My last stop in The Netherlands was Keukenhof, just outside Amsterdam, with seven (7) million spring bulbs covering 79 acres of parkland.
The designs and colors of the flowers, accentuated by trees, water and sculptures, create a wonderland for lovers of spring gardens.
Noticing what I notice is an important part of my spiritual life, and I like to capture in pictures what I am noticing. Here are some samples of things that caught my eye as I walked around Amsterdam.
The canals, bridges and houseboats fascinated me. The canals are all similar and yet each one is unique.
During my canal boat ride, we came across this one-man band (at the end of the long pole is a bucket for tips).
I am a knitter and often buy yarn when I travel to make something as a souvenir of the trip. Stephen & Penelope is a well-known yarn shop in Amsterdam, and I was happy I could stop in and purchase a skein. I also loved how their bike is decorated in yarn.
A symphony greets me when I step outside,
whistles, tweets and caws.
Birds calling, calling.
I stop and listen.
Yes, I say. Yes.
On Easter Sunday, I visited the “Miracle” Chapel in the Begijnhof Community, a community of lay women (called Beguines) dating from the 14th Century. The Chapel is now the parish church for French-speaking Catholics in Amsterdam.
The last Beguine died in 1971, and the homes are now privately owned.
That same morning, I also visited the Portuguese Synagogue, which was founded in 1639 by Jews fleeing religious persecution in Spain and Portugal. The Synagogue has not been updated with heat or electricity (lighting comes from the candles), and it is surrounded by smaller buildings that serve as classrooms, a library, and rooms that hold the treasures of the Synagogue (including fabrics, ritual vessels and scrolls).
Of the 4,300 Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam before World War II, 3,700 were murdered during the war. The community continues to worship in this Synagogue.
One of the most interesting buildings I toured in Amsterdam was the Tuschinski Theater, a beautiful building with both Art Deco and the Amsterdam School style of Architecture, built by Polish immigrant Abraham Icek Tuschinski (1898-1942) and opened in 1921.
The corridors have a butterfly theme in the light fixtures and the paintings.
Other areas of the building feature a variety of artwork and posters.
The main theater curtain and details along the side of the stage.
The audio tour offered many details of the history of this marvelous art deco building, from design through construction to the famous people who attended events throughout the decades to its current use as a cinema.
Last Sunday, we heard these words from Acts 3:13-15: Peter said to the people: ‘The God of Abraham…has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence….’
Wait a second, I thought. Isn’t this the same Peter who denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed?
I can flip back a few pages in my Bible and find Peter claiming he does not know Jesus, and yet here he is calling out others for doing the very thing he did.
What nerve!
I pondered this situation and thought about what enabled Peter to call out others for doing the same thing he had done.
What transpired between the time Peter betrayed Jesus and Peter called out others for betraying Jesus?
What transpired is that Jesus called out Peter. Peter, he asked, do you love me? Three times he asked, and Peter replied yes three times. Then he was forgiven and reconciled.
Forgiveness and reconciliation are the keys to moving forward, to healing relationships, to rebuilding trust.
Two weeks ago, I visited the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam, and since then, I have been thinking about what enables some people to resist and others to cave. Why did some people protect the people the Nazis sought to kill while others turned in their neighbors?
And, of course, I wonder what I would do if faced with the same situation. Would I protect myself or would I risk my life to protect others?
I can imagine Peter saying to those who turned in their neighbors during World War II, you denied them and handed them over….
By extension, I can imagine Peter asking me if I have protected anyone who was at risk, if I spoke up for someone who had no voice—even (or especially) if it meant putting myself at risk. About whom would Peter say to me, you denied them and handed them over?
I also visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and watched a video called Democracy is Yours.
How quickly democracy was lost, first in Germany when Hitler came to power, and then in the countries the Nazis invaded. Fear can be a powerful motivator.
Finding our voices, speaking up for truth, defending those who are vulnerable and at risk of being marginalized, those labeled “other”—are difficult things to do.
Finding the courage to speak up and the freedom to risk everything for another is, for me, part of the Easter message. Jesus died and rose so I have no reason to fear anything, not even death.
A few weeks ago, I read that God “does not ration his spirit” (John 3:34) and I wondered if I ration God’s spirit. Or do I allow God’s spirit free reign with me? Am I timid or bold? Trusting or fearful? Living in abundance or scarcity? God’s spirit invites me and empowers me to be bold, trusting and living in abundance. If I do that, I will be able to be courageous, loyal and fearless.
Etty Hillesum drew me to Amsterdam and Camp Westerbork, and since I read her dairy, An Interrupted Life, in the mid-1980’s. I have wanted to see where she lived and worked, to walk the streets she walked.
Although most of the doors in Amsterdam are brown, black or a green so dark it looks black, many have interesting carving, transoms or other decoration to make them stand out..
Most houses have large windows, sometimes with art displayed on the window sills and sometimes with no window treatments so it is possible to look in and see the wall art.
Doorways were also decorated, and I loved the use of tile to add interest to the outside of a house.
Other embellishments included decorative lamps, wrought iron railings and shutters.
Most of the buildings on the canals were built in the 17th century, and businesses were identified by a sign embedded into the building.
