Days Off

Yesterday was Richie's day off. Days off are kind of awkward for him here at the hostel because he always feels the pressure to do something extraordinary. Richie thinks, I am here in Amsterdam and not at home in the states so I cannot merely settle down with a book. I must go out and see something new." So he tries to do something new. He decided to go to the Rijksmuseum in the morning. He went and saw some Rembrandt paintings and learned some about Dutch history. He learned how it was popular for a time for Dutch people to have slaves. He saw paintings of all these wealthy Dutch people, and he also learned about the famous dutch pottery from Delft. This pottery was started as an imitation of Chinese pottery, and Richie supposes now it has become a little more Dutch as time has passed.

Richie's next step was searching for one of his new friends, Seth from North Carolina. He could not find him at either hostel, so Richie ended up spending the afternoon alone. He decided to go to this big park/forest area and it was quite nice except that he had left his book at home so he had nothing to read. He did, however, have a new testament, which he tried to read, but he kept falling asleep on the park bench and could not get through the book of Jude. So he laid down on the bench with his head on his bag and fell asleep.

After a time he woke up and while he was sitting on the park bench he enjoyed the view from where he sat. Then this little boy came up the stairs (the bench was located on this plateau which could be accessed by these stairs they had made in the park) and exclaimed woah! at the view. He was a rather chubby boy with sweats on and to Richie this seemed typical of a boy of his type. Richie had already profiled him. This put a smile on Richie's just woken face. Then Richie returned home.

So Richie did not spend his day off doing anything particularly extravagant, but it was nice nonetheless. Maybe next time he will go to another town or more museums. His only regret was not having his book (and wearing pants as it was a hot day and he cycled for quite a while).

In other news for the life of Richie. He has also been rather reflective about things, particularly in the area of travel. It has been interesting living her as he has met some Christians who are bums. They have next to nothing, they do not work, they used to work at the shelter and then after they stopped volunteering they just hung around Amsterdam. Most depend on the charity of others for their survival. Or, as in one persons case, they work 9 days out of a month and most of those nine days of work they spend killing time on the internet rather than actually doing work. The goal seems to be to do as little work as possible. Maybe they cannot find work, or are having trouble, but the idea of being a Christian bum seems an odd one to Richie. It kind of blows his mind a little bit as it is new to him.

Richie can see the possible positive sides of this sort of lifestyle. They depend on others and trust God to supply their daily bread. This seems a good thing. Yet it also seems a waste of talents. Sure it is fun to travel, see new places, but traveling around with no money, depending on the charity of others to get you from one point of the next. Richie'supposes all this is for the love of travel, the desire to see the world, or something like that. Richie was brought up to think that you work, make some money, then you can use that money to travel if you want. If you have no money you do not travel. This new mindset is different. You travel until you are dead, moving from place to place with no commitments to much of anything, a sort of vagabond. Can a Christian be a vagabond? Or is a Christian life a life of maybe times of travel but really a dedication to a particular community which God has called a person to? Richie's church has made him think that people are usually called to a particular area to serve the people there, but maybe a Christian can be called to minister to other vagabonds and live that lifestyle.

Richie's eyes have also been opened to the truth that a person is only made more interesting and attractive one they have traveled because of something in their personality not something in the traveling. So odds are that person would be just as interesting without the traveling, the traveling is just a bonus. For some reason, Richie has lived a long time seeing travel as something that interesting people do, but some people have seen a lot of places but have annoying personalities anyway and are really not all that attractive to Richie.

Some new and good revelations.