We celebrate the anniversary of our host’s marriage in the Orthodox Church. By all rights, not the “real” anniversary date since people in the Soviet Union were almost all married civilly, outside the church and then after the fall of communism came back to have their union blessed by a proper church sacrament. You wouldn’t know that this was just their second wedding anniversary from the celebration and the songs that accompanied it. The old-timers really hammed it up in a big way.

I begin to see why their children love singing and folk music so much. The fruit does not fall far from the tree as the saying goes.

Oh, the life and stories in these beautiful songs, mostly from the Lake Baikal region where almost everyone in the family hails originally. As Rich Mullins would say, “Stories like that make a boy grow bold; stories like that make a man walk straight.”

Glory to God for such songs to deepen our sense of human personhood and family history. May they grow enough to diminish the noise of commercials and consumerist culture.