Friday, December 5
Friday, November 21
Graffiti written by an unknown Dutch soldier on a wall of the army barracksin Potocari, Srebrenica, 1994/95. Royal Netherlands Army troops, as part of
the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina 199295, were
responsible for protecting the Srebrenica safe area.
I saw this poster on a wall of a local printing company here in Sarajevo. The fineprint underneath the image was very small and I had to get up close to see it. I had stared at this poster all through our meeting trying to figure out why someone would have this on their wall. Of course, once I was able to read it, the irony of this being written by a peacekeeping soldier was not lost on me.
Tuesday, November 18
Friday, November 14
In Honor of Dianne...
I recently ordered a book based on a phrase in the subtitle - "one anothering." (Authentic Relationships: discover the lost art of one anothering by Wayne and Clay Jacobsen) I loved the sound of that phrase. Today was my first chance to pick it up and start reading and I hadn't even made it out of the preface before I knew I would love this book. But this post is less about the book and more about...Dianne. The author pulls out of the New Testament almost two dozen examples of how we "one another" each other and as I looked through the list I realized that my friendship with Dianne includes, I think, every one of them. I have other friendships that come close - but only the quotidian nature of our Gmail chat (quotidian's for you, D) has allowed us to so completely, in my opinion, "one another" each other.
Here is the author's list of where "one anothering" can be found in scripture:
Note to Dianne: My comment inbox awaits your snarky reply.
Here is the author's list of where "one anothering" can be found in scripture:
- Loving one another John 13:34
- Forgiving one another Ephesians 4:32
- Accepting one another Romans 15:7
- Bearing with one another Ephesians 4:2
- Being devoted to one another Romans 12:10
- Honoring one another above ourselves Romans 12:10
- Greeting one another 2 Corinthians 13:12
- Being hospitable to one another 1 Peter 4:9
- Being kind and compassionate to one another Ephesians 4:32
- Sharing with one another Hebrews 13:16
- Carrying one another's burdens Galatians 6:2
- Building up one another 1 Thessalonians 5:11
- Encouraging one another daily Hebrews 3:13
- Comforting one another 1 Thessalonians 4:18
- Stimulating one another to love and good deeds Hebrews 10:24
- Instructing one another Romans 15:14
- Admonishing one another Colossians 3:16
- Praying for one another James 5:16
- Confessing your sins to one another James 5:16
- Being of the same mind toward one another Romans 12:16
- Submitting to one another Ephesians 5:21
Note to Dianne: My comment inbox awaits your snarky reply.
Friday, November 7
Thursday, November 6
Civil Courage
At last night's meeting of the International Women's Club of Sarajevo a speaker came with quite an interesting background and mission. She was a journalism student and journalist who then went to medical school and became a cardiologist back in 1980. She lived her whole life up until the war started in Belgrade. I learned only this morning, through other reading, that our speaker, Svetlana Broz, is the granddaughter of Josip Broz. He is better known as Marsal Tito - leader of Yugoslavia.
Once the war started, she felt that as a human being she could not remain in her safe home in Belgrade while a mere 100-150 kilometers away people were dying. She set out to offer her services as a cardiologist to anyone who was in need of them. What she discovered was that people were much less interested in talking to her about their medical conditions than they were in talking to her about their own experiences with people with extraordinary courage who had helped them. These acts of courage usually involved someone taking the part of a person who was not of their ethnicity against a large group of their "own" people. Eventually, she put down her medical bag, so to speak, and picked up her journalism tools of recorder, tapes, and so forth. She went out and just let people talk and tell her their stories. Eventually they were compiled into a book titled Good People in an Evil Time.
Her mission now is carried out by the organization she is involved in, Gariwo. http://www.gariwo.org/portal/
They give seminars and 8 day intensive training sessions to the youths of this region (from Slovenia to Kosevo and between) on civil courage. Here I'll quote from their website:
What is civil courage? It is the individual's capacity to defend humanity, regardless of faith or ethnicity, in the face of negative authority urging him instead to harm or kill his neighbour. Righteous people personify this opposition to harmful social norms. Their universal message of choice and independence of mind - in other words, civil courage - fosters trust in humanity and urges all of us to reflect critically on our own past and present behaviour.
