[JH] #01 “Always We Begin Again”
Dear friends,
Welcome to the first edition of this personal newsletter. Every other week I write a short letter about things of academic, professional, or personal interest. This letter arrives in your mailbox on Tuesday, noon (West European time).
Some of you have read my email newsletters in the past. In the period 2005-2020, I have written 4 to 8 newsletters per year to report on our work in the UK, Canada, and Croatia. Since we came back to The Netherlands in 2019 I have experimented with some personal emails, but I have not yet found a rhythm and format that works well for me. But as St. Benedict writes, “always we begin again,” so I wanted to write this series of newsletters, at least till I have finished my first article for the PhD-project.
As I mentioned above, the contents are things of academic, professional, or personal interest to me, and hopefully also for you as my reader. I will introduce the main projects that I am currently working on and some of the things I discover along the way.
On Sunday, October 1st, I was in the medieval town of Fritzlar in central Germany. You have probably never heard of it before, but it is well known for ‘the man with the ax’. In the early 700s, Saint Boniface chopped down a holy oak here. (see picture) This summer I took a group of people who attended the “Cultural Literacy workshop” to the beautiful cathedral, as a reminder that we are not the first ones figuring out how to live well.
I went back to this church this autumn because of the connection with the very deep roots of our North-Western European Christianity. Once inside the church, I went down into the crypt where Saint Wigbert rests. He was a co-worker of Boniface and his successor as bishop. Some of you know that I have been on a quest this year, a quest for direction and clarity about the future. While I was praying I received an answer, it was very simple and very clear. Nothing spectacular really, just a list of four things, my priorities for 2024. In case you want to know, they are; 1 PhD project, 2 Spiritual life, 3 “Rediscovering Christ in Europe”-project, and 4 income. In future emails, I will share more about these projects.
Questions: do you have a special place that you keep going back to? I’d love to know!
Also: what are your priorities for 2024?