Four Tastes

Centuries ago a Jewish man named Matthew lived in Israel and worked for the Roman government.  He was a friend of Jesus’ and wrote a book about him.  In the book he quoted Jesus when he told his students, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Rock Salt

 A lot of people over the years have discussed, written about, and preached on exactly what Jesus meant by “the salt of the earth.”  This morning I was thinking about what he was not talking about.  After all, we have 3 other taste receptors in our mouth apart from just saltiness.

The world is full of bitterness.  People have plenty to be angry about, and in a world full of social media outlets that bitterness can spread quickly and easily.  We are not to be the bitterness of the world.

There is plenty in this world to sour our tastes.  We see injustices on a daily basis, but we are not to be a part of them.  We see cheating, dishonesty, and corruption.  These things sour the world.  We should not partake in them.

Sweetness may seem like a good thing.  Who would turn down a good piece of cake?  Yet too many sweets rot our teeth and destroy our health.  When evil comes in the world, it does us no good to simply hand out pieces of candy to make ourselves feel better.  Sweets make us feel good, but they do not make us healthy.

Salt preserves.  Salt is necessary for life.   If we are bitter, sour, or artificially sweet, we are not being salt, and “if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  It is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in the United States, and one of my favorites.  America is a secular nation.  We have no national religion.  While this is overwhelmingly a good thing, the one disadvantage of being from a secular nation is the lack of a commonly celebrated day for anything other than nationalistic pride.

In contrast, the country where I currently live, Bulgaria, does have national and religious holidays.  For example, Alphabet Day is a day of great pride when Bulgarians celebrate the Greek missionary brothers Cyril and Methodius who invented the Cyrillic alphabet as a means of bringing the Bible to the people who lived in what is now Bulgaria.  The Cyrillic alphabet has since spread across the world through Ukraine, Russia, and as far as Mongolia.  The Alphabet is a big source of national and spiritual pride for Bulgarians.

Yet America has no such holiday because, unlike Bulgaria where there is an overwhelming Orthodox majority, the United States is made up of countless spiritual and religious beliefs.  This is why I love Thanksgiving so much.  It is the closest thing America has to a universally celebrated spiritual holiday.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 in Plymouth by two groups of people.  There were the Pilgrims who were Puritan Christians.  They arrived in Plymouth on December 16, 1620, and they did not fare very well.  During the first months 2 or 3 of them would die every day, and only 52 of the original 102 passengers on their ship, the Mayflower, survived their first year in America.

That number would probably have been much lower had it not been for the Wampanoag people who lived in the area.  After a few months living in Plymouth, the Wampanoag and Pilgrims signed a treaty of mutual protection and entered into a friendship.  One Wampanoag in particular, Squanto, took it upon himself to help the Pilgrims learn how to work the land.  In November of 1621, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag feasted together as friends in thankfulness.

Two peoples, with different religious and cultural convictions came together in gratitude.  The Pilgrims would have been thankful to God, while the Wampanoag as animists would likely have been thankful to Mother Earth.  Yet they celebrated together in peace and with gratitude.

Centuries later, the tradition continues.  Ethnic background, and religion do not matter.  We are all Americans.  We might thank different spiritual forces (or none at all if we are atheists), but we are all thankful.

This is why I love America.  We share different beliefs and hold different values, but at the end of the day we all sit down together in gratitude.  We are all Americans.  E pluribus unum.  Out of many, one.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Faces on Money--20 Leva

The 20 Leva bill is quite possibly the most common bank note in Bulgaria.  If you go to an ATM to get some cash, you will probably receive these blue notes from the machine.  On the front of the 20 Leva note, you will find a picture of Stefan Stambolov.

As I did a bit of research on Stambolov, it seemed fitting that such a strong willed and controversial politician should end up on the front of the 20 denomination note.  His character made me think a bit about Andrew Jackson who is on the front of the US 20 dollar bill.  Just as America’s first Democratic president is often considered to have been too strong in many of his political decisions (most notably in his cruel treatment of the Cherokee people), so Stambolov is considered by some to be what Encyclopedia Britannica called a “despotic prime minister.”

However, while Jackson’s motives seem to be racial in nature, Stambolov’s motives could legitimately be seen as nationalistic.  Though perhaps a rough leader, it is hard to argue that he was anything but pro-Bulgarian.

Stambolov was born in the city of Turnovo, and very early on he joined the underground movement against the oppressive Ottoman government.  After Bulgaria gained independence in 1878, he seemed to have growing concerns that Russia was attempting to turn Bulgaria into a Czarist protectorate.

Bulgaria had just spent 500 years under the thumb of a mighty empire.  Stambolov did not want to see it happen again.  Not surprisingly, his political stance was unpopular with Russia, yet Stambolov’s will was strong, and Bulgaria would remain independent under King Ferdinand who Stambolov was instrumental in electing to the throne.

Stambolov served as prime minister for nearly 6 years.  During this time Stambolov took some somewhat extreme measures to keep the pro-Russian forces in Bulgaria at bay as well as keep King Ferdinand in check.

Eventually he was pushed out of office.  Yet despite no longer being in power, his enemies remained.  On July 15, 1895 Stambolov was involved brutal shootout with assassins in Sofia that eventually ended with Stamolov being stabbed in the head with a sword.  He succumbed to his injuries on July 18^th.

A bust of Stambolov with a crack in his head stands in a park in downtown Sofia.  He was a strong willed man at a key time in Bulgarian history.  Like most strong leaders, he had many enemies.  Eventually the enemies succeeded in defeating him, but they did not succeed in stripping Bulgaria of her newly gained independence.

Faces on Money--10 Leva

On the front of the ten Leva bill, we find a picture of Peter Beron.  Peter was a Bulgarian scientist, and from what I have read about him, he was brilliant.

He was born in (or around) 1799 in the town of Kotel, Bulgaria.

Peter studied in Germany and wrote volumes in German, French, English, and Greek.  For those of you keeping score at home, that means he knew at least 5 languages well enough to write scientific papers in them.  Beron obviously had a sharp mind.

His principle work was the seven volume Panepisteme.  This massive work of over 5000 pages was Beron’s attempt to create a universal scientific system that would clarify, without contradictions, everything from origin, nature, laws of movement, and the development of the micro and macro cosmos.

He wrote and delivered a paper in Greece titled “The reasons for and consequences of the world-wide flood.”  He also wrote papers on the earth’s magnetism.

Beron’s scientific knowledge appeared to be vast and widespread.  He also was heavily involved in the world of philosophy, and is considered one of the great Bulgarian minds on the subject.

He was one of the most important personalities of the Bulgarian enlightenment of the 19^th century.

He died on the 21^st of March 1871, yet Bulgarians remember him today and have given him a place of honor on the 10 Leva note.