They bring young people together from all different etno-groups - ages 18-25 - and although they arrive very nervous, they weep at the end of the 8 days because they do not want to leave each other. They keep in touch and even visit each other's homes which apparently is a very big deal to their parents at home who are not keen on housing the child of their "enemy." A few of the youths have even started small NGOs of their own in their hometowns. The director of the seminars was assassinated on February 22, 2007. Dusko Kondor was his name. He was gunned down in his home, through a locked, bullet-proof door. That is what she told us. His family has been given safe-protection in an unnamed European country.
They are in the process of trying to establish a Center for Civil Courage here in Sarajevo so that they can "train the trainers" in order to meet the call for admittance to their seminars.
They have established a Dusko Kondor Award for Civil Courage that is apparently quite a hot potato. She is meeting with one family in the Serb part of Bosnia today to try to convince them to accept this award. They fear for their lives if they do and she suspects that it will be held off for a better time.
Her talk engendered a lot of emotional feedback from the Bosnian women who are part of our group. The raw pain in their voices as they emphasized a point she had made or told a story of their own was hard to listen to at times.
I was surprised at how much I still don't know about this area and the pain that is leftover from the war.
Once the war started, she felt that as a human being she could not remain in her safe home in Belgrade while a mere 100-150 kilometers away people were dying. She set out to offer her services as a cardiologist to anyone who was in need of them. What she discovered was that people were much less interested in talking to her about their medical conditions than they were in talking to her about their own experiences with people with extraordinary courage who had helped them. These acts of courage usually involved someone taking the part of a person who was not of their ethnicity against a large group of their "own" people. Eventually, she put down her medical bag, so to speak, and picked up her journalism tools of recorder, tapes, and so forth. She went out and just let people talk and tell her their stories. Eventually they were compiled into a book titled Good People in an Evil Time.
Her mission now is carried out by the organization she is involved in, Gariwo. http://www.gariwo.org/portal/
They give seminars and 8 day intensive training sessions to the youths of this region (from Slovenia to Kosevo and between) on civil courage. Here I'll quote from their website:
What is civil courage? It is the individual's capacity to defend humanity, regardless of faith or ethnicity, in the face of negative authority urging him instead to harm or kill his neighbour. Righteous people personify this opposition to harmful social norms. Their universal message of choice and independence of mind - in other words, civil courage - fosters trust in humanity and urges all of us to reflect critically on our own past and present behaviour.
They bring young people together from all different etno-groups - ages 18-25 - and although they arrive very nervous, they weep at the end of the 8 days because they do not want to leave each other. They keep in touch and even visit each other's homes which apparently is a very big deal to their parents at home who are not keen on housing the child of their "enemy." A few of the youths have even started small NGOs of their own in their hometowns. The director of the seminars was assassinated on February 22, 2007. Dusko Kondor was his name. He was gunned down in his home, through a locked, bullet-proof door. That is what she told us. His family has been given safe-protection in an unnamed European country.
They are in the process of trying to establish a Center for Civil Courage here in Sarajevo so that they can "train the trainers" in order to meet the call for admittance to their seminars.
They have established a Dusko Kondor Award for Civil Courage that is apparently quite a hot potato. She is meeting with one family in the Serb part of Bosnia today to try to convince them to accept this award. They fear for their lives if they do and she suspects that it will be held off for a better time.
Her talk engendered a lot of emotional feedback from the Bosnian women who are part of our group. The raw pain in their voices as they emphasized a point she had made or told a story of their own was hard to listen to at times.
I was surprised at how much I still don't know about this area and the pain that is leftover from the war.
Saturday, October 11
Lake Bled, Slovenia
We're off to Lake Bled in Slovenia today. This magical looking lake is somewhere I've wanted to go since we lived in Bavaria. I was not as geographically savvy back then as I am now and for some reason I thought Slovenia was on the other side of Hungary and that it was quite far from Germany. In actuality - where it will take us 8 hours today to drive there would have probably taken only 3 hours before. Oh well. This photo is not mine - it was captured from the web - but I will replace it with a photo that Jeff takes next week.
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