What is really worth treasuring in the Balkans

 in draft 

The rich tapestry of grace in the centre of war-torn Europe

 It's impossible to convey the depth and width of destructive forces that even until recently have threatened our old homeland. 

Even harder to convince you, the reader of the little glimpses of great love and grace that still exist here.  




I haven't got time now to do our 3 weeks in Germany and Poland justice.  Just in last few days in Berlin we have seen how even the recent imprisonment of peoples in East Germany has forced Chris and I to see that war and indifference to human need can happen again. 
Only this morning at church we were reminded of the very serious restrictions on people in Belarus and how the conditions of the early Christain's ( Text for today is 1 Peter 1 :3-9) were similar for the children of a priest who lost his life recently for speaking out there.    Some pastors we talked to had to have their sermons vetted up until a few years ago. 
Clearly, as in the days of Hitler and the Stasi , many people even now don't see the pressure that those who speak up suffer. Complacency is still the conduit to tyranny. 
Pray for our communities because it can all still happen again . 
Sorry i have no energy to go any further tonight . 
 

Why would any of us have anything to do with religion ?

 
What have I to do with religion? Why have anything to do with it ?

These are deep and abiding questions that no one should ever ignore

IMO it's only by taking the deeply offensive elements of religion that we can see what killed Jesus and what still kills His spirit in men today.
What you see and hear may look OK  or not ; we are called to listen and look more carefully . 

Colin in the pulpit in Modra's church in Werben. Above his level there was the Lord of the Manor . Modra's served under him from 1600's till 1854 when both were kicked off their land .


The real subtly of celebrating Easter well is often well beyond us.  

All religion seems to do for most Westerners is create division between people; Most well educated westerners want nothing to do with it and for some good reasons.  

Worse than all that, with its outward nonsense, our religion seems to, even in my own being, naturally push to the surface the arrogance we all seem to have about our own opinion.

IMHO We should all see it clearly how our religion can " inspire " us to be far too comfortable and confident in projecting solutions to other people's problems. 

This arrogance and ignorance can be just like those who worship political parties. The fact is religion can be far worse that politics because it gives that boost of confidence and power that raw power assertion cannot ever do.
We travelling bunch of hot air enthusiasms have seen it in our months of exploring castles and cathedrals - which, do YOU think has more power, and does any of it have any sustaining power? 

The answer to that question is very clear - religion has more power with people but it's by no means a power used for good . Our Castles ( both real and in our minds ) fall down but our places of worship remain.    Religious tyranny is more subtle and therefore more dangerous and well disguised .

Even the non Christians, like those at ARC conference and the leader , Jordan Peterson can see that.

The difference that cynical westerners need to face from PETERSONS TESTIMONY to the world ( which is largely what spawned ARC )  is that by following the science of psychological and practical psychiatrically, as Jordan clearly does, is that science says we all have a religion of sorts, According to the science of the mind in action,  we all have our own religious demons to sort. 

Within all the corruption and potential for corruption in these huge dead buildings. there is the tiny openings of real light and life along the way. 

You can see a very very faint glimmer sometimes is the church noticeboard, but there is nothing like sitting in the pew on a Sunday and giving a gathering a chew test; see if anything these people do makes any sense, let alone supernatural sense. I leave that with you to do. 

All I can say from turning up each week in England is that the witness of these small gatherings is sound. Whenever 2 or 3 are truly gathered in His name, Jesus is there amongst us. Unworthy still as we are .

All I can say after a week in the bus is that the evidence for the supernatural is often missing amongst us; we are all very human and not uncommonly like children  ,
If  any  supernatural shows up ,it shows up briefly  in a moment , not of prayer , but in tiny moments of true sharing when we sometimes are given that grace to forgive each other; I am  myself,, as I have found on the trip, a most difficult person : until perhaps, as my father used to say of me ' good only when asleep ".   

And while I would be last to promote a particular political party, for the many who want to have nothing to do with religion, at least political parties update their preaching and content. The subtlety of that is deep-- too deep for now. 

There is so much to hate about religion when it gets out of hand,and it does it so easily and still does so daily. 

this stark reality is so real here in Germany where we are here at Easter to celebrate a man dying on a cross. The buildings make look magnificent but the atmosphere around these places sometimes stinks.  

8- 9% of a Germans salary is taken directly by the employer to support a tradition increasing numbers of its citizens are finding offensive. I find some aspects of that compulsion highly offensive because Jesus never forced anyone to turnup or pay up for anything. This compulsory imposition of an institution on its people ( the State Church) is what drove many of our antecedents to leave.

The rule of the State run church was one reason many of my antecedents left; The dead, rule only from the top, form of religion offended them deeply then and there are elements that still offends me today.

  My forebears and I only want to celebrate the freedom of the heart set free. 

The faith of many of my forebears was so precious and different from that preached by the State run church that they sought much, much better land where mind freedom to believe what you wanted was the top priority, just as it was for Jesus. 


