Dundee and Arbroath

After those texty-posts I'll give you guys some pictures to stare at again :)

Two weeks ago Caro, Karin, Meri and I went on a little day-trip to Dundee and Arbroath. Dundee was a sweet little boring town, with a couple of churches we wanted to see. Strangely all of the churches were closed....ánd most of the kebab stores we wanted to visit were also :)

From Dundee we took a trainride right along the coastline to Arbroath. The weather was beautiful (very different from what the forecast said...hence the Wellies) if not extremely windy...ah whatever, most pictures are nice and 'dynamic' because of it.

Try finding a street in Dundee without penguins ór closed churches...impossible.

Arbroath was simply astounding. The century-old Abbey ruin that dominates the tiny sea-side town is huge and impressing. For those of you with historic interest, try Wiki-ing: Arbroath Abbey and The Declaration of Arbroath.

Me and the huge Abbey Church ruin.

"..for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

The dude that wrote the Declaration of Arbroath is gifted...he should've worked on Braveheart. :P

North-easter coastline of Scotland. I really want to go to the red sandstone cliffs in the background some time. Those are also the cliffs the Abby is made out of.

Chillin' in the sun

More pics from our trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71940&id=565292619&l=30fe5a0ccf

Moment of Enlightenment

Just to share with you a small part of the wonders I sometimes have to read for my classes. I read this while the last 2,5 minutes of Coldplay - Fix You was playing in the background.

Murray Rogers, Anglican priest who has spent over forty years in Asia and the Middle East, on those he encountered of a different faith:

"I gladly share, without fear of disloyalty to Christ, their treasures of experience, their perceptions of the Mystery, their ways of breathing the Reality beyond all name and form. 'I' and 'they' have almost disappeared and in their place it is 'we'. No longer am I driven to fight crusades to bring 'them' over to 'my' side, as if Christ were on 'my' side. Fanaticism, including Christian fanaticism, is seen to be what in fact it always is, an appalling insult to the Divine Mystery lying beyond and within creation."

Strengthening your faith

"Will this world SURVIVE?"

it says, on the front of the little flyer the lady's hand is holding out to me.
I am walking home from class with a big bag of groceries and I see a lady walking towards me on the sidewalk. Just a normal, friendly looking lady with a bit of an eccentric coat on. When she is within 2 metres range of me she magically conjures a flyer out of nothing and stands still next to me. I yank my iPod out of my ears and listen to her.

I do that. My mom calls me when she sees 'religious' people walking up to our front door. "Selmaaaa, you take them." I enjoy talking to them. Or letting them talk to me. I don't know why. I'm interested. Not in becoming a Mormon/Jehovas witness/Hare Krishna/whatever, but in why they are.
Just before this encounter with the lady in the street we had talked about the 'strengtening of your faith' in class. Public displays of faith are not primarily to prove something to others or to convince someone else of your beliefs. Their primary function is to strengthen you own faith. New (voluntary!) women converts to Islam need some time to come to terms with their own religiosity. Wearing hijab (a headscarf)in public for the first time needs conviction. It means showing the world that you are a muslim. You are muslim. You remind yourself of that.

The same can be said of those that go from door to door or dance and sing in the streets. We usually think they are doing it to gain converts. And at one point you might think: "Don't they get tired of it? Probably no one ever says, Yeah sure I'll become a Mormon tomorrow".
But that's not the primary point. The simple activity of going out and telling others what you believe makes you aware of your own religiosity. It strengthens your faith. You think about what you believe, about God and the world and about how you think you could make it a better place. Or at least about how it has made the world a better place for you. Why not listen to them, let them speak? As long as the message is about love and peace, why not?

She smiles at me, the lady with the eccentric coat. I take the flyer from her and say "Thank you".

"Don't worry', she says,'The front sounds a bit ominous, but it has a good ending"

And for her it does.

Scotland map

As I just came back from Holland with a massive cold, resulting in stabbing pain in my ears during the flight and fear of permanent damage (since I still can't hear much)I have decided I'm ill until further notice.
Obviously I had enough of lying in my bed after one day, so today map-making has made it's entry: Hurrah!
The little gadget posted below is just to show you where I've been doing the things I've been blogging about and to recommend nice places to visit, eat, sleep etc. It's still a work in progress, so not all of what I want to show you is tagged yet (especially nog in Glasgow city) I'm also working on putting in pictures of the different places. Have fun looking at my world :)


Grotere kaart weergeven