Monks and 'New Times'

Monks
January 18th, 2006

Shalva is big and jolly, with intense blue eyes. He was with the original group of monks that reestablished the monastery here six years ago, and it’s said he never gets tired of working. I call him Big Shalva, cause he really is kind of a big happy giant of a monk.

After coming back from the Tsunda church supra, we all sat around in the cave together, Grigol and I playing chess, someone else making hot chocolate for all of us, and Fr. Matthew annoyingly playing all the stupid diddies that are programmed into his new cell phone.

I couldn’t believe how annoying these tinny, electronic versions of already bad songs could be, played at top volume, but let me tell you…. At one point I turned to him and said respectfully, ‘Father, do you like this music?’ He nodded yes. He actually liked it. People so fervent in their ancient worship service, living an absolutely ascetic lifestyle except for electricity and cell phones, singing medieval chant for their services, and yet listening to cell phone music for entertainment, and enjoying it. I can’t really understand how that it.

Later after most everyone went to bed, Big Shalva stayed around with two other Seminary student guests and grilled me about America. Their most burning question was, “how do young people live in America?” I said I couldn’t possibly answer their question because there were so many ways that people live in America. But they were so persistent in asking, hoping for any clue about life abroad, that I had to quickly try to see their perspective and then attempt to speak honestly about America in ways that would be interesting. This was very difficult. After all, maybe I was the only American they knew, and most likely, none of them are going to go to America.

First I realized that they already have a strong negative-positive stereotype of America. Negative is that America contains all the cultural elements of the Anti-Christ: wanton sex, violence, drugs, hedonism, and atheism. Positive in that there is a perception that America is a land of stable infrastructure, of jobs, wealth, things that work, are on time, and function. But of course all these relationships also exist in Georgia.

So the first thing I said was that most young people think about jobs, important relationships, and entertainment, the same as they do in Georgia, and that many are concerned and stressed by one thing or another, be it politics or car payments, the same as in Georgia.

They wanted to know about how much people made at their jobs, but in giving them the statistics, I had to point out that a $2000 monthly salary was not grand and eye-opening, but would only safely cover the expenses of many young people with small families (I had to talk from my cultural experience and not try to qualify all of the other types of young people’s lifestyles that exist in America).

They wanted to know about car payments, and that took me into insurance, which is a barely known concept. When someone breaks a leg, who pays for it, they wanted to know? Again, explaining insurance was a problem. College loans. I gave up on that.

They said, are black guys really like in the gangsta music videos. I said, yes there are a few like that, but most are just normal people who interact in a normal way.

“If I showed up in America with no money and I didn’t know anyone, would anyone take me in?” they asked.

I said, “How would I do if I showed up in Tbilisi like that?” It’s the same in America. If you came to New York City, you wouldn’t be doing very well, but if you came to the American countryside, people would likely be a lot more friendly. I lied a little bit. I think if three Georgian guys who spoke no English showed up in Spring City, PA and started begging for food, they would get doors slammed in their faces and end up in jail. On the other hand, if I showed up in a Georgian village, no, if a Martian showed up in a Georgian village, it would just be another opportunity to sit down and make toasts to Families, to Ancestors, and to God. After all, a guest is a guest here, you have to hand it to them.

Big Shalva said, ‘everything bad comes from America. Look at Georgia two hundred years ago, we lived such a clean lifestyle. The women and men lived separately, the women wore bonnets, the men worked hard, and we had strong leaders….” It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I pointed out that two hundred years ago, America had been fairly similar. Georgia is not in a bubble anymore, and ‘everything bad’ does not come from America.

But this is part of a larger naivete that I encounter all the time in Georgia, and which I rarely attempt to address unless forced into it, like with the Vardzia monks.

An almost daily question in Tbilisi: “which is better, Georgia or America?” is my least favorite of the more annoying questions. Who can compare them, and what does the answer matter anyway? What is America to you, what is Georgia to you, and how could that ever compare with what they are to me? The answer is pointless, so depending on my mood, I answer it in the most sarcastic way possible. “France is better than both because the girls are prettier.” But this is a country short on sarcasm, a quality it holds over Britain and America, so my quips aren’t even understood and I usually just shrug and smile.

One shocking cultural point was that Americans over eighteen generally move out of their homes.

“Who takes care of the food, the house cleaning…?” They do it themselves, I respond.
“Who pays for everything?” Sometimes if the parents have money, they help their children with college, and with food and apartment costs, I say. But many times, young people work full time jobs to pay for everything that they need.
“When the grandparents get really old, who takes care of them?” Some of them move in with their children, but most move to homes where other old people live, I explain. They had seen those in the movies and exclaimed how terrible the old people homes must be. I agreed.