At the beginning of Lent, I enrolled in a class called Praying with Gothic and Netherlandish Art at Manresa Jesuit Retreat Center. Praying with art has always appealed to me, and the fact that I was planning to travel to the Netherlands in the middle of this course made it that much more attractive.
At the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, I saw one of the paintings we had discussed only weeks earlier–Rogier van der Weyden’s The Miraflores Altarpiece, and I was grateful that I had already spent some time with this painting because I felt a connection I don’t think I would have had if I hadn’t taken the course.
Anyway, throughout Lent, the painting that kept coming back to me was Duccio di Buoninsegna’s The Three Marys at the Tomb and the idea of something completely unexpected happening when they reached the tomb.
I tried to pay attention to unexpected things happening to me while on my trip to Amsterdam and Berlin—and there were quite a few.
For example, in the Detroit airport, waiting to board our flight, a five-year-old girl and her father were standing next to me. She struck up a conversation with me, explaining that she and her dad were traveling to Amsterdam to visit her grandparents and telling me of their plans to go skiing in Switzerland. (She was a somewhat precocious child.)
During the flight, I walked past her seat, and she waved and then turned to her dad and said, “Its my friend from the airport.” I smiled at having an unexpected new friend.
In Amsterdam, I was delighted at the unexpected sight of boxes of tulips floating in a pond. I was also delighted by the chocolate-covered waffles in my hotel’s snack basket and the apple pie, goat cheese croquettes and other tasty treats I tried—all delights I had not expected.
But not everything unexpected was delightful.
As I walked around Amsterdam and later Berlin, I unexpectedly came across stumbling stones, brass markers set into the sidewalks in front of the last voluntarily chosen places of residence of the victims of the Nazis. My spirit grew heavy as I stopped to read the names on these markers.
German artist Gunter Demnig created Stumbling Stones to commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.
At Camp Westerbork, the transit station about 110 miles north of Amsterdam, the lone train car left on the tracks continuously plays a recording of the names of the more than 100,000 people who were processed through this camp—just as their names had been called for the Tuesday train departures to camps in the east. There is an eerie quiet in the Camp, and my spirit was subdued as I listened to the names being read and walked among the memorial pillars lined up as the people once had.
Memorial to more than 100,000 people who were processed through Camp Westerbork between 1942 and 1945.
The deep emotional impact of these visuals was unexpected, and I am still processing.
My Lenten prayer had been to be open to the unexpected and receptive to the surprises God brings to my life. I want to honor all that God offers, whether it be delightful or difficult.
Last week, I visited Amsterdam for four days (my first time there) and I had a long list of things I wanted to see; four days was not enough, and I will plan to go again.
Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring blooms dotted the city, creating a beautiful spring landscape.
My favorites were the floating boxes of tulips in the pond in Vondelpark.
I also appreciated the pots of tulips and small gardens around the city.
Bicycles are ubiquitous in Amsterdam, and I found several decorated bikes as well.
The Botanical Garden was bursting with color and with varieties of tulips I had never seen before.
The Garden, along a canal, is home to sun and shade gardens, greenhouses and a butterfly house.
From a spring flower perspective, I think the timing of my visit was perfect. During my time in Amsterdam, I also visited a number of places connected with World War II, and I was grateful to be able to sit among the beauty of flowers to process my feelings.
The water heater in my house is eighteen years old, making it almost ancient. When the repairman came recently to see to a problem with my furnace, I asked him if I should replace the water heater preemptively.
No, he said and then explained that water heaters don’t usually just burst. Usually, he said, a small trickle of water seeps out. Most people either don’t see that little bit of water or they ignore it. Just keep an eye on it, he advised. Check it every day for that trickle of water and call us when you notice it.
Since then, I have made sure to check the water heater every day for any signs of water trickling out.
And I have thought of where else in my life this advice might be helpful. How often do I miss signs of something about to break or that something is wrong? How often do I tell myself that something is really nothing? How often do I miss trickling water?
In the 1990’s, some friends lived in a house on a hill above a small creek—maybe six feet across and a foot deep. It was a lovely spot, and this house had been there for more than one hundred years, overlooking the creek and surrounding trees.
Then a hurricane came through and the creek swelled and rose up the hill and filled my friends’ basement and then flooded the first floor. It seemed impossible that this little creek could become a river and cause so much damage, but it did.
The memory of their flooded home makes me attentive to the possibility of water damage.
Paying attention, noticing what I notice and not ignoring signs are all ways of living more deeply, rooted in reality.
I can find it challenging to admit and accept some of the signs of things I don’t want to deal with or things I think I have already dealt with.
I resonated with one of the characters in the book I recently read.
This character had come from an affluent family and got pregnant as an unmarried teen; her parents sent her away to have her baby and give it up. When she decided to keep her baby, against her parents’ wishes, they shunned her, and she lost everything she had known.
I felt my anger rising at the injustice of her parents shunning her at precisely the moment she needed their support the most. Although I came from a working-class family and did not get pregnant as a teen, my parents shunned me when I got divorced.
Usually, I would minimize or dismiss this rise of anger, but because of my pondering the trickling water, I spent some time reflecting on what had stirred my anger, the unresolved issue that had been touched.
Like a small creek, unchecked anger can turn into a raging river and cause unimaginable harm.
The anger that welled up in me is a message about something that needs further attention.
Madeline Bialecki 