of the beginning of the third millennium of the new era for all times. So,the white cross on the Tatra mountains and
on the top of Giewont, he will certify the history of man, the beginning of the third millennium of the new era. So, the John Paul evidently injured some people during his pontificate, but he did more good. He became for believers saint. I’ve heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. But met I the Holy Father personally and at the time of my life I saw God. That’s enough. Then, I would say, my day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Poland happy and strong; and yet, before the sun has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the People. He said to me: – No! You stay alive! Submit, do you hear? You’re strong, you survive. You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you…You are young, and rich, and have friends, and at such an age I know it is hard to die! The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path. So, my boy you imagine, when the world suddenly blazed, they were walking pathless tracts, through sleeping woods. With steady rhythm of young hearts, turbulent days were measured by time. Smoke of bonfires was left somewhere behind, as was dust of traveled roads, As was shadow of grey fog. Only white cross in the fields, doesn’t remember anymore, who sleeps beneath it. Like a thought from a past, Like a trace of memories, today comes back a memory of those, that are no more. Evening darkness bid them farewell When they were moving into battle, When the song was fading. They were walking to fight for your home, Among the green fields, to fight for new day. Like a thought from a past, Like a trace of memories, today comes back a memory of those, that are no more. Because fate helped not everyone to return from forest paths, when lilacs were blooming. White cross in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t remember anymore, who sleeps beneath it. White cross in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t remember anymore, who sleeps beneath it. So, you must believe in an even better time, as if he continued to talk to me. (We would love to hear from you)

Stanislaw Barszczak, John Paul II Personal History
(in citing the history of the illness of John Paul relied I on messages taken only by the Internet and so not fully reliable; for repetition in the descriptions of the ‘John Paul’s journey through suffering and pain’, I apologize to the readers, author)

Introduction

Pope John Paul II entered the papacy in 1978 as an avid sportsman, enjoying hiking and swimming. The 58-year-old was extremely healthy and active for his age, jogging in the Vatican gardens to the horror of Vatican staff, who informed him that his jogging could be seen by tourists climbing to the summit of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The pope’s response, according to media reports, was “so what?” When the cost of installing a swimming pool in his summer residence was queried by cardinals, John Paul joked that it was “cheaper than another conclave”. John Paul’s obvious physical fitness and looks earned much comment in the media following his election, which compared his health and trim figure to the poor health of John Paul I and Paul VI, the portliness of Pope John XXIII and the constant claims of ailments of Pius XII. The only modern pope with a keep-fit regime had been Pope Pius XI (r: 1922-1939) who was an avid mountain climber. An Irish Independent article in the 1980s labelled John Paul “the keep-fit pope”. However, after over twenty-five years on the papal throne, two assassination attempts (one of which resulted in severe physical injury to the Pope), and a number of cancer scares, John Paul’s physical health declined. The 1981 assassination attempt was costlier to his overall health than was generally known by the public at the time. Rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery, he experienced profound bleeding leading to a dangerous fall in blood pressure and to cardiac arrest, which was however successfully defibrillated. He received the Anointing of the Sick (formerly known as “Last Rites”). Despite difficulties with extensive blood transfusions, which are speculated to have transmitted cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, surgery was eventually successful. The bullet had passed completely through the body, puncturing the intestines and necessitating a colostomy. Seven weeks later, discussions were held about reversing the colostomy and eight of nine doctors voted against it, arguing the Pope was still too weak from the CMV infection. Saying “I don’t want to continue half dead and half alive”, the Pope effectively overruled his physicians and the reversal was done successfully on August 5, 1981. Despite the shooting and the complications during recovery, John Paul remained in good physical condition throughout the 1980s, and remained active as well.

Part 1

Everyone is aware of the fact that in his later years, John Paul II became a victim of Parkinson’s disease. It is a kind of ailment that results in the loss of cells from a particular region of the human brain. This region is responsible for the production of dopamine and is known as substantia nigra. The lack of dopamine directly affects the nerves that are responsible for activity and movement so that the patient becomes physically unstable. This disease was first identified by James Parkinson in the year 1817 and that is why the ailment is named so. It was quite unfortunate that such a reverential individual like Pope suffered from this disease in his old age. The main problem faced by people close to the Pope was that it was a disease which neither had a sure cure method nor did anyone know the actual cause of it. Since it is almost impossible to find out the actual reason behind the death of the brain cells, there was no way this crisis could have been avoided. Usually, in these cases, the patient does not experience any prominent symptoms in the initial stage. It is only when almost 80% of the brain cells have been damaged that the symptoms and problems start becoming apparent. But, by then, it often becomes too late. The same thing happened with John Paul as well. When it was found out that he was actually suffering from it, there was no way he could have been saved. Pope John Paul II was 73 when the diagnosis revealed that he had Parkinson’s disease. The year was 1993, you imagine. It was quite ironical that the man who had travelled extensively to different parts of the world in order to teach his sermons and had been an athlete in his youth became crippled and had extreme difficulty in moving from one place to another. His speech was also hampered so that he could no longer speak in a normal manner. But, even during this period, he tried to bring the attention of the world to Parkinson’s disease and searched for a possible cure. He also met several representatives of different Parkinson’s disease service organizations. The Vatican administration, at first, did not accept that Pope was indeed suffering from the disease. It was Dr. Gianfranco Fineschi, an orthopaedic surgeon of Italian origin who first revealed the truth which was later confirmed by the Vatican administration in 2003. John Paul battled with the ailment for as long as 12 years. Finally, it was a urinary tract infection that took his life and he breathed his last on the 2nd of April, 2005. So, during the 1990s John Paul’s health began to decline. A benign intestinal tumor was removed in 1992; he experienced two falls in 1993 and 1994 which dislocated his shoulder and broke his femur respectively; and he underwent an appendectomy in 1996. In December 1995, he had to suspend his urbi et orbi blessing on Christmas Day after a dizzy spell. In 1996 Pope John Paul II’s appendix was removed in a 50-minute operation that his doctors said found no traces of any new or serious ailment. Dr. Francesco Crucitti, chief surgeon for the Pope’s medical team, told reporters that the operation had revealed no secrets about the 76-year-old Pope’s health, which has been the subject of intense speculation and concern since it was announced a month ago that he was going into the hospital. Dr. Crucitti again rebutted reports of another tumor, similar to one removed from the Pope’s colon four years ago. ”He has never had any other growth, never,” Dr. Crucitti said. ”It was exactly what the pre-operative tests showed.” He added, ”We have always told the truth.” After the operation this morning, a spokesman said, the Pope awoke from anesthesia asking, ”How did it go?” He also asked one of the Polish nuns who attend to him at Gemelli hospital here to read him a copy of the Vatican’s official health bulletin before it was released to the press, said the spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. According to his doctors, the Pope, who is expected to remain in the hospital until the end of the week, came out of surgery as calmly as he had gone into it. ”When he came round, he greeted everybody and thanked them,” Dr. Crucitti said. ”He was tranquil throughout.” In a medical bulletin three weeks ago, the Pope’s doctors said he suffered from a recurring inflammation of the appendix, which explained the three bouts of intestinal fever that have stricken the Pope this year, as well as periodic spasms of pain. In a medical bulletin issued today, the doctors said they had found ”transmural appendicitis with evidence of fibrosis established from preceding inflammatory episodes.” Transmural appendicitis means inflammation of the appendix extending through the wall of the organ. Fibrosis is the formation of fibrous tissue, presumably scarring from the past episodes. Neither the report nor the doctors today addressed the persistent trembling of his left hand – a symptom of what the Vatican has recently confirmed is a neurological problem, and has never denied might be Parkinson’s disease. On the day before his admission to the hospital, as the Pope celebrated a three-hour Mass on St. Peter’s Square, the trembling struck many people as more severe than usual. ”This is not my field,” Dr. Crucitti said in response to a barrage of questions from reporters about the Pope’s tremor. Doctors described the operation, which began 50 minutes after he entered the operating room and ended at 8:40 A.M., as a classic appendectomy, which they said proceeded without any complications. In the course of the surgery, doctors also cleared up adhesions, or tissues that stick together, that are often the result of previous surgery. This was the Pope’s sixth visit to the Gemelli Polyclinic, a hospital attached to the medical faculty of Catholic University, where he has undergone abdominal surgery three times – twice after he was wounded in an assassination attempt in 1981 and again in 1992, when doctors removed a tumor the size of an orange, described then as on the verge of turning malignant. In the last two weeks, the Italian press has repeatedly questioned the diagnosis of appendicitis, suggesting a Vatican cover-up of the Pope’s real ailment. After one of his attacks of intestinal fever last summer, the Pope underwent a CT scan, which the Vatican said concluded that he was not suffering from any recurrence of a tumor. But in that same medical bulletin came the first confirmation that the Pope does suffer from a neurological disease, when his doctors used the word ”extrapyramidal” to describe the cause of the trembling in his left hand. Besides the tremor, which first appeared more than two years ago, the Pope also walks with an increasingly slow and stiff step; his shoulders stoop and his face at times takes on a blank expression. All of this can be symptoms of Parkinson’s, a disease relatively common among elderly people that affects the ”extrapyramidal” areas of the brain, which help control movement. Mr. Navarro-Valls has never denied various reports this fall explicitly linking the word ”extrapyramidal” to Parkinson’s disease. But even if the Pope does have Parkinson’s disease, it is not clear how quickly it is progressing, and whether it will affect his activities. Although he has already slowed down considerably since the early years of his papacy, when his constant travel and love of physical exercise earned nicknames like ”the pilgrim Pope” and ”God’s athlete,” he is still capable of showing remarkable stamina. He has four trips on his calendar for next year, including a 10-day journey to Poland.

Part 2

Doctor confirms Pope John Paul has Parkinson’s on January 3, 2001. For the first time, a person in a position to know has acknowledged that Pope John Paul II is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. “The numerous operations he has undergone and the Parkinson’s disease have caused him great suffering,” said Gianfranco Fineschi, an orthopedic surgeon who operated on the pope in April 1994 when he broke his right leg in a fall in his apartment. Tired and suffering the effects of several operations, the 80-year-old pope “should slow down and take a rest,” Fineschi said in an interview with an Italian news magazine. Fineschi acknowledged that such an admonishment to the determined pontiff was probably “useless.” “Every time he leaves for a trip or he wears himself out during a public appearance, I fear for him,” Fineschi was quoted as saying. The pope’s tremulous left hand, rigid facial expressions and shuffling gait have become increasingly noticeable over the past several years, leading outside medical experts to speculate that he had Parkinson’s. Neither the Vatican nor, until now, his doctors had publicly confirmed the commonly held perception. The closest the Vatican came such a statement came in October 1996, when papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said John Paul’s symptoms were the result of an “extrapyramidal syndrome,” a term that applies to a group of neurological disorders including Parkinson’s. John Paul’s stamina and courage have brought him additional respect and compassion as he has continued his travels and involvement in world affairs despite his physical difficulties. The pontiff looked especially frail and tired at this year’s Christmas ceremonies at the Vatican. He canceled a planned rest at the papal vacation residence in the Alban Hills south of Rome so he could give a quick wave and greeting daily from his window to the thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter’s Square during the holidays. Over the past year, special Jubilee events to mark the millennium added to the pope’s official functions, Masses and audiences, an effort that has clearly strained him. “The Holy Father has a powerfully muscular body, like that of a swimmer, but without the help of God he wouldn’t have been able to maintain such activity,” ANSA quoted Fineschi as saying.
Every time the pope misses a scheduled appearance, Italian newspapers are full of speculation about his health and longevity — and possible successors. Last January, Karl Lehmann (died 2018, author’s underlines), a prominent German bishop, suggested that the pope might consider retiring if he felt his health was impeding his role as leader of the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics. The Vatican vehemently denied the pope had any such intention.
Once a vigorous athlete who loved skiing, soccer and hiking, John Paul has had more than his share of physical trials. He was shot in the abdomen and left hand in an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square in May 1981. In July 1992, he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his intestine; in 1993, he dislocated his right shoulder; in 1994, he broke his leg; and, in 1996, he had an appendectomy.Outside medical experts have often speculated on the health of Pope John Paul II, 80, who has appeared increasingly frail. As we mentioned an orthopaedic surgeon confirmed in 2001 that Pope John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, as international observers had suspected for some time; this was acknowledged publicly by the Vatican in 2003. Despite difficulty speaking more than a few sentences at a time, trouble hearing and severe osteoarthrosis, he continued to tour the world, although rarely walking in public. Some of those who met him late in his life said that although physically he was in poor shape, mentally he remained fully alert. However, that claim was disputed by among others Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland, in their accounts of meetings with him in 2003. After John Paul II’s death, Williams told The Sunday Times of a meeting with the Pope, during which he had paid tribute to one of John Paul’s encyclicals. According to Williams, John Paul II showed no recognition. An aide whispered in the pope’s ear, but was overheard reminding John Paul about the encyclical.[citation needed] However the Pope still showed no recognition. Papal critic John Cornwell claimed that, after Williams and his entourage left, the Pope turned to an aide and asked “tell me, who were those people?” According to Cornwell, Mary McAleese told the British Catholic newspaper The Universe of a visit as President of Ireland to John Paul where he struggled to talk about the Irish College in Rome, where Irish seminarians in the city are trained and to which the Pope prior to his election had often travelled. “He wanted to be reminded of where the Irish College was, and when he heard that it was very close to St. John Lateran’s basilica he wanted to be reminded where that was too.” On 1 February 2005, the Pope was taken to the Gemelli Hospital suffering from acute inflammation and spasm of the larynx, brought on by a bout of influenza. He was released, but in late February 2005 he began having trouble breathing, and he was rushed back. A tracheotomy was performed, allowing him to breathe more easily, but limiting his speaking ability, to which he reacted with evident frustration during a failed attempt at public speaking from the window of the hospital ward. On Palm Sunday (20 March 2005) the Pope made a brief appearance at his window and silently waved an olive branch to pilgrims. Two days later there were renewed concerns for his health after reports stated that he had taken a turn for the worse and was not responding to medication. By the end of the month, speculation was growing, and was finally confirmed by the Vatican officials, that he was nearing death. He was not rushed to the hospital again, however, and equipment for medical monitoring was brought to his residence in the Vatican, where he was followed by a team of top physicians. He developed sepsis and multiple organ failure, and died in his apartment on 2 April 2005 at 84 years and 319 days of age, 46 days before his 85th birthday. The Pope was the third-longest serving Pope ever in history, after the first Pope St. Peter and Pope Pius IX. He died after 26 years and 162 days of papacy. He was buried in presence of millions on 8 April 2005.(the text will be continued)

