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

The deadening dumbness of old things --"In the bleak Midwinter"

One danger of touring is always the deadening dumbness of old things.
There was no deadness in this very old old church at old Kings Sobourne when half the congregation gathered around me to sing the song I brought from Pam and the Chorale Colac for them to sing in its wholesome original context. I had the inspiration to ask the organist to play it and these lovely people all spontaneously gathered around!
The formerly warring Viking King Olf was baptized in this very parish in 1070's.
Oh to celebrate the very best of history in a place of such history, and with the living believers still making history. 

Where we sang was no different from so many churches in the South West. Old and crumbling on the outside but, with most some small group , and some even big groups  ( such at Romsey) keeping it well alive on the inside.

You couldn't even read the writing on the many old gravestones on this church site, next to the village square, but inside they read the old words with the same power they were read every Sunday since it was built in 1080s.

Some of the foundations of the very oldest parts of the church have crumbled ( explaining the non-square window in another photo) The altar altars here bears the most amazing tapestry

Love the Brits . In order to accommodate all the planning rules ( no new toilets outside ) the elders have installed a tiny little new rest room for all comers in one of the old vestries. 

There is so much more to our adventure down here in Hampshire ,
Hopefully I will add some more soon 

Keeping in touch

 We are both finding it hard to keep you posted as we are so busy and moving around ,, so  if you really want to follow us , look up our Facebook Pages .......for the moment.


How's this though for me, the geomorphologist and student of the varied homes we live in and the roads we travel .....to find this old map of the geology of the Southlands. 

In the centre is old London town with the dear Croydon Hills  ( 4 U Monica)  and Mitcham  ( 4U Nevil )with its unique houses and more than enough chalk south of here to fill the earth with cheaper Gaviscon ( which the Irish , God bless them ) do sell here. 

More to come 


 

Decadence

We are living a truly decadent moment. 
New shoes, eyewear, pajamas, mattresses, blankets and lying down to sleep on a plane. 

It certainly seemed so to us when we thought of all the $ we had spent just to put our feet up on the Emirates business class journey across the world. You don't want to know!

And the decadence continued as we ate the absolutely best food and got ourselves washed with hot towels and slept in their lounge pajamas with blankets, mattresses, eye covers and slippers. `The washing and waste volume would have been huge, but what can you do as a conservationist but make sure you try to eat every piece of delectable chocolate and mid coarse meal you are primed with every few hours.
And decadence grows on you. I started to really enjoy it. 

And why not? The West in the rural setting has always celebrated the moment of excess because sometimes the earth produces more than we can eat or sell.
City people miss out on this wonderful moment when excess takes over;
I remember well when my Father (an Orchardist ) would just give away as much as he could because it was valueless once supply exceeded demand. Normal history for our antecedents, but a matter of choice( to give)  for us, the richest generation in history. 

My dad knew how to enjoy the moment of excess for others,  The moments of depravation for himself and us were less obvious but real to "our women"( G K Chesterton) 

These tensions between scarcity and abundance and how to live with them were a given to our forebears. Farmers and even landless serfs like the Modras (for hundreds of years ) who take a whole days rest on compulsory rest day know and learn to love life within its local limits ;
They found life hard  but to know that we all have enough ( and that the Lord of the manor cared in our case ) meant its Ok to enjoy a moment of indulgence and grace; even a moment of depravation. Hard to keep things in perspective though - isn't it, especially now our grandchildren are going to run short of at least one thing; fossil fuels and for all our wealth our governments do the sharing thing ( which is not so much fun ) The farmer where we are staying had to pay out over $100000 dollars in land tax this year and we were his first tenants in one of his barns . +

When my dad had plums, every other farmer had plums, so that wonderful and valuable fruit of his labor , like the watermelons we saw carted to Melbourne from Mildura was left to rot where they finally landed. That good reality is decay and its natural even when we do our best. 
Infact, in the big picture (the place of rest)  our soils and plants need that decay to keep life going,

Composition and Decomposition,

 Unless the seed of the fruit of labor dies, there can be no life. Noone talks of death which means we are not at rest about it and our people worry beyond reason. There is growth and there is decomposition and they are all in a cycle - a good cycle; a sustainable cycle
Our world panics about scarcity partly because it sees only the decadent side that eats at growth ;( and the one case of immanent high cost of fossil fuels) 

Thankfully for those of us who live on the land both scarcity and abundance live in harmony, Thankfully for those who live as recyclers every day, even the threat of paying more for liquid fuels does not worry us. 
Soon people will stop worrying about things they have only a smidgeon of reasons to worry about ; like the impact of CO2 concentrations on Global warming.  


