JC's helper: European travel plans?

Monday, January 11, 2010

European travel plans?

We have a son who is having a Polish wedding ceremony in Poland in July. We have said that we will get there. We look forward to meeting her family. This week we are in the process of booking our tickets to Europe. It will probably be the only time we will get there in our life. We hope to spend a few weeks there so we are wondering what would be a good use of our time? We do not have a lot of excess money to spend, but want to use what we have wisely.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there things a progressive Christian minister should see in Europe or the UK? Are there Christian ventures worth visiting. What is truly worth visiting? Are there some nice country walks to explore? Any suggestions would be welcome?

Just thought there may be more knowledgeable people out there. We have never been to Europe.

3 comments:

Unknown said...: Dave, We found Kracow very interesting. It is so old and was not bombed during the war. We never got to Auschwitz or Birkenau as Paul had already taken 3 different friends on visits there. I would still like to visit there as it is a place that the world must never be allowed to forget. It shows just how low people can go to persecute others. I also have some books you may be interested in. The Lonely Planet Poland, a book on Gdansk and another on Poland. Also happy to ask Paul and Ewa for their recommendations.; January 12, 2010 at 2:04 AM
William Dunigan said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; January 12, 2010 at 6:41 AM
Anthony said...: I agree: Krakow is really interesting.

Dave, I don't know if you have time for this, but I kept a journal a few years ago about some of the places I went to in Europe.
http://golders-green.livejournal.com/
You could use "Find" to locate my first Krakow entry -- Krakow (on Jan. 28th, 2006) -- then scroll up to get parts 2, 3, and 4. I described what I saw in the death camps.

A few weeks? You could spend them all in London and barely scratch the surface.

You love your hiking, so maybe you'd get a kick out of the Cinque Terre walk on the coast of Italy. I loved it. It's a very easy walk for outdoorsy Kiwis.

Walks in the English countryside are beautiful.

But this is such a huge subject...; January 12, 2010 at 11:28 PM

The Blog's title

I am a Workplace Chaplain to the NZ fireservice.

At the firestation every time one man sees me he yells, "Here comes JC's helper!". I guess I am happy to be called just that... "Jesus' helper". I am a follower of Jesus.
A a quote from Dave Andrews in his book, "Not Religion but Love".
"Being a devotee of Jesus is not a matter of subscribing to a certain set of dogmas, obeying rules and regulations, and getting others to subordinate themselves to them.

The essence of being a devotee of Jesus is to live in sympathy with God as Jesus did; feeling the throb of God's heartbeat, and teaching our hearts to learn to beat in sync with the love that sustains the universe.

It means developing our capacity to sense intuitively what causes love pleasure, and what causes love pain, and doing everything we can to enhance the pleasure, and diminish the pain."

I love this charter.

The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.