Meditations 4

Here Richie is again after several days taken to finish a book he was reading back into the writing business.

He read The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. It was a nice book. Victorian bent, but it had more twists than usual which kept his interest.

Richie says good bye to two Somalian guests as they go out for the day. Do they go out for a smoke? or for a walk? Maybe they are just going to enjoy the city. Richie does not know. The language barrier is too difficult for deep conversation so their relationship consists of hellos and goodbyes and the occasional smile.

A couple days ago Richie had the honor of helping a guest stay focused for the writing of her thesis for graduate school. Laurel has had writers block for the last year and her thesis is long over due. So she decided to pay people to sit with her and keep her focused. Richie volunteered and got some cash out of the deal. Her thesis is on the use of music in silent films. Interesting topic. Richie quickly ended up using the cash to buy dinner that night because of a birthday party for one of the staff. They went out to an overpriced Argentinean steak house which served small portions. Richie's palet, however, is dulled at this point so the steak tasted rather nice. He hopes it was legitimate Argentinean steak. The best part of the whole event, though, was dressing up like ninjas. It was a group of six all dressed up, four black ninjas, Richie was a red ninja, and one brown ninja. Some people gave Richie and the other ninja's funny looks. Others merely did acknowledge any significance in the special dress. Yes there are pictures. No they were not made with Richie's camera, but maybe Kristen who did take some pictures put them on facebook so Richie can take them for himself.

Richie also had the pleasure of having a real dutch day this last week. He went to his roommates house. It was classic dutch, small, more of an apartment or condo by American standards, but it was nice to get into the home of a real dutch family. Also, Richie was able to see Joost's sister's house, and a farm with a bunch of swine and cattle. It was a nice day, though rainy.

---Richie speaks to a guest. A nice man with an interesting style. He wants to stay at the Shelter City instead of the shelter Jordan since it is closer to the Centraal Station. Richie says sure, but he can only recieve €12.50 in return for his room. The guest is ok with that so things seem to work out.

---Another guest comes in. A Japanese man who speak very few words. He has stayed here before and Richie is surprised at the amount of English he knows now after a couple weeks since before he knew zero English. He seems to be able to understand English that is spoken very slowly. He is a nice man with a generous heart. Richie checks him in.

Richie also was able to learn during the day away with his roommate of a nice dutch tradition. Every night all the family that is home gets together at about 8 in the evening to drink coffee or tea and watch the news. It is a tradition that more should be broadened to more cultures.

Richie also has started to have new thoughts about his time here in Amsterdam. He is thinking of trying to leave mid January and spend some weeks traveling in Europe. He feels rather restless here sometimes and wants to see more of Europe since he is over here. He expects to come back again, but he will be very disappointed and sad if he is unable to see some other places besided Amsterdam.

So Richie has had two odd feelings of late. One feeling of great restlessness and another feeling that he is being like Jonah. He does not know if these are legitimate feelings. The other night while he was lying in his bed he had this though pass through his mind that he was like Jonah. Richie, however, does not understand why this is the case as he has not felt some calling from God to go to some place. So he should probably disregard this feeling but it sits with him.

Richie also felt very restless after he finished his nightman shift. He felt this need to get out of Amsterdam and see some thing else. He believes that if he knows he will be able to travel for a while in January before he goes home it will calm these feelings and he will be able to be more content here in Amsterdam.

Richie is also feeling odd spiritually. He has begun to try to look at Christianity like somebody on the outside looking in and the beliefs of Christianity have begun to look rather odd. This occured the other night when he was looking at the classic picture of man on one side of the chasim and God on the other and then the cross creating the bridge. Richie thought of how odd this image must appear to someone who has never seen it before. Why does this image seem to speak to non-Christians? It is a very common Evangelistic tool, but it seems odd. If someone were living his or her life without God would he or she necessarily feel this chasim? Would he or she care about the chasim that seems to have no effect on their life currently? Maybe, it does help bring some people to Christ I suppose or else it would not be used.

--Japanese man comes back. He stumbles around with the right words to say and then gets out the question about a kitchen for guests. Richie says sorry there is not guest kitchen. He leaves.

--Richie checks in four guests from Germany and then two from France. All men. All friendly. All seeing the sights.

Richie also remembers today that Christians will never be cool in the worlds eyes no matter how hard they try. The world will not understand them. Believing in some God-man that lived 2000 years ago for life after death and salvation in Christ. Religion is an odd thing.