Stanislaw Barszczak, ‘Proto-Evanglion for Jacob’
(continuation)

part 3
And you remember, Mary Magdalene was shown to me. When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into upper room, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces, she needed this so for what lay before her, she was conscious of external composure and free grace in her movements. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile, Jesus bent down to us and murmured his eyes. He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not take his eyes off the marvelous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down; triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living only because she was more beautiful than a living woman can be, Jesus spoke that with a break. I must ask what it is you want of me? What can I want, Mary of Magdala replied. -All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing, she said understanding all he had not uttered. But that I don’t want; that’s secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over… Without knowledge of what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live. I cannot know that, I cannot live either. In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is me, Maria of Magdala said. -What am I coming for? I repeated, looking straight into her eyes. You know that I have come to be where you are, I said; I can’t help it. Then Mary put both her hands on my shoulders and gazed at me long, with a deep look of ecstasy and yet searchingly. She scrutinized my face to make up for the time she had not seen me. She compared the image her fancy painted of me, I believe incomparably finer than, and impossible in actual existence, with my real self. Master, I didn’t know you were going. What are you coming for? she said, letting fall the hand… And irrepressible delight and eagerness shone in her face. What am I coming for?” I repeated, looking straight into her eyes. You know that I have come to be where you are, I said, I can’t help it. And the disciples saw it. Mary of Magdala smiled, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew thoughtful, and he became serious. At this time reasoning kept him from seeing what he should and should not do. Yet when he did not think, but lived, he constantly felt in his soul the presence of an infallible judge who decided which of two possible actions was better and which was worse; and whenever he did not act as he should, he felt it at once. Suddenly John turned to Jesus, he bent his head, as though he would have fallen at his feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble submission and dread. ‘I would not offend you’ his eyes seemed every time to be saying, ‘but I want to save myself, and I don’t know how. -There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness, Jesus said. We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do? So, my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it. I felt that was I myself and did not wish to be anyone else. I only wished now to be better than I had been before a second. I soon felt that the fulfillment of my desires gave me only one grain of the mountain of happiness I had expected. Thomas spoke to us after a supper. This fulfillment showed me the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires. -You do things in order to enrich yourselves, Jesus continued his word. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life. Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people- that’s in your hands. Enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in finding it. -Just think! This whole world of ours is only ‘a speck of mildew’ sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great – thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand, Jesus said. In all human sorrow nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in sight of my compassion no sorrow is trifling. Love them that hate you, but you can’t love them whom you hate. Love those you hate you. It is heavenly, when I overcome my earthly desires. But nevertheless, when I’m not successful, it can also be quite pleasurable. You know, I liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation. The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it. Jesus spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to his own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one he was talking to. Judas was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. And Judas got up to fetch a table, and, as he passed, his eyes met Jesus’s. He felt for him with her whole heart, the more because he was pitying him for a suffering of which he was himself the cause. If you can forgive me, forgive me, said his eyes, I am so happy. Yes, Jesus eyes responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not destined to escape. Then Judas went out. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might. All that day Judas had had the feeling that he was playing in the theatre with actors better than himself and that his poor playing spoiled the whole thing. So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what purpose he had been placed in the word… Jesus but gave another word. -The whole system of culture, the chief element in the condition of people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty, general prosperity and content; instead of hostility, harmony and unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little circle of our district…- It’s all the same to me, Mathew said after a while. I should like cabbage soup and porridge better than anything; but of course there’s nothing like that here. There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way. But everything intelligent is so boring. You know, there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. Every heart has its own skeletons. The last supper is over. The last supper is over. We went out to the garden to breathe fresh air. Various thoughts of Jesus were in our heads. Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect. Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. A mother and Jesus. The strange feelings that had been roused by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading. She still found no words in which she could express the complexity of her feelings; indeed, she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly think out all that was in her soul. The place where his mother stood seemed to us a holy shrine, unapproachable. And Jesus had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to prayer. I remember Jesus stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking. He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty which he picked and ruined it. But he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken. And she smiled at him, and at her own fears.
Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…‘You have no heart,’ as if she spoke. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him. Peter had spoken there: Master, I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master. And you my Master. ‘Where did I get it from?’ Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable. Somebody said, I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy. But can I believe in all Jesus teaches, we thought, trying himself, and thinking of everything that could destroy our present peace of mind. Itentionally we recalled all those doctrines of Jesus which had always seemed most strange etc. The Creation? But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain evil?… The atonement?… But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing but what has been told to me and all men. And it seemed to us that there was not a single article of faith of Jesus which could destroy the chief thing, faith in God, in goodness, as the one goal of man’s destiny. Lying on my back, I gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky. Do I not know that that is infinite space, and that it is not a round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I cannot see it not round and not bounded, and in spite of my knowing about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see a solid blue dome, and more right than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it… Jesus for the first time looked at the questions of life and death in the light of the new convictions. Recently I have heard of Nicodemos, who had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society- owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity- to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with Jesus manner of life. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, Jesus life was exceedingly full. His face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness; it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night. But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little fact- that death will come, and all ends; that nothing was even worth beginning, and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes it was awful, but it was so. The joyful feeling of love and forgiveness of his enemies filled his soul.
We have been being on Gethsemany and we would heard his voice. Father, I’m not living, I’m waiting for a solution that goes on and on being put off. God forgive me everything! There was a feeling the impossibility of struggling… At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, and his love? He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul… All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade… Judas knew Jesus was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. He was standing talking to a solder at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in his dress or his attitude. But for Judas he was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by him. He was the smile that shed light all around him… When the storm collapsed over Jerusalem Jesus said last words. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…Today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43. Behold your son: behold your mother. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I thirst. It is finished. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. In his Jerusalem world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One-the inferior sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one’s children to earn their living, should pay one’s debts, and other nonsense of that kind of things. These were the old-fashioned people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else. So, there had always been people who had willingly entered into illness and madness in order to win knowledge for mankind-and knowledge, having been wrested from madness, became health and, once obtained by heroic sacrifice. its possession and use were no longer conditioned by illness and madness. That was the true death on the cross. Space, like time, gives birth to forgetfulness, but does so by removing an individual from all relationships and placing him in a free and pristine state. Between Pilat and Jesus there had been established those relations, not infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously and cannot even insult each one another. Love them that hate you, but you can’t love them whom you hate. Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by faith in the chief thing taught by the friends. So, we understood that, you have to build up thereby that life of the soul which alone is worth living, and which alone is precious to us.(the sun was rising)

Stanislaw Barszczak, ‘Proto-Evanglion for Jacob’(to be continued)

