From the dust

I am lack­ing inspi­ra­tion in this week that is ded­i­cat­ed to unpack­ing box­es and fix the paper­work. Luck­i­ly, one of the things that came out of the box­es were our books. Think­ing about the for­mu­la that goes with Ash Wednes­day, I col­lect­ed some excerpts. Har­ry was just think­ing that all he need­ed was for Dumbledore’s …

The Selfless Gene (2)

What is the dif­fi­cul­ty about liv­ing with God and Dar­win? If we ask Dar­win him­self, he gives a clear answer in the quote above: Nat­ur­al selec­tion appears to be a process of waste, cru­el­ty, suf­fer­ing, and destruc­tion of the weak. Ich­neu­monidae are wasps that lay their eggs in the lar­vae of oth­er insects, after which …

Let’s stick together

In The Nether­lands, a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, Wilders, has intro­duced a stick­er with a text that insults the Islam, espe­cial­ly the prophet Muham­mad and the Quran. After a peri­od abroad, my tol­er­ance lev­el for Wilders may be a bit low. It makes me sad that some­one can hurt believ­ers in such a cru­el way. I …

A heart as loud as lions

Yes­ter­day was the birth­day of Chin­ua Achebe, a writer who died ear­li­er this year. In Gilling­ham we were just read­ing a book of his with the book club in the week of his decease. Today a pic­ture to com­mem­o­rate this lit­er­ary hero. The pub­li­ca­tion of Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart was a break­through in lit­er­a­ture, because …

Autumn leaves

The chang­ing sea­sons are a won­der­ful part of being in Hol­land. At the moment, the autumn is mak­ing its pres­ence very clear. It treat­ed us this week to the end­ing of day sav­ing time, the first kruid­noten and an enor­mous grape har­vest! In Zwolle, it was not only autumn leaves that fell from the trees, …