Oxford!

Matthijs has a Master's degree from Oxford, so I was delighted to have the chance to go with him to visit the place he lived for a year.

Matthijs wrote about it on his blog, so I'll direct you there to read the story of our visit last Sunday. And I'll just provide the pictures (most of them are the view from the tower of University Church):

A window in Queen's chapel depicting the Ascension - Jesus' feet are worth noticing.

The garden at New College (1)

The garden at New College (2)

Surprises in London

One of the things that makes travelling more memorable is the unexpected: you start out with plans, but they don't quite work out as planned or somewhere you turn left instead of right. Sometimes that leads to frustration, but sometimes it leads to delightful surprises.

Our trip to London, especially the first day (last week Saturday), felt like that. We'd left on time (7 in the morning!) and started biking to the train station - except my suitcase didn't have a side handle so I couldn't carry it on my bike - so Matthijs eventually took it - and we were a bit later leaving.

We did make it to the train station on time - only to discover that our train to Brussels had been cancelled! So first to Rotterdam and then the next international train - which was crammed. After things emptied out in Belgium, a friendly blind guy sat across from us - and we had a delightful random conversation. And despite the train delays, we had lots of time to board in Brussels.

And finally London! Neither of us had thought to print out a map (the ink in the printer is almost out, so I'm not sure if it would have helped anyways), so we meandered around trying to figure out how to get to our address (it didn't help that our 'local' subway station was closed). We ended up walking past the Oval cricket stadium and through a tiny little community garden - and then we were by our bed and breakfast. We were met by our host, who turned out to be a bit more flamboyant than we expected (and quite effusive about his love for God, as we discovered in the days to follow); we happily settled in and got ready to explore London.

With a guide book and a transportation card (oyster card), London is fairly easy to navigate. And our first stop was the Victoria and Albert museum. After exploring the more usual museum things, we bumped into the glass display (on our way to architecture). Wow! A staircase with a glass banister and hundreds of strange shapes and colours of glass - not what we'd come to see but it captured our attention in a way we hadn't expected.

After the museum, we walked through Kensington Park to get to a lovely Indian restaurant - only to discover we'd needed reservations. And so, we chose instead a strange but delightful snackbar place with crazy spicy food and a mixture of customers (from young mediterranean guys to a black woman to a couple where the woman was clothed in a burka).

And after dinner, back to the bed and breakfast - delighted by our day but tired from all the new things. We also wanted to get some extra sleep so as to be ready for the next adventures: Sunday would be Oxford and Monday was the beginning of the conference!

Dutch Theologians go home at 5

In normal life, I don't think I know many dutch theologians who do go home at 5 - most go home later than that. But when you're at an International Biblical Scholarship conference, five in the afternoon is apparently the time to head back home.

After all, if you take the train home at five, you'll have had a couple of free hours between the end of the conference and departure time so that you can go sightseeing in London - and you'll still make it home that night.

At least, that's what Matthijs and I were planning to do. It was a delightful surprise to discover that we were not the only dutch folk at the conference who'd had exactly the same idea! And so travelling home, after a good conference, we could greet the other dutch folk - and even if we didn't say much, there was a sense of comraderie born of having done things together and heading towards home together.

A bit surreal: trip to London and moving to Amsterdam

In a couple of weeks we'll be moving back to Amsterdam. We've signed the contract, paid the deposit and first month's rent, made arrangements for moving, and there are empty moving boxes waiting to be filled. Our hope/plan of moving back to Amsterdam is finally coming true!

But first, London: Matthijs and I are off to London for the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting - where I get to present a paper before a room full of people where hopefully a number of Ezekiel experts will be present. Not surprisingly, much of this last month has been spent digging further into the book of Ezekiel, sorting through my past research and trying to get a more solid grasp on the terminology used in linguistics. That's been good - and I'm looking forward to getting to participate in this academic world, as well as getting to take a bit of a vacation with Matthijs in London.

And then when we come back, we'll be painting and packing and moving - all in a whirlwind. What now feels a bit surreal will certainly become all too real! Perhaps moving the cat to Amsterdam tomorrow (he'll spend the time with his future neighbours) will help - or perhaps the trip to London and the moving to Amsterdam will simply remain surreal until I show up at the conference in London or we wake up in our bed in Amsterdam.

Weekend Services

If I had to summarize this past weekend, I'd say that it was a weekend full of services. I went to chapel 3 times, as well as attending an Anglican English Evensong, an Orthodox Compline service that was a Greek-Russian mix, a Catholic morning service, and a Protestant (PKN) evening vespers service. It was also obviously an ecumenical weekend of church services! An added dimension was the fact that I knew people participating in all of the services - Matthijs sang in the Evensong and Catholic morning service, a good friend helped lead the Orthodox service, and I could greet by name most of those who attended the vespers service.

Most of those committed to the community are Protestant, but that still leads to much diversity. Some are used to the Genevan psalms while others are used to praise songs and still others are most at home with chants from Taizé. Finding ways to be hospitable to others in worship - and help people to meet God - are often a challenge. Even when people all speak the same language (not always a guarantee - we had Spanish speaking guests in the community this weekend), each person's language of faith is hardly the same. As such, it is hardly obvious that there could be a common language to come before God - or even introduce people to God (as some of those living in the community wouldn't claim any relationship with Him). And yet, this weekend, surrounded by people in the community from so many different backgrounds, I got to see people come before God and meet Him in so many different ways.

I have to admit that it didn't surprise me at all that in each of these different places and different services, we were able to meet God. And it was good to see and experience God at work in the wider church.

Praying for those surrounded by darkness

During the evening vespers at the Oude Kerk (Old Church), we often have a moment to remember others. During that time, we sing:

Wie door het duister zijn omringd noemen wij U in stilte.
Want voor U is het duister niet donker : de nacht licht op als de dag, het duister is helder als licht.

Translation (fairly literal):
Those who are surrounded by darkness - we bring them before You in silence.
Since for You the darkness is not dark: the night lights up (shines) as the day, the darkness is as clear as light.

text: Mirella Klomp
music: Christiaan Winter


As we sing the song, I am reminded of those who are suffering - often those who feel far away from the light of God. Last Sunday, my mind was turned especially to those suffering with emotional problems and how those problems seem to place people in the midst of darkness and despair. At times, the emotional difficulties threaten to extinguish hope and a sense of God's light in the midst of the darkness.

For those wanting to know more about emotional difficulties, as a way of gaining awareness or to direct prayers for those suffering, catapult magazine recently published an issue regarding mental illness. I also chose to write in this article: an article entitled Understanding emotional sickness.

Image for the day

As I was walking along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal this morning, I bumped into an image that couldn't help but make me smile. One of the houses along the road is being renovated, and downstairs behind the large windows where prostitutes would generally sit, I noticed something slightly different. The construction workers were sitting there having a break and watching the world walk by.

It's too bad I didn't have a camera with me. I think the guys would have also seen the humour in the image they created.