part 3
Jesus said to his disciples: I growing up with my naïve view of life. I delighted in people. For their prayers in the temple were good. There was a compass who showed the degree of their departure from they knew and what now they did not want to know. But I still did not have a chance to do anything. I wanted to see who am I and that’s why am I here. I looked I for a happiness of people. I had the same dreams as other characters in history. So, caused I miracles. The sick people regained health, deaf heard, the blind saw. All people were overjoyed. But I had to live. And everything was hidden in darkness yet. Though knew I everything because I was a god. I came here, you trust me, to be with you now and to be in the place where you are now. I am asking for one thing, I am asking for the right to hope. So, we can be alone the happiest or the most-rude. However, the choice is in your hands. Infinite time and space wakes up a bubble organism. I believe that the time will come when in Rome the bells will be ringing one last time for peace. Although there still can not be peace for us, only poverty and the greatest happiness. We can not escape the infection of love fortunately. You imagine I love mom whom I felt unhappy with, because she loved me so much. Each mother wants life, and got I infected by my passion. Then it was too late. And my mission could not be reversed. So, my word is not about structuring rights. You see, the law comes too late. I fed thousands, there were baskets of fractions. How beautiful it was. But artistic intelligence kills humanity, I ponder. Hence I can not think about you and myself without any reserve on. So, I want to be a smile that would light everything around now. Have the power of life. Let us now talk about values, taking over also negative ideals. Brethren, the kingdom of God is within you. Nothing but the desire to realize it, this is my aim. The civil court is not final. Once day I’ve entered the donkey to the city. And felt I that the best luck was behind me. Beauty is not goodness. We have to do enough in life or not. In order to love, one has to make also a mistake, and the error can be corrected later. From that day the undisputed sense of good is in my power to realize it. So, it still necessary work era. I spoke of the Son of Man who came down to earth. My successors we’ll identify me with anybody else. Sometimes am I shown as an apocalyptic sage. Because it is about the full realization of humanity. The kingdom of heaven is the eye of every man. So, it’s already here on the earth can I be perfect. You know, I show you on the upper realm of every human being. So, let them say, the historical Jesus lived and acted, we have written evidence for it and testify about this. Let them say, Jesus has problems with the earthly power and will be condemned to death for acting against the dignitaries in the Second Temple. These principles of theirs were not rational or good, but they were characterized by unfailing certainty. Jesus heart was torn with grief, that’s why they could be ruthless for him. Earliey they threw him out from Nazareth, his mother saw it. Today, when the world puts permanent human values ​​in the end, such as peace, goodness, beauty, openness and mutual understanding, I’d surely be a sign of opposition to the tough but current clients.
You have to start without taking care of what will happen later … For example, the people of South Africa will place the birth of Jesus in Nazareth, the others – in Bethlehem. I believe that I was born in Galilean village, on the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem, on Palestinian soil. Hence will he be born in the hearts of people for ever. On that holy land, the bells will ring for the peace of the human heart once and for all, so that everyone will be the master of his fate. Though there are diseases yet. Symptoms of the disease are masked manifestations of love, and each disease is a transformed love. Peter, you’d told to me: you are my lord, we do not measure time for weeks. Because Master, here you are. So, I want to describe terrible time in the life of man. As for me, you see, I love freedom above all else in the world, and especially the freedom to choose where am I. You see, all the confusion in the world comes from the imbalance between the volatility of the spirit and the awkwardness, slowness, and inertia of matter. This imbalance is sufficiently justified by the fact that the spirit is not interested in reality: its ferments that trigger revolutions take it by disgust. A ghost that is dead is more odious to the living than, say, for basalts, which at least do not aspire to be spirit and life. The basalts are the remnants of the former reality, which the spirit so far has left behind, so that it no longer considers it a reality; they persist only inertia. Some remember my grandmother. It was her festive cap with white, silk ribbons, and her reddish hair underneath. But that pointed nose, those deep lips, chin protruding, those yellow,translucent, folded hands that could be seen to be cold and stiff, were not hers. It was some strange, wax doll, and in this staging and paying homage to her was something terrifying. I was looking through a mood of the room, as if a real grandmother was about to appear there … She did not show up. She died. Death turned her into a wax figure forever, whose eyelids were so inexorable, so impossibly tightly closed.
You see; my mom love a life. The healthy and simple gifts of life are rarely seen with a just assessment. Most people are undoubtedly too lazy, inattentive, impertinent and spiritually sterilized to judge them fairly. In youth just did I not want to be involved in everyday life, I was too lazy. But probably time passes quickly here – commented Andrew. -Quickly and slowly, as you want, Jesus said. – Actually, I will tell you, it does not pass at all, it is not time at all and it is not life at all – for it, certainly not – Jesus said, shaking his head and reached for the glass again. -Mystery is a vessel of all wishes, hopes, feelings, dreams and possibilities. love in yourself. Because the years pass, Jesus thought about it. -I’ve learned to love the lake of Gennesaret more and more … I think that’s why I preferred the mountains to be more distant. Now I would not like to go there. It seems to me that I would be afraid and ashamed. They mountains are too capricious, incorrect, too diverse. I would feel overwhelmed there. Who do people prefer the monotony of the sea? It seems that those who have too long and deeply penetrated into intricate internal affairs, not to expect at least the outer one above all this one: simplicity… The least important thing is that you have to climb bravely when you go to the mountains, while at the seaside you can relax quietly on the sand. -Or fishing, said Philip. – I know the gaze that pays homage to this country. Health and disease, including all the difference. Man boldly enters into a wonderful variety of toothed, precipitating, precipitous phenomena, to experience his vital forces, which he has not used. But the sight of the simplicity of external things. The sea gives us a rest when we are weary with the inner dimness, Jesus said.
The horrible thing is that it’s impossible to tear the past out by the roots. The question of the religion and her relations to Divinity I have no right to decide, and no possiblity of deciding, maybe I exaggerated in my speech about the destruction of the temple and the forces including the dictatorship of social demands. But the answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. I lost sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. Though a change began to come over my work, which gave me immense satisfaction. I would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. You see this girl, she served us. You can’t understand it. For you men, who are free and make your own choice, it’s always clear whom you love. But a girl’s in a position of suspense, with all a woman’s or maiden’s modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust, a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot even tell what to say. A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. So, you know, I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn’t sleep. I said I find your king of the hill, top of the heap. Your small town blues, they’re melting away, don’t make a brand new start of it, in Jerusalem. You always make it there, you make it anywhere. It’s up to you, Jerusalem. I want to wake up in a city, that doesn’t sleep. There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. I don’t allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment. It means too much for me, far more than you can understand, Jesus said. Anything is better than lies and deceit! To some extent should we find some artificial inoculation against the substitutes of love, as with smallpox. On the other hand, one should invent a way of inoculating love, like vaccination. Where love ends, hate begins. You know, I always loved you. So, if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. I can’t think of you and myself apart. You and I are the same to me. That’s the whole aim of roman civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. My grandmother Ann, she had never been able to stand her husband, though not for one minute in their married life had she permitted this to make her unhappy. Only people who are fond of somebody can ever be unhappy. She also had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the story was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of roman Senate making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Joachim had surprised everyone by his boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth recycled papirus in her little hands, she forced herself to read. Brethren, do not be so superstitious and do not believe in magical power. I love mom, you heard that. You remember she came to me. I knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of my heart… Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around. Then a family home was created in my mind. The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag’s horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, his father’s sofa, a large table, on the table a manuscript-papirus with a father handwriting. As I saw all this, there came over me for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging this new life, of which I had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of my life seemed to clutch me, and to say: No, you’re not going to get away from us, and you’re not going to be different, but you’re going to be the same as you’ve always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectations, of a happiness which you won’t get, and which isn’t possible for you, Jesus mentioned. Mom sometimes did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know. But as I said always wverything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her. You imagine, my mother was only sixteen at time. All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone, had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity. Mom was, every time she saw me, making the picture of me in her imagination, incomparably superior, impossible in reality, fit with me as I really was. Forgive me mom, not according to my unworthiness, but according to thy loving kindness, I wanted to tell her then.
There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world that could concentrate for me all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Mom. Joseph was a truthful man in his relations with ourself. Joseph was contented and happy in her children, he never interfered with her in anything; I let her manage the children and the house just as she liked. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not about Maria as his wife. The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones. Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them. Joseph and Mary did not know any happiness, especially when they went towards Egypt. Although Joachim was very rich. They’ve got no idea what happiness is, they don’t know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us- there is no life. -It’s hard to love a woman and do anything, Joseph used to say sometimes. You see, something magical has happened to me as a child, like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up. -If you love me as you say you do, make it so that I am at peace, mom whispered. Her glance, the touch of her hand, set me aflame at time. I kissed the palm of her hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in the sense that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening… When I thought what was I and what I was living for, I could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when I left off questioning myself about it, it seemed as though I knew both what I was and what I was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation. But I’m glad you’ll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn’t want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don’t want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven’t I? You see now, there was no solution, save that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: One must live in the needs of the day- that is, forget oneself. But is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels? So, I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make any mistake and then put it right. And the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable. I remember brother then, Samuel sprinkled some scent on himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his pockets his pocketknife, and watch with its double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each leg into the dining-room… These loaves, pigeons, and two little boys seemed unearthly. It all happened at the same time: a little boy ran over to a pigeon, glancing over at me with a smile; the pigeon flapped its wings and fluttered, gleaming in the sunshine among the snowdust quivering in the air, while the smell of freshly baked bread was wafted out of a little window as the loaves were put out. All this together was so extraordinarily wonderful that I burst out laughing and crying for joy. Samuel grew and the more intimately he came to know younger brother. The thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called heart- the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life. Samuel would have been good always. There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in a lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. I like to be home. Perhaps it’s because I appreciate all I have so much that I don’t worry about what I haven’t got. The memories of home and of the children rose up in my imagination with a peculiar charm quite new to me, with a sort of new brilliance. That world of him own seemed quite new to him now so sweet and precious that he would not on any account spend an extra day outside it, and he made up his mind that he would certainly go back next day. With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better. (home you are)

Stanislaw Barszczak, ‘Proto-Evanglion for Jacob’

part 1
Who is who? Jesus of Nazareth (c. 4 BC – c. AD 30 / 33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christians believe him to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament. Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary. I felt inwardly the truth that what man binds to another person, for example a mother and his son, it can never be broken. Jesus wanted to live, he showed a deep and still hidden hot desire for life. For two thousands years Mary, his mother, she served in the temple amongst other girls. Mary won the fate. And from silk she makes a veil for the Tabernacle of God. Joseph built houses. Then Mary was marrying Joseph. The angel Gabriel was saying to her: the power of the Highest will cover you and will give birth to a son. Some supernatural force attracted Elżbieta’s eyes to Mary’s face. The angel gave Mary food. Mary was pregnant. Then there was the test of water. The high priest checked Joseph and Mary. Joseph and Mary went in the desert, after their trial their sin did not come out. Then Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem to be registered during the census in their home town of Bethlehem. See, Micah’s prophecy about Bethlehem of Judah here. Three milestones they came out of Nazareth. Jesus was born in the poor village, that is, in the cave behind the third milestone from Nazareth. A midwife came there and became convinced of Mary’s virginity. Salome, her friend, also came to the cave. The elder brother of Jesus Samuel was there. While Jesus parents fleeing Herod’s command, they had a stay still in Bethlehem in the Land of Judah, they were given special visits to the magi-astrologers from the East. For the news of the birth of Jesus spread among relatives and friends like a lightning. This is why the mages of the East who followed the supernova star could finally worship Jesus in the Bethlehem grotto. So, Bible reflects the historical Jesus. Jesus was a Galilean Jew, who was baptized by John the Baptist and subsequently began his own ministry, preaching his message orally and often being referred to as “rabbi”. Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers. He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities, and turned over to the Roman government, and was subsequently crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the Christian Church. Christian doctrines include the beliefs that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin named Mary, performed miracles, founded the Church, died by crucifixion as a sacrifice to achieve atonement, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, from where he will return. Most Christians believe Jesus enables people to be reconciled to God. The Nicene Creed asserts that Jesus will judge the living and the dead either before or after their bodily resurrection, an event tied to the Second Coming of Jesus in Christian eschatology. The great majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, the second of three persons of a Divine Trinity. A minority of Christian denominations reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, as non-scriptural. In Islam, Jesus (commonly transliterated as Isa) is considered one of God’s important prophets and the Messiah.Muslims believe Jesus was a bringer of scripture and was born of a virgin but was not the Son of God. The Quran states that Jesus himself never claimed divinity. To most Muslims, Jesus was not crucified but was physically raised into Heaven by God. Judaism, apart from Messianic Judaism movements, rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill Messianic prophecies. Jewish views on Jesus are that he was neither divine nor resurrected. Jesus, to come into conflict with their ordinary families. In Mark, Jesus’ family comes to get him, fearing that he is mad (Mark 3:20–34), and this account is likely historical because early Christians would not have invented it. After Jesus’ death, many members of his family joined the Christian movement. Jesus’ brother James became a leader of the Jerusalem Church. The years pass, Saint James left with a cautious and stiffly grateful arrangement of the arms, forced, fast-moving steps of a man who wants to hide that he is fleeing internally… According to schollars, the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are the clearest case of invention in the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ life. Both accounts have Jesus born in Bethlehem, in accordance with Jewish salvation history, and both have him growing up in Nazareth. The genealogies of Jesus are based not on historical information but on the authors’ desire to show that Jesus was the universal Jewish savior. Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea and did not preach or study elsewhere. They agree that Jesus debated with Jewish authorities on the subject of God, performed some healings, taught in parables and gathered followers.Jesus’ Jewish critics considered his ministry to be scandalous because he feasted with sinners, fraternized with women, and allowed his followers to pluck grain on the Sabbath. According to Ehrman, Jesus taught that a coming kingdom was everyone’s proper focus, not anything in this life. He taught about the Jewish Law, seeking its true meaning, sometimes in opposition to other traditions.Jesus put love at the center of the Law, and following that Law was an apocalyptic necessity. His ethical teachings called for forgiveness, not judging others, loving enemies, and caring for the poor. Funk and Hoover note that typical of Jesus were paradoxical or surprising turns of phrase, such as advising one, when struck on the cheek, to offer the other cheek to be struck as well. Jesus teaching had originally been recorded without context. While Jesus’ miracles fit within the social context of antiquity, he defined them differently. First, he attributed them to the faith of those healed. Second, he connected them to end times prophecy. Jesus chose twelve disciples (the “Twelve”), evidently as an apocalyptic message.The 12 disciples might have represented the twelve original tribes of Israel, which would be restored once God’s rule was instituted. Jesus taught that an apocalyptic figure, the “Son of Man”, would soon come on clouds of glory to gather the elect, or chosen ones (Mark 13:24–27, Matthew 24:29–31, Luke 21:25–28). He referred to himself as a “son of man” in the colloquial sense of “a person”, but scholars do not know whether he also meant himself when he referred to the heavenly “Son of Man”. Paul the Apostle and other early Christians interpreted the “Son of Man” as the risen Jesus. The title Christ, or Messiah, indicates that Jesus’ followers believed him to be the anointed heir of King David, whom some Jews expected to save Israel. Around AD 30, Jesus and his followers traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem to observe Passover. Jesus caused a disturbance in the Second Temple, which was the center of Jewish religious and civil authority. Sanders associates it with Jesus’ prophecy that the Temple would be totally demolished. Jesus had a last meal with his disciples, which is the origin of the Christian sacrament of bread and wine. Jesus’ words are recorded in the Synoptics and in Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. The differences in the accounts cannot be completely reconciled, and it is impossible to know what Jesus intended, but in general the meal seems to point forward to the coming Kingdom. Jesus probably expected to be killed, and he may have hoped that God would intervene. The Gospels say that Jesus was betrayed to the authorities by a disciple, and many scholars consider this report to be highly reliable. He was executed on the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judaea. Pilate most likely saw Jesus’ reference to the Kingdom of God as a threat to Roman authority and worked with the Temple elites to have Jesus executed.The Sadducean high-priestly leaders of the Temple more plausibly had Jesus executed for political reasons than for his teaching. They may have regarded him as a threat to stability, especially after he caused a disturbance at the Second Temple. Other factors, such as Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, may have contributed to this decision. Most scholars consider Jesus’ crucifixion to be factual, because early Christians would not have invented the painful death of their leader. After Jesus’ death, his followers said he rose from the dead, although exact details of their experiences are unclear. Some of those who claimed to have witnessed Jesus’ resurrection later died for their belief, which indicates that their beliefs were likely genuine. According to Sanders, the Gospel reports contradict each other, which, according to him, suggests competition among those claiming to have seen him first rather than deliberate fraud. On the other hand, L. Michael White suggests that inconsistencies in the Gospels reflect differences in the agendas of their unknown authors. The followers of Jesus formed a community to wait for his return and the founding of his kingdom. Given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus. Jesus is seen as the founder of, in the words of Sanders, a ‘renewal movement within Judaism’. Most scholars conclude that he was an apocalyptic preacher, like John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle. So, for 1.700 years Mary’s virginity was proclaimed by the church as a dogma of faith. It was a great and prophetic vision for Christians and a courageous message of the universal Church. There was still no interest in spreading such a bold mystery at the beginning of the church’s history. But it happened. The beautiful churches built already then. And in our time the mystery of Mary’s virginal conception has acquired a special and universal understanding. Who comes back to the past, he loses the future. Men but did not understand Jesus last word, they have not even heard what honor is in this era. Between talent and intelligence is still a high degree of alienation. Jesus wanted to live, he showed a deep and still hidden hot desire for life. Though life is dirty and imperfect, a heroic act. Among the inhabitants of Nazareth did not sell for nobility, but there was no life force. Jesus lived without knowing or seeing any possibilities for a new knowledge. Though he worked with the grace of God’s father on earth, did he live without contentment. Jesus but knew everything because he was a God. The Gospel tells a story. Jesus was born in solemn Bethlehem, the wise men were there. We love Jesus. And we also went through his story for centuries. However, in our faith have we dispersed in different directions. I guess there is no alternative to it. Mary focused on Jesus a great brightness, indeed the meaning of life. Jesus did attribute a particular value to her thoughts. Jesus wanted to live, he
felt guilty of destruction love in humanity. I don’t want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven’t I? So, we are to be in the best of life. Hence, it is worth living with the present, recognizing the time of our love and knowing anything from Jesus life a new.

