Happy in Holland
It is Saturday night here in Den Haag, the last of our five nights with Kusse cousins for this trip. Tomorrow night we catch a plan to Tehran and then ride on to Qom, our new home for the next three years. We should arrive in Tehran about 2am on Monday, the 12th, if things are on schedule.
This has been a lovely week. Our Monday night/Tuesday morning flight to Amsterdam was full of secondary students from Liverpool. We were blessed with good energy, good laughter and a good tail wind that got us into Schipol Airport an hour early. It was such fun to see our family members again-- as ever, the children have really grown and the one year old we saw and hugged for the very first time.
On Wednesday we went to Den Haag, to the crowded, coloroful, odoriforous central market. Dozens of fresh fish lay in beds of ice like a piscine hallelujah chorus.
Fresh fruits and vegis from all over the world were offered, and plenty of free samples, in order to become experientially convinced of sweetness and succulence. A full 2/3 of those shopping were in hijab-- Muslims from Morocco and Turkey. The spire of a brand new mosque was a short distance from the market.
On Thursday it snowed. Not just a few flakes but a wet, soppy, windy inverted rice bowl coming down in blinding white. We went to Delft and took a stroll through one of my favorite cities on earth. We had good strong coffee and apple cake and warmed our cold hands. Rounding a corner later, we caught three police officers lobbing snowballs at each other.
On Friday we celebrated cousin Ellen's 35th birthday and lots of family members calldc znd came by to visit. The simple love of family bonds ... more coffee, more laughing and story telling, more joyful wishes.
Tonight we have just returned from two hours of conversation at a neighbor's home,
Turkish-Dutch people and one Moroccan-Dutch man. They graciously invited us in (more wonderful tea and delectable treats) to talk about Muslim-Christian relations.
Conversation was open and warm and loving. We shared our many dreams for the new year-- that each person personally search for God, that we (Christians and Muslims) learn to understand each other, that there be peace between the US and Iran, that each person look at him/herself very earnestly and work to correct their own deficiences, not others, that People of the Book learn to cooperate while practicing their own faiths.
One of our new friends ended with a "joke" that goes something like this:
A man was walking on the streets of New York City and saw a pit bull attacking a little girl. He immediately ran to the child's aid and killed the dog, thereby saving her life. A journalist ran up and said, "How wonderful that a fellow New Yorker intervened to save a child." The man said, "I'm not from New York." "How wonderful, then," said the reporter, that a fellow American risked personal harm to save a little girl." "Actually, I''m from Pakistan," said the man. The next day the newspaper read "Pakistani Terrorist Kills American Dog."
David and I left our time together (3 Christians and 5 Muslims) longing for more conversation and friendship together. I asked our little group if they thought that on the Day of Judgment, God will be disappointed that "People of the Book" -- Jews, Christians and Muslims -- do not love and appreciate each other. "Disappointed? No," said one young Muslim man. "I think God will really be angry with us all."
This has been a lovely week. Our Monday night/Tuesday morning flight to Amsterdam was full of secondary students from Liverpool. We were blessed with good energy, good laughter and a good tail wind that got us into Schipol Airport an hour early. It was such fun to see our family members again-- as ever, the children have really grown and the one year old we saw and hugged for the very first time.
On Wednesday we went to Den Haag, to the crowded, coloroful, odoriforous central market. Dozens of fresh fish lay in beds of ice like a piscine hallelujah chorus.
Fresh fruits and vegis from all over the world were offered, and plenty of free samples, in order to become experientially convinced of sweetness and succulence. A full 2/3 of those shopping were in hijab-- Muslims from Morocco and Turkey. The spire of a brand new mosque was a short distance from the market.
On Thursday it snowed. Not just a few flakes but a wet, soppy, windy inverted rice bowl coming down in blinding white. We went to Delft and took a stroll through one of my favorite cities on earth. We had good strong coffee and apple cake and warmed our cold hands. Rounding a corner later, we caught three police officers lobbing snowballs at each other.
On Friday we celebrated cousin Ellen's 35th birthday and lots of family members calldc znd came by to visit. The simple love of family bonds ... more coffee, more laughing and story telling, more joyful wishes.
Tonight we have just returned from two hours of conversation at a neighbor's home,
Turkish-Dutch people and one Moroccan-Dutch man. They graciously invited us in (more wonderful tea and delectable treats) to talk about Muslim-Christian relations.
Conversation was open and warm and loving. We shared our many dreams for the new year-- that each person personally search for God, that we (Christians and Muslims) learn to understand each other, that there be peace between the US and Iran, that each person look at him/herself very earnestly and work to correct their own deficiences, not others, that People of the Book learn to cooperate while practicing their own faiths.
One of our new friends ended with a "joke" that goes something like this:
A man was walking on the streets of New York City and saw a pit bull attacking a little girl. He immediately ran to the child's aid and killed the dog, thereby saving her life. A journalist ran up and said, "How wonderful that a fellow New Yorker intervened to save a child." The man said, "I'm not from New York." "How wonderful, then," said the reporter, that a fellow American risked personal harm to save a little girl." "Actually, I''m from Pakistan," said the man. The next day the newspaper read "Pakistani Terrorist Kills American Dog."
David and I left our time together (3 Christians and 5 Muslims) longing for more conversation and friendship together. I asked our little group if they thought that on the Day of Judgment, God will be disappointed that "People of the Book" -- Jews, Christians and Muslims -- do not love and appreciate each other. "Disappointed? No," said one young Muslim man. "I think God will really be angry with us all."
posted by Quakers in Qom at 4:17 PM
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