The San Francisco Swedenborgian Church

(published on Facebook by SF Swedenborgian Church)
no copyright infringement intended

One day I will come with my own story about a Swedenborgian church I once discovered. Give me some time, though.


(Church in America)

Love in Harvard Square

Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The dream place for anyone looking for freedom of spirit. It's in the air there, the liberty of mind, it's so strong you feel like drunk. It's the place where all ideas meet, whatever radical, whatever crazy, whatever different. It's the spirit of Quartier Latin (however, prends garde, it's America).



I'm dreaming at a book not yet written, Love in Harvard Square. Marquez, and Pamuk, and Boell, and Pavic, all together. No, only Marguerite Yourcenar. When I was in Harvard Square for the first time, I met a guy from Montreal, we spoke about Yourcenar.



It was in 1997, my first trip to America. My son and my daughter-in-law were living by that time in Watertown. I went for a walk and took the Mount Auburn Street up. After one hour I was in Harvard Square. Love at first sight.



A very small coffee & tea house was in front of the square. A narrow room, half of it occupied by the counter. A map of the world hanging on the wall. I spent there fine moments. It's no more, out of business.




A guy was selling a Communist tabloid. I started to laugh. I knew too well what Communism meant. The guy was trying to explain to me that the experiment had failed because the bad guys had forgotten the purity of ideas, I was keeping on laughing.



The other day Tibetans were demonstrating in the Square against the Communist government from Beijing. There is a small Tibetan store, beyond the square, close to a tiny bookstore selling Marxist literature. Both of them fighting to remain in business, without success. Business is harsh: America is a free country, however it's America.



Love in Harvard Square. I'm drinking a cup of coffee just beyond the square. A large terrace, this is really Quartier Latin like. The same kind of folks, the same look and feel.



I'm dreaming. My travels, real or imaginary, in geography or in time, in China, or in Turkey, or in search of the lost kingdom of Khazars, or in Macondo, or following the books of Zora, or following Kapuscinski in Africa and in Russia - or in Yugoslavia, together with Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By I Miss It So - Piano Carpini or Marco Polo, or the old Milescu... and Pamuk, and Pavic, and Marquez, and Zora Neale Hurston, and Kapuscinski, the wizard of the narrative (when he was forgetting that he was a journalist). Dreaming at remote places, where I would dream at Harvard Square. Dreaming at books to be read while dreaming at Harvard Square.
The book of Loyd: discovering that nobody remains innocent in a conflict, predators and victims together; discovering in true honesty his vitality only in the morbid attraction to be there, on the field of war; honest to himself up to cynicism; you cannot witness a war without being implied. Philip Caputo in A Rumor of War comes somehow to the same feeling: you cannot be true in blaming the war if you are not there, on the field.
How would it sound a story of Eileen Chang taking place here, in Harvard Square? Lust, Caution placed here in Cambridge? The movie of Ang Lee is two hours long. The story of Eileen Chang is ten pages. Focused on one moment, that's it, everything else thrown in rapid flashes. Ang Lee created a whole universe from a book that had concentrated the whole world in a kernel.

Or Henry Miller and his correspondence with Anaïs Nin?



Jhumpa Lahiri writes about folks living here, not far from Harvard Square, and torn between their lost Indian identity and their new American one. A new book of her comes by the end of this month, a collection of short stories.
Harvard Square, bordered by two book temples: the COOP, the Harvard Book Store. And the antiquarian, close, on a small street. You get down several steps, you find French books, German, Russian. Living in the whole universe there, in Harvard Square...


The Singer sewing machine in a window, and all kind of stuff, old cameras, fishing tools..., close to the Harvard Book Store.
To travel through the Book of Psalms, with Freemantle, dreaming at long journeys in India and Arab countries. The Freemantle edition of the Psalms, illustrated with drawings of extraordinary animals, real or imaginary, with exotic flowers and trees, with images of vivid cities from Thousand and One Nights. Freemantle worked on his edition for thirty years: a love gift for his wife.


And the entrance in the campus of the University, the small wooden house where Washington spent one night. A bit farther, beyond the campus, the museum of glass flowers, the work of a life of two glass workers, crazy botanists. They had lived in Prague, among other dreamers, their work was bought by another crazy lover here in Cambridge. The Science Center, hosting MARK - I, the computer of Howard Aiken, from 1944: its devices along a whole wall.
The Swedenborgian church: well, that's another story. All in due time.

Love in Harvard Square. I'm a crazy dreamer.







(Cambridge)

(A Life in Books)

16th Street and Columbia Heights

(Click here for the Romanian Version)
Italy won the World Championship after a fabulous finale. My heart was for the French team, but here is the beauty of soccer - you never know up to the end.

Only I watched the game in a very weird way - I was on the 16th Street, then on the wooden banks of Rock Creek, I was calling Bucharest from time to time on my cell, to keep me updated with the evolution of the score.

It's a long time I was dreaming to take the 16th Street from start to the end. I did it at last.

I left the metro at the Mc Pherson Square, near the White House.

There is a park behind the White House - the statue of president Andrew Jackson in the middle - the general is dressed in his military uniform and riding his horse. On the corner of the park, four statues: La Fayette, Kosciuszko, Von Steuben, Rochambeau, they came to fight in the Independence War, the four great European heroes of the American War for Independence.