part 2
The Arab city of Nazareth is Holy to Christians as this is the city in which Jesus grew up. In Hebrew it is called Natsrat, thus Jesus was known as a Nazarene and his followers became Nazarenes. In Hebrew: Notsrim. Archaeological findings indicate that Nazareth was populated already in the early Canaanite Period.
The city of Nazareth is located in the Galilee region and is first mentioned as a Jewish city in the New Testament and continued to be so after the destruction of the Second Temple. Jewish Nazareth was apparently destroyed following the Byzantines victory over the Persians in 614. This city of spirituality, holiness, religion and faith is the cradle of Christianity and has a rich and fascinating history. There are monasteries and churches associated with a Christian tradition, the most important of these being the Church of the Annunciation where according to Christian tradition the angel appeared before Mary to announce she would bear a son. Next to the Church of the Annunciation is the Church of Saint Joseph where according to tradition Joseph had his carpentry shop. The Catholic Church of Annunciation, also known as the Basilica of the Annunciation, is the most impressive and spectacular site in the city ion considered as one of the most holy churches for Christianity. The church, an outstanding building in the center of town, is built where it’s believed was the house of Joseph and Virgin Mary, parents of Jesus. On the lower level is the most holy place – Mary’s cave, the cave in which, according to the Catholic-Christian tradition, Mary was visited by Archangel Gabriel and told her she is destined to carry the Messiah in her womb. The Catholic Church of Annunciation is one of the biggest, most magnificent one in the Middle East today. It was designed by the Italian architect Giovanni Muzio, built by Solel Boneh and established in 1969. The church has two stories which provide enough space for a large amount of worshipers as well as preservation of the holy cave and remains of the previous churches. The church is a powerful, monumental building inducing a sense of eternity. On the church walls, as well as in its yard, is presented an exhibition of mosaic paintings. Each painting was given by a different country and is reflecting the national motives of the country it was made at. Then you may see Greek Orthodox Announciation Church. It is also known as St. Gabriel Church and Mary’s Well Church. This small church, with its fortress like appearance, is one of the most beautiful and unique ones in Israel. Following the Easter Christian tradition, this church has many wall paintings, statues and chandeliers. The sound of water sprouting out of the fountain inside, as well as its warm, bold colors, create a warmth, spiritual feeling. The church is built where, according to an ancient tradition followed by the Greeks and the Orthodox, Archangel Gabriel told Virgin Mary that she is about to conceive by the holy spirit and give birth to the son of god. This happened as Mary went down to draw water from the spring. The origin of this tradition is a late external literature called “Proto Evanglion for Jacob” (written, according to tradition, by St. James). Tradition also tells about Jesus the kid who followed his mother to this spring in order to draw water as well. During Jesus’ time, Nazareth had a population of 400 and one public bath, which was important for civic and religious purposes. See, Kfar HaHoresh as a major cult centre in that era. Nazareth was a strongly Jewish settlement in the Roman period. The Gospel of Luke says; “(And they led Jesus) to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong”. (Lk. 4:29) From the ninth century Christ era and probably earlier, tradition associated Christ’s evasion of the attempt on his life to the ‘Hill of the Leap’ (Jabal al-Qafza) overlooking the Jezreel Plain, some 3 km (2 mi) south of Nazareth. Around 570, the Anonymous of Piacenza reports travelling from Sepphoris to Nazareth. There he records seeing at the Jewish synagogue the books where Jesus learnt his letters, and a bench where he sat. The Catholic writer Jerome, writing in the 5th century, says Nazareth was a viculus or mere village. Pilgrims who visited the site in 1294 reported only a small church protecting the grotto. Then the Franciscans to purchase the Synagogue Church in 1741 and authorized the Greek Orthodox community to build St. Gabriel’s Church in 1767. In the late 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, Nazareth prospered as it served the role of a market center for the dozens of rural Arab villages located within its vicinity. On 5 January, 1964, Pope Paul VI included Nazareth in the first ever papal visit to the Holy Land. So, Nazareth is home to dozens of monasteries and churches, many of them in the Old City. Churches: The Church of the Annunciation above mentioned already, which is the largest Catholic church in the Middle East. In Roman Catholic tradition, it marks the site where the Archangel Gabriel announced the future birth of Jesus to Mary (Luke 1:26–31); The Church of St. Gabriel is an alternative Greek Orthodox site for the Annunciation; The Synagogue Church is a Melkite Greek Catholic Church at the traditional site of the synagogue where Jesus preached (Luke 4); The St. Joseph’s Church (Roman Catholic) marks the traditional location for the workshop of Saint Joseph;
The Mensa Christi Church, run by the Franciscan religious order, commemorates the traditional location where Jesus dined with the Apostles after his Resurrection; The Basilica of Jesus the Adolescent, run by the Salesian religious order, at the top of the hill overlooking the city from the north; The Church of Christ is an Anglican church in Nazareth; The Church of Our Lady of the Fright (Roman Catholic) marks the spot where Mary is said to have seen Jesus being taken to a cliff by the congregation of the synagogue “Jesus Trail”; The Jesus Trail pilgrimage route connects many of the religious sites in Nazareth on a 60 km (37 mi) walking trail which ends in Capernaum. But let’s go to Bethlehem. According to the New Testament account of the apostle Matthew, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem in the southern region of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and later moved to Nazareth in the northern Galilee region. Biblical scholars believe Bethlehem, located in the “hill country” of Judah, may be the same as the Biblical Ephrath, which means “fertile”, as there is a reference to it in the Book of Micah as Bethlehem Ephratah. The Bible also calls it Beth-Lehem Judah, and the New Testament describes it as the “City of David”. The city is 3,5 thousand years old. In 326–328, the empress Helena, consort of the emperor Constantius Chlorus, and mother of the emperor Constantine the Great, made a pilgrimage to Syra-Palaestina, in the course of which she visited the ruins of Bethlehem. The empress promoted the rebuilding of the city, and Eusebius of Caesarea writes that she was responsible for the construction of the Church of the Nativity. Early Christian traditions describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem: in one, a verse in the Book of Micah is interpreted as a prophecy that the Messiah would be born there. As I had spoken the New Testament has two different accounts of the birth. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ parents live in Nazareth and travel for the Census of Quirinius to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born, after which they return home. The Gospel of Matthew mentions Bethlehem but not the census. Told that a ‘King of the Jews’ has been born in the town, Herod orders the killing of all the boys aged two and under in the town and surrounding area. Joseph, warned of by an angel of the Lord, flees to Egypt with his family; the Holy Family later settles in Nazareth. The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John do not include a nativity narrative, but refer to him only as being from Nazareth. In a 2005 article in Archaeology magazine, archaeologist Aviram Oshri points to an absence of evidence for the settlement of Bethlehem near Jerusalem at the time when Jesus was born, and postulates that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Galilee. Origen of Alexandria, writing around the year 247, referred to a cave in the town of Bethlehem which local people believed was the birthplace of Jesus. Today Bethleem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank, Palestine, about 10 km (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. When only the eyes speak, the conversation goes on “you”, I would say. My Jesus was born on a poor cave. So, there is a deed and work must be done. For the Star of Bethlehem, or Christmas Star, appears only in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew, where “wise men from the East” (Magi) are inspired by the star to travel to Jerusalem. There they meet King Herod of Judea, and ask where the king of the Jews had been born. Herod, following a verse from the Book of Micah interpreted as a prophecy, directs them to Bethlehem, to the south of Jerusalem. The star leads them to Jesus’ home in the town, where they worship him and give him gifts. The wise men are then given a divine warning not to return to Herod, so they return home by a different route. Many Christians believe the star was a miraculous sign to mark the birth of the Christ (or Messiah). Some theologians claimed that the star fulfilled a prophecy, known as the Star Prophecy. Astronomers have made several attempts to link the star to unusual celestial events, such as a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, a comet, or a supernova. Imagine we were able to observe a similar a supernova in our time on February 23, 1987. In 1614, German astronomer Johannes Kepler determined that a series of three conjunctions of the planets Jupiter and Saturn occurred in the year 7 BC. A recent (2005) hypothesis is that the star of Bethlehem was a supernova or hypernova occurring in the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Although it is difficult to detect a supernova remnant in another galaxy, or obtain an accurate date of when it occurred, supernovae remnants have been detected in Andromeda. So,
Bethlehem has been the subject of countless carols and Nativity plays, but the real story of the little town is far more complex. You may see Bethlehem: the Church of the Nativity, Manger Square – undoubtedly the top attraction in Bethlehem, a veritable citadel built fortress-like on top of the cave where Jesus was born to Mary. It is one of the oldest churches in the world. The first incarnation of the building was erected on the orders of the Roman Emperor Constantine I (the Great) in 330 CE. An earthquake in 1834 and a fire in 1869 didn’t help. Today, the structure is mostly sound but somewhat dark and gloomy in appearance, only the adjoining Franciscan Church of St Catherine (dated 1881). The original Manger with the star marking Jesus’ birth site is called the Grotto of the Nativity, and is accessible from inside the church. The Shepherds’ Fields – “While shepherds watched their flocks by night…” – rival locations in the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Sahour claim to be the site of the angel’s visitation to the shepherds mentioned in the Gospels: the Orthodox Shepherds’ Fields Here you will also find open excavations of an old Byzantine church.
The Catholic (Latin) Shepherds’ Fields
Minor sights include the Milk Grotto Chapel, where Mary supposedly spilled a few drops of breast milk while feeding Jesus as she hid before the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt, turning the cavern milky white. And was I everywhere. It is open all day. The white powder scrapped from the cave is also sold as a fertility medicine inside the chapel. On Wednesday, 22 March 2000 John Paul II was celebrating the holy Mass in the manger square, Palestinian Territories – Bethlehem. I last saw a banner showing images of Pope Francis, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I is hanged on a gate near the Church of the Nativity (believed to be the birth place of Jesus Christ), in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, May 23, 2014, two days before Pope Francis is to hold Sunday Mass in this holy town, while visiting Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Israel during his May 24-26 trip. You also may see The Monastery of St. George/ Al Khader, (Al Khader village). Visit the village of Al Khader beside Bethlehem to see the Monastery of St George (a very important Christian Saint for Orthodox Christians, also called “Mar Jeriess” in Arabic). The monastery is said to hold relics from the saint that posess healing powers-especially for mental illness. The monastery was used in the 19th century as a psychiatric facility to treat mental illness by using St George’s relics. The site is also venerated in Muslim tradition as the setting for the Muslim prophet Al Khider’s teachings. In mid-April or early May (it goes by the Julian calendar), the town (both Muslims and Christians) holds a festival for St.George that is worth seeing. See also St Elias Monastery. Visit the St Elias Monastery, an ancient Orthodox Christian monastery built over the ruins of a Byzantine church is located on the outer edge of Bethlehem. It is surrounded by beautiful surroundings that remind one of what Bethlehem’s scenery may have looked like in Biblical times. You can celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem: spend Christmas in the town where it all began! Bethlehem is decked out in Christmas decorations for the Holiday season. Make sure to attend Midnight Mass led by the various leaders of the Holy Land’s Christian denominations on Christmas Eve with the thousands of both foreign and local worshipers who gather in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity. Christmas is just magical in Bethlehem, there is nothing like it! The Christmas season is definitely the most exciting time to be in Bethlehem, much Christmas spirit is present in the town. to be continued

Stanislaw Barszczak, Lost African horizon.

