Wednesday, April 17, 2013

pentru vorbitori



Asta pentru ca mie imi place la nebunie cum vorbesc moldovenii :)

Thursday, April 11, 2013

quote-of-the-day (and thoughts on justice)

Saw this quote in something someone linked on fb (actually it was one of the the things they quoted in the comments, so credit doesn't go to me for finding it, particularly since I didn't even finish the article).

"If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies."
--Russell Brand

Part of the reason I'm posting it is because I remember the morning I found out Osama bin Laden had been killed. It was night for everyone else back home, but morning for me, walking down the sidewalk to the metro and hearing Obama's voice coming from who knows where. I found the television, watched a little, and then went on to my language lesson. Once I got back I saw all the videos of people celebrating, of rejoicing that he was dead.

And the whole thing worked me up so much, bothered me so much I decided to write a blog about it, but took it down a few hours later because I wasn't sure what I was saying was right necessarily. All those questions about what justice really looks like--and that's what they were, mostly. Questions. In particular about whether justice had to be accompanied by some sort of redemption in order to be true justice. I haven't thought about it enough to give any substantial response but the truth is, at the very least, I want that to be true. Am afraid once I go deeper I might discover that--well, what if it isn't? What then?

But I thought the quote was a very succinct way of saying a lot of the things I was thinking that day. I'm sure someone much more careful than I am being could pick it to pieces, would tell me that it's not really so simple as that. That's probably true. But Jesus did say to love your enemies. Of course there's still plenty of room in that for a just God to do justice.

Anyway, lots of thoughts, lots of questions.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

fun language stuff: the turkish/romanian edition

Was heading back to Pitesti yesterday and as I went down into the metro at Unirii I stopped at the covrigarie (pretzel stand) to get a pastry. A covrigarie usually sells pretzels (covrigi--the big doughy kind, not like chips) but generally you can get donuts or other things like that.

Here's the fun part: this particular covrigarie is called Simit's. Now it just so happens that I recently heard a man with a bunch of pretzels on his head in Turkey yelling simit! simit! simit! And it was on the side of the cart of another man selling them and other similar things.

And! Not only is this Turkish word hanging out on a sign in Romania, but it's had English grammar applied to it, not Romanian. It's Simit's, not simitului or simituri, depending on whether you're assuming the 's was actually meant as possessive or just supposed to have been plural.

And this is only the beginning of the overlap. There won't be too much, it won't be mutually intelligible, but there's a good list of cognates going. With my very very minimal knowledge of Turkish, I would like to  humbly add to that list:

cearsaf--carsaf* (sheet)
musafir--misafir (guest)
dulap--dolap (wardrope)
habar--haber (news in Turkish, but in Romanian used more like idea/knowledge)

And I'm sure a whole ton of others. Yep, all kinds of fun :)

*please note that I'm writing both Romanian and Turkish words without the proper letters--feel free to pretend there's a chka on the bottom of more than one s and c.

Monday, April 1, 2013

good news

Was reading the news a few minutes ago and came across an article about another shooting. This time a guy came into a church on Easter Sunday and shot his dad. Sad, but not the sort of thing that surprises anymore.
But the saddest part to me at least was the last line.

No matter the joyous holiday, his actions will never be forgiven. 

Isn't that the point of Easter though? Isn't that exactly the point? That Jesus died so that this guy could be forgiven, so that murderers and thieves and good, religious people could be forgiven. I know exactly what this guy deserves because I deserve it too. But that's the thing, that's the craziness of the Gospel, that Jesus took what we had coming to us so that we might stand before God, no longer declared guilty.

So there is still justice, fully satisfied, and there is still hope. And it is freely given to us.

A few weeks ago I heard a speaker shout at a few teenagers in the crowd that Christ is not for them. And I haven't been able to shake it from my mind because:

The Father's Son died so that even for the son who killed his father there is hope. That's what Christ is for. That's who he's for.

"He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." 1John 2:2

Tell me that isn't good news.