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Tag: peace

TRAVELS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

The small old city of Sarajevo where we spent five serene nights, is full of historic buildings with beautiful Georgian architecture, displaying the brutal wounds of gunfire and shelling from two decades prior. Much of the city is graffitied and dirty as post-war economic devastation still remains, and a third of the population are unemployed. The busy streets are a kalediscope of cultures, with nuns, muslims, westerners, arabs, and people from every ethnic and religious background wandering the streets, ordering thick bosnian coffees, decadent icecreams, or the local must-try dish, cevapi.

TRAVELS IN JORDAN

We visited Jerash and the Amman Citadel before driving to Petra. I had no idea what to expect in Jerash – maybe a couple of ruins before heading to one of Jordan’s treasures. But it’s a lot more than a couple of ruins – it’s a Greco-Roman city full of exquisite ruins and fascinating facts. An intact amphitheater, replete with Jordanian bagpiper and drummers, reveals the genius of ancient acoustic engineering. Put your ear to one circular niche and chat to your buddy on the opposite side of the arena. Totally audible despite the bagpiper, and distant repeats of Fur Elise piped not from an ice cream van, but the man selling gas bottles door to door in modern Jerash.

SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING

I’m searching for something – and I don’t know what it is. But I do know what it isn’t. It isn’t physical. Or psychological. It isn’t health or wealth or happiness – although they’re lovely and I’d like more please. I’m not looking for religion – I need something far more personal. The only word that makes sense to me, is spiritual.

INNER SPIRIT

Whatever our individual faith and beliefs may be, we all have an inner spirit. That little voice of wisdom and love that talks to us. No matter how many ugly voices are talking in our heads, there is always a little voice countering the ugliness. Sometimes the destructive voices are so overpowering it’s impossible to hear – but it’s always there.

PEACE

I’ve been afraid to feel peaceful, for fear the next hammer blow will fall. When you live in constant fear of things going wrong, you don’t feel any peace. But today – today I did feel peaceful. Climbing a beautiful cape and looking at the stunning views and hanging with a good friend and eating good food and just generally enjoying life. Which is rare – but awesome as well. Rare, not because there isn’t a lot to enjoy in my life – there most certainly is – but because in recent years it’s been too hard to relax enough to let peace flood in.