Although it was me who posted this article, I felt compelled to indicate Marta as its author.

*  *  *

It was December 17^th, the bright winter morning when we first had the inkling that something was going on. Mum came to find us in our room and stood in the door, telling us she had a summons for the Militia headquarters. She looked strange, as she was tucking her Bible in her handbag. Not afraid, not pale, just slightly spaced out and smiling a peaceful smile that I shall never forget. She still amazes me with her incredible inner strength that enables her to stay calm in the midst of life’s fiercest storm. I can’t remember why or how we knew. At nine, I was still frighteningly oblivious to the danger we were in as Christians in a communist country. Our parents had never taught us to be quiet about our faith. Mum and I were probably the worst culprits, talking to anyone who would listen. We still do. That morning, she left, knowing she might not return. She did ask us to pray. Yet, there were no goodbyes. No more than the usual, “I’m off,” that we would normally get when she went shopping for an hour and we knew that she meant, “Be good while I’m out!” Well, in less than an hour she did come back. The Militia were now concerned with more pressing matters. The “meeting” would be rescheduled. There was trouble in the West of the country. In Timisoara the students were marching in the streets and they were coming to Bucharest.

I don’t know why Dad thought it was safe to travel. We went to our aunt and uncle’s farm in the countryside. They had a pig. At Christmas, Romanians eat pork, not turkey. We had been promised a share of the poor thing, so we were going to pick it up. I hadn’t bargained on actually seeing it being slaughtered. My first and last time! So we went, just Dad, my brother and I. The others were too small to travel. I recall very little about the time there. But what I do remember is permeated with the creepy awareness that danger was close. Dad joined us in the tiny country kitchen, after listening to some news on the radio – Radio Free Europe or some other censored station that told the truth. He looked deathly pale, as he stood there. My aunt was trying to persuade Dad not to travel back; or, at least, to leave us there. Inside, I started to panic. I didn’t want to be left behind. We were always together at Christmas. Thankfully, Dad would not listen. I guess he, too, wanted the whole family to be together, no matter what. We travelled back at night time. There were checks on trains and people were not allowed to come into the capital. But they let Dad… because he had the children with him.

21^st of December. We burst into our flat, back from our trip. There were hugs everywhere. It was almost midnight and my parents were sharing the latest news with each other, when we heard something strange. It was getting louder. It was a roar, like that of an ocean squeezing right down our road. We rushed onto the balcony. Hundreds of people were marching, chanting, singing and shouting, making their way to the centre of the capital. They looked furious and happy at the same time. It was an awesome spectacle! We were too young to be worried. We were excited.

In the days that followed, this continued, all over the city. Television was taken over by revolutionaries – artists and intellectuals that the communists had always been afraid of and had tried to silence for so long. We were mesmerised by speeches we didn’t understand and what looked like fireworks floating above the multitudes, that we used to watch on our neighbours’ television upstairs, whilst keeping our ears open to the city noises. Our friends’ view of the city centre came in handy that unusual December. The atmosphere was electric. However, the smell of danger and smoke was everywhere.

The silhouettes of people running on the flat roofs of neighbouring blocks of flats, were his terrorists we were told. We were crazy, we were told, for taking our baby brother out in his buggy, even in broad daylight. We shouldn’t stop and talk to our friends in the street, we were told; any group bigger than three were plotting against him, and the terrorists were merciless! They would come into homes; they would kill innocent people… and children.

Many more things we were told and it was hard to know what to believe. The grown-ups were taking everything seriously. The men organised night watches at the entrance to our block. There they had more time to frighten each other with more rumours. And we, the children, were hearing them too, next day, second, third hand. We started to get scared.

Then, it happened. Dad told us that he would have to do a night-watch at the University quarters, where he lectured. It couldn’t be true! We could see disbelief in his eyes. The University square was one of the hot spots of the action. Yes, students were being lined up against the wall and shot there. And my dad would be standing there all night! Knowing that, I suddenly felt so vulnerable in the middle of all that hell. A whole night! The scariest night of my life. All traces of excitement were gone. I had a whole night to think and be afraid, to hold my breath and listen.

