a brief excerpt

"If the Church's worship is faithful, it will eventually be subversive of the culture surrounding it, for God's truth transforms the lives of those nurtured by it"

- Marva Dawn
Showing posts with label the netherlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the netherlands. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2009

sporadic ramblings

It is mid February. I must be honest in saying that I have not longed for summer this much before in my life. I am tired of the dark and cold days. I do not enjoy being confined to four walls for most parts of the day. I honestly crave the opportunity of enjoying a meal outside on a patio, I long for the long evenings where the sun doesn't seem to hurry to get to the other side of the world, I desire to go to places randomly and not having to worry about frost-bite.

I also think that is probably the saddest and dreariest way I have ever started a blog. After all things are actually quite well in my life right now. I am listening to Beethoven's Piano concerto No. 4 in G Major and while I don't really know what that all means, it is very soothing. February 2009 means also that I am rapidly approaching my graduating date. This semester has been filled with many responsibilities and opportunities, however, has been cast under a shadow of a significant lack of motivation to achieve the best I can. While being challenged in my classes and even more so in conversations with friends outside of class I am struggling to push myself to critically engage a lot of the big ideas floating around.

Currently I am interning at Cardus (A Public think tank with a comprehensive view of changing our world) for course credit, and it has to be the most interesting course I have partaken in. My official "title" is research intern, which means that I get to assist in the research projects Cardus has going on. For me the most exciting part has been to partake in the Stained Glass Urbanism research. It is hard to describe in few words what I get to do - most simply put, however, I get the chance to research what the role of the church as an institution is within the urban context. How does a church relate to its city, how does it cultivate and nurture a healthy relationship with urban life in the city not just its Sunday worshipers. That kind of stuff gets me going and accordingly I am enjoying this internship quite a bit.

Back to the summer, there are many things to look forward to. The most obvious is my mom's wedding and being able to see all my family and loved ones and having all of us together for the first time in a while. However, that alone doesn't make me excited about the summer. I greatly anticipate living with many of the same guys as last summer at the Catacombs, numerous other weddings, being done school, and going to Holland and Barcelona (Lord willing).

Friday, December 01, 2006

TIme flies..




It has been a little while since I have last let people know what has been happening in my life. And since I can't get to the text I need for my sociology assignment, I am writing this update.




Academica


November has proved itself to be a great month. The beginning of November was mainly devoted to writing midterms and assignments, now school has moved on to paper season. Yesterday at midnight my political science term paper was due, and I finished writing it at 10:30 in the morning. At 4pm it was time to do a bit of editing, to hand in the paper at the library right after that. However, it is clear that nothing goes as planned, I spend the next 2 hours trying to recover my paper, after WordPerfect, made it a lot less perfect. Nevertheless, in the end I was able to hand in my paper.




Strange News


Squirrels, you know the little animals, depicted pretty and lovely in fairy tails and cartoons, known as terrorists and fried food at Redeemer. Last weekend a squirrel came into the transformer and put down power on all of campus. Even though I wasn't there for the evacuation, sleeping in hotels and pizza. Which I think is sad, because it would have been fun. I want to pay tribute to the squirrel that changed Redeemer's fall semester of 2006.


Weekends


Well,last weekend the Go Transit system took me to Barrie for the weekend, this weekend the VanMarum family van, will take me to Sarnia to celebrate Rachel's birthday, which is tomorrow. Barrie was very relaxing for Rachel and I, long nights of sleep, the Timothy Christian School bazaar, a mall trip turned 8km walk on the most beautifull saturday if the month, and a really refreshing sermon in church on sunday. This weekend looks to be fun as well, it's a birthday party after all.


The Motherland


My trip to the Netherlands is still planned for December the 21st, after visiting Jeroen and Jacq for a bit, I'll be heading to Ede for most of the time, I can't wait to see all the family and friends, many of whom I have not seen in 1,5 years. As for all of you that live in Holland, my unofficial trading company is still operating, I can take any food, gift, or animal to Holland this Chirstmas. Maybe, the animal is a bad idea, but let me know.


Closing remarks

It is crazy to see how quick time flies (as do pigs app, it feels like a couple weeks ago, that I was busy with all the First year introduction events. And now I only have one week of classes left!
I wish everybody a great week, and a jolly great december, seeing that I will probably see most of you in December, I'l say, see you later.. In Christ, Willem