The Poland of the 21 century. Someone said,‘We have a president who stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities.’ You know, the moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the global warming virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically. But there is no dragon in Cracow. For Jesus got a second chance to come to the earth. Jesus was born there. Jesus was born not in Nazareth or Bethlehem, but far to the north, on the land of Polans, in the city of Krakow. And that was only a few years ago. My only problem from now on is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen masculin in a different way from my thirty-ninth. Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone’s entrance. Yet you can find the Corleone restaurant in a street in the old town. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak and her husband. Jadwiga, a lovely Polish redhead, had been brought to Cracow to play opposite Karol Strasburger in the film Polish roads. Janusz Morgenstern needed a cool, refined beauty. Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara love poetry and got along like old school chums. As you know, poetry does not teach us how to talk to other people: it teaches us how to talk to ourselves. So, Kazimierz Kaczor was also there with his wife. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d worked for Morgenstern. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Polish roads. He was so genuinely happy for my success in sport that I was quite moved. Karol Strasburger arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d’oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and coffee, the cocktail pianist by the pool, who had been playing through dinner, was discreetly augmented by a rhythm section, and they became a small combo for dancing. The dance floor was set up on the lawn near an open bar, and the whole garden glowed with colored paper lanterns. Later in the evening, I managed a subdued jitterbug with Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak, who was much livelier than her cool on-screen image. I was, of course, extremely impressed to be there with Polish royalty that evening. Barbara had lived an entirely different life than mine, that’s for sure, which is one reason I found her so fascinating. I think her early life was one reason she had such authenticity as an actress, and as a person. She had a wonderful, free, open quality in a film, and that’s what she was like as a woman. Reclusive by nature, she was happy to just stay home, but she read everything. She got me reading books as a way of life and, if I asked her, would help me out with my acting. We only had one scene together- I played her daughter’s boyfriend!- o there was a limit to what I could learn by working with her. She taught me what to do with my hands, how to get over my self-consciousness, and how to lower my voice, which I thought was still too high. And she taught me to be decisive with things like entrances. “When you walk in,” she told me, “be sure you’re standing up straight. Walk in with confidence.” She didn’t want me to sidle into a scene as if I were ashamed to be in the movie. Make the entrance! Take the scene! Looking is an important part of Barbara’s acting: many performers have beautiful eyes, or use their eyes expressively, but few use them so attentively to observe and survey others and the world. I was in love with her. She was very loving, very caring, very involved with me. I had been with girls, and I had been with women, but I had never been with a woman with her level of knowledge, her level of taste. I was so incredibly taken with her, taken by her. We were both at turning points in our lives…At any rate, she had just gotten her divorce when we met. She was at a very vulnerable moment in her life and career. The forties are a dangerous time for any woman, and especially so for an actress whose work is her identity- definitely Barbara’s way of life. The transition to playing middle-aged women has unnerved a lot of actresses, but she faced it straight on because that’s the kind of woman she was. The continuity of her career was more important to her than any individual part. Like so many people in show business, she was a prisoner of her career. In most respects, Barbara was a man’s woman, although her home was lovely. Like me, she was an animal lover- she kept poodles. Barbara had a lot of things going on in her head, but she didn’t put it out there for conversation, let alone public consumption. When I was with her, it was all about us. Because I was so involved with Barbara, I was off-limits for other women, which was something of a problem for the studio.
This latter would arrange for two young stars-in-waiting to go out to dinner and a dance and assign a photographer to accompany them. The result would be placed in a fan magazine. It was a totally artificial story documenting a nonexistent relationship, but it served to keep the names of young talents in front of the public. As far as I was concerned, it was part of the job, and usually pleasant enough. When reporters would ask me about my romantic life, which they did incessantly, I had to say things like, “If I go out with one woman a few times, it’s considered a romance. If I date a lot of girls, I’m a Casanova. It’s one of those ‘heads-you-win-tails-I-lose’ deals. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business what I do.” The last sentence contained my true feelings. My mother was upset that I was in love with an older woman. As for my father, as with most other events in my life, he was not in my corner. And I eventually told Kazimierz Kaczor about it. All he said was, “Wonderful! Are you happy? If you’re happy, that’s all that matters. Because of the age difference, neither of us wanted to have our relationship in the papers, and with the help of her publicist and one of her best friends, we kept it quiet. There were only a few people who knew about us. Would she invite me in, or would she just take her key, pat me on the cheek, and thank me for a lovely evening? And then I straightened up to look at her with what I’m sure was a hopeful expression, and I saw something I hadn’t seen in her eyes before. It was a magical look of interest, and appreciation, and desire. I immediately took her in my arms and kissed her. I had never had a reaction from a woman like I had from Barbara. A different kiss, with a different feeling. We went into the house; we opened a bottle of champagne; we danced. I left at dawn.
After that, things happened very quickly. She gave me a key to her house, and I gave her a key to my apartment. If we were in town, we spent every weekend together. She cooked for me- she was good in the kitchen, but then she was good everywhere. We watched the Friday night fights on TV, we wandered to Africa on the film. Then on Saturday or Sunday afternoons we’d go for long walks in the mountains. We became part of each other’s lives. In a very real way, I think we still are. Barbara proved to be one of the most marvelous relationships of my life. I was twenty-five, she was forty-five, but our ages were beside the point. She was everything to me- a beautiful woman with a great sense of humor and enormous accomplishments to her name. Spending time around her house I convinced her to spend some time watching them with me. So, another time I ran the projector. She did enjoy reminiscing about their production: how she got the part, what the location was like, that sort of thing. She liked people with humor. As I watched her films with her, it was clear that, for her, the movies were a job she loved, as well as a social occasion for a woman who was otherwise something of a loner. When she was in the hospital dying, I called, and she asked me not to come and see her; she wanted me to remember her as she was. I felt I had to honor her request. As we talked, she told me she was wearing the four-leaf clover necklace I had given her. Barbara was cremated wearing it, and her ashes were scattered over Baltic see. I never forget her passion for details. The fact that a piece of me remained with her at the end was and is some consolation for her loss. Someone said, in the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they’re not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature. What they’re doing is simply talking back to the language itself, as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony, those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it’s something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a read, commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself. A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland…A person born with an instinct for poverty… But inside every man there is a poet who died young. The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does. Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does. Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. So, with me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion. Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary… I’m so glad you’re here. It wouldn’t be Christmas without Anne and Luddie. How many have we missed in the last 20 years? There. Watch your step. What do you think? I think it’s going to be the best Christmas ever… Is that the reason you didn’t go to Rome? … But I fought God so hard for so long that I wanted to show him finally that I could accept the fact that Dane and Ralph are his not mine. I sacrificed the chance to go in hopes of making peace with God at last. Don’t question why Dane is coming home. Take it as a sign of peace. What’s the matter? Mom? What is it? Dane is dead. No. He’s coming home. Jussie telephoned. He drowned. He was trying to save somebody. He’s dead. Father we entrust unto you Dane whom we loved so much in this life. Welcome him into Paradise where there will be no more sorrow or pain no more weeping but only peace and joy with your Son and with the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. The Lord is merciful and kind and rich in mercy. Man’s days are like the grass. He flowers like the flowers of the field. The wind blows and he is gone and his place never sees him again. How will we live without him? We will. Your God gathers in the good ones and leaves the living to those of us who fail. Your greedy God. There is no peace with him. Meggie, no. No more. What can God do to me now? What more do I have to lose? Your soul. Your heart. Your love. The love you’ve always had within you, despite everything. Despite everything but this. I loved you, Ralph. I never stopped loving you despite everything. Despite the fact that you were never mine. What part of you I got, I had to steal. But that part was the best. Because that part was Dane. Dane was your son, too. Yours and mine. It isn’t true. He was your son, Ralph. And you couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see that he was just a more perfect version of you. Couldn’t love me enough to see that I would never have gone back to Luke or to any man after you. And now you say it isn’t true. Poor Ralph. Poor Cardinal de Bricassart (see, The Thorn birds, Maggi to the cardinal de Bricassart). Man’s days are like the grass. A human being is only interesting if he’s in contact with himself. I learned you have to trust yourself, be what you are, and do what you ought to do the way you should do it. You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.
So, I am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators – they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labor and they gave us the five day work week! What’s to be ashamed of? So, you know, I was a personality before I became a person. I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy etc. I’ve been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good. I am skinny now. I believe in love and lust and romance. I don’t want everything to add up to some perfect equation. I want mess and chaos. I want someone to go crazy out of his mind for me. I want to feel passion and heat and sweat and madness. For it is true, even people with painful childhoods… grow up to be more interesting people. You see, I just don’t want to be hampered by my own limitations. Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth. How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not necessary to safeguard us from discrimination. I arrived in the catholic church without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me. So, there’s a part of you that always remains a child, no matter how mature you get, how sophisticated or weary. You know, Barbara and I, we are like a child. Specially need I instant gratification. Doubt can motivate you, so don’t be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out. What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other… but for two people to have met their match and yet they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other. I like celadon green colour, although at this point, no color reciprocates my interior. I love things that are indescribable, like the taste of an avocado or the smell of a gardenia. I was raised on the streets, in hot, steamy Silesia, south of Poland, black from coal and the iron-fired but sunny land of Slask, with stifled air. There is a tremendous honour to be with you today. I am part of audience. The boy of this land, you got a wish. I thank anyone for everything. You keep my passion alive…You got a reason for livin’. You battle on with the love you’re livin’ on, You gotta be mine we take it away. It’s gotta be night and day just a matter of time. And we got nothing to be guilty of our love will climb any mountain near or far we are, And we never let it end. We are devotion. And we got nothing to be sorry for, Our love is one in a million. Eyes can see that we…Got a highway to the sky
I don’t wanna hear your goodbye… I’ve spent so many mornings. Just trying to resist you, I’m trembling now. You can’t know how I’ve missed you. Missed the fairy-tail adventures, In this ever-spinning playground. We were young together. I’m coming out of make-up. The lights already burning, Not long until the camera’s will start turning. And the early morning madness. And the magic in the making…Yes, everything is as if we never said goodbye. I don’t want to be alone that’s all in the past. This world’s waited long enough, I’ve come home at last! Someone believes in only light of day, Someone strong enough to show the way, Someone everyone believes in… Someone who, will stand by you. And that will be your heart in mine. My love is on the line, I know its how i’m gona stay. For a stranger in a strange land far away. And just to see your spirit shine, I feel your hand in mine, I write a letter every single day, to a stranger in a strange land far away. May we share the most tomorrows, I will hear you when you cry, Should we let it come between us. Never knowing how we live or die. I will walk you through the pouring rain, I will help you learn to live and love again. If i’m heald before you go to heaven, I send you home again. Memory, All alone in the moonlight, I can dream of the old days, Life was beautiful then I remember the time I knew what happiness was. Let the memory live again. Every streetlamp seems to beat,
A fatalistic warning, Someone mutters and the street lamp gutters. And soon it will be morning. As you know I was for my peers, Bambo boy. You know, Africa of mine. I believed you Africa, I went to the abyss of Africa, to Hippona, over Libya, I was crossing the red earth, where funny clouds like white elephants cost their shadow; and now over the ribbon of the Mediterranean: the sky is above and below. Africa, I would like to touch you, my reality, my earth, this pain for dark glasses, that protect against the splendor of your magnificence, white as elephants-clouds. Africa, my heart is bursting with pride, Africa, the land of my ancestors, a country where the father is staring at the horizon, it calms the tree, the continent on which my mother, from the seashells and the sun, can conjure up a home, an area where my companions will rise up in all the limitlessness of humanity. Now I know that we must go on, for all eternity on, beyond the boundaries of habits that everyone has to crush the sordid structures of enslavement, ignorance and isolation to match your nature. Be tall and stand as confidently as your mountains are overgrown like forests, hard and uncontrollable like your desert, rich as your coast, fertile like the banks of your rivers, as free as your animals, a man like your people, forever a man like them, by the memory of their wounds. Africa, your dreams are black, Africa, I miss you because I am already strong, Africa, goodbye …Let me say, the existence of pain is unnecessary, Lord. We can also live without him. Flowers do not have teeth. A friend says: this world is so full that no one can complete it with understanding. But at the beginning it was empty, if you do not count these stones, they are like clotted thoughts where the dark is calling … So that we do not make pain and do not complain! You know this, one day I will return to where I left from, with a different look in my eyes and with the echoes of distant places in my imagination. Carrying the shadow of the world, light and transparent like the wings of flies, free from the intersections of time and space… Our love will climb any mountain near or far, oh we are that we never let it end. But you listen: you must travel further, because you have to discover and remember the earth again and again, periodically, creatively – its seasons and sounds, a warm breath of hospitality, a healing touch of otherness … so that it does not become cold and unapproachable. You need to remind that to the whole globe and learn all a new of the eternity of life. (licentia poetica by stanislaw Barszczak)

Stanisław Barszczak, Przez oceany świata (dla młodzieży)