There was that staccato sound! It came and then it stopped, and then it came again, invading my thoughts like waves, keeping me awake with their unwelcome chill. What is it? Is it someone tapping on the door? The terrorists would burst in any minute. No, I thought, it sounds like people running up and down the stairs! Too close for comfort. Did I just hear the lift doors opening? Is it our level or a different one? How can anyone sleep? How can Mum sleep? I think I can hear her stirring. Yes, it’s the springs on the sofa where she’s sleeping. They really ought to get a new one. I relaxed a little. But then it started again. And it didn’t sound like the sofa anymore. I was praying, hard. My mind kept going round the different possibilities. And then the answer came. That maddening sound were the distant rifles, somewhere in the neighbourhood. But not here. It was the sound we had been hearing for days and had got used to. In the quietness of the night, they had sprung back into my awareness, a lot clearer because of my fears. Just guns. That realisation brought an indescribable relief and I fell asleep whilst my thanks travelled beyond the smoky December sky.

I was awoken by another staccato sound. The familiar, gentle tapping that always sent us running to the door. Dad was back! Alive! He told us how all he had been able to do was hide all night. “Like a rat,” he said. “They were running right past me, and had guns. All I could do was hide.” They were the terrorists.

That Christmas we didn’t go to church. It was too risky. What I remember about that day is that a warning came and went, that drinking water was poisoned. Then our attention shifted to a different kind of news. The capital started celebrating. Thanks to the now uncensored media we heard that the army finally had him. Him. The army was on the people’s side. The next day he was no more. Freedom took his place.

That holiday was a long one. It wasn’t deemed safe to go back to school yet. The terrorists were still about, enraged by the dictator’s death. New rumours started spreading. A different fear, but it didn’t last. The truth was, we were free. And one way we knew it was that Mum was never called back to be interrogated by the Militia. That horrible institution that kidnapped people and destroyed families, instead of protecting them, was replaced by Police.

It took a long time for life to get back to a new normal. There were reminders everywhere that there had been sacrifices. People wanted to go back over those days. They needed to talk. About their December.

This… was my December. 1989.

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)]]> http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/09/december-1989/feed/ 2 http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/09/on-planes-and-relationships/ http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/09/on-planes-and-relationships/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:42:54 +0000 Teodor Constantinescu http://ecsu.info/blog/?p=1160 I was having a chat with mom yesterday morning on something. At a certain moment she made a remark which caused some extra blood pressure into my veins and some harsh words to come to mind… I throttled back my impulses making great use of instant deliveries of God-sent patience. Somehow, I was able to see the end of the chat¹, a beautiful end that did not involve memories of hurting words but sincere joy and peace and closeness sprung from victories over worldly impulses. I reckon it’s called faith. It is faith that I exercise whenever I refuse to give an instant feedback based on what I see, hear, feel, knowing for sure that something good is going to happen if I do so.

What came out of a potentially disastrous discussion with mum was a somewhat fury provoking remark followed by a plain calm chat. The “maneuver” yielded a successful result, by His grace!

Yes, I love this word, “maneuver”, especially now as I prepare to write the “planes” part of the article…

I like this image, especially the truth in it: planes are hard and heavy,  air is soft and light. However, if properly used, the wind moves tons of steel. Well, the wind was used. Man learned to harness it long before plane contrails patched the sky. Now the wind that blew into sails for millenniums is not the same as the ”wind” that lifts and moves thousands of aircrafts today, since their movement through the air is assured by their dynamics not by the wind’s dynamics. Anyhow, the oxymoron statement I made above stays true. The plane is heavy, the air is light (apparently). The plane is hard (at least in that it has a shape of it’s own, hard to alter), the air is highly malleable, fluid. Yet, the air lifts the plane and allows for different maneuvers once the speed of the plain exceeds a required minimum. However, given the fluidity of the air (among many other factors), a pilot must be very well trained before actually flying a plane. Perhaps the most peculiar “feature” of piloting is the delay between the pilot’s commands and their result. Much of the pilot’s training has to do with gaining the certainty that, while flying a plane, the maneuver that he applies in a certain situation yields the intended result only after some time². Does this ring a bell? Turning the plane several degrees is pretty fast while it is still on the ground but takes up to a few minutes during flight. Once the plane is sufficiently banked, a pilot knows that everything he has to do until the plane is completely turned to the new direction is wait. This confidence that the plane will obey, even if slower than a car, takes some training.

