thanksgiving with family

this year will be the first in awhile since i've celebrated Canadian thanksgiving. and even then, i'm not sure how much i'll be celebrating. at the least i'll be celebrating (and am very thankful for) the visit of my sister, Janice, and her husband. it's the first time they've been to Europe - and it's been neat to have them here - and to share in their excitement of seeing this world here - both the old dutch stuff they recognize from home and the new odd stuff (like my neighbourhood). and it's been fun just to catch up and show my life here. and to benefit from my brother-in-law's expertise. i'm not the most 'handy' person, and he recognized that pretty quick - so he's wonderfully changed the light bulb that you could only reach by climbing on the beams, and he made it so that my table no longer wobbles (yay - it was starting to get rather unstable). and if i can get him a crowbar, we'll make it so that there's no longer these odd gaps in my floor from the linoleum.

so what are the plans for thanksgiving? well, going to chapel and hanging around at the community for coffee. then maybe a trip with the brother-in-law to the hardware store :) and a trip with my sister to the grocery store to stock up further on dutch specialties and to see if we can find some kind of turkey meat. then a market, and a canal trip, and then they go on the heineken tour, and then thanksgiving dinner. we'll see what random concoction we come up with this time - we've thus far had smoked horsemeat and liverworst and gouda cheese and i've made nasi and stamppot for them already (it's my first time ever making stamppot by myself, which i find kind of ironic). but whatever supper ends up being, it'll be good just to be with them - and to be thankful for each other and that they get to be here and that they get to develop a picture my life here and enjoy the good things here.

a prayer for complicated blessings...

i read the following blessing prayer on a blog about the monastic life that i regularly look at. it surprised me a bit, as it feels a bit like it is a prayer for hardships as opposed to blessings. but when i looked closer, i realized it only sounded strange because somewhere in my head/heart, i still have this silly idea that blessing should be associated with easy or simple. blessing is about goodness, not about simpleness or easy-ness. and what could be more good than a prayer that i be blessed to be more myself and more concerned for others?

The following is the blessing, with thanks to the author of Monastic Musings:

"A four-fold Franciscan blessing:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

 May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word Who is our Brother and Savior, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore."


I think the blessing of foolishness is the one I want most. I deeply desire to be crazy enough to hope, pray, and work for the seemingly impossible.

a different sort of image in my neighbourhood

when going through the Red Light District, one is confronted with a lot of different images. it's bad enough that i try to remember to tell any visitors that they might not want to look around them as curiously as usual when they're walking through my neighbourhood - as they might be confronted more nudity and images related to sex than they're want to see. in some ways, i've kind of gotten used to it due to over-exposure, although as i've been walking along the Achterburgwal more in the last while, i must admit that if one also adds hordes of gawking tourists, it definitely makes for an unpleasant walk through my neighbourhood.

and that's why it's nice to see an unexpected image every once in awhile. i've bumped into the following image along my walk home:

and what's unique about the image is not simply that the woman is fully and tastefully clothed - the message in the poster says something different than the dominant message of the Red Light District. the image here challenges how we see people. in the Red Light District, women are often seen as only sex objects. and this photo challenges this idea, for the captions asks: "would you still look at me [that way], if I was HIV-positive?" it is part of the stop AIDS campaign - and to minimize the spread of AIDS and not minimize the people who have HIV.

and i appreciate the poster (and where it is placed) because i see it confronting people with some of the problems in seeing women as sex objects and it confronts people with the fact that those who have AIDS have a face - and often an unexpected one.

i pray. that's just what i do

during my time at a monastery last spring, i spent some time reflecting on what i had accomplished in the past year. and i remember being disappointed - disappointed that i hadn't done much. and then, during one of the many times of prayer, i all of a sudden came to the realization that 'i pray.' and that in God's eyes it was good that i prayed and that i could pray so much.

and i am reminded regularly that 'i pray.' i continue to be amazed that going to daily prayer has become a normal part of my life. and that every day i am reminded to bring those in my life before God. whether they be those i worry about or those i love or simply those whose lives have bumped into mine. for if you walk into my life, then i pray for you. sometimes longer. sometimes shorter. sometimes i forget and sometimes i have questions and worries. and i do my best to bring before God the prayer requests others have shared with me. and i pray for me a lot - pray for wisdom and insight and love and grace, especially in relationships. and most of all i just talk to God about everything on my heart, expecting to hear him.

and so i pray. it's now become a normal part of who i am and what i do. in fact, i feel a bit lost when i can't just walk into the chapel and sing and be welcomed into the silence and the expectation of coming to meet with God. i have discovered ways to work around not being (able to be) in chapel but after too long without the daily prayer times, i feel like i'm missing a part of who i am.

living in the 'not yet'

the kingdom of God being here on earth already but at the same time not yet present was emphasized to me a lot while i was in college (university). it's a concept that captures the paradox that God has already come to earth and He is present now working in the world but at the same time there's a lot of things wrong in the world now and we are still waiting for Christ to come again. at certain times during the year, the liturgical calendar focuses more on the messiness of the kingdom that is not yet come (like during advent and lent) and other times the focus is more on the kingdom that is already here (like during Christmas and Easter). other times, things around us make us more attuned to either the already part or the not yet part of the kingdom. and in the last few weeks, the community has been made aware of the messiness of the not yet - that things are wrong (mis).

