Good morning! I started reading a new book over the weekend. Oh goodness, it's a fabulous one. Hits deep. It's by Eugene Peterson (yep, the author/translator of the Message). I'm always so thankful for book recommendations. I hate taking time to find books but I love when good ones are just placed in front of my nose (bluntly put, I'm lazy in this area). I have a couple friends who tell me about the best books. This one is from my dad. It starts out with a striking poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins who was my favorite poet in high school. He was my first introduction to a poet madly in love with alliteration, the poems hopping with tension. Here's the lovely example:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow strung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

The book concentrates on the living out of our theology which he calls "spiritual theology"... That the two words cannot be separated without being at an imbalance. Oh and yes, the book is naturally called, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. It was cheap on bol.com (if you're in the Netherlands), otherwise I'm sure you can get it for next to nothing in the US. Well, there you have it, my plug for the day!

I'm now off to prepare for my first teaching in dutch (eeek!) on prayer. I'm preparing in English then will translate it to dutch, I may figure out mid way that I'm doing double work. We'll see, I'm sure the next time will be easier. Ideas/tips are welcome! Which reminds me I also need to buy a Bible in dutch, so I'll stop by the bookstore as well. I keep misplacing the ones I thought I had. Then my day will hopefully finish with some mad quick graphic design skillzzz which will inshallah (God willing), produce a sign/banner of sorts for the entrance to our "non church" looking church door this Sunday. Here we go!

I got my hair cut today. It was a fun experience. Went to Kinki Kapers in Utrecht. Trained down with lovely Allie. We stepped in to this raging energy filled space with hairdressers snipping madly away. Felice, my new favorite person was there to great us. She's been cutting hair for just under a year and is freaking amazing. A total gift and finally a hairstylist that's got "the gift." She takes a really long time but the result is fabulously smooth and light (which is a good thing for my hefty mane) but it means we have longer to talk. And talk and talk we did, all in dutch of course, which I always am pleasantly surprised when people do speak dutch with me, since often their English is so perfect. It's one of my favorite things. Even when I ask for clarification, it's in dutch! Thank you God for Felice.

I love when life tasks overlap... need a haircut since it's been 6 months and need to practice dutch and it's always good to meet new people and even bump in to another friend and connect with her... oh the overlap is a sweet thing! By the time we made it back it was late and time to catch a few maddeningly amazing Lost episodes with friends.

Tomorrow I have letters to sign, a teaching to write, my thoughts to process, and some new and old friends to see. It will be a good day I'm sure.

My thoughts today have wandered to Martin Luther King Jr. and the annual remembrance and celebration that goes on back home on this day. And I got to thinking about the MLKs all over the world who work for justice and seek peace. And that these regular people like my friend Sarah who helps women in India who are coming out of prostitution by providing them with an income (making beautiful blankets out of recycled sari material) are full of the grace and love of Jesus. That's who Jesus was, a radical justice seeker who gave his life to put the world to right. And now we're a part of that time line, seeing the "right" being worked out and waiting for the full "right" to come. And I pray for justice soon, for real hope people can taste, for a future for Haiti, for the people there who have sustained years and years of kicking while they're down. Oh God, keep us full of hope and keep us with our eyes stuck on you. And help me to be that kind of person here in Amsterdam. Let me be a hope broker as Carl Medearis once said he was when asked what his profession was. I want to be a broker of hope, we're called to be brokers of hope.

Here are some happy pictures I'd forgotten about and thought I'd share... they all have stories attached but for now you get just the picture and a blurb. Life has been a bit hectic, I hope to get back to some actual writing and musing soon.


gathering with new/old friends. this was a really good night.

when the snow came to stay a while! we've had a couple more dumpings of snow since this first snowfall. it's been magical and deeply silent.

allie playing in the snow. it was really sticky snow!

alessandra, mahawa, and i lovin' on eachother.

new year's day came with a swim in the north sea. it was sooo cold and glorious! i'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I hopped home for Christmas to see my family and say "see you soon" to my brother and sister in law who are moving to Switzerland. I'm so excited to have them closer. It was such a treat to all be under one roof together again. It's been many years. I haven't been back to Columbus for over a year so I wondered what I would feel/think. And surprisingly it felt just as much home as ever and I realized that instead of gaining a home and losing another I just feel at home in two places. Now that's something I can live with!

