We had spent the morning throwing a back-to-school party at a preschool orphanage in the Northern city of Pleven, the seventh largest city in Bulgaria. There was a little down time in the afternoon, so the missionaries we were with took us to the Pleven "Epopee" or "Panorama " as it is more commonly known. The Panorama celebrates the victory of the joint forces of Bulgaria and Russia over the Ottoman Empire. It was the first large-scale defeat of the Turks, and the turning point in the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish rule. It was a fascinating installation--a gigantic mixed-media mural with bodies and wagon wheels, half-real, half-painted on the wall to give depth of field and perspective. It was truly impressive, except for the fact that it reminded me so much of the Atlanta Cyclorama, a little-known installation beside Zoo Atlanta. Between school field trips and Scout trips, I've probably been to the Cyclorama at least five times. What struck me about the Pleven Panorama is how similar it was to what I grew up seeing in Atlanta--a large mural depicting men in various states of warfare and agony, wagons broken and abandoned, buildings burned, smoke rising through the painted air. (Look for yourself and tell me you don't see some similarities!)
There are, of course, many differences. The architecture of the building is quite different--one looks Romanesque, the other like Boba-Fett's helmet. Perhaps more importantly, the Bulgarian-Turkish battle was over the independence of a nation, the American Civil war was a conflict over states rights, specifically the shameful blight of slavery on the American historic landscape. Weapons and uniforms differed, but not by much. I stood there in that panorama awestruck--not because I hadn't seen such a display before, but precisely because I had. It was like stepping into some parallel universe, wondering if somewhere on the streets of Pleven there was a large hairy doppelganger of myself. (Maybe he was serving a modest church in the Pleven suburbs).
My panoramic epiphany shouldn't have been so shocking. There are certain things that transcend all cultures. Things like war, politics, good people fighting for something with nothing defeating the bad guys who have everything--these things are universal. In church-y speak there's another word for these kinds of things. We say it's "catholic". This word appears at the end of the
Apostles Creed and for one who is tempted to interpret it as meaning "Roman Catholic" there is much confusion when heard in, say a Presbyterian or Methodist church. Merriam-Webster says the word comes from the Greek word
katholikos--a compound of the preposition
kata ("by") and
holos ("whole"). Literally, it means "by whole", as if to suggest something was agreed upon by
everybody.
It seems strange to think anything could be agreed upon by everybody--that anything could be "catholic" as such. Maybe that's why during Christmas we are surprised to hear that
people all over the world are preparing as we are for the Savior to come. We don't all portray this exactly the same way. Peruvian creches feature a clay-red infant, while carved ebony from Cameroon shows a Savior dark as night. However we see him, we see the love that surrounds him, the angels that laud him, the shepherds who adore, the magi who pay tribute. We see in the Christ Child how the hopes and fears of
all the years are met in thee tonight.
Last year I made a video using images from the University of Dayton's
Global Nativity Collection. We played it as the choir sang the old song "Some Children See Him." It's not perfect, but I think it's true to the catholic spirit of Christmas--the one that captivates us all--the one that dares to believe that in the clamor and chaos of all the world,
love has come,
will come,
is coming
anew.
(download)
