Homeward Bound!

June 28 - This is our last post.  It's a bit more personal than usual, but sometimes reality intrudes.

About four weeks ago, we were in Turkey showing Michelle and Mike the ruins at Priene.  It's a bit of a climb, but we had been there before.  I had to stop about 5 times before we got to the top of the hill where the city had been.  My chest hurt from the exertion, but it quickly settled down when I rested.  This happened a few more times over the following weeks, mostly when going up and down our 40 set of stairs.  

When we left Greece, we flew directly to Munich, Germany.  Denita was understandably opposed to exiting through Germany because of the heart issue. We drove the entire length of the country, south to north, as seen in the previous posts.   Once we reached Hamburg in the north, we stayed with my buddy Roland and his family for two nights.  It was a delightful experience to stay outside the resorts and to see how real Germans lived.

Roland drove us to the airport early Sunday morning, and we flew to Dusseldorf, where we had a seven hour layover.  Then it was a 12 hour flight to LA.  We stayed with David and Jeanelle and had some precious moments with our two grandkids.  We intended to stay four days, and then drive back on Friday with our youngest son Brian.  However, on Monday my chest started to "burn" after just walking a block or two.  I felt my body was trying to tell me something, so we left on Wednesday.

On Friday, I saw a cardiac specialist in Eugene.  He felt the only way to definitively determine what was happening was to have an angiogram.  They can see where the blockage is, if any, and they can install, if that's the word, the stent right then and there.  So tomorrow morning, at 6:30, we head for Sacred Heart Hospital in Springfield.  

It has been an extraordinary experience for two quite ordinary people.  We lived amongst the Greek people for 11 months.  We got very close to our brethren on Samos, with whom we could not even communicate directly.  We got to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ being sown in human hearts in foreign lands.  And it was an opportunity for God to work within our own hearts, hopefully making us more like His Beloved Son in some small measure.

Karl & Denita 

PS.  They found major blockages in both of the smaller cardiac arteries that feed the heart.  Both were 95% occluded, I think is the term.  They ended up putting in three stents, two of them side-by-side in one artery.  The main artery was also mildly blocked, but not more than normal for an old geezer.  It appears I was a dead man walking this last month, and should have listened to my body and my wife.  Smile.

The Dancing Towers in the center of Hamburg

We had a 7 hour layover in Dusseldorf.  Denita went to the zoo and fed peanuts to the animals.  She said this one was particularly mean.

The skyline of Hamburg

David and Jeanelle's  house in Rancho Cucamonga, LA

Jeanelle, Brielle, Tiffany, Brian, Denita & Ayla

Rothenburg

June 18 - Our next stop on the Romantiche Strasse was Rothenburg on der Taube.  I have it on good authority that this means "Red Castle."  Rothenburg was certainly "beautiful for situation."  It is located just uphill from several loops in the Taube River, perhaps 200' above the water.  A plaque on the city wall next to our hotel said that this section of wall had been built in 1408.  Christopher Columbus was not even a twinkle in his father's eye when the city wall was constructed.

When you come to the fork in the road, take it.

There was a covered walkway along the top of the wall

A storks nest is visible atop the tower

This picture overlooks the lower section of city wall

The entrance to the lower garden

Some of the torture devices in the dungeon 

Dinkelsbuhl

June 17- We left the village of Hohenschwangau and headed north up Interstate-7.  We would stay on this highway all the way to Hamburg in the north.  The first 220 miles of this road is known as Der Romantiche Strasse, the Romantic Highway. It is the ancient road that connected southern Germany with the heartland.  It is sprinkled with castles and medieval cities that just exude Germanic charm.  The first one we stopped at was Dinkelsbuhl.

We spotted a storks nest on top of the building at the rear,

which turned out to be the old City Hall, complete with a 

dungeon in the basement.

The church at Dinkelsbuhl was old and very stately

This is a typical scene in the town

This picture was taken just outside the city walls

Just one of the many squares in Dinkelsbuhl

Neuschwanstein Castle

I June 16 - We stayed at Fussen last night, a picturesque town that nestles up against the Bavarian Alps.  It lies about 10 miles from the castle at Neuschwanstein.  We drove to the tourist town of Hohenschwangau that lies just below the castle.  There are at least six Alpine lakes in this immediate area due to runoff from the high mountains, all very scenic.  In the classic picture of Neuschwanstein, one of these lakes is usually placed to the left and another on the right.

Neuschwanstein is not that old by European standards. Young Ludwig grew up in the neighboring castle of Hohenschwangau, seen below.  He cleared an old castle off the dramatic outcropping, and in 1869 started to build Neuschwanstein.  Although he had acceded to the throne of Bavaria in 1864, he initially used his own funds.  After Bavaria joined the North German League headed by Bismarck, Ludwig neglected his royal duties and devoted himself to his dream castle.

