Pilgremvaderskerk, a.k.a., Oude Kerk

When I went to Schiedam for the Open Monumentendag festivities, I stopped at Delfshaven, which is conveniently located on the way to Schiedam.  Delfshaven was also participating in the Open Monumentdag.  The Pilgremvaderskerk, or Oude Kerk (Pilgrim Father's Church, or Old Church)  was one of the places that was open extra hours and had special stuff going on for the weekend.  I stopped here on the way out because it opened earlier than most of the things I wanted to see in Schiedam and I figured by the time I walked through Schiedam I wouldn't really enjoy more walking around on the way back.

There was a little museum in the back of the church that had a Pilgrim Fathers Presentation.  There was a video that could be played in English or Dutch, and several different displays around the room.

This is a tile painting that shows the Pilgrim embarkation at Delfshaven.  There was a long history of ship travel between the Netherlands and America after 1620, with the Holland-America Line of ships which used to be one of the premier lines.  It is still in operation and, as far as I can tell, is still well regarded.  Every now and then you will seem someone carry a bag with the Holland-America logo on it.

If you look at their logo below, though, you can see that they hearken back to their old roots.

They had several different displays of Puritan paraphernalia as well, including this pretty plate, the ship shaped cake server and the itty, bitty, tiny "Mayflower" in the bottle.








Even in the church, there were all kinds of memorials of the Puritans.  There were two maritime themed stained-glass windows.




The first commemorated the sailing of the Speedwell, on which the Pilgrim's departed Delfshaven on the 22nd of July, 1620.  If you notice date differences, it is because the English didn't change to the new Gregorian calendar until much later than the rest of Europe and so a lot if the dates in the 17th century can be off by 10 or so days.













The second window commemorates the founding of the Dutch State.  It says (I think) "The port of salvation comes only from the Lord of Zion, 9 September 1574."  I am not certain because "haave" is not a word I can find anywhere in modern Dutch dictionaries.  But I am going with a blind assumption that it is etymologically related to "haven."











There were also stained glass windows that depict the six days of creation.  The text around each picture is a quote from Genesis--"in thus and such a day, God created . . ."

There were large plaques that were on all of the walls around the pulpit.  Some showed different Puritan documents.  This one shows the Ten Commandments.  You can't really read them very well, but you can tell from the density of the text that the Puritans didn't hold with any abbreviations for the purpose of making posting easier.  When they refurbished the church they had to repaint each of these boards, by hand, with tiny paint brushes and gold paint while set up on scaffolding.







There were also boards that had the names and tenures of every pastor who has served at the church for the entire history of the church--so a little over 400 years worth of pastors.  They also have a gallery of picture of former pastors but they don't have pictures of everybody.

There is a display of the original church bells from the church.  The large bell is  chest high.









There were also models of the Mayflower and the Speedwell out in the the sanctuary, with teeny little sailors working in the rigging.

The plaque on this ship says
"The 'Mayflower', the ship on which the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth in September 1620 on their way to America, from England to Cape Cod."

This one is the Speedwell.  The plaque on this one says: "The 'Speedwell'. the ship on which the Pilgrims sailed from Delfshaven to England on July 31, 1620 (July 22, 1620 according to the Julian Calendar)."

This is one of the grave markers that line the entire floor of the sanctuary.  The weird "F" symbol looks very familiar but I can't remember what it is from.  Perhaps it is a Masonic symbol?  Although the grave markers are about 2 feet by 6 feet, it looks like they were doubled-up because most of them had "Hier leijt . . ." messages at the top and then had a second engraving at the bottom of the slab.

This is the grave stone on which I sat when I went to church here.


These are the doors as you see them as you exit the sanctuary:



This door lintel says "Bewaart uwen voet als gij ten huize gods ingaat."  Which is from   Ecclesiasties 5:1 and says "Keep they foot when thou goest to the house of God."

This door lintel below says "Eere zij God in de hoogste hemelen."  This is from Luke 2: 14 and says "Glory to God in the highest."

There is a plan of the church posted on the outside of the church.  When you go into the church, you go into the little vestibule to the bottom right of the cross-shaped nave.

What was really entertaining, though, was that this old and sedate looking plaque was right next to this plaque:  advertising what appears to be an Hasidic Jewish rock concert by a folk-music group named "Unicorn."

