From Russia with Love

The Church of Our Savior 

on the Spilled Blood

Built where Emperor Alexander II 

was assassinated in March 1881

Without family in Stockholm to keep us close to hearth and home, on Christmas Day we boarded a Rossiya Airlines flight to St. Petersburg, Russia for the holidays.  Helen had made our travel arrangements though a travel agency, Inventus.

Inventus was top-notch handling flights, hotel bookings and the processing for our Russian visas.  It was a marvelous adventure!

Inventus’ guided tours were in Swedish so we assembled our own tours.  The first was a six-hour personal city walking tour with a twenty-something English-speaking native named Eugene.  He showed us well-known tourist attractions as well as provided us a backstage glimpse of the city.  City natives, we learned, navigate the well laid out street grid of St. P by ducking into alleyways and courtyards.

Key, Lighter, Umbrella Service

Unseen from the main streets is another world of apartments and shops.  Our favorite shop - of a different era - was one occupied by a grumpy entrepreneur who replicated keys, fixed umbrellas and refilled cigarette lighters.

We visited the green and white Baroque style Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace, the residence for many Russian tsars.

Winter Palace/Hermitage
at 10:30 am
Still very dark outside

It became a museum in 1764 and now has over 2.7 million items, of which only a fraction is on display at any one time.  We wandered the museum from the third floor down to avoid the crowd that assembled at the 10:30 opening time.  Early in the day, we consumed our quota of French, Spanish, Flemish and Italian art.  We finished our tour admiring exquisite antiquities art from the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.  Oh my.

Catherine Palace

The following day we journeyed via public transportation to Pushkin, located 20 kilometers south to visit the Catherine Palace.  Named for the wife of Peter the Great, the palace is simply spectacular.  The gold onion domes and the blue and gold leaf exterior capture your attention immediately upon arrival.  The great hall rivals or surpasses the grandeur of Versailles’ hall of mirrors.  We toured the palace in mandatory slipover shoe coverings, walked the spacious grounds, had lunch in a nearby restaurant and ventured back to St. P again by public bus and subway to our hotel. 

Boxing Kangaroo at State Circus

Over the next two days we wandered the city, visited the Peter and Paul Fortress on the west side of the Neva River, attended a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Mikhailovsky Theater and were entertained by goats, a kangaroo, dogs, cats, monkeys and dancing bears at a performance of the State Circus of St. Petersburg.  Lonely Planet travellers ranked the circus #473 of 499 on things to do in St. Pete.  Clearly that gang of travelers failed to appreciate the humor in "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

NYE dinner in the Victoria Restaurant in the Taleon Imperial Hotel

New Year’s Eve started for us with marvelous authentic Russian cuisine at the Taleon Imperial Hotel on the Moika.  Following dinner, we reveled in the folly and joy of mingling with 100,000 of our closest friends in the square in front of the Winter Palace.  The tradition to toast the New Year with champagne and fireworks was faithfully followed.  “Dosvedanya 2011!”

Our Third Apartment in Stockholm

So why have you moved so many times, you ask? Finding housing in Stockholm is very, very difficult.

When we first arrived in Stockholm we stayed in a couple's apartment while they were on summer holiday (7 weeks). That gave us enough time to learn about the city and find a suitable longer term place to live.

When we started looking for our next apartment, we came across an ad placed by Per and Monica for their place in southern Södermalm. They wanted to rent their apartment for a year while they went on a year-long sailing trip in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, they weren't leaving until November, but we could move in in October and they would stay with their son because they wanted to get their tenants settled before they left.

We were extremely lucky to find a young woman who was renting her apartment by the week. We rented our second apartment for nine weeks, then moved into Per and Monica's apartment the middle of October. We think the biggest deciding factor of choosing us over the 100+ other people who inquired is the fact we volunteered to take care of their cat when they told us that none of their family wanted to take her. Having a pet in our lives again was a big plus for us!

We moved into our third furnished apartment and are comfortably settled. We have learned how to easily get from our apartment to anywhere in the city (and beyond) either by walking, taking the T-bana (subway), a bus or commuter train, boat or plane. There is so much public transportation here! So far we have not missed having a car.