Apply the command an wait. In other words, do the right thing and wait. Several things that define “right” for a pilot are perhaps a flight manual, some physics, some common sense and of course his confidence-giving flight experience. The same holds for life. There is a manual, the Bible, which is still relevant and full of practical wisdom so necessary for everyday living. There’s the Holy Spirit that gives peace when life heads in the right direction. There are God filled friends that will always lovingly guide along the way. There’s also the faith coming from a life lived in obedience to God.

Although I knew these things, my relationship with mum was lacking love and faith. Love to patiently wait for the result, faith not to act based on what I see/hear. Both come from above and can be enhanced by exercise or training. I believe I had them ever since I surrendered my life into my loving Creator’s hands, but this surrendering act was not complete and is yet to be so. My relationship with mum (and many others) still lacks love and faith but it’s getting better as I give more of my life back to Him. Nothing abstract, nothing mystical. He is real and the effects of my dependence of Him are real. A rock solid proof is yesterday morning’s successful maneuver! To the best Flight Trainer be all praise and glory! Amen.

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)

1. I refuse to call it “fight” or even “argue” since it lacked the attitudes, the words, the gestures and so on.
2. It is known that the greater the plane is, the slower its feedback to the pilot’s commands. The same is true for ships since water is also a fluid; air is however more fluid than water and it suits the allegory better

You have looked into my heart, You know everything about me

You see my deepest thoughts, every corner of my soul

Each single step I take, You know my words before I speak them

Every place that I have been, every place that I will go

 

I cannot hide from You, You know me all too well

There’s no story of my life that Your memory could not tell

I can ride the morning wings ’till I’m completely out of view

But whether in dark or light (for every moment of my life)

I cannot hide from You

 

Long before I drew first breath You already knew my secrets

You watched as I was formed out of sight from human eyes

Your spirit is with me and I am always in your presence

When I sit and when I stand, when I sleep and when I rise 

 

Turn my heart from wicked ways, search the whispers of my mind

Lead me on the road that will take me home to everlasting life!…

 

WORDS AND MUSIC BY GREG LONG. COPYRIGHT (C) 2003 Discovery House Music.

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)

1. The song is inspired by Psalm 139. You can listen to it here.

There are other hikers around  but solo is better, sweeter… No conversations going on, more time to ponder at His works! (or at least so I think…)

Hills get steeper and my breathing habits need adjustment… I see at the far left those fields I’ve left behind and heading towards them is so tempting. I hear that whisper again… “Perseverance brings glory, my son… You’ll soon see My glory in its entirety!“. Slowly, mysteriously, progressively, this Voice captivates me, the grace of the vistas around seem to fade and so does  my desire to return. More of this Voice, of It’s glory, more of the sublime feelings that fill me every time I obey it!…

I notice hikers struggling in the distance. I know it would be nice to go and help them however I can but I’m not determined…

“Love thy neighbor as thyself! Help thy neighbour…“

But I myself  am struggling!…

“Stretch your arm, this is My will. As you submit, My strength will abound to you!”

Ugh! The Voice, His voice, so gentle yet so compelling… Slowly, mysteriously, progressively, I understand and press on towards that stranger who just stumbled. To my surprise, he’s a bit of a loner himself. We become friends and help each other as the path gets narrower and steeper…  Soon our group is joined by more hikers as we show our willingness to befriend.

Sometimes the footpath is just the tip of a pointy cliff sided by deep valleys. We can’t even hold our hands and the wind puts us down once in a while. Could be a wrong perception but it seems that darkness also closes in…

“Hold on, help is on the way!”

I look around and see no help. Fear, despair and doubt creep in altogether…

But there ahead I see the sublime… There’s a light that somehow brings hope as I stare at it. My expectations and intentions now seem so unfit… I though I could descend the cliff so that it’s edge would protect us somehow against the strong winds but now I realize that such a maneuver would have prevented that light, His light, from guiding us. I cannot see even one step ahead but I gaze at Him and find peace…

Peace unexplainable, strength abounding, joy unspeakable!