This respect for a man's mind freedom didn't stop the man Jesus from changing peoples minds, but i am not Jesus and maybe a little less attempting to change others minds would be welcome from me? I have to say I see that that truth is being driven home to me on this trip . If we want people to know what motivates us to seek attention, maybe we have to wait more and listen more. This is the substance focus of Lent; listening and waiting on God .         

So what are we religious types doing here in Germany then ? 

This bus load of God botherers, like those who abandoned the stifling oppression of a State run church, like the one that killed Jesus  150 years ago, still do things with mixed motives. Not one of us is perfect. Somehow by facing the later we can share the power of forgiveness that is the best way to celebrate Easter.    

One thing I can say though about us as a group is that we do have moments when we share the joy that comes from seeing our faith in Jesus a very simple way. We do pray, we do sing and we do encourage each other in a good old Aussie way to try and humble each other ; the rest of the group give me heaps. I can't be objective about why that is cause it's blatantly obvious, whether I know things or not, that I want to tell them I do. Nothing new? 

I have to say that I have learned the hard way in these weeks because there are so many insistent voices on the bus that mine should be more quiet . I have learned to love those like our bus drivers and my wife ,and our leaders,who try to keep quiet and smooth the path to pleasant conversation. When we are quiet and precise ( in addressing need ) we are at our best.  We try and apparently, I am one of the most trying.  

And yes we are just like children in some ways ; noisy insistent and wanting attention. God still loves us isn't that amazing!   

More photos later .

Natural building blocks -- Fences

 Our long trip through the British Isles this month has reawakened my longstanding interest in natural fences and building the site specific and the  sustainable. The best fences our forebears built weren't made out of the best shaped rocks, but the best available materials--- let's keep following their lead , 

And the BI's have a long history of building them and making them work efficiently and sustainably. 
And they were smart enough to not bother building them when there was more surface rock than soil ( Like uncivilized Wales and Scotland)   

Excusing any implied racism , let's just say the flatter earthmen were more sensibly engaged than the Lords of rocks, mountains and hunting because they needed food to grow, store sell  and had no deer to chase (much) 

I was giving these old Islanders heaps because where I was brought up, we have a thing called sand and it's beautiful. We Aussies have coastlines full of it and heaps of history of our Creator grinding and tilting it up, so there would be some even after sea level rise, climate change and glacial events.
Sand can be used to build great fences, but you have to have some handy.

With Australia's backbone in Granitic type igneous we have an arenaceous culture, while the poor old Brits are stuck with largely an argillaceous one .
I could go on --to a study of how they are stuck in the mud sorts but then we Aussies have our disaster prone duplex soils.  whose fine sandy  component is both a blessing and a curse .    

When you see these old sailors trying to sit comfortably on gravel ,its no wonder all the Brits still love Dee Why and Home and Away.
Perhaps YOU know of some great quartz beaches there - I struggled to find even just a few , 


Anyway  I won't have time to finish this today except to say that it was a great surprise to discover both Granitic and Glacial at Gatehouse yesterday.
What perfect pieces these various sized rock pieces were (with their flattish fractures) for fencing . Plenty of gaps for their beautiful wrens.

Let's work with nature not as some of the newbies to conservation ( I call them Echoists) do and we who insist we just worship nature as it is. l, Let's not join those cynics who cancel those whose work with nature is imperfect. Lets understand it so we understand and build on its symbiotic nature . Nature is our sister not our mother ( GK Chesterton ) 

Notice Jeremy Clarkson, how you can use conventional posts (sloping at an angle ) on either side of a fence to limit the access of deer, adventurous sheep and kangaroos ( not that they have them here) from forgetting the comfortable territorial imperative that husbandry under the Lordship of the Manor implies.

To be continued 

Playing Lord of the Manor

You have no idea of the joy we had by, not only staying at the Manor (admittedly just an old converted barn) but also meeting the Laird himself. 

They say truth is always stranger than fiction ....and it's true; The owner was so open, warm, friendly and full of character, but that was just being himself.  He was quite happy to share his challenges with us, and would with you ,  if you were prepared to pay the exorbitant cost of his accommodation; not really!

We got what we paid for,  including a soft deep valley bed ( One that brings you together even though you were fighting late in the day over who was the worst driver or navigator in the world) complete with cloud nine doona covers (20 cm deep )  tennis courts, automatic entry doors and hire of the rackets. 

Such a kind man in so many ways, he inspired me powerfully in that fond hope I had coming here to Europe to PERHAPS to see ;

Lords put into a nicer light than they often are by our own house of new lords -the half baked Marxist media representing the downtrodden disadvantaged Aussie wingers.  (see later posts where it seems to be true of others through history) 

This Laird reminded me that my reticence about Lairds and the rich landowner was far too prejudiced.
Don't feel too jealous; our time ran out very quickly but we did see deer and pheasants on the property as we drove around.  