Business travel for Jay has ceased until the new year and we are taking advantage of the daylight hours (and there aren't that many at this time of the year - it's dark by 3:30 in the afternoon!) to make a video of our new home.

We hope you enjoy it!

God Jul In All Its Forms

Christmas traditions, like lights strung outside or decorating a tree brought indoors, a child’s photo on Santa’s knee, cups of shared eggnog and the many other Christmas images of sugar plums that dance in our heads are absorbed over a lifetime of easy and repeated encounters.  Our absorption of Swedish Christmas traditions is, on the other hand, a rather abrupt encounter with the unknown. We, however, are doing quite well with God Jul (Merry Christmas) in its many forms here.

Last weekend we walked to nearby Gama Stan (Old Town) and mingled with a multitude of Swedish Yuletide shoppers at the Big Christmas Market on the Square (Stortorgets Julmarknad). This outdoor market fills Stockholm’s oldest town square with traditionally red painted sheds that sell homemade sausages, mustards and jams and other foods and wares to brighten a Swedish home for the holidays.  This square is located right in front of Sweden’s Nobel Museum. 

Nobel Laureates, who were to arrive shortly as part of their Oslo/Stockholm celebratory tour, typically visit the museum before settling into a banquet at Stockholm’s Stadshuset (City Hall).  Save for vans of security personnel and a helicopter whirling in fixed location above the square, these Nobel events were outside our immediate interest. We were focused on purchasing a traditional Christmas Goat.

A julbock or Christmas Goat, we have learned, is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule symbols. Associations with the slaughter of a goat for a Germanic pagan festival or with the pre-Christian legend of the Norse god Thor riding in his sky chariot drawn by two goats have long faded.  The Julbock is now just a Christmas decoration. Christmas goats come in various sizes usually between 6 and 14 inches high, but are universally made of straw.  

Many julbocks appear as Christmas ornaments in shop windows. However, since 1966 the people of Gävle, just north of Stockholm, have tossed proportion to the wind and have erected an enormous straw julbock on the town square. Unfortunately, vandals torching the huge straw goat is another Christmas tradition that accompanies the display. The little straw goat we purchased now stands safe from wandering arsonists on a window shelf. 

In Sweden no journey to Christmas would be complete without a celebration of Lucia.  Kinda surprised us, too.  Celebrated on 13-Dec, Lucia commemorates St. Lucia who was a 4^th century Christian martyr.  The commemoration takes the form of a procession of singers lead by a young girl in a white gown and red sash wearing a crown of lit candles on her head. The candles symbolize the fire that refused to take St. Lucia's life when she was sentenced to be burned.

We didn’t attend the largest Sweden Lucia concert at the Globe Auditorium, but partook in a ceremony sponsored in the World Trade Center building where Jay’s office is located. We sat in appreciation as lovely voices filled the large atrium.  But nothing in our past connected us to the event. Jay’s speculation that many of the Swedes who sat with us were filled with rising childhood emotions was confirmed when his native born Swedish office manager came up to us and remarked, “Oh, tears were just rolling down my cheeks.”  

We learn something new here every day.

We are now in the final preparation for a Christmas party we are hosting at our apartment.  Soon Swedes, Americans and Swedish-Americans will mingle in our home and share good cheer in wonderful traditional holiday spirit that clearly has universal appeal.  God Jul.

God Bless Us, Everyone...Including Ringo

For us, Christmas comes with established traditions that include stringing lights on a real Christmas tree and having the kids fill the house with joy as we share a marvelous meal together. 



Of course, no Christmas would be complete without  curling up on the sofa with bowl of popcorn and letting our spirits be lifted as Jim Stewart and Donna Reed regale us with a Norman Rockwell-ish Christmas story as we watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the millionth time.  Those traditions, however, are on temporary hold as we celebrate Christmas in our new Swedish home here in Stockholm.

Not all is unfamiliar, however!  We had the opportunity to catch a wonderful live performance of Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, “A Christmas Carol” at the Maxim Theater. We believe this performance “presented in English” is a modern day Stockholm Yuletide tradition. The theater was filled with a cross section of Swedes ranging from clusters of 10 year old boys to gray-haired seniors. English is so widely spoken in Stockholm that an English language theater performance is no barrier to attracting a broad array of Swedes.