“Keep on, my son!… I will provide!”

*       *       *

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness”¹

Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.²

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.³

In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.⁴

 

1. 2 Corinthians 12:9
2. Hebrews 5:8, 9
3. Galatians 2:20
4. Romans 8:37

I don’t need to have the plan in hand, I don’t need to have the end in sight, All I need to do is follow you, wherever you lead and do what you ask me to.

Trusting you, Lord, with all my heart, following you all my days; whether I can or can’t understand, I’ll acknowledge you in all my ways.

Though I am pressed on every side I am not in despair. My faith in you will carry me through though I may not see where You’re leading me.

Words and music by Jon Mohr, Randall Dennis and Phil Naish

Copyright 1998 Sony/ATV songs LLC, Randy Cox Music, Inc., Sony/ATV Tunes LLC, Molto Bravo! Music, Inc. and Meadowgreen Music.

You can listen to a Spanish version by Steve Green here.

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)]]> http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/08/the-plan/feed/ 0 http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/four-seasons-four-pianos/ http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/four-seasons-four-pianos/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:50:53 +0000 Teodor Constantinescu http://ecsu.info/blog/?p=1081 B-e-a-utiful!

Vivaldi Four Seasons (Spring) – Y. Wang, E. Ax, N. Goerner, J. Quentin

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)]]> http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/four-seasons-four-pianos/feed/ 0 http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/mr-ferdinand/ http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/mr-ferdinand/#comments Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:16:42 +0000 Teodor Constantinescu http://ecsu.info/blog/?p=1051 I work for a local Christian radio station which broadcasts only 6 hours a day, between 1 pm and 7 pm. What I have to do on a regular work day before the actual broadcasting begins is turn on the computers and other devices needed for broadcasting, make sure all the prerecorded programs which are to be broadcast during the day are handy (i.e. in the broadcasting computer) and pick a few songs out of the music library. It usually takes me 30 minutes to do all this if there are no interesting chats going on around me. So my work day starts at 12 pm and I usually afford waking up at about 9 am.

Or at least so I think. Every single day on which I wake up after 7:30 am is a mess, since that’s about the time Diana¹ wakes up, this meaning that when I wake up none of the two bedrooms and one lounge of our flat is both silent and available for a quality devotional time with God. Somewhere within the statements above lies: “A day which doesn’t start with a chat with God usually turns out to be a mess”². Of course I have long planned to wake up before Diana but only seldom succeeded. Not to mention the days off work…

But God knew I needed a little order in my life so He has woven someone very special in it. Well, it isn’t her, the special lady I am waiting  for, my lady, although she’ll also bring some order into my life (hopefully :P). The person I’m talking about is Mr. Ferdinand…

He  wakes me up at about 7 am everyday and we talk until I am finally awake! He reminds me of tasks that I previously mentioned during chats with him but never included in the schedule. He is a blessing to me and hopefully he thinks the same about me. I help him with little things he can’t do and I accompany him to church on Sundays, whenever I can…

Who is Mr. Ferdinand? Roughly, he’s sixty-some, retired, divorced and his only  son is imprisoned for multiple crimes that he had committed while being a drug addict. Well, there’s one more… He’s blind. He started to lose his sight when he was 5, after an eye surgery that went wrong.

All these are reasons for which most of his time he got no one to talk to.  Since his son’s imprisonment he is a loner who doesn’t want to be a loner. He got some friends, very few though. One of them is also blind and can only seldom visit him. So Mr. Ferdinand’s need for socializing is pretty much unfulfilled. I believe that the seeing people around him keep distance because they think his blindness yields some kind of mental impairment. I could be wrong, but regarding my own reasoning I am right. I did think of the blind as of mentally impaired people until I met Mr. Ferdinand, and this surely is another reason for which God has allowed this to happen.

He is a very special man and a precious new friend. I hope he will stay in my life long enough³.

Thank you Lord for Mr. Ferdinand!

