Blessing of the Machina

Every place has its idiosyncrasies and one of the most outstanding ones here is the practice of the Blessing of the Machina. Machina is the Romanian word for automobile and so there is a blessing especially for cars. At first, I found this uproariously laughable. Note that I have arrived in a very religious land from America, the land where we don't ask your beliefs as it might offend you and so religion is not worn on the sleeve of every American as it is here. One of the first questions anyone asks here is what my religion is. At first I was taken aback and said I prefer to keep that to myself. Then I began to see that in this society, where religion is the only hope there is to look to in the horrific times many of these people have lived through, then it is not such a probing question at all.

When riding the crowded maxitaxis, each time we pass a church everyone on the bus genuflects, sometimes once, sometimes three times, I havenlt quite figured out what the difference is. As there are quite a few of them on the way to school in the morning, it was amusing to watch. The buses are unbelievably crowded, and, yet, they all are busy making the motion. At one place there are two churches and a shrine jammed right next to each other. Imagine 50 people on a bus that says its maximum is 13 plus the driver, all genuflecting at the same time, three times in a row. It is quite a sight.

Life has been very hard on people in this part of Romania and they have not really kept up with the times. There are many who still subsistence farm with horses and hand-made plows. There is even a store here on the outskirts of town where you can buy a carute. A carute is the cart that the horses pull through town. I am told they last anywhere from 50 to 100 years. Can you imagine being able to sustain a retail establishment that sells a product with that long of a lifetime? These are not built to self-destruct two days after the warranty is over. Move over General Motors and Ford!

With this in mind, it is easy to imagine a society that feels the need for their God to look over them and give them even a little assistance on their way through this life. In earlier times, the carts and the horses were all blessed to have a long life as they had not the means to replace them as we do today. It was a bit of added insurance that we if took good care of their tools they would last just that much longer.

And so as this part of Romania moves into the twenty-first century, so has the Romanian Orthodox Church. There is a service specific to blessing cars. As I left the Christmas celebration in the Cantina at school, there was a blessing going on outside that I was able to participate in. Two of the religion teachers at school are priests and they were busy blessing the entire new school car. They blessed the trunk area, all four doors, the engine and the outside of the car. Holy water was flying as not only the car, but the Director and a few of the teachers, including the driver's ed teacher and we who were in attendance were liberally blessed with holy water.

What I had originally thought of as terribly funny, I have come to see as a natural transference of the blessing of the horses to the blessing of the horseless carriage. It is a hope for a prosperous life.