The presentation was top-notch and we enjoyed the familiar retelling of Jacob Marley’s warning to Ebenezer Scrooge that three spirits from past, present and future would visit him to propel him to amend his earthly Scrooge-like ways.

We also discovered that we hold a bit of common history with the Maxim Theater, just off Karlaplan in trendy Östermalm.  

As with most of our generation, we clustered around the TV in February 1964 and watched Ed Sullivan, amid screaming and swooning teenagers, introduce the Beatles. Well, a few months before that “really big show” the Beatles played in the very theater in which we sat.

Built in 1945, the theater was originally a radio theater called the Karlaplansstudion.  In October 1963, a new musical group called the Beatles stood on the very stage now occupied by a repentant Scrooge and strummed guitars, pounded drums and shook mop-like hair in a refrain of “Yeah, yeah, yeah” that would become an emblematic common link for a generation that today is closing in on retirement.

The Youtube video below shows the Beatles concert performed in Karlaplansstudion on October 23,1964. We dare you not to sing along!

The Thanks in Thanksgiving

Americans were just starting their morning stirrings on Thanksgiving Day when the doors of Stockholm’s City Mission (Stadsmission) opened to welcome the homeless and hungry to an American fare of turkey, sweet potatoes, dressing and homemade pies. This Thanksgiving feast, the third since 2008, sponsored by the American Club of Sweden,  reflects the mission of the American Club to “promote the American spirit of hospitality and cooperation in Sweden.” Together with members from the American Women’s Club of Sweden, about a dozen people cheerfully worked in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes, making stuffing, washing dishes as well as slicing and dicing whenever slicing and dicing was required.  It felt good.

Caren and Helen

The American Club provided funds for the food with additional donations from the Hilton Hotel. The Hilton, host to the American Club’s monthly Third Thursday evening social gathering, has a special relationship with the Club. We were glad to have three representatives come with cheesecakes and share the meal with us.

Sharing this treasured national tradition with strangers was significant, given that not a single Swedish soul at the dinner table had a clue what Thanksgiving was all about.

The story of Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620 was recounted in Swedish. The tale of surviving a harsh winter and the show of gratitude to helpful Native American Indians was proclaimed at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Diners at Stadsmission put down their forks and listened respectfully to the story, some indicated their appreciation of the explanation of the meal, then all returned to the food and conversations at their tables. Before leaving, many also expressed their appreciation with "mycket bra!" (very good!).

Ulrika and Germaine

Of course, it is not important for the homeless and the hungry at the Thanksgiving table to understand the motivation of their benefactors.  What does seem important is that a long standing American tradition brought all of us together for a memorable shared experience.  

Through the years Thanksgiving takes on various meanings for each American. It begins as children with treks to the homes of relatives, then as an adult and/or parent taking on the responsibility to provide both home and meal.  Given years to absorb the tempo of the holiday, it just becomes part of the natural turn of events. Here in Sweden we are removed from that seamless flow of family gatherings and the smell of turkey and savory dressing roasting in the oven. We felt blessed to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday spirit with our friends.

We have also observed that a society without Thanksgiving has no speed bump on its headlong rush to Christmas. The gearing up for Christmas commercialization appears here to run in parallel with the early arrival of darkness in mid-November. Now with Thanksgiving behind us, we too are emotionally engaged in the Christmas spirit, enjoying the decorations and many Advent lights and candles everywhere, bustling about in common purpose with the Swedes.  God Jul! (Merry Christmas!)

Adventljusstake

Modern Art in Stockholm

Invited by the American Club of Sweden we visited Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museeet)  for a private tour of the Turner, Monet, Twombly exhibit.  The exhibit was widely advertised as, “three of the greatest painters of the last 150 years.” The exhibit explanation continued, “This groundbreaking exhibition focuses on their later work, examining not only the art historical links and affinities between them but also the common characteristics of and motivations underlying their late style.”

Tour Guide 

We were very grateful that the American Club had arranged for a most knowledgeable guide to help our group of 28 club members interpret the “art historical links” and “motivations underlying their late styles.”  Otherwise, we would have pondered canvases with more pronounced quizzical looks than was our actual experience.