I was in a foul mood yesterday. I mean utterly violently pissed off, judgmental and gross inside. It just happened to be Monday, and Quo Vadis? was planned for the evening....which made me even more frustrated. Why tonight, of all nights? My favorite night of the week. But God is gracious in the darkest rain clouds. I was fighting it so hard, speaking truth loudly in my head when any nasty thought popped up. Over and over again... and again... and a few more times. I didn't feel like I totally won but was I sure fighting!

It was a really fascinating night, a totally different group of people.

At 19.00 it started with two beautiful girls who I've never met coming in "... blah blah.. talking.. nice to meet you.. 'Jaap told us about this' (no clue who Jaap is)... blah blah.. two more people, 'we live around the corner'.. we're not going to stay though... oh okay... (two hours later... still there, having a blast!) and on and on.. brother of so and so.. friend of mine, sister in law, neighbor... It was the most eclectic group...

It's so funny how that happens... just when I try to figure it all out and think that I know who will be there and where people are at in their processing of faith and spirituality/God, etc... then I get it again. I am clueless. Absolutely clueless. And once I just accept that... well.... then I love it! I love the fact that God is bigger than my plans, that He always has the ace card, that He has things up his sleeve that I can never guess (I just love surprises). Believing in a God that can't surprise me, a God that I've figured out.... I couldn't do it. I wouldn't. The power, the bigness, the great mighty yet kind and sincere nearness of God draws me closer and mesmerizes me endlessly (even when at the same time it can be infuriatingly frustrating to not be in control).

And it was midway through the night, sitting at the bar, listening to Julia eloquently tell the story of Jesus as a picture of the love of God, like the love seen as a doctor serves an AIDS patient in Africa or the woman who buys the homeless newspaper weekly and talks to the seller... the love God has for me, for us who despite being rotten annoying not very kind or nice people, loves us. He loves me in my bad mood when I'm cranky for no apparent reason. And I realized again that life is hard and it's normal for me to be human and mad and cranky but in the midst of that God calls me to accept his love and to love others. And in the messy confusing act of doing that is where I know I am, where I am called to be, and where I hope to thrive.

I woke up not wanting to go as usual. As I showered, ate some yogurt, and applied my eyeliner I knew, I always know that good things were going to happen, surprises, glimpses of Jesus. Once a month I join the volunteers at a small soup kitchen. I started going to speak dutch but then I just couldn't stop coming. This particular Friday started with hellos and kisses and warm dutch greetings (I hadn't been there in a couple months so we were extra excited to see eachother). We then sat down in our customary places to smear stacks and stacks and piles of bread. First butter (dutch style), then some with peanut butter, some jam, meat, egg, cheese, and chocolate hagelslag. After the sandwiches were done and the soup sizzling we satt down to tea and coffee, a devotion and some songs. I really have to concentrate then to catch the variety of strong southern and eastern dutch accents.

A half hour later the doors open and the place begins to hum. Hundreds of men and a few women sit and enjoy cups and cups of coffee and dozens of sandwiches. It's especially full in the cold weather. Some wait for a shower, others get clean clothes, and we all sit and talk and relate and be in our humanness together. I usually have a hard time being one of the few women and usually the youngest. I feel strange... I worry that when I'm kind and cheerful and interested in the men's lives, that it's taken the wrong way.

I now remember a talk Eric gave a couple months ago on giving. I will never forget this talk. It hit me in the gut. Sometimes we think, oh we shouldn't give money to people, they may buy drugs, etc. and he spoke right to that mentality by quoting C.S. Lewis.. who said something like, it's better to be thought a sucker, to be taken in by someone who didn't really need money, thinking they would just drink it away - than to keep it, since it would have been better to just have drunk the money ourselves. It's better to be taken in by someone who didn't need money than to miss one person who has real need.

And I thought, it's the exact same thing here... my part, what God calls me to do give love and relate with anyone he puts in front of me. I don't have to worry if they're taking it the wrong way or not. God handles that part. He calls me to give and give and give boldly and generously.

And I was a different person that day... laughing and having fun in the kitchen (got a beautiful red paper rose from one sweet grandpa), had coffee with a man who was born in 1940. Through his rattly breathing he told me stories of what his parents experiences during the war and finally at one point he left unexpectedly. A half hour later he was back with newspapers from 1941, 1943, and 1945! All in dutch, all from papers that are still operating today. It was fascinating to look at the old pages, the articles on life during Nazi occupation, the end of the war, atomic bomb and so on. Finally he slid them across the table and said, they're for you, take them and show your parents. He wouldn't let me refuse. I was so honored.

I walked away that day overwhelmed, thinking... so that's how it's supposed to work! There's such joy and freedom in that kind of giving!