There are many mentalities, but they are all one in God

I travel a great deal and wherever I go, I study the Christian life as it is. I see things that different people share, and, of course, I see the differences too. And while the shared values still need some figuring out, the differences are often striking - unmistakable and inescapable, sticking out a mile.

One day I had to drive 130 miles for a work visit with a colleague of mine - he is American. I was supposed to get him some papers and it was important that I go in person. So I ended up behind the wheel for half a day, what with Russian winter and Russian roads. When I finally reached my destination I felt like a weary traveler, and, quite frankly, expected to warm up by the friendly hearth. After all, even someone of a distant acquaintance could claim my own hospitality after having made the trip I just made. But I was disappointed. My attempts to start a friendly conversation were left hanging in the air. Our business was settled very quickly, but the coldness of my reception was such that I didn’t dare to ask for a cup of tea - something that you can get in any Russian house in winter even if they barely know you. In the end there was nothing left for me except to say goodbye and head back to the cold outside. 

Another time I watched two neighbors’ friendly conversation in the vast plains of Tuva. They were standing fifty feet from each other and shouting at the top of their voices. Just standing there with no fence between them or anything. But they preferred shouting from afar rather than come closer and talk. Because that’s how they do it in the steppe - where there is a lot of space around, everyone gets a big piece of it. No need to crowd each other without a good reason.

Once in Africa I was invited to dine with a bishop. If you have read the classics, then you probably imagine what should arise in the imagination of a Russian when he gets such an invitation. In our cookbooks you can even find an old recipe called “bishop’s ukha” - an extraordinary kind of fish soup. First, chicken broth was cooked, then the best portions of sterlet, potatoes and, in order not to drown out the aroma and taste of fish, a little spices were put into it. And then sometimes a few lemon slices and a little wine were added to this brew, to make the taste even richer. But in the African jungle, everything turned out to be much simpler: pea puree with spices, sour dough bread and beer. And, you know, it was really good too.

One day I came to visit a Russian monk in the woods near Yaroslavl. He is restoring an old church, which was once part of a monastery destroyed by the bolsheviks a hundred years ago. It is hidden in the deepest part of the forest, where you drive along a narrow and twisted path among the trees. Then suddenly the thicket ends and you see a beautiful ancient church standing on the meadow. The old monk lives there alone, also a couple of workers, and on Sundays a visitor or two come to talk with him and to pray in the church. God only knows how they survive there, in the wilderness. But whenever you come, they will always have a cup of tea for you, and some jam to put in it. They meet everyone with love and a kind word. And such is the magic of that kindness, that, when you come there, you do not want to leave, as if you’ve found a long lost family, or a friend that has been waiting for you.

So I’ve been thinking long about my encounters with different people. It’s easy to hold the American’s cold shoulder against them, or to be perplexed by the Ethiopians’ meal, or puzzled by the Tuvan’s greeting. But we shouldn’t be. Because other people aren’t weird, just different. We are all very different and the jokes about the difference of mentalities are not jokes at all, anyway. But we do have something in common. We share something that’s far more important than our differences. It is our faith in God, and true Christian love. We all have it, even though we don’t always see it in others. But we should try to see it as best we can.

After all, the things that divide us, we almost always build them ourselves. We set up borders and checkpoints to keep others out, and wrote a lot of words to justify it all. But God has it simple – there are no Gentile or Jew, no barbarian, no Scythian, no American, no Russian. We are all God’s chosen people, at least that's what the apostolic epistle says. (Colossians 3:10-12) So we should bear with our differences and forgive one another. We just need a way to always remember that.