in the chapel we've been reading from 1 Kings (we try to read through the Bible in chapel every 9 years or so). to say that what we've been reading is not really spiritually uplifting is putting it mildly. although reading Jeremiah wasn't necessarily better with all of the warnings and accusations, at least it was poetry and the average person might be able to recognize a message therein for oneself. yet, for the past three weeks, the majority of the morning readings in the chapel have been the following: "so-and-so became king. he was horrible, following in the sins of Jeroboam, doing this and this and this (if he's really horrible, he is told that if he (or his family) dies in the city his body will be eaten by dogs). the rest of what happened during his reign can be found in this or this book (which can't be found). then, so-and-so became king." it's depressing - and at times even disturbing. and what kind of message does one get from there? well, it appears that following in the sins of Jeroboam could be quite detrimental to one's health, so I'd stay away from doing that if i were you. the most hopeful element in the story is that if these messed-up kings could be part of God's work, one realizes that God is capable of working in and through even the most messed up people today. and even that isn't all that hopeful. we are thankfully getting to the Elijah and Elisha stories now, which still chronicle the messiness of the kings and the people of Israel but at least we get to see God working in his prophets. but thus far the book of Kings has highlighted a lot more of the "not yet" nature of God's kingdom.

another area where the messiness of living in the 'not yet' can be seen is when things go wrong in the house. br Luc captures well this sense of wrongness (mis) in a write-up that he does for a church magazine. the following is a rough translation:
"Last week we had to forcefully remove someone from the house. Thankfully that doesn't happen often. The decision that this man could no longer stay occurred in the appropriate way - the pressure that we applied was weighed and well considered. In the end, the police were called in. That was unfortunate: this wasn't really productive for the man asking for help and as for us, we had no desire to make any charges against him. It felt like one huge failure. I am well aware that not every person who comes here for help will result in a happy ending of eventually getting their own place. Sometimes it just doesn't work out the first time and the person should find another form of help that can help them achieve their desired goals. In those situations, the decision to stop giving help is something that you can have peace about. After all, it opens the door to another means with better chances. This time, however, it was not an open door, but a dead-end street which would lead only to problems. In a piece like this, you'd expect a nice sentence here about how hope is still part of the situation or something like that. But you won't read that here; I have no idea how this can turn out well - the force used only made the situation worse. I know and believe that in the end things shall be different. Until that time, though, it sometimes goes horribly wrong."

and even as much as it is good not to forget that we do live in an already time - we can and do have hope found in knowing that God is working and the kingdom is also already here - it is also good to remember that sometimes it doesn't feel much like things are going well or that God is working or even that we can hope for more. and then it is helpful to recognize the wrongness for what it is - the not yet that we live in still.

pictures and videos of the gemeenschap weekend are posted online

pictures and videos related to the gemeenschap weekend are now posted on the Oudezijds 100 website. For those of you not so familiar with dutch, you can click here for the pictures and here for the videos.
[i managed to get into a couple of the pictures, although i'm not sure about the videos - i haven't watched them yet].

not quite like anything else (reflections after a Gemeenschapweekend)

i've lived here for three years now, long enough for things to become somewhat normal. but every once in awhile, it occurs to me that the community i live in is a bit strange. this becomes more noticeable when we all do something together, like this past weekend when we had the Startweekend (Gemeenschapweekend - community weekend).

it takes quite a number of lists and planning to organize food, lodging, transportation, and fun for 65 people. but somehow it all comes together, everyone is fed, everyone gets transported around (and in a special child seat when necessary), everyone has a place to sleep warmly and opportunity to shower, and everyone can play. sure, there's the usual complaining that there's nothing fun to do. and there's the odd (anti-social) glitch, like a woman using up all the hot water before breakfast with her half-hour shower (in the men's bathroom, of all places). but it comes together: and we laugh, we eat well, we learn to take an extra blanket to bed the second night, we enjoy the time away despite the busy-ness of many things to do and lots of people, we tease each other, and we discover more who the others in the community are. and no one is surprised that it is good - the organizers do their best, and others help out as they can. i'm pretty sure God's hand was there in the goodness somewhere. (although the dutch might not quite say it quite that way :))

and so we made stuff out of clay and had a competition and watched a parade of tractors and told stories and walked and went to church and did chores and prayed. and i got glimpses of the gracious self-giving of many who willingly helped out quietly in so many ways. and i was delighted by the musical talents of some. and even though i was a bit dubious about the 'emmaus walk', (the idea was that just as Jesus came as a stranger and participated in the conversation of the 2 disciples along the Emmaus road, perhaps God would be part of our conversations), i did get a sense that God had been part of our walk - and that He had surprised us by coming alongside to delight in our discussing. i tried to see us as others might see us - and couldn't help but see that our group of 60, made up of at least 5 different cultures with 20 children moving in between all of us, must have stuck out quite a bit - and i enjoyed the idea that people might wonder about us and this different sort of a family that we represent. and i heard a number of conversations of faith and a striving to understand God and each other and our relationships better. and i got to hang out with little kids and play with clay. and i was delighted by the curiosity and genuine interest i saw in learning more about this community. and i witnessed the type of relationships that grew over years of being around for each other - and the easy laughter and comraderie that spoke of years of caring and being cared for. and i fell a bit more 'in love' with this strange group that i consider family.

and as i caught glimpses of the others there, i was once again amazed that i get to share in other's lives in this way.