We consider ourselves sufficiently art literate to be able to distinguish a Monet from a Pollock, a Seurat from a Picasso. More importantly, we know what we like and can appreciate that the range of art that people “like” covers a board pallet of tastes.  The small collections of Monet poplars, bridges and lily pads we liked.

Turner Unfinished Painting

The partially finished Turner paintings that were exhibited were puzzling.  Our guide explained that salon expositions in Turner’s time hung paintings floor to ceiling.   This “never know where my painting may be hung” arrangement confounded artists wanting to draw maximum attention to their art.  

Thus salons provided artists a few days prior to opening day to complete their work.   High/low hung paintings typically received more liberal dashes of bright colors to draw a viewer/buyer’s attention.   Absent this insight we would have been hopelessly lost as to why Turner was “one of the greatest painters of the last 150 years,” having passed half-finished paintings onto posterity.

Tour Guide Explaining Orpheus

Helen Gazing at Twombly's Untitled

Twombly’s abstract art, unfortunately, defied appreciation, despite liberal applications of insight and explanation.  Our first Twombly’s canvas entitled Orpheus solicited a whispered remark from Helen, “Our six year grandchild can do better.”  The mythic story depicted in the three canvas presentation of Hero and Leandro of lovers separated by the gods and a sea tempest was a captivating story, but the art would have been completely inscrutable without access to our guide’s decoder ring.  Later as Helen gazed at Twombly’s Untitled 2007 artwork, she murmured, “To heck with the grandkid.  I can do this!”

We also toured the museum’s permanent photo exhibit that held some gems, but provided little appeal in the portrait work, some delight in the scenic nature photos but none for photos of junkies shooting up.

Despite the lack of visceral appreciation for the art work, we were very grateful that we had a chance to tour the museum.  The visit added another connection we have with our new hometown of Stockholm.  It also gave us a chance to build another shared experience with our fellow American Club members.  

Based on recently received mail, we are now both official Club members.  The welcome letter continued that since we have been active volunteers, Helen on the newsletter, Jay on a history project, that our Kr. 500 (about $75) initiation fee was waived.  We plan to spend this windfall on art supplies….ha!

Talking Turkey

Thanksgiving in Sweden came a few days early for us.  This Sunday we were invited by our Swedish friends Maria and Patrik to a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, sponsored by the English Speaking Community Club of Sweden.  Maria, a Brazilian national who married her Swedish sweetheart Patrik, have been in our social circle from the start of our Scandinavian adventure. We met them at a chilly July 4^th celebration sponsored by the American Club of Sweden eight days after we arrived on these Swedish shores.

So there we sat together, this slightly offset Thanksgiving Day at Kompott at Karlburgsvägen 52 in the middle of Stockholm eating turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie with our hot tamale Brazilian friend and her husband with his light up/flashing bowtie.  There was something just so very American about this mingling of cultures and people.

It is not until you are very distant from borders that stretch from sea to shining sea that you acquire an appreciation for the uniqueness that America has in the world. There are some cultures where one’s heritage can be instantly recognized by how they look. Chinese, Guatemalan, African.

People from all the over world

Even Swedes have distinctiveness. Not all are blonde. Body types and hair color may vary, but one would be hard pressed to find a Marlboro man among them. Such an image is simply not part of the cultural fabric.  At the same time, Americans can look Chinese, Guatemalan, African, rugged or even Swedish. We are a society that has assumed the look of all the people living on this planet.  

Vincent told the story of the Pilgrims

So this group of English speakers spoke to the American phenomena of people gathering from about the world in common cause.  Vincent, the club president, offered opening comments that included a reciting of the history of the first Thanksgiving dating back to the 1621 Pilgrim celebration with their native American Indian neighbors.   

He added that at this afternoon’s dinner, people from 10 different countries were participating in this year’s celebratory dinner.  Among us were those from the US, the UK, South Africa, Tobago, Brazil, Sweden and others lost to our failing recall ability.  Accuracy in the nationality count, however, melted into irrelevancy as conversation in variously accented English ensued.

We take for granted the family gatherings, expansive meals, football games and time idly spent in familial interaction on Thanksgiving Day. For Swedes, Christmas is the time for family gatherings and expansive meals. But Christmas also includes exchanging presents, trimming trees and in a not very distant past, a church service.  Thanksgiving in comparison seems rather unencumbered. 

