A Pompous Windbag!

          Alas, as I read some of my own blog entries, I sigh, and think I sound like a pompous windbag! Actually, I hear my grandmother in my own words. We called her Besta, and she was the only grandparent alive by the time I came around. She was a strong character, sort of proud, clever and artistic. She had an education in art, and she liked painting - particularly traditional rose painting - as a hobby. When I visited her on the farm, she would at times read out loud something educational, a rather lengthy and boring article about an issue she thought I needed to know about. Ah, pompous windbag!

           Presently I am having tea with my youngest son, and he talks a lot, prances around with a long blanket wrapped around him to the music of Tchaikovsky - the forever 1812 Overture (I have heard this for years, many times, in the car, at home). Every time he becomes exited and and wonders if I get surprised at the moments of suspense and surprise....even after the tenth time.

         

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow

  By the way, do you know when this piece was premiered? It was at the opening of the beautiful Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow! That is the church Stalin and his crew ruined and tore down - and which was re-built by the orthodox church, beginning the plans in the early 1990ties and it was dedicated in 2000. It is built like the old one, with beautiful gilded domes: The gold is a symbol for Jesus. I would love to visit it one day. It is a great encouragement to me that the church saw this as a sign, a symbol, to rebuild the same structure: to show the presence of Christ, to show how God is there, with victory over the godlessness of the communist agenda.

Interior, church in action

           I am really interested in the churches of the east, the Russian Orthodox Church architecture, but I have yet much to learn about it. They are splendid!