Reports from the Front
An Encounter with Nostalgia
Hi-
Thanks for taking the time to connect with my journey. My aim is to share something of what God is showing me. It may be through a recent book, a pastoral experience, or some musing. I am still working out the transition to Substack, so bear with me. And please note there is no intention of raising any support. These are all free. All I ask is that you read and share your feedback
A Recent Encounter with Nostalgia
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. That’s how Eric Weiner put it in his book on Ben Franklin (Ben & Me), one I am finally determined to finish. This occasional journey back to the past used to be considered a psychiatric disorder, a sign of encroaching dementia. Some even viewed nostalgia as “a cerebral disease of essentially demonic cause.”
It’s a good thing reminiscing the past is seen in a more favorable light, for I find myself doing this more frequently, especially here in Holland where I have returned for a third tour of duty (counting my initial years here). With a Saturday afternoon to kill, I recently took my bike and rode past the home Heather and I and the kids once lived. That was thirty years ago. I stood out in front for some time, replaying past tapes. I rode by the small restaurant where Heather and I sat on curb that first night in the summer of 1993 and asked ourselves, “What did we get ourselves into?”
Heading towards the dunes, I rode past paths where I spent so many afternoons on my walks with my pocket NT and my cocker spaniel, Garth. He was such a great companion, even if his appetite knew no boundaries. Here on this north south route, I commuted to church. These years were filled with profound joy and a fair amount of pain. The dunes were the place where I worked through so many successes and failures, convictions and doubts. On my walks, there were seven benches spread out in this large expanse of sand along the North Sea. They became my stations of the cross, though I must admit I often dwelled more on my own suffering than Jesus’s. If I look hard, I may still find some of the altars I built—Jacob like experiences where I was renewed, as well as where I wrestled with God and came back limping.
If I turn north, I will ride into Katwijk, where Arnold and Arnolda lived. They were like our parents. Dancing with them to Beach Boys tunes on Christmas Day was one of those great moments. Heading south, I ride past small lakes where I would stop and pray over the day. Pastoring an international ministry, you never know what each day brought. Each season had its clarity and misunderstandings, its mountain tops and valleys. Turning east I imagine Isa, this dear lady, riding her horse past me, as she sometimes did in the dunes. She loved to paint, and one day she painted a picture of me riding in the dunes. We still have it on the wall of our home, next to Arnold’s painting of the beach. He too was a budding artist.
I think over the list of such great saints we met. Many were highly successful, the cream of the crop. Some were refugees with profound stories, I recall trips to Nigeria and becoming desperately ill; of going to Norway and climbing Pulpit Rock; of sitting in a loft in England and listening to Love Song; and of journeying to Normandy with garth and the family and being deeply moved.
It’s not that I want to go back. While this recent outing transported me back, it was not some wistful, sentimental yearning for a return to the past. The reality is, as James K.A. Smith puts it in How to Inhabit Time,” Nostalgia is an act of deliberate forgetting.” Memory is subjective. It’s not so much what we remember but what we forget. We tend to remember only half. The past we pine for is always selective and edited. More a painting than a photograph. I loved Holland, but there were days I hated it.
Weiner notes that Franklin viewed the past as another door to knowledge, one he always kept ajar. I find myself doing that these days that am back here at Trinity. There are lessons from my initial time in an international church that I occasionally need to go back to. They guide me when another generation arises and want to take the church in a direction that does not honor the reason for its existence. Looking back helps me to realize how important it is to see from another culture’s viewpoint. It helps me see forward. Some call this the Janus effect: the further you go back, the greater into the future you can see. It’s why some of the greatest strategic leaders are historians.
Yet, one must be careful with the door ajar. You can get pulled in, becoming irrelevant to the present and oblivious to the future. Like traveling back to Holland, memories are nice to visit—just don’t live there.
My former administrative assistant and her husband will be traveling through here in a couple of weeks. We will reconnect. Her last email reads—“We look forward to seeing you in Wassenaar—like old times!” But we know that while there are similarities, so much has changed. Not just the Netherlands, but us. The main thing is to look back with gratitude, not regret. And the fact that I can do this is among some of God’s greatest gifts.
My Latest Reads
Finishing up Ben & Me, Weiner
Starting The Blurred Cross, Bauckham
Working through The Wisdom Pattern, Rohr
Gallimaufry (odds and ends collected over the past week)
Some thoughts gathered over the past week-
“It’s not about advancing a career but fulfilling a vocation”
“Who we are is the great question of the second half of the spiritual journey”
“Old men ought to be explorers”
“It’s just as important to find a soulspace as a soulmate. A soulspace is where you know you were meant to be, a place that brings out the best in you, and nurtures abilities you didn’t know you had”