Elizabeth

We enjoyed our meal and our time at the restaurant. We shared conversations with Maria and Patrik, but sat in vicarious horror as a new acquaintance, Elizabeth, recounted the crime and sense of violation as blind white dominance has been transformed into blind black dominance in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Yes, we had much to be thankful for this early Thanksgiving Day. A wonderful meal with new friends and the reassurance that that there is, at least, one place on this planet capable of re-making itself, generation after generation, into a home for the world’s “huddled masses, yearning to breath free.”

Scattered to the Winds

Little time for blog entries this week. 

Work has Jay in Oslo Sunday through Friday (30-Oct to 4-Nov).  He may also need to be in London the end of next week (Nov 10-11).

Helen is headed for a two-week trip to Nepal (Nov 1 – 15) to visit women who have received financial support from her Dining for Women group.

We’ll get back to blogging later this busy month.

Puttin' on the Fritz

Last weekend, we moved to our third apartment since arriving in Stockholm four months ago.

Our Dining and Living Area

We are now fully ensconced in our apartment on Götgatan at the southern end of Södermalm.  The yearlong lease gives us an opportunity to settle into Swedish living.  It also gives Per and Monica, the apartment owners, a sense of carefree relief that the apartment and their pet cat Millie will be cared for as they set out on a year long sailing adventure in the Caribbean.  A win-win situation.

Change, however, does not come without its challenges.  

We once wrote a blog while in India entitled “Why is Everything So Hard?” that chronicled our trials and tribulations performing life’s mundane activities.  Thankfully, Stockholm is no Bangalore.  There is an orderly and predictable nature to activities here…but still there are surprises.

Moving to our new apartment introduced a wave of things, simple things, that just refused to work.  The first to rise in protest was the apartment door key.

Blue Fob on Reader
Street Side Door

Stockholm apartments typically have a multi-layered security system. Street- facing doors have a security keypad or as is the case for our new apartment, an electronic reader.  When placed nearby, the reader detects a small, flat, blue fob that hangs from our ring of keys.  Interior apartment doors have two locks.  

Offending Key that Would Not
Open the Lock

One lock, we discovered, has a mind of its own.  Helen struggled for 20 minutes alone and with the aid of new neighbors before the key – lock combination finally cooperated and the door opened.  After a second episode of the key refusing entry until some unseen miracle occurred, we opted to feel safe using only one lock.  Check.

Stove and Oven

Next was the stove and oven.  The stovetop units had previously heated meals and the stove baked a casserole, so when misbehavior started it was a mystery.  The oven was first.  Our baked chicken dinner was ready, but the oven door would simply not open!  Okay plan B for dinner.  Heat something on the stovetop.  No deal.  Not a single unit would generate heat. 

Per Repairing the Oven Door Latch
(a playful pose)

We found the owner’s manual and slowly translated Swedish instructions and determined a child safety lock system had been engaged.  A few instructions guided twists of knobs and the sliding of a tiny lock and the stovetop returned to full operation.  Next, our most handy apartment owner, Per, arrived and with confidence only a owner has, removed the entire oven latch system.  Check.

USB Data Stick for Mobile Internet Access

In the midst of this mechanical mayhem, our access to the world wide web stopped when our USB mobile wireless data stick failed.  Egad!

We fortunately have wired Internet access as we await the installation of wireless configuration in the apartment, so we can still share with friends and family that no matter where you are, “things will be hard.”

Occupy Stockholm

Our home in Stockholm sometimes feels a bit remote.   Tucked just 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, we are at the start of the winter darkness season.  A month from now, the sun will set by 3:00 pm.  We anticipate that this early darkness will only add to the sense of global detachment.

Detachment is not new here.  Despite the eruption of European wars of the previous century, Sweden remained on a neutral sideline. Even the current financial roiling in the nearby Euro zone is distant from the consciousness of our Swedish kroner-based society. What could ever penetrate this forever even-keeled society?

Enter Occupy Wall Street.

