Perseverance
September 26th
As every year for the last 5 years about this time of the year, I traveled to Augustów today (more on that tomorrow). I took a long way back home, going on local roads and taking my time and stopping here and there to see the sights. And I found this old church in a tiny village of Kamienna Stara, it was marked as a landmark, so obviously I stopped to explore it. That church is the oldest preserved wooden structure in the whole Podlasie Province, it was built in 1610. It is beyond belief that a wooden church, in a small village in Poland, had survived for more than 400 years in one piece. I mean — wooden buildings have a tendency to burn down, or can be destroyed by other natural disasters — high winds, heavy snow, floods (and there is a river just beyond the embankment on which the church stands). There were numerous wars that swept armies through this area in those 400 years, and invaders usually destroy whatever they can. And yet, it still stands there where it was built, it is still in use — every Sunday at 9 am there is a mass there, according to a bulletin board by the stone wall surrounding that church.
It is also used as a kind of community center for this village — there are wooden benches outside by the stone wall and modern belfry, with a small stage for performing (there might be a church choir or a local folklore singing group there).
There was something else that caught my eye — there are about ten huge trees in a semicircle around the church. As I was able to discover, those are poplars. My skills to recognize trees by leaves or trunk shape are rather good, but I have never seen poplars that size and height, and I had to make sure by googling it. It seems those trees were planted at the same time as the church was built and grew there undisturbed into massive and extremely impressive specimens. Their trunks by the ground are very thick and gnarly, there are major broken boughs here and there, but those poplars thrive — still all the branches are full of green leaves, there are small seeds everywhere on the ground. Amazing that a grove of poplars survived together with each other and the church in a place in a country that suffered so much violent destruction. I am sure that local people over those centuries cared for this place as much as they could, but it is still nothing short of mind-blowing that this is the place that survives as a witness to four centuries of history and memory.
Something about this place and all the memories and happiness and pain of all the people who lived in this area, that is preserved within its walls and grounds made me feel very calm, very withdrawn into myself. I didn’t even turn on the radio in my car on the way back home. We are very insignificant on the cosmic scale of things, but on the other hand, every one of those huge trees was once a tiny seed. With proper nutrition, with a well found and cared for place, and some luck, they grew and persevered for more than 400 years. That fills me with quiet contentment and happiness.
