It's Holy Week here in Poland; well, ok, I guess it's Holy Week everywhere for Christians. An especially important holiday in a majority Catholic country. I say majority, because I'm here, and official and non-official counts of non- and other-believers run anywhere from 1 to 10% of the population. Nevertheless, starting tomorrow, just about everything will be closed. Most stores will remain open at least through Friday, some on Saturday, as will pubs and clubs, but all schools, museums, offices, etc., will shut down. What is an agnostic to do?
I try to refrain from ranting about pagan symbolism during the holidays here; it seems rude to do so as a foreigner, but as I get engulfed in eggs and rabbits a few comments do escape me. But it's very important for most Polish people, and I was raised to be polite.
Even largely non-observant Catholics here will attend Mass, take little baskets of food to the church on Saturday to be blessed, and spend the next four days with their families. It's a big eating holiday, rest, relaxation. But just remarkably little to do if you're thousands of miles from family and completely areligious.
Last year I went to Wroclaw (VRROHTSwav) for Easter, which is a beautiful city, and apparently has many great museums, art, sights, etc. I say apparently because I couldn't see any of it that wasn't visible from the street. Some things, such as the Panorama, a huge 360 degree mural, was closed almost a week before I even got there. This experience makes me leery of venturing out this time: I spent three days just kinda wandering aimlessly, always returning to the (admittedly very impressive, but quiet) Rynek (market square) and ending up in the Irish pub because it was open, where a very drunk Englishman tried to get me to go to a casino with him, which I wouldn't do since I know I have problems in casinos.
So, my choices are three: there's a "contemporary musical theater performance" of "The Mystery of the Passion of the Christ" in Krakow on Saturday, but it's in the Rynek and the weather has gone cold and gray here, expected to remain so through Monday; go with my friend Patrick to some little town where something is happening that he tried to see but missed last year, with the attendant problems of traveling on a holiday in a place where literally nothing but your hotel is open; or hanging out at home, reading, watching movies, and waiting for the end. The third actually sounds the most appealing, as I can read for days without appreciably noticing the outside world, but I feel compelled to do something with this time.
I'll decide tomorrow. In the meantime, those of you in more religiously diverse/secular/non-Catholic places, enjoy your coffee shops, movie theaters, pool halls, bowling alleys, grocery stores, malls, theaters, restaurants, convenience stores, video rental stores, and all the other stuff that will vanish for me soon.
Finca Monte Carlo
The processing and drying grounds.
The Road to San Agustin
Me and Gary and our hopelessly inadequate motos
San Agustin
Lunch at Charly's, grilled gallo (rooster; don't know, don't ask)
San Agustin
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beach and palapas
Centro de Idiomas, UMAR
Not my office, that's to the left, and not as pretty.
Mi moto
Outside my apartment building
Hotel Wysoka Brama
The hostel rooms are in the high part, but I stayed in the bit to the left.
Mikolajki, overview
The town center is bottom left, I stayed across the pedestrian bridge, just behind that covered dock in the upper right. Yes, if you look closely, you may see the toilet shack.
Mikolajki, Waterfront
This is one of the boats I rode, to Jez. Sniardwy and to Gizycko
Katowice
Spodek in Katowice, an arena.
patelnia, sosnowiec
This is the central plaza.
Jan Kiepura
Also on the plaza, a famous son of Sosnowiec, a singer. One of my students suggested that, since this is close to the main bus stop, he's not singing but shouting "Wait! Hold the bus!"
Coat of arms of Sosnowiec
2 comments:
I hope that you're checking comments to your older posts. I read this post some time ago and I wonder what it means actually to be completely areligious? I know that questions about faith are intimate and very personal so I will understand if you don't want to answer. However I don't know anybody who is areligious. I know people who really believe or other who say that they are Catholics but they're non-observant and attend Mass only when it's Easter or Christmas (because it's so pleasant for children as some say). But I haven't met an agnostic yet.
Well, now you have. It's ok, we're not much different than everyone else. As with religion itself, I think most agnostics come to it in their own way and also relate to it as individuals, so I can only tell you what it means for me. I consider it to mean the absence of belief in G(g)od(s). Atheism is often thought of to mean this, but atheists are just as firm in their belief in the non-existence of god as people of faith are, and I often find them equally irritating. So I stand in the middle: absent conclusive (to me) evidence that god exists, and an equivalent absence of evidence that he/she/it/they doesn't/don't exist, I have decided not to believe anything and acknowledge only possibility. I find it arrogant and foolish to say that in the vastness of the universe of which we are only a small part that you can definitively know that god isn't present and/or detectable; and it seems to me just as pig-headed and hubristic to say that you know for sure god is/was here and that you know what he wants. But I save my real disgust/contempt/anger not for faith, in and of itself, however it manifests in a person, but for religion. I have met many good, wonderful people of a variety of faiths, and I admire them greatly. Religion, however, seems not much more than a tool to get and retain power, an entirely human structure created for human motives and ends. In my opinion, and I know I'm being extremely general, religion suppresses more than it uplifts, destroys more than it creates, causes and sustains differences more than it brings people together. So even if I ever did come to a personal belief of some kind, I fully intend to remain devoutly areligious.
Does that answer your question?
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