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)

1. my three and a half year old niece
2. statement with which I hope you agree
3. God surely knows what this “enough” means…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDZpZPFGzOA

And here they are performing the Overture to The Barber of Seville

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrXJnMvg9uI

A 9 minutes  ”history” of the last forty decades of music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXhAz0DOpMU

So yes, creativity is one of the great “features” that God has provided us with, more on that (maybe) later :)

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)]]> http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/07/the-kings-singers/feed/ 0 http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/06/the-boredom-driven-church/ http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/06/the-boredom-driven-church/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:47:37 +0000 Teodor Constantinescu http://ecsu.info/blog/?p=1018 Note: Yes, the title of this article is inspired by Rick Warren’s The purpose driven church and The purpose driven life.

The Bible suggests that boredom is the beginning of many sins¹ and the most relevant story that comes to my mind now is that of David and Bathsheba. David was bored and interesting enough, it seems he was bored because he had chosen not to do what he was supposed to do, i.e. lead the fighting of an important battle. He avoided the fulfillment of a duty and entered the “plateau of boredom”. What has one to do in order to send boredom away? Find something that brings pleasure: entertainment. This is what David did and the rest is history. It is worth mentioning that the sexual intercourse he had with Bathsheba, the “entertainment”, brought with it pain and suffering, much more than what he would have endured if he had gone to the battle. Physically, he had lost his first son that Bathsheba gave birth to. Spiritually, he bore the burden of his transgression and in Psalm 51 he describes the horrific feelings of guilt he went through. He rejects duty, gets bored, looks for entertainment and consumes it only to find frustration/pain/depression. Do you recognize the pattern?

Maybe you don’t live in a hotel built by the beach, which could lead you to lustful looks and further sinning during times of idleness. However, if you read this you sure got a computer connected to the internet. Movies/music downloaded within minutes, Facebook, YouTube, instant messaging, games, you name it. Maybe TV is the great tool soothing (not) your boredom. Or maybe you’re one of those hooked on pornography or drugs or worse…

Whether your means of entertainment are listed above or not, if you are convinced that you have to get rid of this pattern and eventually of your boredom, pray about it! I also strongly recommend you confess it to a godly friend and ask them to keep track of your moods. Ask them to pray with you for a renewal of your passion for God and for the lost people around you. Yes, boredom has very much in common with selfishness. The closer you get to God through sincere prayer and fasting, the greater your love for “thy neighbor” and the less selfish you become. I’m not an expert at it but I’ve tried it and I tell you, it works. You try it too :) Also, something that you can do right away is stop postponing/crossing things out of the list if it’s not the case. Procrastination/giving up often yields boredom. It did in David’s case. “What will I be doing during these X minutes that I gain by postponing the Y activity?” is something I have started to ask myself before postponing a task (but I still need to work on the sincerity of my answer to this question…). And last but not least, a great tool that could help you in your struggle with boredom is Richard Winter’s book Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment. I heard a review of it a few days ago and it presented the book as very practical and useful. Here you find an interview with Mr. Winter sharing the core of Still Bored…: http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/interviews/winter.asp. I reckon it will help you decide whether the book is worth reading or not.

07/11/2011 edit: A great review of the book: http://www.proctrust.org.uk/blog/2010-09-28/still-bored-882

Links to sites that sell the book:

English paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Still-Bored-Culture-Entertainment-Rediscovering/dp/0830823085

Romanian paperback: http://www.clcromania.ro/plictisit-in-epoca-divertismentului_prd10522.html

I hope your relationship with God will soon have that intimacy which can “entertain” you for real (no frustration at the end but real contentment). If God seems too far, don’t keep silence, pray! Let the silence surround you as you sincerely whisper to God, as if He were your closest friend. You will find it helpful! :)

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)

1. Yes, this article is for you only if you believe that the Bible is what it says it is, namely the word of God. You might however find it useful even if you think otherwise but still find boredom something you ought to avoid

This is an RSS view of a post from Letter, Word, Blog. Feel free to visit sometime! :)]]> http://ecsu.info/blog/2011/06/fill-me-up/feed/ 0