Swedish Rally Participants

It is not that the nation as a whole has been swept forth in a surge of anger and angst.  Despite the dizzying height of taxes… our VAT/sales tax is 25% on some items… Swedes generally embrace their socialist society.   Unemployment that peaked in April 2010 at 9.1% has seen a downward trend with last reported figures in August 2011 showing 7.4% of the population was unemployed.

The system is the problem!

It is hard to discern the underlying social context for the Occupy Stockholm movement.   We clearly understand the emotional context for occupy movements in New York, Chicago, Boston and other US cities.  Even movements in Rome, Tokyo, London and other countries with economies fraught with uncertainties make sense.

People Gathered In Sergels Torg

Why occupy Stockholm?  The Swedish psyche, from what we have observed in our very short time here, welcomes the rational ordering of social interactions.  In shops, banks and public offices, one takes a number from a dispenser and waits in orderly fashion to be served.  Both cars and bicycles stop for pedestrians crossing the street.  It is unfathomable to think of a Swedish mob chanting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” marching down a main thoroughfare.  Then again, an insular nation has little inclination to dispatch its citizens to undesirable locales.

So why the gathering at Sergels Torg; the march and encampment in the grassy park in front of Sweden’s central bank?

Not 1 Penny More!

Clearly, Occupy Wall Street has become a global phenomenon with a sufficiently broad sweep of discontent to offer an appeal to an ever-widening audience.  The global financial system that allows us to slide our Visa card across shop counters around the world has also intertwined us into a far more uncertain world of credit default swap options.  Shared concern is not difficult to find.

The Times They are A-Changin'

There was time when banks were local and at the core of our financial certainty.  We of an earlier generation all clutched our savings passbook - seeing nickels and dimes grow to dollars.   Yet, as one handmade poster noted at the Occupy Stockholm rally, “The times they are a changin’.”    

It appears that some Swedes are more attuned than others to the changing times. 

Not Our Cup of Tea

This Sunday we resumed what we have come to call our religious odyssey by attending Sunday service at The English Church here in Stockholm.  Also known as St. Peter & St. Siegfried’s, the English Church is a Church of England Anglican Episcopal house of worship.

We began our pilgrimages to houses of worship when we lived in Bangalore (2005 – 2007).  Distant from our familiar Unitarian Universalist churches, we ventured forth on Sundays to partake in local religious worship.  Many of our journeys were to Christian churches left behind by the British in southern India.  To expand our religious boundaries and despite our feeble understanding of Hindu rituals, at times we partook in individualistic religious worship when we encountered a Hindu temple.

Common to all our odyssey adventures was the openness extended to us to join in religious ceremony.  Also unifying was the deep devotion we witnessed in the faithful across a wide spectrum of beliefs and faith.  Such was our experience on Sunday.

Upon arrival, we were welcomed by the cheery, British-accented minister, the Reverend Nick Howe, and invited to find seats in the sanctuary.  The church was originally built in Liverpool in 1866 and later moved to Stockholm in 1913.  Designed in a neo-Gothic style using red and pink sandstone, a circular extension was added in 1984.

 The service began promptly at 11:00 and proceeded on its own languid and solemn pace for the next hour and twenty minutes. 

The faithful, numbering between 90  and 100 souls, participated with devotion in the theist-centric traditions on which the service was rooted.   We, too, were once grounded to such roots, but long ago ventured forth on a different religious course.   Thus, we comprehended the rhythm of pray, absolution, communion and benediction, but witnessed all from a respectful distance.  Our spirits were not renewed. We will continue our search for a religious home.

Yet, this was an inviting congregation.  After the service, we accepted a kind initiation to attend the social hour where coffee, finger food and conversation are exchanged.    The main event of this social hour was closely coordinated with the Sunday sermon theme of harvest and bounty.   An auction to sell the bounty provided by congregants had been planned to raise funds for a children’s orphanage in Riga, Latvia and a soup kitchen in Johannesburg, South Africa.  

Helen was an active bidder.  “Who will bid 50 crowns for this jar of homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam?”  In response, Helen’s hand would quickly fly heavenward.  Our eventual “take” was a pan of homemade brownies and two plastic bags filled with the most delicious butternut squash soup.

So at the close of this Sunday’s religious odyssey, our souls remained hungry, but our stomachs were filled.   

Amen…Shalom…May it be so.