16th Street starts with St. John Episcopal Church, followed by the AFL-CIO building.

Then comes the K Street - with the elegant Capitol Hilton Hotel, a splendid Palazzio. I took place across, at the terrace of a Starbucks - in the NY Times an op-ed by David Brooks: The Liberal Inquisition. It's just what I think, Kossaks attack Lieberman unrigthly - the Connecticut senator is only a balanced man who tries to not convert politics into a fundamentalist religion. Says David Brooks, this isn't a fight between left and right. It's a fight about how politics should be conducted. On the one hand are the true believers — the fundamentalists of both parties who believe that politics should be about party discipline, passion, purity, orthodoxy and clear choices. On the other side are the quasi-independents — the heterodox politicians who distrust ideological purity, who rebel against movement groupthink, who believe in bipartisanship both as a matter of principle and as a practical necessity.

The University Club in Sakharov Place, across the National Geographic Society. I was there some time ago, to see the manuscript of Judas Gospel.
The American Chemical Association, and I am crossing the M Street. On the left the Saint Mathews Catholic Cathedral. The funeral service for president Kennedy was there, in the huge church were together De Gaulle, Mikoyan, the Romanian delegation was led by Gaston Marin. I watched then the service on the Romanian TV.

I was one day visiting - there was a very high class wedding, gentlemen with tuxedos, even tail coats. On the stairs at the entrance there was a bagpiper, with kilt, of course, so I went to him and said teasingly, Hola amigo, he smiled and answered What's up?, I'm fine, I replied, only you buddy seem to have a problem, he started to laugh, he was very young and understood my joke.

The Scott Circle (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Avenues) and the Hahnemann Memorial (SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURENTUR - well, it seems Latin to me), Die milde Macht ist gross, Mild Power Is Large - and I remembered the op-ed written by David Brooks - I don't think Lieberman is wrong with his approaches.

First Baptist Church, Bar Rogue (with lots of kind-of Venus copies in front). The CTIA (The Wireless Association). The Carnegie Institution. The FOUNDRY Church.

P Street with the JCC (Jewish Community Center) - a world premiere here, Picasso's Closet, by Ariel Dorfman. What could we find there, in his closet? The real Picasso, maybe?

The Swedenborgian Church of the Holy City, and the Masonic Temple. The Universalist Church. Follows the City within the City, which starts with the Trinity Religious Temple Church. Wow, it seems here is the Holly Highway!

The 16th Street was now going up toward Columbia Heights. And I find out here a splendid park, I didn't know of it at all, the Meridian Hill Park, with a splendid fountain - the water flows down on stone stairs to a huge pool in front of the Buchanan Memorial. The statue of Dante is nel mezzo del camin.

Crossing the Euclid Street, with the Inter American Mutual Defense Board on one corner. Across is Howard University Meridian Hill Hall, and the Mexican Cultural Centre, with a huge granite in front (reminding me of the Inner Thought carved by Noguchi, in view at the National Gallery)

The Scottish Rite Temple, as massive as the other Masonic one, followed by the Unification Church (the Peace King Center, a non-denominational church, as some youngsters explained to me), and across the Unitarian Church (of All Souls, with a huge poster in front, Save Darfur). I saw yesterday in the Kramer Books, near DuPont Circle Born in Africa, by Philip Caputo. In the end I was too tired to go again there to buy it.

Now the 16tht Street was crossing the Columbia Road. We are in Columbia Heights. Naturally, the National Baptist Memorial Church, and the Meridian Hill Baptist Church across.

The Santuario del Sagrado Corazon, with a statue of cardinal Gibbons in a very small park - and suddenly inside the Hispanic world, full of noise and joy.

The Mount Zion Church, the Church of God, okay, enough with the churches! And when I think it's enough, I see the miracle! The Greek Orthodox Church of Saints Emperors Constantine and Helen. Its superb architecture reminds me of the churches in Egeean islands. I 'd like so much to be there some time! Words of a short prayer are flowing through my mind. Then I remain silent for a while. What universe I belong to? What I am looking for? Do I have a place? Am I to remain a wanderer?

A sign, on the left a Russian Orthodox Cathedral, of Saint John the Baptist.

Then the Orthodox Antiochian Church of Saint George - a very modern architecture. Too bad it's closed.

The Church of the Nazarene, a Japanese Buddhist Temple, and at last, the road to the Carter-Barron open air theatre. I am now within the woods! Calls in Bucharest from my cell, to find out the results form France-Italy. I am descending towards the Rock Creek, there is an asphalt trail and a horse trail, I choose the second, very soon a huge tree lies on the path, it's there from the terrible storms of the last week, I have to go down to the banks of the creek, to step on unstable rocks, but it's fun - finally I arrive at the Pierce Mill - the result of the soccer game is 4-3, the last two goals marked while I am on the cell.

Again in the city, on the Connecticut Avenue, towards the Van Ness-UDC metro station. A car with the Italian flag. That's the beauty of soccer - the ball is round and the chance is changing.

(Washington, District of Columbia)