Woerden

This post tries to answer the question: How does Jesus see His relatioship with us? Then looks at Woerden as part of the Green Heart here in the Netherlands.

Jesus asks us to address God as

” Our Father who lives in Heaven.” Matthew 6:9

His Father is then our Father.

Jesus Himself asked the question:

” Who is my mother or my brothers?” He then answered it Himself.

” Whoever does the will of God, is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” Mark 3:33-35

What is doing the will of God?

Living in a way that shows respect for His moral teachings.

The first four show how to respect Him as Father and the next six how to respect each other.

These are in Exodus 20: 3-17 and belong to all of us. They free us!

Now for Woerden a city in the Green Heart. The Groene Hart in Dutch is a large agricultural/rural region in the western Netherlands. It is surrounded by the ‘Randstad’, the massive urbanised ring of major Dutch cities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

Much of the Green Heart lies below sea level. There are expansive polders: reclaimed land from rivers,lakes and the sea. These areas are characterised by geometric grids of drainage canals, lush meadows and pumping stations.

Examples of historic towns in the Green Heart are: Woerden, Gouda, Alphen aan den Rijn and Zoetermeer.

Let us look at one of these historic small towns Woerden.

It is good to see so many wild flowers planted in this area which has the castle, now a hotel. The moat is full with pond lily pads new this spring.

The gentle welcoming tones of pink, lemon and white on the walls with richer black, maroon and cream tiles on the floor take one in to a place of worship. Beautiful.

Then for the Coot and her young. These are the most common tenacious city dwelling birds in the Netherlands. Their feet are large with lobed toes instead of webbed which allow them to walk easily on muddy banks and swim well. They can build their bowl – shaped nests entirely out of floating man-made garbage and because birds return to build on the same spot researches have found nests containing 30 years of trash from vintage 1999’s sweet wrappers to modern plastic face masks.

A home where a large part of the garden is a lake.

De Windhond. This windmill until 1946 was used for the production of flour for the population. You can now visit it on certain days.

Petruskerk, the one we saw inside of earlier, is in the center of Woerden. In 1202 it was a small wooden church and in the 13th century it was replaced by a stone building but during the disaster year 1672, the tower and roof burned after the French occupiers tried to signal their troops from Utrecht with fire.

A home.

A landscape reflected in water.

Take care,

Sandy 🙂