Lords don't all come out of a box and this old bachelor ( until recently; he now has a lovely wife and baby daughter) was part of Neuvo rich set that love to take residence and squat on the lovely old mansion estates. As he said "The Old money" can no longer afford to maintain their grand designs - let alone keep warm in them. 
I too now,  find myself amongst "The pretenders  

Not only did our host make us feel very welcome with wine and chocolates, but he offered to do our washing ( We had already been in the country a week)
We were both so surprised at this , that when he offered to sort colored's from non-colored's we thought
" save this God send of a man more work ", that we agreed " don't worry "and he didn't.

Chris then was really shocked when the huge pile came back looking decidedly dirty.( my white singlets were grey). 
We had forgotten that I had bought two new black shirts and trousers from Rivers that leached a whole lot of black into everything.
Chris was quite shocked that she now had black laced underwear, but I was quite pleased.


The early morning frost was wonderful to walk in with many birds busy twittering away, 

Can't tell you all about this clever inventor, but in me talking about the recent obscene death duty taxes to be put on farms here and in Australia, he mentioned that he had just paid over $100000 dollars is this years land tax.
To be fair, this humble but rich bloke owns a lot of land.
These really desperate political moves by ignorant leaders was a big talking point with many people over here,

Farmers always have to own a huge capital asset, What poorly educated dependants  who get fed by them  do not know is never in the history of time do family farms earn more than 4% on their capital ; If that often hard sought capital base is threatened,   so is the incentive to keep the farm; and so completely .Victoria and Australia  abandoned death duties soon after my farming father died and my mother had to pay the huge tax. The British PM is threatening at tax of 20% on the capital value of farms as is our Victorian Premier.
 




We are going to The Spreewald in Germany later next month to see whether the German Lord of the Manor was a terror to my serf ancestors ,  Modras spent at least 250 years with a Lord family who were in 1850s called Schoenfeldts.  

Brutalist county

The Welsh aren't mad, but their county is really severe and brutal, so they have every reason to be so.
 No sensible person ever wanted to go there. It's brutal enough in its rock hard base to knock sense into any softy silly enough to try to make a living there on the land.

There isn't really enough soil there to attract farmers and the largely Cambrian and old Ordovician rocks resist even steel-edged tools, roadmaking and house building, just for starters. Thats generalizing a bit ,but its not easy land to farm. 

And when the rocks do finally weather, they turn to mud and silt, making the prospect of a sandy loam soil or asandy beach here, where finally landed in DA, a really rare thing. More on that elsewhere. 



Nothing is made easy for visitors even now, with town names you can't possibly say, let alone remember. Our normal fights over where we are going would have turned into absolute get out of the car standoffs except there is no space to get off the road. Be thankful you are travelling with us, but not in the car with us.  

The brutes of old loved to build fortresses with these hard rocks but, as always, the labor dried up.

Clearly too, there is a whole new language barrier with TV stations and dramas that speak only that language. This is all on an island about the size of Victoria ,whose formerly warring tribes have supposedly been united for at least a thousand years.  Mind you, their news on Europe is much more diverse and comprehensive than the monoculture of the Aussie ABC version.
A lot to be said for home grown diversity.




Something has to be said for true diversity in thought and practice, Distictively different aspects of Welsh culture is a good part of meeting some of the people such as we did in a tightly conformed old coal mining villages in the bottom of a valley, 

This Wild county to the West was such a no go land through history that it wasn't studied for the Doomsday book ( which we found a copy at the Oxfam shop ) , The British people just would not go there; Anyone with any sense has thought of emigrating to Australia where they have real beach sand and a climate to have a holiday from its relentless dark. Mind you they could all be moving back up here, now that climate change has taken over??
We visited the site of "the worst disaster in history" (as a youth in town described it) -where 114 school children died as a result of a preventable landslide in deep valley country like that shown diagrammatically. More here.  

Here's the rub -- the locals we met there were wonderful.  This was in great contrast to living in manor house toffee territory; we were treated to gifts and a concert where the men sang and the women in the audience, and me, joined in the celebration of St David's day with community singing. Got to know 3 people quite well,  one who used to run the wonderful "Angel " Hotel and one young illustrator artist and a local policeman.  
And while it was hard work climbing up and down the normal stairs of a normal workers house ( shown ) we got to experience a vision of a miner's kids old school yard ( in front of us and facing south) where the kids would grow vegetables in that narrow gap between hill, house road and boulder stream,  

The people at church wore yellow flowers and the letter post boxes were covered with "toppers ", yes the natural colors were dull, but the locals were celebrating. The daffodils ,and a few lambs were appearing .  

And would you believe it, In a place where brutal is normal , we found out what might be a Welsh  connection .
The Modra name can end in "i" in Germany ( Modri) and just about every name in Wales has too many y's and d's in it . 
Sorry folks, but we were afraid to approach these Modrydd's ,The genuine farmers on this farm near Becon are clearly the dangerous types, as you see by the way they pruned their trees.

  

Echoes of Home

 in draft