Ileż to razy przejechałem Polskę wzdłuż i wszerz, również kraje bałtyckie i Europejską Rosję. Wszędzie spotkałem wspaniałą młodzież. I nie przestaję podziwiać tej młodzieży, która szuka ideałów wychowawczych na morzu. Uwierzcie mi, pozostaję pod wrażeniem szkolenia młodzieży na Kruzensternie. To czteromasztowy bark, jeden z największych (obok Siedowa i Royal Clippera) żaglowców i ostatnich windjammerów. Żaglowiec został zbudowany w 1926 w stoczni J. C. Tecklenborg w Wesermünde dla Ferdynanda Laeisza. Pływał pod nazwą Padua (Padwa) jako żaglowiec towarowy, przywożąc do Europy saletrę z Chile.
12 stycznia 1946 został przekazany ZSRR jako odszkodowanie po II wojnie światowej. Obecnie pływa jako statek szkolny rybołówstwa. „Padua” była ostatnim zbudowanym w historii wielkim żaglowcem handlowym. Pod banderą radziecką otrzymał imię Iwana Kruzenszterna, dowódcy pierwszej rosyjskiej wyprawy dookoła świata podjętej w latach 1803-1806 na statkach “Nadieżda” i “Newa”. Porty macierzyste:
1926–1946: Hamburg; 1946–1981: Ryga;
1981–1991: Tallinn; 1991- teraz: Kaliningrad. Powierzchnia ożaglowania: 3400 m²; Liczba masztów: 4; Wysokość maks. masztów (H): 51,3 m;
Długość całkowita (L): 114,4 m; Szerokość (B): 14,02 m; Zanurzenie (D): 6,8 m; Pojemność: 3545; Wyporność: 4700 t; Prędkość maks.: 17,3 w; Napęd pomocniczy: 2 × 1,000 hp (diesel); Załoga: 257… Podczas mojej podróży Kruzensternem obserwuję kolegów, którzy czasami zachowują się jak rasowi marynarze. W tym miejscu powiem wam: te 60 dni na pełnym morzu dużo mnie nauczyło. Przede wszystkich życia w grupie. Musimy żyć w dyscyplinie- wspomina- inaczej nie zrealizowalibyśmy planów bosmana. A więc sprzątanie kajut. Zastępca bosmana sprawdza porządek wszędzie. Naraz słychać rozkaz: każdy do swej burty. Dla innych kolegów nadszedł czas pracy na czterech masztach. Wspinali się na wysokość czterdziestu metrów i więcej, by zwijać lub rozwijać maszty. Na Kruzensternie są chłopcy, którzy mają nawet po 17 lat, dzwonią telefonami, kręcą nocą do dziewczyny, do matki, tęsknią za domem. Po solidnej szkole nawigacji, codziennej gimnastykę i przebieganiu pokładu Kruzensterna zawinęliśmy w końcu, to będziecie wiedzieć, do Santa Cruz. Dla wszystkich święto. Okazało się, że niektórzy z chłopaków spóźnili się z “wyjścia na miasto”, zaledwie pięć minut. Ale była wielka “haja”. Podczas apelu na statku ‘do przodu’ wystąpili winowajcy, za karę musieli szorować wszystkie pokłady Kruzensterna. Moi koledzy są bardzo wysportowani. Na plaży wykonują fikołki nawet z przewrotem. Innym razem przeżywamy bardzo spotkanie na morzu konkurencyjnego żaglowca. Ale to tylko STS Pogoria – polski żaglowiec, stalowa, trójmasztowa barkentyna zbudowana w 1980 roku w Stoczni Gdańskiej im. W. Lenina, pierwszy duży żaglowiec, zaprojektowany przez polskiego konstruktora statków, inż. Zygmunta Chorenia. Debiut „Pogorii” w regatach Cutty Sark (późniejsze The Tall Ships’ Races) miał miejsce na trasie wyścigu Mon- Karlskrona. Poza nietypowymi dla „Pogorii” akwenami podbiegunowymi jednostka okazała się szybka, dzielna i bezpieczna, a ocenę tę potwierdziły długie rejsy statku, w tym rejs do Sri Lanki w pełnym okresie roku szkolnego z młodzieżą licealną na pokładzie, znany jako Szkoła pod Żaglami. Sukces Szkoły pod Żaglami odbił się szerokim echem, a specjalnością kpt. Baranowskiego stało się odtąd bądź prowadzenie kolejnych szkół, bądź współpraca przy ich organizowaniu. Międzynarodowa Szkoła pod Żaglami przeniosła się następnie z “Pogorii” na STS „Fryderyk Chopin”. Obecnym armatorem żaglowca jest STA Poland (Sail Training Association Poland) – stowarzyszenie zajmujące się wychowaniem morskim i szkoleniem młodzieży. A oto żaglowiec w liczbach: Długość max.: 46,8m; Długość kadłuba: 40,8m; Wysokość mx.33,5m;
Szerokość: 8,0m; Zanurzenie: 3,8m;
Wyporność: 342 tony; Powierzchnia żagli:1000 m2; Silnik: 310 KM, Diesel; Prędkość maks.: 8 węzłów; Załoga.: 53 osoby…Piękna jest nasza młodzież, słychać rozmowy bosmana i kapitana z kafejkowej ławki na plaży w Santa Cruz: – (na plaży opalają się ludzie “stamtąd”) jakie te panie piękne, a ci chłopcy tam wysoko na maszcie, adepci marynarstwa, jacy piękni. Osobiście powiem wam jednak: nie chcę zostać na morzu, chcę wrócić do matki… Mój starszy kolega opowiadał mi ostatnio o jego pracy zawodowej: Pracuję na statku wiertniczym na stanowisku oficera wachtowego. Oznacza to, że moim stanowiskiem pracy jest mostek nawigacyjny, a ja odpowiadam za prowadzenie wachty nawigacyjnej. Pojęcie to może być nieco mylące, ponieważ sugeruje jakoby statek, na którym pracuję poruszał się po morzach i oceanach, jednakże jego zadaniem jest wykonywanie otworów poszukiwawczych złóż ropy naftowej i gazu ziemnego. Tak więc więcej stoimy w miejscu, niż się poruszamy, a ja odpowiadam za obsługę systemu dynamicznej stabilizacji pozycji, czyli koputerowo wspomaganego systemu manewrowania statkiem wykorzystującego pędniki do utrzymywania zadanej pozycji, lub poruszania się zgodnie z wytycznymi operatora z decymetrową dokładnością. Wachta nawigacyjna prowadzona jest każdego dnia, przez 7 dni w tygodniu, 24 godziny na dobę i dzielona jest pomiędzy oficerów wachtowych. Na większości statków handlowych panuje system trzywachtowy, tj. oficerowie pełnią wachtę nawigacyjną przez 4 godziny, następnie mają 8 godzin przerwy i tak w koło Macieju. Na mniejszych jednostkach (z mniejszą liczbą oficerów) wachta nawigacyjna trwa 6 godzin, po której następuje 6 godzin przerwy. Na statkach wiertniczych wachta nawigacyjna trwa 12 godzin, po której przysługuje 12 godzin przerwy. Piszę o tym, ponieważ ten system pracy ma podstawowe znaczenie dla mojego treningu podczas rejsu. Zanim jednak przejdę do konkretów, to kilka słów o okresie pobytu na statku. Na zdecydowanej większości statków wiertniczych obowiązuje czterotygodniowy system pracy, co oznacza, że po 4 tygodniach spędzonych na statku przysługuje czterotygodniowy okres urlopu. Ma to swoje wady i zalety, ale moim zdaniem jest to system bliski ideału, o czym później… Refleksja kolegi posłużyła mi do skreślenia wam tutaj kilku innych zdań. W istocie morze to wcielenie emocji. Kocha, nienawidzi, płacze, opiera się wszelkim próbom uchwycenia go słowami, odrzuca wszelkie kajdany. Nieważne, co o nim powiesz, zawsze zostaje coś, czego nie zdołasz wyrazić. Jednak w głębi serca wiem, że stać mnie na coś więcej, na coś wielkiego, i nie spocznę, póki nie dowiem się, co to jest. Dzieciństwo już za mną, przeznaczenie na horyzoncie. Czuję się, jakbym żeglował na grzbiecie fali, która wyrzuci mnie na odległy nieznany brzeg. Aby współżyć w owocnej spółce z Kruzensternem, trzeba poznać nie to, czego on dokonać nie może; trzeba raczej posiąść dokładną wiedzę o tym, na co okręt się zdobędzie, jeśli przez życzliwą podnietę wezwiemy go do popisania się wszystkim, na co go stać…Samo morze bywa otwarte dla wszystkich i nie dochowujące wierności nikomu. Ja bynajmniej pamiętam, iż wiernie strzegłem morza w moim dzieciństwie. I zawsze bywałem jakby pośrodku, zanurzony w morzu gwiazd, morzu miliona słońc. W innym wcieleniu z pewnością byłbym piaskiem o poranku, gdy plaża jest sama z morzem. Zajrzałem zaledwie teraz w tę otchłań, w moje morze, gdzie wszystko znajduje swe odbicie – więc niektórzy mówią, że wszystkie nasze najburzliwsze namiętności, jak również sztuka i religia, to odbicia postrzegane w mrocznej jamie na dnie głowy, gdy świat widzialny jest chwilowo przesłonięty w istocie. Ale wiesz mi i nigdy ni bój się morza. Zawsze gdzieś jest jakieś inne morze. Nigdy nie waż się myśleć, że morze jest okrutne albo niesprawiedliwe. Tacy bywają wyłącznie ludzie. Morze nie jest niebezpieczne, jest zaledwie sobą. I piękne jest i niebo i morze, spójrz pewnego dnia w stronę widnokręgu, tam gdzie ich jeszcze nie rozróżniasz. Ta prawda jest jeszcze nie czytelna dla ciebie. To jak przywiązanie, które jest silniejsze od człowieka. Może ujrzałeś już morską fatamorganę, ukazującą nad powierzchnią morza dalekie krajobrazy. A więc przed tobą wielka przyszłość… Jesteś artystą. A artysta nie jest niczym więcej jak człowiekiem porwanym przez wodę: jedno jego wiosło to zdrowy rozsądek, drugie to szaleństwo, ale on nigdy nie zazna odpoczynku od żadnego z nich, będzie płynął pomiędzy nimi dwoma, wleczony przez wodę swej sztuki, daleki od życia toczącego się na lądzie, skąd obserwują go pozostali, nie mogąc mu pomóc, aż umrze w bezkresie morza… Trwa szkoła pod Żaglami. Marynarka to wspaniała organizacja, składająca się z młodych mężczyzn, którzy ćwiczą się w tym, aby się podobać. Pewnego dnia płyniemy blisko brzegu. Tam jest Monastyr, który funkcjonuje i jest zamieszkały przez mnichów. U podnóża skał znajduje się jaskinia, wykorzystywana jako jadalnia. Stąd, idąc czterdziestoma ośmioma schodami w górę, znaleźlibyśmy się we wnęce skalnej, wg legendy, zamieszkiwanej przez świętego. Tuż obok stała cerkiew z rzeźbionym w drewnie ołtarzem i ikoną z wizerunkiem świętego. Idąc dalej kamiennymi schodkami, dotrzemy do jaskini, w której spoczął święty mnich… Jako uczestnik szkoły pod Żaglami powiem wam jeszcze to: Jedliśmy w milczeniu, a morskie powietrze zachęcało do bezczynności, do poddania się spokojnemu rytmowi dnia, którego nie powinien zakłócać nikt, żadna komplikująca życie rozmowa. Odpoczywaliśmy po zajęciach z teorii w kajutach, ktoś przygrywał na gitarze. Przypomnialem sobie piosenkę o morzu, której nauczyłem się na koloniach letnich, że ono będzie nas zawsze wiernie strzec… W rzeczy samej morze zwykle nie robi nikomu nic złego. Trzeba się tylko umieć z nim obchodzić. Poznanie prawd i konieczności rządzących światem i długa litania nieuchwytnych w linii, a przeżytych wypadków zostawiają ślady na wewnętrznej powłoce wrażliwości i jej delikatnej zdolności oddźwięku. Może dlatego coś ciągnie mnie nad morze. Stare powiedzenie mówi: regulamin marynarki pisany jest krwią. Każdy punkt powstał w oparciu o jakiś pamiętny incydent, z którego wnioski zostały wyryte w burtach tonących okrętów lub zapisały się w pamięci tych, którzy grzebali martwych marynarzy. Wczoraj kolega oświadczył nam, że po szkole pod Żaglami, nie wypłynie więcej w morze, bo przyjął pracę dokera w porcie. Były telefony. Nasze dziewczyny ucieszyły się, że ten nieznajomy człowiek, niegdyś odległy i budzący strach, wreszcie stał się ich ojcem… To też wiecie, im dalej od brzegu, tym większe fale (…) Pod Santa Cruz woda była tak przeźroczysta jak górskie powietrze i kiedy opuszczałem się głową w dół, widziałem każdy szczegół dna piętnaście metrów poniżej. To był cudownie kolorowy pejzaż, oświetlony cętkami światła. Pamiętam dzień, rzeźbione formy koralowych skał niknęły i rozmazywały się wśród wodnej roślinności i migocących jak klejnoty ławic tropikalnych ryb. Pomiędzy głębokimi wąwozami i sterczącymi wieżami koralowymi rozpościerały się pola wężowych traw i połacie świecącego koralowego białego piasku. Każdy Środkowoeuropejczyk chce zobaczyć nasze morze, a gdy je zobaczy, jest tym wstrząśnięty. Wystarczy uważnie obejrzeć jedną kroplę, aby dowiedzieć się, jak zatrute jest nasze morze. Nigdy nie przyszło mi do głowy, że morze mogłoby chcieć mnie skrzywdzić. Traktowałem je przeważnie jak coś żywego, kogoś bliskiego, jak przyjaciela, któremu mogłem z ufnością powierzyć wszystkie troski i smutki, wszystkie radości i tajemnice. Uwielbiałem wsłuchiwać się w jego głos i krzyki mew gniazdujących w skalnych szczelinach. I czasami zdawało mi się, że rozumię o czym szumią fale i co krzyczą ptaki. Szczyty gór giną w obłokach, ale dolne partie zboczy były oświetlone – nie słońcem, lecz światłem ducha, powiedziałbym. Chcę tam być. Jest już prawie północ i oczy mi się same zamykają, ale muszę dokończyć moje wyznanie. Klimat morski posiada cztery podstawowe elementy życia. Jest tam żar słoneczny, powietrze morskich bryz, woda i ziemia. Ciało ludzkie jest w stanie przyswoić te elementy i przekształcić je w energie lecznicze, wzmacniające cały system energetyczny. Kontakt oraz asocjacja z czterema żywiołami odnawiają równowagę wewnętrzną człowieka… Aż teraz wam powiem o naszej załodze. Załogę okrętu dzieli się na dwie burty – prawą i lewą oraz w miarę możliwości na trzy wachty: pierwszą, drugą i trzecią, tak aby zapewnić najlepszą obsługę stanowisk dowodzenia i stanowisk bojowych w rozkładach okrętowych. Dowódca okrętu jest przełożonym załogi i osób czasowo zaokrętowanych, z wyjątkiem swych przełożonych. Postępuje zgodnie z regulaminami i rozkazami przełożonych oraz przepisami prawa międzynarodowego, a w wypadkach nie przewidzianych- według własnego uznania, mając na względzie dobro służby i obronę interesów państwa. Powinien wykazywać samodzielność w podejmowaniu szybkich i zdecydowanych działań niezbędnych dla zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa załodze i okrętowi, a w czasie wojny – dla wykonania zadań. Zastępca dowódcy okrętu podlega bezpośrednio dowódcy okrętu. Z.d.o. jest pierwszym zastępcą dowódcy okrętu i przełożonym całej załogi, z wyjątkiem zastępców dowódcy okrętu. Bezpośrednio podlegają mu dowódcy działów okrętowych, bosman okrętowy. W zależności od rangi okrętu, zastępca dowódcy okrętu może być również dowódcą określonych działów pokładowych. Dowódca działu, następnie Dowódca grupy podlega bezpośrednio dowódcy działu i jest przełożonym całej obsady grupy. Na okrętach drugiej rangi dowódcy niektórych grup podlegają temu dowódcy grupy, który jest zastępcą dowódcy działu. Dowódca grupy kieruje szkoleniem techniczno – specjalistycznym podległej grupy oraz użyciem uzbrojenia i sprzętu technicznego. Kierownik maszyn podlega bezpośrednio dowódcy kutra /p.j.p./, a pod względem specjalistycznym – zastępcy dowódcy zespołu do spraw technicznych. Jest przełożonym osób funkcyjnych o specjalnościach elektromechanicznych. Bosman okrętowy podlega bezpośrednio z.d.o. i jest przełożonym drużyny bosmańskiej. Pod względem porządku i toku życia okrętowego bosmanowi okrętowemu podlega cała załoga z wyjątkiem oficerów, chorążych i kierownika maszyn. Bosman okrętowy jest pomocnikiem z.d.o. w utrzymaniu porządku na okręcie, organizowaniu i prowadzeniu szkolenia morskiego oraz wszelkiego rodzaju prac, jak również w utrzymaniu i wykorzystaniu motorówek i łodzi okrętowych. Bosman okrętowy ma prawo wydawać załodze polecenia związane z przestrzeganiem przepisów okrętowych, utrzymaniem porządku na okręcie oraz wykorzystaniem sprzętu i urządzeń pokładowych.
