Kiri and Steve.co.uk

line

Kje je Bog?

November 16th, 2013 (by Steve)

If we told you that “kje je” means “where is” in Slovenian, you would probably come to the same initial conclusion as us and think that the title of the blog post was asking where the toilet is. Not quite!

When we left you last, we were in Schwaz, Austria. From there we travelled to Salzburg (via an overnight stop in Germany, as that was the most direct route) where we had quite a drizzly wander around the city. The cold weather was beginning to set in and as we travelled south towards Slovenia, the snow on the mountains was creeping closer and closer towards our altitude. Suddenly we were in a winter wonderland in the midst of snow-covered forests and mountains. So much for us trying to avoid snow on this trip!

Snowy view from Bertha

After all of that snow, we descended to a campsite by Lake Millstätter, where we endured an extremely windy night. As the only motorhome (and possibly the only campers!) on the campsite, we were rather exposed and sure that we might be blown away at any minute. When we heard what sounded like an air raid siren in the middle of the night amidst gusts that were rocking the van, we decided to seek safety in the main building until the winds had died down a little!

The wind continued as we travelled towards Slovenia, dying down by the time we reached Ljubljana and met up with our hosts for the week. Whilst in Slovenia, we have been helping the team at ZVEŠ; a society working with universities, encouraging open, creative and critical discussions about the bible. The theme of this week: “Kje je Bog?” – or in English “Where is God?”. During the week there were several events; a talk, a concert and a creative workshop, exploring some of the questions around this. Our task was to help publicise these events. The best way to get attention? Dress up a Danish person as God and wander around Ljubljana!

god

Kiri and I aren’t really designed for giving out flyers; we don’t have the confidence to strike up a conversation with random strangers, so we watched in admiration as we saw Slovenian students willing to stop and have a chat with those who were handing out flyers. “Where is God in suffering?”. “Where is God in creativity?”. Often the conversations started with the question of “Is there even a God?”. One thing that I’m loving about this trip is that it’s given me brain space to get back to the basics of my faith and do a bit of grappling.

The first event was a talk by (and discussion afterwards with) Stefan Gustavsson; a Swedish philosopher who led us through an examination of the apparent dichotomy of an all powerful and loving God and a world where there’s a lot of suffering. As a result of this talk, I think I’m going to add Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” to my reading list.

The other two events featured Andy Mayo; firstly an acoustic concert in Semafor; a cafe in the heart of Ljubljana. Andy’s a very talented guitarist and his music is raw and from the heart with some pretty thought-provoking lyrics. It was a great night in a student bar… made us both reminisce over our student days!

DSC_1988

The second event run by Andy was a creative workshop; exploring what creativity is, what the tensions are within creativity, how to cultivate creativity and lastly where God might be within that creativity. This workshop also featured a couple of local musicians; Urban and Laura.

worshop

All in all it was a cracking week and it’s been great to settle in one place for a short time, rather than constantly being on the move. It’s also encouraged us that we might be of some use at the other projects we intend to visit!

Sadly our time in Ljubljana is now over and we’re hitting the road again; once more trying to keep ahead of the snow and cold weather!


All posts about Austria,slovenia

To toll or not to toll…

Balkans out of season in a motorhome

Kje je Bog?

Bertha takes up drinking and smoking

Leave a Reply

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.

*