28 years with Macedonia

And on life as a happy warrior

Today is May 25, 2024, and 28 years ago this very day, I first set foot in Macedonia. To recount, briefly: I had been in Croatia on work the previous week, it was a three-day weekend in the US, and I had previously been offered a three-month temporary job living in Macedonia, working out of Skopje and in Pristina.  I had been in contact with a gentleman from the humanitarian outfit Mercy Corps for the year previous, we got along well, and he wanted me to come and work with him.  So, at the end of my Croatia trip I said to myself, “Yes, let’s go to Macedonia and check it out.”

At the end of that three-day weekend in Skopje I decided to take up the offer; I’d have a little three-month adventure in Macedonia and Kosovo and then my plan was to return to Washington, D.C., where I had been living and working for seven years and continue with my life.  Oh, the pride and vanity in that assumption!   

I returned to Macedonia on July 15 for that three-month adventure and that three-month adventure, 28 years later, has been a wonderful, joyful, humbling, revealing, and life-altering blessing.  I am grateful for every moment of it and wouldn’t trade it for anything else.  (That three months turned into seven years, from 1996 to 2003, and then I spent much of the rest of the aughts living in Macedonia as well.  These days I get there about twice a year; I hope to up that number)

My role in Macedonia, as I see it, is a rather simple one: to give encouragement to any and all who need it, because we all need encouragement. I hope I have been able to do this through the years through various activities: writings, our little documentary film, A Name is a Name, created by a talented group of Macedonians and internationals, advocating in different venues and ways, some speeches, podcasts, personal involvements with individuals in ways big and small, and more. And I pray for Macedonia daily, and the many people I know in Macedonia, every week.

A slight diversion, yet relevant: author Jonah Goldberg tells the story of the late Judge Robert Bork sitting together with the late journalist Irving Kristol, both watching the televised hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court in 1991.  At one point, furious of the attacks on Thomas by Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden, and others, Bork got up, turned off the TV and said, “Well, that’s the end of Western civilization.”  Kristol took a long drag on his cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and rejoined, “Well, perhaps yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live well.” I love that story – and despite all the trouble in the world, I intend to live well to the best of my ability and to remain a happy warrior. 

What do I mean by this?  That too, is simple: the world is in deep, terrible trouble, more so than at any other time in history; yes, you may point to WWI and WWII as a time of much more terrible trouble, but I would posit that the trouble of today is much deeper – it is a spiritual trouble which has much greater consequences.  And the progression of the world is not toward the sunny uplands of peace, but of a darker place. 

And yet I choose – deliberately and intentionally – to remain cheerful, to the extent I can, and, more importantly, to be grateful.  And because I chose to be grateful, I am happy because if you are ungrateful, you cannot be happy.  Happiness – contentment – only comes from gratitude. That’s the “happy” half of the “happy warrior.”

Most things I cannot change.  I have no influence on political events in my own country, the United States.  I have a small measure of influence on politics and events in my adopted home of Macedonia which gives me the “warrior” moniker; I pray, I write, I podcast, I encourage.  There are many more things I would like to do, in, with, and for Macedonia and perhaps I will be given that opportunity in future.

This day, however, I wish to reflect on those 28 years in and with Macedonia, and my Macedonian family and friends.  I’m proud of you.  Despite internal discord and despite external pressures; despite sometimes deep divisions; despite the calls of some citizens and many internationals to give up and get on with it; despite wars in neighboring states and a war at home brought to you by a few of your own citizens, aided and abetted by outsiders; despite the predictions of your early demise; despite the put-downs and the shout-downs from some in and outside of Macedonia; despite all the trouble in the world, you, Macedonia, have survived.  And not only survived, but actually thrived.  You may not believe this, but I’ve seen you through nearly three decades and Macedonia is a better place today and Macedonians are better off than on May 25, 1996, when I first stepped onto Macedonian soil.

And that’s not nothing.  In fact, you inspire me, because when many said you would fall apart, disappear, become irrelevant, and go the way of others who have vanished from the face of the earth, you stood your ground. You are tenacious.

Keep up your fighting spirit, though do try to stop fighting among yourselves so often and practice a little forbearance toward each other.  To paraphrase Kipling, keep your head and your wits while all about you, your neighbors and many internationals are losing their heads and blaming it on you.  And pass on your history, your love of Macedonia, your culture and all that you treasure and value to your children, and their children. 

And thank you for allowing me to be a part of your lives.