inspiration

Practicing Mindfulness and Eye for Beauty

| Ester

Mindfulness techniques seem to be the new trend nowadays. Of course the concept is not new, being rooted in both Eastern and Western spirituality.

Since I’m still on a quest to integrate the Benedictine way of living in my daily life this year, in order to gain awareness, peacefulness and a healthier daily structure, I will share with you some monastic secrets of being mindful.

What is mindfulness anyway?

Let’s start with saying what it is NOT: mindfulness is NOT: sitting on your meditation pillow all day and doing nothing. Neither is it only thinking about God / a Higher Power and floating away on your boat of self-centered happiness.

Here’s a definition from an online dictionary:

“mind·ful adj.

1 bearing in mind : aware

2 inclined to be aware
— mind·ful·ly adverb
— mind·ful·ness noun
e.g.: a truly considerate person, always mindful of the needs of others

Related to MINDFUL
Synonyms: alive, aware, conscious
Antonyms: insensible, oblivious, unaware, unconscious, unmindful”

Benedictine Mindfulness

Being mindful in a Benedictine way, is more about connecting than about isolation. It is about paying attention to what is right in front of your nose. It’s giving people and things their due attention and care, both the mundane and the spiritual. In that sense Benedictine Spirituality is profoundly “down to earth”, which sets it apart from many other forms of spirituality

In the excellent resource on Benedictine living: Wil Derkse’s book “The Rule of Benedict for Beginners” I found a beautiful example of two mindful Benedictine nuns in the Hildegard Monastery:

“We see [the nuns] during different moments of their daily rhythm: singing God’s praise in the monastery church (in polished Gregorian), working: the precise work of the goldsmith, the thorough cleansing of the lamp shades, meticulously teaching a private class of [philosophy] by the abdis (…) to a young novice, arranging flowers for the altar, working in the wine cellars, attentively reading private literature in their rooms, a phone conversation in the monastery hall, during which the nun retreats to an alcove to give the caller his due attention, installing new electric wiring, during relaxed leisure activities…”

What is most striking in these examples, is that the nuns give everything and everyone their undivided and due attention, whether it be cleaning a toilet or conducting a conversation, scrubbing the floor or arranging the toilets, praying and meditating or leisure activities. Everything is attended to in the right way.

“To attend and get things right” –

Iris Murdoch

A specific area of attention that comes into view if you look at the nuns is the beautyfying of their environment:

“Beauty and order are contagious” and the reverse is equally true.

“A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever” – John Keats

Monasteries are an oasis of care and cultivation, the proverbial neat handwriting of the nuns or monks, carefully arranged flowers, every tool put in its own right place.

Little things do matter; they contribute to an atmosphere of peacefulness, order and beauty.
Outward order creates inward order and inward order paradoxically creates space for focus and creativity.

How can I be attentive/mindful in my own life?

  • by being fully aware in the present moment, taking care of the very task at hand, ignoring distractions as well as possible, yet being responsive to what the situation requires at a given time.
  • by treating every task as equal, and as an opportunity to give God (/your Higher Power) praise, be it scrubbing or praying. Everything done with an attitude of gratitude.
  • by making sure to practice outer order with love and an eye for esthetics, especially in the small things.

Goal

Today I will be mindful by: acknowledging urges to procrastinate or otherwise follow my impulses, doing my household chores with as much love and care as my writing, making sure my living room looks orderly, pretty and inviting.

Are you on board with me?

Please share with me how you practice Benedictine mindfulness today. Do you have tips and tricks?

You can do so in the comment section below or on Facebook.

In gratitude,

Ester

Motivate yourself with Pinterest

| Ester

Today I’m going to share with you a little tool I use to motivate myself to go to bed on time in the evening, as well as getting up early in the morning.

Pinterest.

Warning:

As with all things on earth, Pinterest can be used for purposes of endless procrastination, zombying out, addictive mindlessness or other crappy habits.

On the other hand, I also found a very promising use of the medium:

Creating Motivational Moodboards!

I’ve created a “Time to go to bed” moodboard and a “Morning Moodboard” on Pinterest.
In this post I will highlight a few of the pictures I’ve ‘pinned’ and why.

This slogan is the best motivator for me to go to bed on time. It’s the opposite of what I’m inclined to do. My habitual self keeps thinking that burning the candle at both ends works better, but when I think about the benefits of hitting the sack on a decent hour, I must admit they are pretty impressive:

  • feeling rested
  • feeling fit
  • not feeling guilty and groggy
  • accomplishing more each day
  • be more productive and positive

Nothing so luxurious and relaxing at the end of the day as to read a book in a freshly made bed…

I’d like to add that reading and then sleeping with my dog at my feet is also an attractive and sweet thought.

Fresh, clean sheets and a tidy bedroom (well aired and a little chilly) are indispensable as well.

Final tip:

Make your own moodboard on Pinterest for whatever you’d like to motivate yourself for:

  • losing weight
  • be a positive and loving person
  • becoming a good cook
  • meditating
  • establishing a dream
  • writing every day
  • reading every day

The possibilities are endless!

You could also print a few of your pictures and frame them or tape them to your wall with pretty Japanese masking tape. If you’re very crafty you could even make an online photocollage and have it printed.

Next post I will share with you some pictures of my Pinterest “Morning moodboard”; keep posted!

Please take a minute to leave a comment now, I’d really appreciate it!