I point out the major cultural difference between Georgia and America; in America we’re raised to be individuals, to value freedom of choice, and to strive to move far away from our families and do something independent and self-chosen (again I make the disclaimer that I’m only talking from my own cultural background, and that there are of course many exceptions). In Georgia, young people are trained to be loyal to family and tradition, and to find their life path, success, and respect in the normal routes.

“You purposefully move away from your family?” Yes, but only because I was raised to follow my own individual path. This is why I have been able to move to Georgia, learn your language, and your music, and convert to Orthodoxy. A big discussion follows this comment, and I can’t follow what they’re talking about.

We talked about the supra then, they wanted to know if Americans have toasts, and hospitality like we do in Georgia. I say no, this is one area where Georgian culture is far advanced over American. Of course I have to say this, but I actually personally believe this to be true. I point out that my favorite part of the supra tradition is the appreciation for certain subjects such as the Ancestors. I mention that in America, my family rarely thinks of our ancestors.

This is incomprehensible, and my attempt at an explanation, - that many people came as religious immigrants to America and severed their ties to their former lives, or didn’t have the means to communicate across oceans, - is not communicable. The stereotype of America as a young country without history or culture is reinforced, and I have failed on this point. Damn!

“But where are your ancestors from?” I know this question, so I know that it is appropriate to say Scotland, and that this choice of ancestral land is superior over the little known Sweden. Scotland is known for hordes of highland warriors charging against innumerable odds in a battle to save their homeland, a theme very close to the Georgian male psyche. I have to regretfully say that I don’t know any of my current Scottish ancestors, and I usually receive a lot of sympathy for this fact, and a healthy toast to Scotland to make me feel better for this loss.

“So what don’t you like about Georgia?” I’ve started to get this question more frequently and usually don’t answer it honestly since the person asking the question doesn’t want an honest answer. When I do answer it, I know better than to critique their own heavily critiqued government, or roads, or bad work habits… all these things Georgians may critique but a foreigner may not critique. Rather, I apply my opportunity for activism on an unknown subject in Georgia: ecological conservation.

“I don’t like that people throw garbage on the ground, and in the rivers,” I said. I can’t change the patriarchal gender relationships, which often make me uncomfortable, or the widespread and stubborn prejudice against all racial minorities in Georgia, not to mention the political blundering, but maybe I have a chance on this brand new topic. It’s safe because it doesn’t point the finger at anyone in particular, and since no one takes responsibility for their own garbage anyway, no one can feel like I’m trying to blame them for a comment like this. The problem is psychological, but also municipal: there are very few trashcans, and any kind of trash service that occurs is a mystery to me. Where does the trash go? I don’t know.

While hiking to and from the Tsunda church, we had to cross a small river. Along the banks were little shacks, and when one of our guys ran to go to the bathroom in one, I couldn’t believe that the pipe emptied directly into the stream. I said as much to my friend Grigol. He said, ‘sure it goes right into the stream, but soon it is very clean, no problem,’ he said, pointing just downstream. I looked less than convinced, and after thirty paces or so, I said, ‘is this where it is clean? Would you drink the water out of the stream at this point?’

“How much to fly to America?” $1000, I reply.
“So $500 each way?” Nope, $800 one way, or $1000 two-way, I say. Hard to explain that one, I’ve never really understood it myself. Why force people to return on your jet? Let the market drive travel destinations. One-way tickets all around, whoever has the best deal gets my dollar.

It’s been an evening of charades, my Georgian is improving but I could barely communicate half of this stuff. Nevertheless, interesting, because I’ve been forced to evaluate America from the perspective of people who are very, very far from an American mentality. They’ve sat and hung on every butchered sentence I’ve uttered, trying to understand. And each one of them asking the next question at the same time, until seeing the crazy look in my eyes, one of them would tell the others to shut up and start over with one question at a time. They are so curious.

At the end of the evening, Gabriel and Melitoni had gone to bed, and only Big Shalva was still up with me. He was still talking about the great kings of Georgia, and the great past events… I kept saying, yes what wonderful history, and that was the time when the chants were composed. But I would add, whether fortunately or unfortunately, the world has changed, and many new things will come to Georgia, some good some bad.

