August, 2010: Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia

Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia
August, 2010

Dear Friends,

Please excuse the very long gap in our reports. Your pilgrims last wrote to you from Denmark. From there, they went to Heidelberg, Germany where they sang at the wedding of their friends, Beate and Michael. Many years ago, before the couple had even met each other, Beate asked us, if she ever got married, to please sing "The Wedding Song" at the ceremony. Her request was very happily fulfilled! In addition, William wrote a new song just for the occasion. (There is a link to the text on this site.) The reception was held on an organic farm, and your pilgrims spent the night with many of the other guests celebrating, dancing and then sleeping in the straw.

Soon afterwards, we went to Austria by train and started cycling toward the Balkans. In Austria and Slovenia, we met many friendly people, cycled on well-paved, quiet roads and cycle tracks, and felt ourselves more and more refreshed with each passing day. It was a good preparation for what was to come.

We crossed the border into Croatia in a quiet, rural area. Many years ago, we had been in the tourist-area on the Croatian coast where foreigners were seen only as cash-cows to be milked for every possible dollar. This time, we were inland, in the north, in what seemed to be a different world. The traffic was light, the weather was generally fine and we received very kind hospitality as we slept at churches or tented on farms.

Perhaps the highlight of our time in Croatia was a visit to an old friend whom we met seven years ago. Katharina lives in Osijek in the east of Croatia. She was there at the time of the secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia. It was a city where ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs lived together in relative peace, until the war. The town was shelled. There were violence and atrocities by one ethnic group against the other. People became extremely suspicious of one another. Katharina was a successful physician, and could easily have left the city for a safer area. But she decided to stay and stand as a witness for peace and sanity. She was joined by a man who was moved by the same ideals. Thus began the "Centar za Mir"--the "Center for Peace" which is still in operation today. She and her work have been internationally acclaimed. When we met her, she was the keynote speaker at a conference on peace at a college in Norway. She has received a number of awards and recognitions. Yet, like the old saying that a prophet is not recognized in her own land, the reaction to her in Croatia is quite mixed. Her own thoughts about peace have evolved through the years. She knew early on that peace is not just the cessation of hostilities. True peace requires justice–which includes a willingness by all parties to admit their wrongs. Over time she has come to see that peace also requires an active spiritual life. This is very similar to the message of Peace Pilgrim.

Part of spiritual life is the path of self-discovery. You realize that you have a body, but you are not your body. You have a gender, but your innermost essence is beyond male nor female. You live in a race, a nation or a religion, but you are not that race, nation or religion. You are a unique individual and an immortal soul, called to use your God-given talents and abilities for the benefit of others. If enough people in a society have this realization, there can be peace. Then they see that Croat, Serb or Bosniak–Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim–all are different in their expression but similar in their essence.

These simple thoughts were confirmed time and again as we cycled through the east of Croatia: past the minefields (still dangerous today); past the bombed out factories and houses; at the homes and churches in the ethnically Serbian villages which are falling apart since the people have left. They were confirmed speaking to people who had been wounded, widowed or orphaned by the conflict. They were even confirmed by the hollowness of the words of those who would exploit the pain and destruction of the war in order to continue ethnic strife and further their political careers.

Your pilgrims turned their bicycles toward Serbia and continued riding. More about that in the next report.