Yesterday we received a belated Valentine's Day card in the mail, from my grandparents in North Dakota.  The handwriting on the envelope suggested that maybe one of their in-home care providers had assisted them in getting the card out in the mail -- as they're now in their late 80s -- but it was special to get a little tangible reminder of their love, in the form of that Valentine's Day card.

But even more than the card, I enjoyed the picture that they sent along with the card:  an image from a recent summer, in which my grandparents are sitting on a grassy lawn together, eating corn-dogs and drinking soft drinks bought from the midway of the county fair.  To me, it's such an iconic image of my grandparents, of the American Midwest, and of enduring love.  Every time I look at the picture, I can't help but smile.

So of course, I thought I would share it (see above).

Four score and seven years ago our fathers family brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation household...

It was exactly seven years ago that our family moved from Ohio to Amsterdam.  It feels like a very long time -- considering how these years represent over 20% of my life, approximately 60% of my marriage, and nearly 100% of my children's lives... But it also feels like a very short time -- considering how much life and ministry has been packed into the time period.

It can be sobering to consider all of the people, all of the prayers, and all of the sacrifices that have been put into this "Amsterdam Project," through the years.  The words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (quoted/adapted above) seem remarkably appropriate, considering all this context.  This day of remembrance feels somehow heavy, solemn, and yet simultaneously beautiful and profound.  So today we are remembering.  Reflecting.  And most important, Realizing.

I got this from my friend?Brooke, who got it from her sister, who got it from?George Ella Lyon. ?But since I'm spending some time back in Ohio for the holidays, together with our families, I figured this might be a good time to try it for myself. ?It's a poem -- adapted from Lyon's original poem, then made into a first-grade writing exercise called "I am from..."

These are the instructions for the exercise that I got from?Brooke's blog:?

Here's the idea:

1. Write down sensory memories from childhood/life. ?smell, touch, sight, hearing, taste

2. Think about sayings you heard often / lyrics from songs, like... "don't let the bed bugs bite"... "safely in his bosom gather"

3. Think about things you smelled, food, mom's perfume, or the feeling of a family blanket

4. Write the senses down, don't explain them, but be detailed. Don't just say, "I am from dad saying " I love you more than the stars" say instead "I am from "I love you more than the stars."

5. Put "I am from" before your memories (or, in our case, we did "We are from"). List some together.?

So see what you think of my own work-in-progress here below:

We are from spontaneous four-part harmony.

We are from It's Soooooooooouuuup!

We are from full, soft, feathery-needled white pine Christmas trees.

We are from basketball with sprained ankles and broken noses.

We are from coffee with dessert while Dad abstains (insisting that he doesn't even drink whiskey).?

We are from Ya sure ya betcha.

We are from duck-colored Carhartt jackets and sports caps.?

We are from Wonderful the Matchless Grace of Jesus.?

We are from porridgey grip on Saturday afternoons and blueberry muffins on Sunday mornings.

We are from dinner table theology, ecclesiology, and homiletical analysis.?

We are from stacks of Readers Digest on the shelf next to the toilet.?

We are from Big Ten football on Saturday afternoons.

We are from big bowls of buttered popcorn on the couch at the end of the day.?

It's still a work in progress. ?In fact, I'm hoping to round out the poem over the Christmas holiday, together with other family members who could contribute memories to the mix. ?Maybe you'd want to try something similar for your family, too.

At any rate, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!?

Christmas is approaching very quickly, and our family's travels to Ohio are approaching even more quickly!  My thoughts and emotions have been very scattered, leading up to the holidays.  I'm feeling extremely enthusiastic -- almost euphoric at times -- about the prospect of being back with family for this special time of the year.  But then at the same time, in considering the realities of all of my family being back together for the first time in several years (with some of the cousins just meeting each other for the first time, even) and trying to blend our disparate lives again for a couple of weeks, I've had little foreshadowings of the stresses which are also somewhat inevitable.  Holidays are a funny thing in this way.

In a sense, we find ourselves driven by the tension between two
truisms:  "There's no place like home," and "You can't go home again."

Our celebrations of the winter holidays seem to have an awful lot to do with sentimentality.  This became clear to me as I thought about the Dutch cultural phenomenon of Sinterklaas -- wondering how parents could go to the lengths they do, to make the holiday special for their children (and really, my Dutch friends, I don't know if you can fully understand the extent of these lengths unless you have young children here yourself).  I was having a hard time understanding how parents would put up with the whole charade, when it suddenly dawned on me that it all comes down to sentimentality.  I don't have much in the way of childhood sentimentality for Sinterklaas (since I didn't grow up in the Netherlands), so I don't have the fuel needed to power myself through the annual re-enactment of that particular holiday.  I do, however, have my own special memories of Christmas in America, and that's what I'm trying to get back to during the holidays -- along with my fellow Americans who tend to make a lot of movies and write a lot of songs about this particular holiday (while to Dutch people, who didn't grow up with American Christmas, the whole hype seems ridiculous).  So when I think about it like this, it all makes a lot more sense.