“I don’t like the New World, the New Times,” said Shalva. “I like the Old Times. It was a cleaner way of life then, an honest, and valiant time, when men had fear of God, and life was simple and beautiful.”

It is very difficult to respond to this kind of idealization, especially to a man who is virtually living a medieval lifestyle. I tend to be an idealist myself, hence most of the idealistic writing in this Georgia journal.

“How about electricity, that’s not so bad is it?” I say innocently. He agrees.

“How about cars?” Here Shalva does not agree. “People went by horse before, or be foot. We have two feet to walk with don’t we?”

“Cell phones?” He scoffs at this too. In old times, guests were always expected, therefore one just took one’s very important message, walked or rode to one’s destination, and stayed for a week or two as a guest!

“Still, whether we like it or not, the New Times are here, and they will be around us,” I say. “We have the biggest choice of all now; what do we choose to use and what do we choose to discard of these New Times? We can choose to use electricity because it helps us cook and light, and cell phones so that we know when we have to sing services or travel to Tbilisi, even cars so that we can get to Tbilisi…. But we don’t have to choose all of the negative elements of the New Times” (I’m thinking advertising, and mass corporate consumerism, which is already blossoming in downtown Tbilisi).

But I realize that I have been raised to make this choice. I have grown up in the very culture that is the foremost proponent of mass consumerism, and by being an insider, it is easy for me to see the difference between good and bad. Well, still not so easy.

But then I think, Shalva doesn’t even think like me at all. He doesn’t care about advertising or consumerism, that is not really an evil in the way that I think about it. He is thinking about piousness, sexual morality, duty, faith, fear of God…. His debate is not about the corruptions of capitalism, but about the roots of evils which are used by capitalism. To buy or sell, that is society. But to buy or sell sex, that is sin. Even the images, even the thoughts of sex that one sees on television or in advertisements for totally unrelated products.

Like on the Anchiskhati Tour, I couldn’t believe how much shopping the guys wanted to do. I said, I came to Georgia to sing medieval chant and get away from consumerism, and you guys are the experts on Georgian chant and you come to America and all you want to do is shop! I can’t believe it! It’s such a paradox I’m going blind!

But they haven’t grown up trained to resist shopping, to them, it’s another innocent and necessary act of life. Why shouldn’t one enjoy it? After all, it’s fun and exciting. Medieval chant is an amazing tradition, but we have chant in Georgia all the time, and we most certainly do not have Walmart. Just look, I can choose between ten different styles of shoes for my twelve year old daughter, and all of them will fit, and all of them are good quality (relatively), and all of them are half the price I could get them for in Georgia. And I have money! What could be possibly more important than choosing the right pair of shoes for my daughter right now?

And they’re right. What could be possibly more important? I had to shelve my own self-righteous wall of consumerist loathing, which I use to prevent myself from enjoying shopping, and patiently go to every Walmart on the eastern seaboard. But this is another story. The only point here is that I come from a culture of building defenses to modern consumerism that most Georgians do not have. Therefore, most of the people with money here go way over the top, and those who don’t understand the ‘New Times’ at all, like Shalva, simply want to dismiss the entire modern era with a distasteful shrug.

And maybe he should, because in this life we have choices. We have the choice about what we will believe, and how we will live as a result of those beliefs. The world is full of paradoxes. Do we accept one because it is more mainstream, more accepted, more scientific? Doesn’t everyone, on some fundamental level, choose how they will put their next foot forward? Maybe not, but I’m not going to be the one to tell someone they are blinding themselves to ‘reality’ if they seem to be content and enjoying their lifestyle. That is not my mission. In an Orthodox worldview, ‘reality’ is the afterlife. This world is just the staging ground, and for those who commit to being monks, they are committing themselves to preparing for the next life, and meanwhile praying for the souls of the rest of us.

Would I rather have Shalva as a careful ‘shopper’ in the forthcoming consumer blitz on Georgia, or would I rather have him firm in his worldview, praying for my soul? I say, there are enough consumers, and not enough interested and dedicated monks.

I see immediately this is a debatable point. Maybe I’ll write my next entry arguing the other side. Does fanaticism come out of ignorance? Or would it be more appropriate to say war comes out of ignorance? Couldn’t one argue that people that are so invested in their worldview so as not to understand other people’s worldviews, perhaps the mainstream worldview, could be dangerous to society? Well, in the ‘information age,’ we don’t seem to have any lack of fanatics or war, so I don’t think the beginning of that theory works.

In my opinion, monks like Shalva, who are devout, serious, and at the same time curious, are an absolute asset to society.