Rather, what motivates you? Ask me a question like that and I’ll be sweet (busy thinking) for a while.
I love it!
In Wageningen, we have a pastors’ convent, where we meet four times a year with all the pastors, student chaplains, and missionary workers from the different churches. As a missionary worker, I am also involved.
A long time ago, one tradition was introduced: that we take turns sharing something about what drives us, what motivates us, the source of our drive. Of course, this question yields multicolored answers.
Which source do you draw from?
I am an associative thinker in images, and when I think of the “source,” I quickly think of the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well. In the Dutch language we have only one word for “source” or “well” (bron)
Jesus and the woman at the well had a very brief meeting. And yet, it was life-changing for the woman. That gives me courage for all the short encounters I often have in my work as a missionair worker, walking alongside people who are on a journey in different stages of their lives.
What source do I draw from? Actually, I have four.
- God, who makes Himself known by the Bible
- Nature
- People close to me
- The heart of the cross
- So let’s start with the Bible. There are many parts that touch me. But this one in particular, Isa. 55: 9 – 11, is the common thread through my book of forty stories. (The world around my table that was published in 2020)
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so far are my ways above your ways, and my plans, your plans. Just as rain or snow descends from heaven and does not return to it, without first soaking the earth, fertilizing it and making it flourish, so that there is seed to sow and bread to eat, so it is also true of the word that goes forth from my mouth: It does not return to me in vain, not without first doing what I want and accomplishing what I command.”
What touches me enormously in this is that we don’t always understand God’s plans and that this is okay.
I also love the metaphor of nature. I am a nature lover and a woman of the earth. We can sow loosely; the outcome is not up to us. The word is going its way, is doing its power.
Short encounters can also be very valuable for people around us. This gives an enormous peace of mind, a looseness. I don’t need to fix the world or anything. I’m not building kingdoms. God is doing that himself. At last: He will accomplish what He commands.
I can be surprised
that the joy and peace
in God is such an inexhaustible
source of the good.
2. The second source is nature: I am a vegetable gardener in our village Bennekom. I enjoy it with my whole being. I also struggle and wrestle with my thoughts and prayers on those few square meters. And that’s good. My plowing, sowing, planting and harvesting is my language with God. It is my prayer. For me, it has an absolute deeper value than just eating the harvest, although that in itself is just fantastic.
3. The third source is people around me. In the first ten, twenty years of your life, you are shaped. This was also the case with me. It has been a long search for me what the Baby (with a capital letter) is and what the bathwater is. What are traditions that can have value in themselves but do not touch the heart of the Gospel? And what is the core? The Source.
I was shaped by my grandfather’s uninhibited way of believing. He loved to sing so much. He sang psalms every day. That was his language of faith. Later, I was touched by other people and faith communities. We moved a lot as a family and experienced local churches and people up close, who became family.
(In this image Nell de Boer, a faithfull friend and supporter of our family, with her daughter whom we recently met in the Netherlands and talked deeply about our roots and upbringing as we visited her in the place she spent her early years before imigrating to Canada.)
We spent time with so many different faith communities: Evangelical Baptists and Anglicans in England, Christian Reformed immigrants in Canada (our son Laurens was born and baptized in Toronto), Catholics and Serbian Orthodox in Croatia, and the Reformed Episcopal Church in Europe.
Something started to shift in my heart: I became a world Christian. From each of those faith communities, I met people with whom I could talk heart to heart at a kitchen table. Many of you, dear readers, know this. (I write about this kind of enriching encounters in my book with forty stories: The World Around My Table.) You can still order that, by the way. I write about Marcela, Nina, Laura, Biljana, Nancy, Hye-Jin.
I am at home where we
meet each others heart
If you ask me now: where are you at home? The answer is: at the heart of the other. This is who I have become, and I experience it as a great gift. But it is not separate from the cross, from troubles, from sorrow, from saying goodbye.
There is often suffering, friction,
That might make us long to God’s return
jealousy, pain in relationships.
It seems inescapable.
A cross has four points: height, depth, width and length. Horizontally and vertically. In the heart of the cross, everything comes together. There, it often pinches and pinches.
4. The fourth source is the cross and the icon of the mystery of the Trinity. You can see the icon of Rublev here. It refers to the Trinity or the meeting of Abram with the angel at Mamre. What’s special: you see a fourth place; you can join right away.
In this community of faith
I felt honored to be briefly part of it.
the sisters say
every single day:
“the peace of God be upon you.”
I wrote my book about a Rule of Life at Kinderalm, a nunnery in the mountains of Austria. Those sisters give each other a blessing every day before they receive the Eucharist. They say: “the peace of God be upon you.” This was also done yesterday and the day before—and the centuries before and back to the last supper in which Jesus says: “Do this in remembrance of me, until I come, break that bread, drink the wine.”
And than Jesus final remarks before the Ascension: Go and preach the Gospel; make disciples of all nations. Keep what I have commanded, and keep this in mind: I am with you, until the completion of the world (Do your thing in the place where you are placed, and don’t forget: I’m there, says God.). Sweep that floor, clean up those cups, do the dishes, sweep the table. Write that email or letter. Care, live, receive, love.
and keep this in mind:
(Do your thing in the place where you are placed, and don’t forget: I’m there, says God.)
I am with you,
until the completion of the world
That comfort! This mystery. I haven’t pondered enough about this yet. This is where faith, hope and love come together for me. This makes me EnThousiastic. (ent- Thou / Full of God )—the reason why I get out of bed in the morning.
We are not here to play church on our own in 2025. We are connected to the church of all times and places. And we have expressed that so many times—that is what this means to me.
In a nutshell, the church is the community where the Apostolicum is confessed, the Word of God is explained, the Ten Commandments are read, the Psalms are sung and the Lord’s Prayer is prayed. And the Lord’s Supper is celebrated with some regularity.
And so, in this context, I receive the guests in the Immanuel chapel, as if Christ himself were walking in. And I leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. That wind blows where He wills.
All guests who arrive
Rule of St. Benedict
be received as Christ
Until He comes. And then I pour another cup of tea or wash the cups, it doesn’t matter anymore. For this is the Source.
A question for you: What is your Source?
Feel free to respond! Always great to hear from you. Kind regards from the Netherlands where we had finally the first frost of the season!
Next time: a whole different blog: 40 + Favorite Films from the Huisman Family, so, stay tuned;-)