Amsterdam

So, we just arrived back to Portugal from Amsterdam. We were there to share some time with other learners of culture. It was a fantastic time. Amsterdam is a city full of juxtapositions; the old is balanced by the new, the local by the international, tradition shadowed by progress, the holy faces the unholy, extreme beauty flanked by extreme sadness.

It is a town reminiscent to me in the slightest of ways of Las Vegas. A city of many sights and sounds, attractions and history (albeit not like the history in Amsterdam). But in Amsterdam, as in Vegas, the commodification of the human body, and life, is more than a main stay. It has become a culture, a history, a worldview.

Surrounded by Victorian homes, a beautiful river runs through the city, masking, for a little while, the sold lives and the cultural commodification of sex. A beautiful thing has become sold like a slave. Many of the bodies sold, very well could be slaves. Those bodies, though, have souls, lost somewhere in the darkness of hopelessness. Lost in the dark streets that need more than window lights to illuminate.

As we traveled to the houses of Ann Frank and Corrie Ten Boom, a new reality hit us. This is also a city of hope. If you are unfamiliar with either story, I strongly encourage you to read both. People, who both risked and lost lives for the sake of love and righteousness, gave been immortalized by their courage. They represent a new reality, one of beauty in suffering, freedom in enslavement, hope in hopelessness. Corrie Ten Boom, a seemingly lesser known story of the two (yet not lesser by any means), stood out to me. Her words seem to transcend her situation to a hope in a higher reality, a higher authority in fallen situations. Despite the circumstances, we are challenged to love; at cost, at risk, because it is who we are supposed to be.

I have no judgement for those who sell their bodies, only hope. Hope of a new reality, despite their circumstances, despite their history. I share in imperfection. But I have seen the hope that stands to face the darkness. I have felt the light that burns bright in the allies of hopelessness.

I am greatly appreciative of my experiences, being able to see such a wonderful town. I am greatful for the organization who facilitated that experience. I am also incredibly greatful for those who are in Amsterdam full time to share Light with those there. We had a chance to share that light with a shop keeper there. A man from Egypt who, although smiled a lot, opened his heart to us, giving us his life story. We remain in contact with him. But, it is comforting to know there are workers of the light there.

"...joy runs deeper than despair."- Corrie Ten Boom

"Love is larger than the walls which shut in in."- Corrie Ten Boom also (shes good)