A Good Day

When I went to bed on Saturday, I had the feeling that it had been a "good day." (Some days aren't so good - and some days, I'm too tired or busy or something to even recognize whether the day might have been good!) And what made it good?

Most importantly it was a day of celebration. On Saturday br Rik, one of the members of the community here in Amsterdam, was ordained. And since he's been moving towards this point for quite awhile, it was extra exciting for all of us to see that the big moment had finally arrived.

A year ago br Rik was ordained to a deacon - an important day in his process toward becoming a priest but also the day when I bumped into Matthijs. Matthijs and I remembered each other from a conference a year before, we talked about old testament, communities, and music; and I gave him my email address (and as they say, the rest is history :))

It was also a good day because I had time on Saturday to do things for myself, time with Matthijs, I got to meet good friends of Matthijs (something surprisingly complicated to organize - mostly because we live in different places and his friends don't visit him for a week, like many of mine do :)), and got to celebrate an event with Oudezijds 100.

The ordination and the party afterwards felt classic Oudezijds 100, with a little bit of Anglican high church mixed in (more from the presence of the bishop than from Christ Church herself). And as was usual with organization in the community, there were a few glitches: for example, 15 minutes before the service, we discovered that one of the robes (mantels) was missing, so I got to quickly bike back to the house and pick it up before we started. But there was also lots of food and music and lots of people, so it was fun to talk about nothing and everything - and simply enjoy the celebration together. The only down side of the day was the felt absence of one of the community members, an absence that brings a lot of uncertainties with it. But even then, grieving together an absence is also a good thing; a good thing that does not diminish the celebration of the rest of the day.

See Christ Church's website for photos from the Ordination service.