But the fairy tale did not end well.  In a bloodless coup, he was declared legally insane in 1886 and his throne taken over by a regent.  Ludwig died under suspicious circumstances a few days later.

The ancestral castle of Hohenschwangau

Neuschwanstein as seen from Marienbrucke (Miriam Bridge), spanning a very deep gorge

This picture was taken in the town which sits between and below both castles. Neuschwanstein can be seen in the upper right. 

The lower gate and the court just inside

The lower court

Dachau

June 15 - OK, I admit it.  I have a fascination with all things World War II, including the Nazi concentration camps.  After landing in Munich, we immediately headed for Dachau.  It's only about a 25 minute drive from the airport, and what red-blooded American would not want to see it! 

As we were walking out, Denita and could not help but ask ourselves "Why."  How could this have happened in one of the most civilized and decent countries on the planet, leaders in science and philosophy, highly educated, wealthy and Christianized for centuries?  The atrocities committed here were on a scale that simply defies comprehension.  I do not believe the roots of this inhumanity lie in a certain people or race.  Nor do I think it was due to a unique set of historical circumstances.  I think what we see is a window into man's inner nature.

There have been many theories to explain man's intrinsic nature.  The modern, New Age view is that our Inner Self is pure and lovely, but it has been sullied by civilization and the socialization process.  If we want peace and enlightenment, we should look deep inside of us.  The Christian view is that man is inherently selfish and self-centered, and we need another nature, a spiritual one.  Jesus once told the Pharisees, "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children ........" (Matt 7:11).  Paul weighs in on the issue in Galatians 5:19:  "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these."

I subscribe to the Christian view.  The nature that was programmed into man, what Paul calls the flesh, was designed for survival and reproduction on this earth.  And it is well suited for that purpose, as witnessed by the 7 billion human beings now living.  But it is plastic, easily moulded, and people can be persuaded to do almost anything.  The Israelis were astounded to learn how normal and indeed bland Adolf Eichmann appeared!  They expected a monster, but in fact he was just a man.

At the entrance gate are the words, "Work makes you free."

The barracks held 54 men each

This was the crematoria

This was the "bathroom" in the Crematoria building where prisoners were sealed in and then gassed.

A view of the ovens

The Parting

June 15 - Yesterday was our last meeting with the friends on Samos.  It included the four who live at Pythagorio, Denita and I, and our two workers.  It has been a profitable year of growth for both Denita and I, seeing the work of God in a new land and perhaps in a new light.  We hope that others have benefited spiritually as much as we have.

A lot was said in the meeting about love, and we sang Hymn 216, a song that seems to symbolize our time here.  "May thy perfect love O Lord, burn strong within my heart."  Jesus said that love was the mark of his people.  It wasn't doctrine of any sort, but it was the love of God, the one thing that cannot be imitated or replicated by men.   Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13 that without love, we haven't attained anything spiritually.  I was thinking of John 17:12, which is the end game of loving God and our neighbor, the twin commandments.  "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one......."  Love is what makes us one in Christ, and love is what merges us into Christ and the Godhead.

Many cities and towns have a sister city in another country, a program designed to promote cultural understanding and economic ties.  The town of Boring, Oregon, which most of us have been to, has such an arrangement with Dull, Scotland, no doubt a play on their names.  The Samosians and us decided we would become sister churches.  And why not?  We are bound by the strongest ties known to man, the love of God.

Jesus' Mission Statement

Most organizations and companies have a Mission Statement, a couple of sentences that lays out the objectives and purposes they hope to accomplish. There were several of these plaques in the office where I worked most of my career.  A friend of mine recently sent me several verses in the Gospels where Jesus said, "I am come" or "I have come."  These seem like mission statements to me.

John 10:10  "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."  He was drawing a contrast between himself, as the true shepherd, and hirelings, those who were "thieves and robbers."  The false Messiahs, like "robbers and thieves," have come to "steal and to kill and to destroy."  Jesus came to give life, abundant and eternal life.

John 12:46   "I am come to be a light to the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not remain in darkness."  To enlighten just means to give understanding.  In our natural state, we cannot figure out why we were placed on this earth, what is expected of us, how we should live, and we do not know what happens after death.  Jesus answered these existential questions.  "For judgement I am come I to this world, that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind" (John 9:39).  He came that we might understand the purpose of life, and that those who think they get it will realize they are actually lost and wandering in darkness.

John 18:37.  Jesus told Pilate that he was the truth.  "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Pilate's response is perhaps the common response of all thinking men:  "What, really, is true."  At some point in our life, most of us realize that much of what we have been taught is not true.  What can we possible put our trust and confidence in?  

Mark 2:17  "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  Luke 19:10. "For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost."  The Lord understood that it was not the "good" people who would respond to his message;  the rich, the talented, the popular.  No, it was the childlike and the needy who would love the simple truth as it is in Jesus. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are the meek," and "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness."  They are the ones who will obtain the blessing of God.