Szef działu, następnie Dowódca drużyny podlega bezpośrednio dowódcy grupy lub szefowi działu i jest przełożonym obsady drużyny. Marynarz podlega bezpośrednio dowódcy drużyny i jest odpowiedzialny za dokładne i terminowe wykonywanie obowiązków określonych w rozkładach okrętowych, a także za utrzymanie zawiadywanego uzbrojenia i sprzętu technicznego. Z chwilą zaokrętowania każdy etatowy podoficer i marynarz, otrzymują książeczkę numeru okrętowego, zgodnie ze swym przydziałem. Zawiera ona wykaz podstawowych obowiązków i czynności w poszczególnych alarmach i rozkładach okrętowych. W wypadku obsadzenia jednego stanowiska przez dwóch członków załogi, jednemu z nich przydziela się numer dublujący. Osoby czasowo zaokrętowane, nie wchodzące w skład załogi – z wyjątkiem przełożonych dowódcy okrętu oraz oficerów dowództw i sztabów wykonujących czynności związane ze szkoleniem okrętu – określa się jako osoby postronne. Do osób postronnych na okręcie zalicza się kadrę dydaktyczną oraz praktykantów /stażystów/ uczelni wojskowych i ośrodków szkolenia, skład osobowy przewożonych pododdziałów wojskowych, a także pasażerów. Dowódca okrętu może przyjąć na okręt osoby postronne tylko za zgodą dowódcy zespołu. Fakt zaokrętowania osoby postronnej odnotowuje się w dzienniku zdarzeń. A więc już jesteśmy w komplecie na Kruzensternie. Pierwsze szlify otrzymujemy zaraz po rozpoczęciu podróży za Wladywostokiem, następnie na Morzu Ochockim. Następnie płyniemy na Morze Beringa – obszar wodny położony w północnej części Oceanu Spokojnego o powierzchni ok. 2 mln km². Od północy i wschodu graniczy z Alaską, na zachodzie z Syberią, a na południu jego granice wyznacza łuk wyspowy tworzony przez Aleuty. Mijamy Alaskę. Aż żal, iż Alaska już nie nasza…
Wreszcie pokazały się rafy koralowe, zawitaliśmy w Ameryce. Cóż za radość wyjścia na ląd…A odjeżdżaliśmy z Santa Cruz w Kalifornii w dniu osobliwego przypływu. Przez cały ranek wody w zatoce nabrzmiewały pod mlecznym niebem, wznosząc się na niesłychaną wysokość, a małe fale, raczkując, pełzły po spierzchniętym piasku, który od lat, prócz deszczu, nie zaznał wilgoci, i omywały obrzeża wydm… Czy chcę powiedzieć, że wybieram się teraz w nocy na spacer po górnym pokładzie? Nie, młody przyjacielu. Nie jestem świętym Piotrem. Wolę przeprawić się przez morze statkiem. Jakkolwiek chciałbym, żebym mógł spacerować w słońcu, i żeby było cieplej na świecie. Zresztą uważam, że powinno być ciepło czy wręcz gorąco w Polsce. To wina nas samych, że mamy zimno teraz… Trudne warunki pogodowe w Polsce sprawiają, że nawet jesienna wyprawa ku morzu sprawia wiele przyjemności. Płynąć po Bałtyku nie można też nie spojrzeć na skalną płaskorzeźbę sprzed 200 lat, na to co pozostało po kościele w północnej Polsce. Tutaj oczami wyobraźni moglibyśmy zrobić sobie spacer po grzbiecie kolorowego klifu. Przyszliśmy nad morze, bo tu się czas zatrzymuje. Daleko w dole fale hałaśliwie zasysały kamienie. Po to się przecież przychodzi nad morze; pod naporem wielkiej przestrzeni zegarki przestają działać, znikają kwadranse i godziny. Mamy wrażenie, że wyszliśmy ze swojego życia, zachowując jedynie podgląd długofalowych produkcji naszych losów. Miejsce pereł jest na dnie morza. Mam upodobanie do próżności świata, do sobie podobnych, do twarzy, ale poza problemami świata mam swoją własną regułę, którą jest morze i wszystko to w świecie, co je przypomina. O, słodyczy nocy, gdzie wszystkie gwiazdy migoczą i ślizgają się ponad masztami… Jak wiecie, to co dobre szybko się kończy. Nasza szkoła na Kruzensternie zbliżała się ku końcowi… Aż “wbiegliśmy” w zwarte miasto, obce mi, nieznajome. I morze patrząc na mnie z mocą, zawróciło z ukłonem. Kochałem morze, bo to magnes dla wszystkich wrażliwych dusz. (…) Słucha się morza, aby zrozumieć, że śmiech i płacz brzmią tak samo, a dusza musi czasem popłakać, żeby być szczęśliwą. Obok świata, w którym żyjemy, jest inny świat. Do pewnego miejsca możesz do niego wejść. I możesz z niego bezpiecznie wrócić. Jeżeli będziesz uważny. Ale jak miniesz pewien punkt, już stamtąd nie wyjdziesz. To, co jest na zewnątrz ciebie, jest odbiciem tego, co masz w sobie, a to co masz w sobie, odzwierciedleniem tego, co na zewnątrz. Dlatego bardzo często wejście w labirynt na zewnątrz oznacza wkroczenie w labirynt, który masz w sobie. To w wielu wypadkach niebezpieczne… Wśród niezmienności otoczenia obce wybrzeża, obce twarze, zmienny ogrom życia, przesuwają się koło mnie przesłonięte bynajmniej nie poczuciem tajemnicy, lecz nieco pogardliwą niewiedzą; gdyż nie ma dla marynarza nic tajemniczego – chyba samo morze, które jest władcą jego istnienia, władcą równie niezbędnym jak los… Tak więc koniec pięknej, braterskiej przygody. Może kiedyś zostanę bosmanem a nawet kapitanem. Przede mną życie całe. Ale powiem ci młody bracie: nie przyglądaj się morzu na mapie, nie zastanawiaj się nad jego głębią ani kształtem fal. Nie rozmyślaj o rodzicach i dziewczynach. Niech cię nie kusi wyjaśnianie ich historii, bo w końcu zrozumiesz, że odpowiedź nie oznacza rozwiązania, a sama historia bywa czasem jedynie wymówką. Mów sobie, że znajdziesz kiedyś świat, w którym poczujesz się mniej opuszczony i zależny od iluzji. Tutaj przywołam jeszcze słowa naszego kapitana: Nie spotkałem oficera marynarki, który by nie uważał Syrenki w Kopenhadze za swoją narzeczoną. Dlaczego? Przecież jest to tylko w metal zamknięta forma pięknego kobiecego ciała, a jednak podoba się nam zupełnie bezinteresownie. Jest piękna, jak piękne jest to, co każdy nas w swej głębi chowa: miłość i podziw dla morza. Syrenka nie potrafi chodzić po lądzie, marynarz właściwie też nie. Jest dla nas więcej niż bratnią duszą. Dlatego każdy z nas mógłby wyrazić jej uczucie w zdaniu: Ty jesteś duszą mojej duszy. Nie spotkałem w życiu marynarza, który by nie zabrał z Kopenhagi jej fotografii… Morze zabiera tyle samo, ile daje. Wszędzie wody bezmiar wielki, choć do picia ani kropelki… Na Kruzensternie zdałem egzamin z marynarskich obowiązków. Przekazałem dobre wieści mojej dziewczynie. Polubiłem moje obowiązki, zżyłem się z Kruzensternem. Jak wspaniały statek przybiera prędkości z żeglowaniem przy sprzyjających wiatrach, tak nasza stopniowo wzrastająca miłość, zabrała nas cieleśnie na nieprzyjazne morza. Nigdy tego obopólnie wzbierajacego uczucia nie zapomnę. Ale uczucie szybko minęło. Skądinąd wiecie, lokata szkolna tylko w bardzo rzadkich przypadkach pokrywa się z lokatą życiową w przyszłości. Bo morze, tak jak i życie, ma inną kategorię stopni do oceny od tych, które wydaje szkoła. Ocean składa się z kropli, z których mam ułożyć historię mojej “marynarskiej” przyjaźni. Miłość nie umiera, tylko ludzie umierają. Jest jak morze. Jeśli nie jesteś dobry, jeśli je zanieczyszczasz, wyrzuca cię gdzieś, żebyś umarł. Tak czy inaczej, czy chcesz tego czy nie chcesz, musisz umrzeć. Z kursu na kurs przekazywana jest legenda o okrętowym chłopcu, który przepłacił miłość do morza życiem. Jak to
Ramsdell strzelił Owenowi w tył głowy.
Pozostała piątka, łącznie z komandorem Pollardem, wujem chłopca, wypili jego świeżą, ciepłą krew. Choć była słona, w odróżnieniu od otaczającego ich morza nadawała się do picia. Następnie odarli kości nieszczęśnika z mięsa i zjedli je na surowo. W końcu połamali kości Owena Coffina i wyssali z nich szpik. Ciało chłopca wystarczyło im na posiłek. Ale ja wolę utonąć w morzu, niż żeby fala wyrzuciła mnie na jakieś zamarłe wybrzeże, a słońce wysuszyło, zrobiło ze mnie małą, cuchnącą plamę bez imienia z napisem “to kiedyś istniało” jako epitafium.
Nie zamierzam mówić, że nie ufam nikomu poza morzem, mapy nie stanowią dla mnie odpowiednika pamiętników. Jednak szkoła pod Żaglami będzie na zawsze dla mnie jedyną szkoła życia. Żal mi rozstawać się z Kruzensternem. Z pewnością do końca życia zachowam obraz niezwykłego żaglowca na morzu, który oglądam przez okno jak przez różową szybkę. Inne statki przepływały, nie pozostawiając po sobie żadnego śladu, ale ten piękny żaglowiec będzie stale płynąć oczami mojej wyobraźni dla dobra przyszłych społeczeństw. Jesteśmy jeszcze tysiące oślizgłych rzeczy nierzadko. A morze jest zawsze sobą. Naraz zastępca bosmana krzyknął ku chłopcom: morze przesławne, Bałtyku ty nasz… Łajbo dziurawa, płyń burzy na przekór… Żagle podarte wciągajcie na maszt!… Już niedaleko do brzegu… Instynktownie z kolegami wybiegaliśmy z kajut na rozkaz. Każdy do swojej burty. Ale i wówczas miałem czas na poddanie się fali wspomnień. Całe morze wydawało się pogrzebane w moim wnętrzu – gaje pomarańczowe, cyprysy, skrzydlate rzeźby, drewniane świątynie, błękitne morze, zamarłe w grymasie maski, magiczne liczby, mityczne ptaki, szafirowe niebo, orlęta, słoneczne zatoczki, niewidomi bardowie, herosi. Pogrzebałem, uśmierciłem na zawsze. Pozostało wspomnienie, oszalała nadzieja… Naraz spoglądam na morze i po raz kolejny próbuję uchwycić obraz, którego poszukuję od lat, obraz tych deseni i rysunków, jakie czyni na morzu woda odrzucana przez dziób. Gdy go znajdę, będzie koniec… Wody są ledwie oświetlone na powierzchni, lecz czuje się ich ciemną głębię. Morze takie jest, i właśnie dlatego je kocham. Wezwanie do życia i zaproszenie na śmierć. Natura powtarza wiecznie w szerszych rozmiarach tę samą myśl: dlatego kropla jest obrazem morza. A morze… to jakby sunąć po powierzchni ogromnego klejnotu. Miłość czasami podobna jest do bryzy. We dnie wieje od morza na brzeg, a w nocy – od brzegu na morze. To, czego najbardziej nie cierpię, równocześnie sprawia, że zawsze czuję się jak w domu. I powiem ci, kocham morze nawet bardziej niż ludzi, ale czasami zastanawiam się, czy to faktycznie jest miłość, czy może tylko korzenie. Jakieś fizyczne wspomnienie, które tkwi w ciele, i z każdym kilometrem, o jaki oddalam się od morza, rośnie poczucie, że poruszam się w złym kierunku. Zaczynam się modlić: Panie, udziel mi cichej wytrwałości fali. Jestem po egzaminach. Przynależę do Załogi Kruzensterna. To etatowy zespół osób obsługujących jednostkę pływającą. Wiedzcie, iż skład załogi statku handlowego oraz jego kwalifikacje i funkcje każdego z jej członków określa „lista zaciągu załogi” – inaczej musterrola. Wpisanie (wciągnięcie) marynarza do musterroli jest formalnym aktem zaliczenia go do załogi i określa się terminem zamustrowanie. Dokument ten powinien znajdować się stale na pokładzie statku. Jednocześnie każdy z marynarzy otrzymuje wpis do swojej Książeczki Żeglarskiej potwierdzającej fakt jego zamustrowania. O wszystkich zmianach w liście zaciągu informuje się właściwy Urząd Morski w kraju, w jakim jest zarejestrowany statek handlowy – sporządza się stosowny wyciąg i wysyła się go lub też zatwierdza na miejscu musterrolę we właściwym Urzędzie Morskim. Z chwilą wymustrowania wykreśla się członka załogi z listy zaciągu i dokonuje stosownego wpisu w Książeczce Żeglarskiej. Po 2000 roku posiadanie Książeczki Żeglarskiej nie jest już warunkiem koniecznym do zamustrowania na statku – wystarczy Paszport. Wtedy też dla osób nie posiadających Książeczki Żeglarskiej dowodem odbycia praktyki pływania jest zaświadczenie wydane przez kapitana statku… Nad stalowym i wzburzonym morzem, pełnym oślepiających blasków, wstaje dzień. Niebo jest białe od mgły i gorąca, blaskiem martwym, lecz niemożliwym do wytrzymania, jakby słońce roztopiło się i rozlało pośród gęstych chmur. Przepływając oceany świata powiem wam na koniec, przeżyłem zwrot w moim życiu – a było to przynajmniej raz, to jak odpływ morza. Ale ta cudowna noc na Atlantyku. Ta pora pomiędzy zniknięciem słońca a dopiero co wyłaniającym się księżycem, pomiędzy jeszcze jaśniejącym zachodem a już ciemnym wschodem. Tak, bardzo kocham morze – ten spokojny ogrom – te skrywające się ślady na wodzie – te płynne drogi. I wydaje mi się, iż nigdy nie przestanę wyśpiewywać tej jedynej pieśni o marzeniach marynarza z sprzed lat. Bo moim imieniem jest czerwień, kolor rajskiej wiśni.(licentia poetica by Stanisław Barszczak)

