One year ago today, Becky and I left on a three week trip through southern states as part of my Row House Roadshow study leave.
Our hearts were freshly broken over the news that Putin began his invasion of Ukraine.
Here’s what I wrote in a Substack dispatch a few weeks later at Laity Lodge in Texas:
Day One
On February 24th, Becky and I prayed in our living room with our boarder Ivan “Vanya” Strelchenko.
We were moved to tears as he pleaded with God, in the Ukrainian language, for his parents, sisters, relatives and church.
A few hours later, we would set out on our trek to Laity Lodge in Texas, a remarkably serene retreat, tucked far away from Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine.
All along our route, taking in a variety of lovely vistas and visits, we toggled between All Things Considered, MSNBC (via Youtube TV), and the occasional update from Vanya.
“What day are we on?” The news had the answer.
Our Row House Road Show became the odd bedfellow of a war.
Day 23
As I write on the day after St. Patrick’s Day, the world community awaits to see how the democratic and strong Ukrainians will fare against their aggressor.
President Zelenskyy says we’re already in World War 3. He wants as much of the West’s help as he can get…like now.
Our president, NATO, and the European Union are weighing in earnestly. But is it enough?
Where COVID 19 should’ve brought Americans together but didn’t, this brazen invasion seems to be working.
Four Months Later
A few days after the invasion, Vanya’s sisters were transported into Poland, en route to America. They stayed with sponsors in Georgia, and he began his own leap of faith.
He packed up and traveled to Lookout Mountain, GA, where he had attended Covenant College, to create a refugee household with his sisters. The two of them are now enrolled in schools nearby, and Vanya continues to work remotely.
We miss him, of course, but not as much as he and his sisters miss their parents, church, and homeland in the west of Ukraine.
High Anxiety
At some point in our refuge in Texas nearly a year ago, I panicked when I heard the report that Russians were shelling the area near the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
I had to get my mind focused on something outside my body, something darkly honest yet hopeful. Thankfully, just down the path from our apartment sat an artist’s studio and gallery overlooking the Frio River called The Cody Center.
Art Therapy
I sat down before several oil paintings by Bruce Herman entitled Glory in Ruins, listening with my eyes, ears, and heart. I was determined to sit as long as it took to calm down.
His paintings were themselves born out of anxiety and tragedy. In his own words,
This small group of paintings is part of a larger series of works entitled Building in Ruins—created after my house and studio fire in the late 1990’s. Following our rebuilding, in the early 2000’s, I made these paintings, attempting to get at the reality that our lives are fragile and yet shot through with the possibility of redemption and healing and release—we are “redeemed from fire by fire” as the poet said.1
I scrawled down a desperate poem/prayer on March 4th (that I titled March Forth), the notes of which still play on repeat when I think of Vanya, his family, and the embattled citizens of Ukraine.
Hope Springs
We departed Texas, going north into Arkansas. On March 8th, 2022 I found myself on the porch of Quapaw Baths & Spa in the miraculous town of Hot Springs.
I noticed two middle-aged couples waiting in line speaking a Slavic language.
I found a way to break into their conversation by asking about the line we were in. Ukrainians they were, in fact.
One of the men was their English translator, a construction worker. The other had tended bees in Ukraine and continues that trade in central Missouri.
When I mentioned the war, the only emotion I could detect was frustrated anger toward Putin and his people who walk in lock-step with him.
The small talk and laughter within their small circle felt strange to me, yet heartening.
These displaced friends were about to step into the familiarity of a soothing hot bath house, far away from their torn homeland.
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From https://www.laitylodge.org/the-cody-center/glory-in-ruins/