BUT A POOR REFLECTION: Queen's Day in the Netherlands

Monday, April 30, 2007

Queen's Day in the Netherlands

On this beautiful Monday we are all celebrating in the Netherlands. Today it's Koninginnedag (Queen's day). This is not Queen Beatrix's birthday (January 31) but it used to be her mother's birthday and because of the better weather conditions in April she decided not to change the date of our national celebrations.
If you look at the sunny Dutch streets today, you see smiling people all having a good time. Just have a look at this selection in Google (using the word Koninginnedag) and you will get an idea. I will also upload some pics on my photo blog. Pic: Robin in front of our house. Photo impression

5 comments:

Art said...: Happy Koninginnedag to you and your family, Paul.; 4/30/2007 7:31 pm
Carol Douglas said...: The verdict among teenaged girls in my house is that Robin is cute. So are the flags on your house. So are the windmills and the geese on your photo blog. Cute country you got there, Paul!

Meanwhile, here in the States we are celebrating, "Day without a mass murder somewhere." Somehow I think Koninginnedag seems like more fun.; 4/30/2007 11:58 pm
Anonymous said...: Have a great Koninginnedag day.; 5/01/2007 2:36 am
Cori said...: I'm curious about the question of Dutch patriotism. It always seemed to me that the Dutch weren't particulaerly patriotich (or at least certainly not nationalistic) but yet on koninginnedag quite a bit of 'Dutchness' comes out! What do you think, Paul? Would you say the Dutch (generally) are patriatich??; 5/04/2007 3:35 pm
Paul said...: We are just proud to be Dutch and most of us support our national football team (oranje) and the royal family is also very popular. This is no sign of extreme patriotism - it is all in a party atmosphere and most of us can laugh about ourselves too. I think it just has to do with the fact that we are a small country (if you look at the territory) but a proud people. Most of us don't have a nationalistic 'superiority complex', we just like to celebrate our 'Dutchness' and the things that keep us together as a people.
Some decades ago the Dutch people liked to look down on our neighbours from Germany (because of the war) and Belgium (well, just because they are not Dutch), but nowadays there is more respect for our neighbours and most of the flag waving and celebrating is just because it is nice to live here and have some fun.
But - below the surface - there is also this irrational nationalistic feeling... Don't touch our queen or other members of the royal family and don't make fun of our orange football team, because that will bring out the best-and the worst-in us!

Our southern neighbours don't like the fact that so many people ask them to name 5 famous Belgians. They even made a website about this... ha, ha
http://www.famousbelgians.net/

And read this (in Dutch) if you want to see how the relationship between Dutch and German people is improving:

http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2007/MEI/04/o1.html; 5/04/2007 6:31 pm

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God loves us

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and grey; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too. Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry? Was he obliged to make the birds sing? And the funny way that chickens scurry or the majesty of thunder when it rings? Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste? Could it be he loves to see that look upon your face?

Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I do not condemn theologians wholesale, but it is unfortunately the fashion in Western thinking to doubt and deny everything. I protest this tendency. I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. It is not that I oppose all education, but education without life is certainly dangerous. You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Oswald Chambers

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th)