Stanislaw Barszczak, A look from the papal window

The bells are ringing on the Angelus Domini. Let Christ and his mother be glorified. Autumn day on a sunny Rome, it is 11:45 at noon. The Holy Father Francis and the Archbishop Fulton Sheen smoke a cigar and drink a martini. This fall Sunday they are already in the apostolic palace in the room with the famous papal window.

-(The Holy Father Francis) For the years I’ve been on musical. Sister Act is a American musical comedy film directed by Emile Ardolino and written by Joseph Howard. Featuring musical arrangements by Marc Shaiman, the film stars Whoopi Goldberg as a Reno lounge singer who has been put under protective custody in a San Francisco convent of Poor Clares and has to pretend to be a nun when a mob boss puts her on his hit list. And I would like to thank for this gift, for this glorious occasion.

-(Reverend Archbishop Fulton Sheen) A good performance… Deloris is a lounge singer who sing at a club in Reno, Nevada. The club is run by her boyfriend, mobster Vince LaRocca. After Deloris walks in on Vince having his chauffeur Ernie executed for betrayal, Vince orders his two henchmen to kill her as well. Deloris flees to the local police station where Lieutenant Eddie Souther suggests she testify against Vince. While waiting to testify, Vince enters Deloris into witness protection, and she is sent to St. Katherine’s Parish, located in a seedy, run-down neighborhood of San Francisco. Both Deloris and the stoic Reverend Mother object, but are convinced by Souther and Monsignor O’Hara to go along with the plan. Deloris “becomes” a nun under the hand of Reverend Mother, who gives her the religious name “Sister Mary Clarence”. Mary Clarence objects to following the religious vows and simple life of the convent, but comes to befriend several of the nuns, including the forever jolly Sister Mary Patrick, quiet and meek Sister Mary Robert, and the elderly deadpan Sister Mary Lazarus, who is also the choir director. After sneaking into a nearby bar, Mary Clarence is chastised by Reverend Mother and put into the choir, which she has seen to be dreadful. The choir nuns, learning that Mary Clarence has a background in music, elect her to take over as choir director, which she accepts. She rearranges the choir to make them better singers. Later at mass, the choir sings the “Hail Holy Queen” in the traditional manner beautifully before shifting into a gospel and rock-and-roll-infused performance of the hymn. Reverend Mother is infuriated with Mary Clarence about the performance, and orders that Mary Lazarus once again become the director of the choir. However, Monsignor O’Hara is thrilled with the performance as the unorthodox music brought people, including teenagers, in off the streets. Deloris convinces Monsignor O’Hara to allow the nuns should to go out to clean up the neighborhood. The choir continues to wow church visitors with their music… Monsignor O’Hara announces to the choir that Pope is to visit the church to see the choir himself. Reverend Mother decides to hand in her resignation since her authority has been unintentionally undermined, but Mary Clarence offers to leave in her stead, to which Reverend Mother disagrees. Detective Tate, a police officer on Vince’s payroll, finds out where Deloris is and contacts Vince, who sends Joey and Willy out to grab her. Souther confronts Tate, gets him arrested, and flies to San Francisco to try and warn Mary Clarence, but Vince’s men abduct her. The nuns, led by Reverend Mother, risk their lives by going to Reno to save Mary Clarence. Meanwhile, she flees Vince and his men, leading to a chase around the casino until the nuns find her and try to sneak out. Vince, Joey and Willy confront the nuns, but they cannot bring themselves to shoot Deloris while she is in a nun’s habit, and Reverend Mother proclaims Deloris is indeed a nun in order to convince the trio. As Vince works up the courage to shoot Mary Clarence anyway, Souther bursts in and shoots him in the arm and has the men arrested. Reverend Mother then thanks Deloris for everything she has done for them and agrees to remain at the convent. The tale ends with the choir, led by Deloris, singing “I Will Follow Him” before the Pope and a packed and refurbished St. Katherine’s, earning a loud standing ovation from the audience, the Pope, Reverend Mother, Monsignor O’Hara and the others. (see, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Act)

-(Francis) Imagine me riding a bike on another day. I did not want to be older than you or be not at all. I remember a celebration of this communion, in my village a first photo on the stairs in front of the church on May. Then I decided that I would take pictures every 7 years. But it was a long time ago… For two years I was in Częstochowa, I looked at the collected nuns there. Then Francis’ fall in the Jasna Góra chapel, the mass media pay attention to this detail. I’m getting old, I’m already a grandfather. I have no idea what would happen if I went to retire. Though, don’t cry for me Argentina… You see. There are young, good and bad people outside that window. From this window I watched them always.

-(Archbishop) Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it. Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn. Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius. Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals. God loves you, Your Holiness.

-(Francis) There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold and she’s buying a stairway to heaven. When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed. With a word she can get what she came for, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven. There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure.

-(Archbishop) ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.

-(Francis) In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings. Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven. Ooh, it makes me wonder. Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

-(Archbishop) There’s a feeling I get when I look at the Holy Mary, mother of God. And my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees and the voices of those who stand looking. And it’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune. Then the piper will lead us to reason… And a new day will dawn for those who stand long and the forests will echo with laughter.

-(Francis) If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May queen. I give myself to God’s providence.

-(Archbishop) Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run. There’s still time to change the road you’re on. Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know. The piper’s calling you to join him. Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know your stairway lies on the whispering wind? And as we wind on down the road our shadows taller than our soul. There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold. And if you listen very hard the tune will come to you at last when all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll…(see, Stairway to Heaven, a song by Led Zeppelin)

-(the Holy Father Francis) And she’s buying a stairway to heaven, she still does the same.

The scene takes place at the famous window in the room of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on the third floor, a warmth conversation between Father Saint Francis and a friendly bishop from Italy is continued.

-(Francis) My old friend, beloved priests, this generation, you are the most beautiful star in the firmament. (Keep smiling) I want to express my associations regarding this wonderful gift from yesterday. We had nothing to compare my life with. The world was so ordinary before. In your presence I thank for an affection, an emotion, and an encouragement in the priestly mission… Beloved young friends, pure imagination (our dreams) and body, you have to able to enjoy their unity. In the past regarding my first priestly zeal, we had no plans how to shape it. Though all this was written in the books. However, I have always wanted to show my inner moment of opening to the priestly service for those who are faithful. Discover my moment in the priesthood. This has just happened in my youth. ‘Cause this moment one day he haunts us. We hear, we see better. I have to act. Acting is a fulfillment … I walk on a rope spread on the sidewalk. I’m going strong after that. I make sweeping turns with my body in one direction and the other. But I’m still on the prescribed line. The ability to concentrate here or anywhere will be indeed the final success of our unity: the pure imagination and the body. This unity can finally be won, and it will be visible. But I have to act. You do not play music, but music plays you, great musicians said.

-(Archbishop) I am not a director but a collaborator. Your Holiness knows that I am a collaborator of no secular authority nor earthly power, but only that of Christ. A good actor will not allow the auditorium to go…In the implementation of our humanity is always about the development of skills… As Your Holiness knows is about a search for the development of internal life. A wisdom is to present the final project, which is ‘no end’. Shakespeare was genius. That’s why so few of his peers are with him always.

– (The Holy Father touches his face, after a while he says) How to retire and who would support my parents. Yesterday I wish, I was 18 years again. They tell me to leave, to give way to the new Pope. And I accept the auditorium, which is rather beginning to build new values, that begins something more than is sentimental. Let’s look at the rose in this vase, or better at the wave in the Atlantic, which flows away, she was not anymore, she is no longer, she is different. Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love? I feel it is time that I also pay tribute to my four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

-(Archbishop) Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits. Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded. Not I buy with you collection of notes and listen to sonata by Beethoven, not I slowly in the door I turn the key, still so shy, not I drift away where tighter music night game, not I, sorry, that not I. Not I bring you in a basket your day and sweet your coffee, I did not courageously go into the big world like you on a Roman streetcar, not I at the window sometimes waiting for the perfect day, not I sorry that not I. (see, a song by Irena Jarocka)

-(Francis) Jesus, he was someone who sadness wiped with mine face the one warm word. He was someone who from the sand built for me the theater, where I playing. He was someone who took a harder by the hand, he led to the fire. He was someone who simply himself.
He was someone who took a harder by the hand, he led to the fire. He was someone who simply himself… Buon pranzo.

You hear people in the square. The scene ends with the entry of two newly ordained yesterday priests by the Holy Father, who from the window together with the Pope will bless the believers gathered on St. Peter square.

(all this is a poetica story license, all rights reserved, the right to reprint, copyright
by Stanislaw Barszczak)