Mapping Global Order and other fun school things

This week has been very, very busy.  The school schedule here is a little weird because you essentially have classes in 8 week chunks, plus an exam period, so all of the assignments that would normally be stretched out over a 15 week semester are all now due in the first 8 weeks of the semester instead.  While I appreciate this little help with not procrastinating, it does cut into my "fun" time a bit.  This week was especially busy.  Between last Thursday and this past Thursday I had three papers (about 15 pages all told) and two presentations, plus a bunch of fairly boring readings to do.  This coming week should be easier since I only have one paper due.  The week after that I only have two papers due and a mid-term exam and I will be starting (probably) my second Dutch class, so that week might be a tad busy as well.

This term, everyone in the Master's program is taking one class together, although they are divided up into a Dutch class and an English class.  For the other three terms, there is a little more flexibility because half of the courses we take will be Research Workshops and Thesis Conferences.  Also, I think that the Dutch and English tracks separate a fair bit as well.

I have two courses this term:  "Mapping Global Order--1600-2000" which is about Empires and what they do and how to stop them and how to get rid of the US Empire because it is impinging on the (finger's crossed) European Empire of the EU.

My second course is "Historical Culture in a Globalizing World" and it is about the way people remember things and think about history.  The text for this was actually pretty interesting (it is called "Time Maps") but it is often a bit disconcerting to read through books like this (the author is a Jewish guy who grew up in Israel) to see people trying to figure these things out from an evolutionary stand-point--"When did people first remember that there was a yesterday and expect that there would be a tomorrow?" "When would they remember that they ate yesterday and that they ought to eat something today?" "When would they stop forgetting that they had left-over bronto-burgers going greenish at the back of the cave?"  (Oh, wait, people still forget about the leftovers at the back of the 'fridge so I guess that's going to be never . . . sorry about that Mom.)

NeboKerk (18 september 2011)

I went to NeboKerk again last Sunday.  The sermon references were I Timothy 3: 15--"That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" and Nehemiah 8:1-13, with an emphasis on verse 10-- "Then said he unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared:  for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry, for the Lord is your strength."

Mostly the sermon was about enjoying the Lord's day but just today I saw, on Facebook, this article about the duties of the Sabbath, as referenced in the Sabbath-keeping decisions of a professional athlete, which I thought was quite interesting as well as being marginally related.  And Ben, this guy is from Glasgow, Scotland, so you just know he's a good guy.

Another interesting connection was that they had a special prayer for Prinsjesdag and the Dutch government.  Prinsjesdag is the official opening of the Dutch Parliament which seemed like a very good idea.

Prinsjesdag occurs on the third Tuesday of September every year.  It is full of pomp and circumstance and, if I had gone to Den Haag and fought the crowd, I might have even gotten a first-hand glimpse of the Queen or her fancy carriage on the way to open Parliament with a speech.  You can see the official homepage of the 2011 Prinsjesdag events here.

The Queen opens parliament by reading a "state of the nation" address and then the Finance Minister also gave a speech.  I listened to the speeches on Radio Nederland, which is kind of the Dutch equivalent of NPR, and was able to follow somewhat.  The Queen has a very nice  speaking voice and spoke very clearly so it was pretty easy to understand her.  The speeches weren't very positive.  Apparently they figured that things were going to get worse, economy-wise, before they got better.  You can see a picture of the queen reading her Troonrede (the official mane of her speech) here.  There is a very large photo gallery of the events that you can look through, if you are so inclined.

In my class on Monday, the teacher told us that if we went to Den Haag we could see the Queen riding around in a Golden Cage.  He mentioned it a few more times before realizing that people seemed a little perplexed.  Then he had to describe what he meant before we realized he meant "carriage."  Then, when we went to the Dutch Cafe that evening, the teacher had a newspaper that showed a picture of the carriage and, when she was explaining what had been going on English, she had to ask for the English word for carriage.  It was interesting to see that same tiny gap in English vocabulary in two people who otherwise have pretty impressive vocabularies.  I suppose, though, that there just aren't that many times, anymore, when you need to know the word for carriage.  If you want to see a picture of the carriage (which is very, very gold, by the way), you can see it here.