Almost a perfect day at the library. Started with chores and then spent the afternoon greeting people and had one conversation with a young man from the Netherlands – more small things. A lot of international students come for their advanced education and they find libraries. As I looked out the window at the passersby, every shade of hat, coat, and scarf was to be seen. I had miscalculated and wore a tank top under a cotton 3/4 length saree I found in a thrift shop in east London last year – brrr all day. I have a green raincoat that, when reversed, has a lining of green fatigue design. It did not look right with a saree. Time to wrap up people! We will be in the mountains on the weekend for a church retreat then on to the Christian library in Berlin. Lord help me with language! The other benefit of a library is that I did finish the book ‘Prague Farewell’. I have been sharing quotes the last few days and will finish a few here. Many years ago I had applied to be a foreign exchange student. I usually interview well (hence the success for provision God gave me in the past) but I had heard that Greece was beautiful so that was my top choice. Then the interviewer asked me to explain communism and I buggered it up I’m sure. One of the things that the fall has reminded me of is that heat is a privilege in some parts of the world. In this building, where the volunteer flat is, when the owner decides it is time, the heat will become available. Most people rent and I understand this is a good owner but it is still unfamiliar. I am not the ‘slight’ girl I once was but I do chill easily and this is another test. “Life in Prague, from which I was almost entirely excluded by this time, had acquired a totally negative character. People no longer aspired toward things but away from them. All they wanted was to avoid trouble. They tried not to be seen anywhere, not to talk to anyone, not to attract any attention…Some 50,000 people had so far been jailed in our small country. More were disappearing every day”, pg 149. “Medicine had become as thoroughly bureaucratized in Czechoslovakia as everything else…hospitals were overcrowded, and as long as one was not on the verge of dying, no doctor would write out a referral”, pg 156. “I was allowed to keep a bed, a table, two chairs, cups, plates, and cutlery for two people, and some pots and pans for the kitchen”. (The confiscation of our personal property had been earlier inventoried), pg 183. “If Father Stalin had died six months earlier it might have saved Rudolf. Not long after, it was reported in the press that the conviction of a group of Jewish doctors, who had recently been sentenced to death…had been reversed”, pgs 184-185. “During the day, people put in their hours at work and fulfilling their Party obligations; then they went home, removed their masks. and began to live for a few hours. Lying and play acting became a way of life; indifference and apathy became its essence”, pg 194. “Truth alone does not prevail. When it clashes with power, truth often loses. It prevails only when people are strong enough to defend it”, pg 212. There is much intrigue and sadness in this account of big government – communism. Don’t wish for it. These are not faith matters but the history behind how people approach their lives is a window into their souls. On to more conversations and another book…