YET it goes against the grain to the well educated and disciplined Westerner to rest easy with rot. By being productive for centuries and using that surplus of savings from selling more than we can eat, our forefathers invested in innovation that drove the adoption of innovations and further efficiencies for the leisure time we were now enjoying.  Those who force panic over a little decadence do not understand life and life in its fullness.
Make a stand when a resource is wasted but don't go woke and not see that life will continue with the same recycling systems that operate whether we abuse or use them . 

Decadence is not always bad 
A bit of decadence then is not bad; its even natural. What doesn't work in the shallow one sided worries of this world is the idea of a life without dying and decadence.

Decadence is not the complete answer, but scarcity and abundance are: more elsewhere 
you just have to know your own limits in your own area, 

The Decadence in the Desert


Landing in Dubia, those with more than enough mere money, wanted to sell us glass insulated swimming pools in the desert 6 stories up. ADS are all over the air as you watch the screen and even when you get to England . 

So, what does someone cocooned is such a place of lifetime decadence live?   For all the money from all that oil, they can't desalinate enough water to turn the desert into the gardens we enjoy back here, Death and decay, like growth, has its best place and timing.  The salts accumulated in the soils over eons in those places rise up and eventually kill most of the plants.
They have plenty of sand and water and they can dig it up and make cement cities. The more water you apply to soils there though, the worse it gets; abundance of one thing is not the answer, but it can be an answer for other things.  

There are so few leaves growing freely in such a materially rich place.
None of us can have it all but perhaps we can all find some abundance to be thankful for.


Leaves reconstitute the grand object of the West's current concern, Carbon Dioxide .
ALL leaves for all time which remind us of the grace of life in creation. 
Its leaves that source most of the good we can enjoy when taking the rest and indulgence that was always meant to be a least one day of rest each week for every one of us. 

 `   

   

The ARC conference

I was here in London on a search for people who had something to offer in the way of educating young people for better careers in conservation and, something positive and powerful to resist the incompetence of many in the Green political alliances around the world. 
The second issue was a clear concern for most but only a few seemed to have much to offer on the former;  I hope to introduce you to a few.

Meanwhile you can read more here  
    

This worldwide conference of mostly professional people is a big surprise to most of the 4 thousand who came. It's now nearly too big and diverse to properly tackle all the various callings represented,  
The presentations during the 3 days made sure the sense of unity, despite the isolation and difficulties 
will remain . Look the ARC authors up on the net.  We  didn't all agree with  each other .

KEY QUESTIONS 
1. Why does the West trust politicians and the "desperate for attention media" instead of the competent independent scientists who insist on the truth and who come together at meetings and forums like this.
2. How can our children build the future when so much of the values they hear are about short term gain which only brings long term gain ; When truth is not a hard face but the soft and self centred flacid stuff based on feelings.  

 

Some of us got invites and many just wanted to go because the idea of an "Alliance for Responsible Citizenship " has a huge amount of appeal to those of us who have had an effective engagement in a profession that works, but who struggle to see Governments and the media failing to create competence and the inspiration for it FOR OUR CHILDREN  

The competence of many who attended was staggering  (in politics , academia economy ) but as always happens , even among  such a large group , there are only a few whose competence is exactly in your area. 

Bjorn Lomborg is a key advocate for environmental education with a group called the Copenhagen Consensus,
His constant bruising, like that given to Jordan Peterson  (from the press ) won't stop him from doing a great job in that area, Why do the West trust politicians and the desperate for attention media instead of the competent independent scientists who insist on the truth and who come together at meetings and forums like this. 

Are we winning the war? Never know till it's over and most of us see the thrashing about amongst the Nay 
sayers and cancellers as just plain desperate.
If you doubt the need,ask yourself how much actual experience and competence now exists in some government services and government contracting arrangements.  










HUMOR is such fun in the context of this serious subject,.
Take the way  Konstantin Kisin does it so well

and this group  called UNHERD  uses the pin pricking idea that can effectively explode a few balloons .

Sendoffs

YOU wonderful people , I didn't expect anybody to rock up and yet so many of you did , It did make it so special so thanks !

Non performers ,
Our cats always do a good job of welcoming us back but they weren't to be seen when we left.
 The older one PUS especially, will welcome you too, if you walk by. She sits at the gateway or lies spread eagle on the lawn out front.
Please pat and say hi, especially if you enter to take some cucumbers, tomatoes or apples. Hate to see our produce go to waste, now we are " forced " to live the high life and let others cook and clean for us ---- a treat especially good for dear Christine.( you can follow her version of events here)
Yes ,,,,,we will be living the high life for quite a while- we reckon it's going to be a bit too cold to camp too, like we have been doing in Australia.

Don't be disturbed if things are not quite finished around the place; You should know what some Europeans say about the nature of the time when your house is finished.

Our Masters  are not so keen to see us go. Maybe it's all about food supply, but interpreting motivation is for the birds and we are just singing the song with you and them today as we leave.