7/7 - Last day of Berlin

We all awoke on Thursday morning after some confusing sleep; jet-lag does some really interesting tricks on mind and body. Nevertheless, we ate our breakfast at the hotel and hopped on the bus to be led around Berlin once again.

The first stop was the Holocaust Memorial.

Our guide described this place as "disorienting" - an understatement. As one walks anywhere from the outskirts to the center, the concrete rises to block the light of the sun, and what light you can see before you is limited to a sliver while the rest is blocked by concrete. You don't know if someone may or may not be coming across your path at the next corner. Your footing is unsure as the terrain under your feet is constantly moving up and down. It's tremendously disorienting, which is a profound understatement for the living to make about a monument dedicated to 6 million who perished just for being Jews, and yet millions more for being "undesirables".

After this, we took a walk around the block to visit the Brandenburg Gate, which is the same location where the embassies of the United States, France, and Great Britain reside. This location, as well as the locations of nearly all foreign embassies, now reside on what used to be East Berlin.

From here, we made a brief stop at Checkpoint Charlie as we made our way to Berlin Cathedral for the noon Prayer Service. This was an impressive space and Luther was either looking over us, or looking down on us, the entire time.

After an extended stay in Potsdamer Platz for lunch with 1 tour member getting lost and then getting found again (they now owe the group a round of drinks), we went to St. Matthew's Church, the place Dietrich Bonhoeffer was ordained. I gave a brief devotional on Bonhoeffer and discipleship. Speaking only for myself as an admirer of Bonhoeffer his writings, this was a moving place to behold.

We then moved onto a third church - the Kaiser Memorial Church. When destroyed in WW2, its remains stand today as a scarred reminder that the greatness of the Kaiser's wars, for whom and what the Memorial Church was built, shall lead and end in destruction. The two photos you see include the remains of the original structure and the inside of its replacement.

That was Berlin! Now we move deeper into Germany as we move onward to Lutherstadt Wittenberg to learn more about the Protestant Reformation. Gute Nacht.