Category Archives: seeking understanding

Looking back to Sarajevo

On this trip I was on my own a lot and was able to explore beautiful Sarajevo on my own terms.

Here are a series of pix I took in a neighborhood up the hill from Old Town. They are of a kind of neighborhood mosque with many graves from 1992-1995 and the main mosque in the Old Town.

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My assumption is that these died in the siege during the war when Serbs bombarded the city from the surrounding mountain tops.

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Down the hill, I went to the main mosque, it’s minaret was visible down this alley…

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And upon entering you are given the rules…

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On Fridays this mosque is filled with Muslims…

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Walking by the side I noted the extra prayer rugs stacked in the window…

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Martin Luther said that Muslims (among many others including Jews and many “Christians”) worship the same God, but they worship him incorrectly. As I study Islam (for my Cross Cultural Studies program) and read from many sides of this discussion, it seems Luther makes a sound argument. The enemy of God wishes to keep people away from him and the best way is a way that looks right while being wrong. A one degree error send KAL 007 into Soviet airspace and hundreds died when the Soviets shot it down. Worshipping the right God the wrong way, through works, may look good, but is not His way.

We depend on grace alone, trusting in the final and complete work of Jesus: death, burial and resurrection. In Christ alone.

Allow not a desire for pluralism to water down the way and the truth.

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Filed under being a disciple, culture, culture > disciple making, definitions, disciple making, Eastern Europe, experience, from the Balkans, photos along the way, seeking understanding, spiritual questions/musings/wonderings, travel notes

Where cultures meet: Sarajevo

In the old town of Sarajevo one finds endless little shops selling, primarily, Turkish coffee sets hammered out from brass that, presumably, comes from a seemingly endless supply of brass shells left over from the war. A testament to how many shells were fired at this city.

On the main walk to the old town from, what I call downtown, (it’s old too, but is more of what I call a downtown), kinda where the old town and downtown meet, is this…

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This really is a place of cultures meeting.

This city is, according to a reliable source, over 90% Muslim, I counted 13 minarets visible from my window…

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Which a friend told me includes this one, the main mosque…

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I was here to visit my friends who serve among these people and his focus is the study of Islam toward helping Muslim friends come to a true understanding of Jesus.

With my doctoral studies in mind and what I had learned from our conversations and the books I’d read in preparation, I struck up a brief conversation with a young economist. I asked him who Jesus is. He replied that it depends of what you believe and that he wasn’t religious.

He may not have been, but I made one observation that is not scientific. When I first came to Sarajevo in ’07, there were not many women wearing head coverings. 8 years later, head coverings are common. My count, based on video survey was that as much as a third of women are now covered.

While waiting…

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for my favorite Sarajevo food, burekški…

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we observed that all the women working in the eatery were covered. This is a sign, I concluded, of increasing emphasis on the Islamic culture becoming more defined in this city where cultures meet.

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Last post from Sarajevo

In the early morning, a light snow falls as I wait for my ride to the bus.

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I leave this fascinating city where east meets west.

Next stop Kula, Serbia

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Sarajevo

In a few minutes, I should be on a bus from Croatia south to Sarajevo, Bosnia for conversations about Islam in this majority Muslim city in SE Europe. I’ve just had dinner with my friend Jeremy and his son and dropped me at the Slavonski Brod bus station.

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Next post could include some great pix from one of the most intriguing cities on my route.

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Thoughts on Christmas

Today there will be last minute trips to the store, the final wrapping of gifts, greeting family and friends, lots of cooking, for some there will be Christmas Eve services.

I remember my one Christmas in Budapest. Days before, signs were posted in the public transit informing the public that at about 3 pm on Christmas Eve the transit system would shift to night busses only until the morning of the 26th. Things really shut down. Christmas Eve night Sweet Anna and I walked a half hour or so through the cold snowy quiet from our daughter’s home to where we were staying. A silent night it truly was.
Then the next morning we went back for Christmas.

Upon our arrival something was needed from a store. The only thing open was a 24 hour shop the size of a closet. After I made my purchase I walked across the street to the local parish which was in the middle of one of many Christmas masses. It was packed with all ages. I hope they understood the real story.

In Cambridge, England today that story will be told. the annual Lessons and Carols event will originate from King’s College Chapel at 10 U.S. Eastern time… Click here for more it is a helpful reminder to me each year of what the whole Christmas is: from the Fall to the promise and then Redemption.

Here are Scriptures I’ve been meditating on:

For God so loved the world…

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord…

Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…

How wonderful that the Prince of Peace has come to this world.

We live in a busy culture that rarely slows down.

Why not slow down today and consider the good news that the Incarnation happened so that you may live in a state of peace with God who sent His only begotten Son so that you and I can be His sons and daughters.

Merry Christmas!

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someone will have to tell me I died

What?

I was having coffee with a guy the other day and we were talking about an author that both of us appreciate. This writer has had a great impact on the both of us. He told me that it was said near his death that this writer said that “someone will have to tell me I died.”

The idea is that the Christian life is one of growing so close to God in our prayer, in our reading of Scripture, in our relationships, in our day to day life that we have gotten to the point where we have disciplined ourselves into the joy of living in the very presence of God here on earth.

This, I think was what Jesus meant in the high priestly prayer of John, this, is I think what Paul was urging us toward in his letters.

Being a Christian is not just about getting to heaven. Being a Christian is the kingdom of heaven now.

This I think may very well be one of the better understandings of Immanuel, God with us.

Now.

That’s what.

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