The whole pageantry of Sinterklaas and Santa Lucia and Christmas and is fueled by nostalgia and a hope to recapture some of the child-like wonder of the season -- or at least to allow the next generation to capture such an experience in our stead.  I'm not necessarily saying that this is bad or wrong.  I'm just saying that there's something powerful there that drives the engines of the American Christmas Machine (or the Dutch Sinterklaas Machine).  And I honestly think that it comes down to sentimentality, more than the Dutch quest for low-key gezelligheid, more than the American quest for meaning and purpose, more than any sense of materialism or mythology...

Does this explanation make sense to anyone else?  Does anyone else feel the tension of living between those truisms?  In any event, I wish you all a happy Christmas -- celebrating whatever it means to you right now!  Enjoy the nostalgia, enjoy the sentimentality... but don't forget to enjoy it for what it is this year, too.

Our home group is coming to a close this week.  In preparation for our church's transition to Communities, we're disbanding this fellowship -- with the members of our group poised to play key roles in initiating, establishing, or reinforcing multiple other Communities within Amsterdam50.  For the most part, we're pretty excited for what lies ahead.  But I'd also say that we're going through something of a grieving process, remembering all that God has done through the years in developing this little spiritual family.

It's been a good group.

We started with a random group of strangers, meeting up for a drink in the cafe on the Rozengracht and awkwardly getting to know one another.  Me and Marci, Jen and Jurren (although they weren't Jen-and-Jurren back in those days), Shawn, Sherry... maybe one or two others that I can't remember.  We didn't know exactly what to talk about, but we knew we eventually wanted to become a home group.  A couple of weeks later, I remember sharing my 26th birthday on the 26th of February, 2003 with the home group with our first evening meeting -- in the Leidsekade apartment where our family was staying at the time.  And since that time, we've spent many evenings -- and mornings and afternoons -- together with each other...

Over the years, our group grew and developed.  We eventually multiplied, and then multiplied again, and again -- with a total of four groups having descended from that original home group (though one of the four groups died and reabsorbed back into one of the other branches of the family tree).  The names of the people who've been involved along the way are many:  Renske, Nathalie, Mariska, Sander, Marco, Kor, Gerard, Jetske, Jens, Luka, Elisa, Sokol, Alex, Samuel, Melanie, Bram, Linda, Leslie, William, Robert, Christel, Christian, Mirjam, Guy, Becky, Geert Jan, Anne, Mourad, Lukas, Vera, Neil, Maria, Rosa, Ben, Saskia, Suzy, Meghan, Rada, Jeroen, Tanya, Chenther, Amarys, Fons, Tobias, Piotr, Martijn, Steven, Marcus... and this is by no means an exhaustive list!  Not only have people gone from our group(s) to help start other groups in Amsterdam -- but we've even sent out "missionaries" to Brussels and Southeast Asia!

I'd like to think that future generations will be blessed by the legacy of our home group(s) as well.  Certainly our children have been blessed by all the surrogate uncles and aunts.  And in addition to Elliot and Olivia and Cor,  there's been Selina and Selina, Jaydee, Lise, Daisy, and Eron... plus a number of other couples who have hooked up in the context of our group and could easily become their own families someday.  It's crazy to think of what all can come out of a home group!

Along the way, we've had some hard times.  I remember bringing flowers to Linda after her cat, Bagheera, died.  I remember counseling Jen and Jurren through a break-up and temporary home group reassignment (though they're back together again now).  I remember the time that some creepy guy kept calling up Renske in the middle of the night.  I remember more good-bye parties than I care to count.  I remember the feeling of defeat when the home group I was leading two years ago had to fold.  I remember the conversations that our group had about a year ago, when we realized that we were doing a pretty crappy job of listening to each other and really loving each other.

But, of course, we've had some good times, too.  I remember when Chenther and Steven helped to carry the unbelievably heavy granite slab that now serves as our kitchen counter (they always say that you know your true friends by the ones who'll show up to help you move!).  I remember when Jurren, Renske, Sokol, Leslie, Nathalie, Jeroen, Vera, and Maria were baptized.  I remember winning the "50 Cup," an absurd aluminum-foil trophy handed out for the winner of our church's summer speurtocht, for three years in a row!  I remember our children performing for the group before weekly Bible studies.  I remember special dinners together.  I remember countless birthday parties and a handful of weddings...

It's been a good run.  Not perfect.  But good.  We really did succeed in what we set out to do.  We succeeded in becoming a spiritual family that could grow and develop together through the years.

And now it's coming to an end.  Several of our group members have already left town for the holidays, and when we all come back for the new year, we'll be moving onto Communities.  It'll be odd, in some ways.  But I'm hoping and praying that what's yet to come will be more of the same -- and perhaps even better stuff down the road...

[In case you're interested (especially for those who have been a part of the home group at one point or another), you can find a small, random, retrospective collection of photographs in the Zolder50 Pictures section of this website.]