Lets go for a walk in my neighborhood

My river - I can look out my living room window down onto this little river.
Lets cross the bridge - at least three times a week I do this to go running in the forest.
Another river - in the forest - where I spend one hour running several times a week.
I think this majestic house is abandoned.
Gohlis Schlößchen - the little castle in Gohlis - about 20 minutes by foot from my place.
It is a little castle - compared to others in Europe.
The zoo - about 10 minutes by foot from my place.
The meadow in the Rosental.
Here I am back in my immediate neighborhood.

Here are a few impressions of the surroundings where I live. I'm so fortunate to have found an apartment in such a beautiful historic part of town, and so central. When I took these photos I was on a rare walk through the forest. Normally I am running, to stay in shape, so I can't stop to take pictures. But it was such a beautiful Fall day, I had to make time for a few photos. Some day when I am back on the other side of the world, these will be cherished memories. Now if I could only let you hear the church bells that ring every day.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

No pictures are in this entry - check October or September of previous years for the fotos for this topic. I posted this on Sunday on another internet forum, but I think it needs airing here too. Memory is a very important function that we are losing with the digital age and Twitter, FB, and other forums that mainly encourage us to only live in the immediate moment. Forgetting many indeed be the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person and a society.

Right now Germany is basking in twenty years of unity - in November 1989 the wall came down, and on October 3, 1990 German unity was officially completed.
But for me and my family, these events move to the back burners. It was on September 20 and October 4 of that same year of tumbling walls that my life tumbled down - my grandmother died on September 20 and my father on October 4. My grandmother had lived with my parents - my mother took care of her - for over seven years. I often played the piano while grandmother sat at the table and listened, almost going to sleep, and mother prepared the food for the family meal. So grandmother listened to Mozart, Chopin, Lizst, or Debussy from her grandson while her daughter prepared the meal. She often said she was the luckiest woman in the world.
About a year after their deaths I was back at the that same grand piano playing the same Debussy Ballade. Then I noticed my mother was gone for a long time. Thinking she might be sick, I went and saw she was in the bathroom. She was crying quite a bit, so sad because that piece reminded her of how we all were together with grandmother and my father eating together. All of those times had become memories.
And now my dear mother has rejoined them, and she gets to eat with them at God's table and listen to music much more beautiful than anything I could ever bang out on a piano.

But maybe I have found the real reason in Fall - everything falls - political walls, leaves on growing trees, and it would seem death and destruction can make life utterly bitter. But only a few months later Easter comes - really the most important holiday for Christians, because it reminds us of what seems impossible - that someone could really die and be buried, and then several days later really rise from the dead and walk around showing those who loved him the still present wounds in his body that would immediately tell you this person should be dead.
So for me, as each year goes by and I keep memories alive, I remember two important commands from God: do not be afraid, and be patient. What began at Easter is still continuing to unfold, if backstage, until someday the last wall will fall and death, the last enemy, will vanish forever.