Sunday, October 23, 2005




It means "God Bless You" in Hungarian. In a million years, I would've never guessed that I would know how to say anything in Hungarian, but life has its surprises. The original Unitarians were in Transylvania (now part of Romania) and there are still thriving communities there. Our North American (and British) congregations have partnerships with churches there. In Nyomat, a small village nestled in a beautiful valley, the bells are rung by hand each Sunday at the old (I mean really old--almost 800 years) church to summon the villagers to the Unitarian services. Right now, it's almost 4 AM there--soon the farmers will get up, the carts will roll through the dirt roads, the roosters will announce that another day has arrived. It's a world there in that tiny village, a whole world away. Each time the members of the congregation meet, they pass the greeting: Isten aldjon! God Bless You.