Remember to sign up for the e-mail list or via rss!! Thanks for supporting me!

Peace!

Ester

You can also find me on: Facebook, Google +, Twitter or Pinterest

breaking the P-cycle

| Ester
lorianderson-quotes.blogspot.com

Lately I have been struggling greatly with Procrastination and Perfectionism. I seem to just flatline when I’m thinking I either have to be perfect or just sit in my chair, stare, do nothing and feel bad about myself. Good or bad, black or white.

Today I read something very fantastic in a daily email from www.flylady.com.
Let me first say that Flylady (FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself) is a sweethearted lady who helps you manage your home again in tiny babysteps, while loving yourself instead of beating yourself up.
It is a very fun website with incredibly helpful tools and I am currently doing the beginner babysteps of housecleaning & organizing, to keep me from getting into the Procrastination and Perfectionism cycle.

So today I read this awesome entry about there being two other P’s associated with Perfectionism and Procrastination, so all credit for the 4-P idea goes to Karen, a Flybaby from Tennessee and to Flylady for her advice and resources.(I’ve also added a fifth P)

Pride

The first P Karen says is for Pride, which wants you to set too high standards for myself (oh yeah baby!). I tend to do that a lot with household stuff, or my to-dolist for the day or week. I always cram in way too many things.

Perfectionism

The second P is Perfectionism, which is the result of setting the bar too high in the first place. With me this is closely related to never feeling good enough. It’s definitely gotten better the last years, but when I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired, or (God forbid) PMS-ing (you ladies know what I’m talkin’ ’bout…), then I tend to slide back to this horrible P to try to regain control my life (of course, in vain).

“You cannot open a flower with a sledgehammer” –

Bob Wilson

Pressure

The third P is the inevitable selfdestructive Pressure you’ll be on then, resulting in negative self-talk, spiraling down to feeling like crap and behaving that way as well.

Procrastination

Fourthly there’s mr. Procrastination. Now I think there’s good and bad Procrastination. Good Procrastination is letting your mind wander, daydream, do nothing and get creative.

Bad Procrastination is the result of negative self-talk, self-condemnation, being stuck in a irrealisticly high expectation of yourself, perfectionistically disabling yourself from doing ANYthing ANYmore.

In this state (where I was in yesterday afternoon) my muscles turn to jell-o, and I feel like a boneless chicken , not able to think, not able to move, I was even crying out of sheer self-imposed helplessness and inertia.

Punishment

At rock bottom of this process I’d add a final and utterly sad fifth P: Punishment of myself. That’s when you actively start thinking horrible thoughts about yourself and punishing yourself in your thoughts.

Like:
“I am good for nothing; I cannot do anything right; I am worthless; I am lazy ; I am a bad person, I am not worth being on this planet.”
Recognize those bugger-thoughts?Time to turn it round!

I know that these negative thoughts are so self-destructive, they prevent me from being the me I am supposed to be, they increase my stress levels, decrease my quality of life.
Who am I to say that I am not good? I am God’s beloved creation!

Awareness, Acceptance, Action

But I know that if I am to beat this nasty P-cycle, I first have to be aware they are there, drink a cup of acceptance-tea with them, gently usher them out of the door and start praying to my God and saying healing and healthy thoughts to myself (action).

Now be nice to yourselves today and go replace them nasty P-s with nice ones!

Patience, Pleasure, Potential, Pampering, Pleased, Peacefulness, Prayer, Passion, Perseverance, Peace, Possibility, Positivity, Praise, Pureness, Playfulness and you are PRECIOUS!

If you like what you read, please take a minute to leave a comment below, follow me on Twitter or visit my Facebook page. Thank you! Spread the positive word!

Zen dog

| Ester

My dog Kiara is my mindfulness teacher. I’ll tell you why!
In her cute little doggie universum, all that counts is the here and the now.

  1. She doesn’t even think about the past, although I adopted her from Canary Islands and she didn’t have a past of roses and doggiebones.
  2. The thing that makes her most happy is being together with her two bosses Martin and Ester. When the pack is complete she goes bonkers with joy!
  3. When she is tired she naps.
  4. She loves routines and cosy dogbaskets or fluffy pillows.
  5. She doesn’t think about the future much, that I know of anyway…
  6. She certainly does not care about what other people may think of her!

Yesterday it all came together:
Martin, Kiara and I went upstairs to our guest/study/movie-room to watch the BBC documentary ‘Life’. As we lay on the guest bed, Kiara snuggled tightly between our legs and went into a deep doggie meditated relaxation. Snout down in the pillows and blankies.
It was so peaceful for us: the documentary, the cosy relaxed dog, romantic us. Really simple life, mindful en enjoying every minute!

Please leave a comment below or tweet me, I’d really appreciate that. What do you do to be mindful and have a simple life?

If you’re Dutch, check out my Dutch blog Groen en Lief.

Related post: about me and my rabbits: ” The spiritual power of next action thinking”.

The drawing is from awesome artist Edward Monkton. Do visit his site!

Zen bathing ‘lush-iousness’

| Ester

The mountain has been moved!! Cause we have!
Now living in a wonderful spacious home, I get so inspired to live my new uncluttered, simple, happy and grateful life.
I know material things don’t make me happy, but it’s the seeming absence of them that makes me so.
The next weeks I will take you through the ‘zenifying‘ process (if I may use or abuse that term respectfully) of my home sweet home.

The first tip I want to share with you is how I went from being an exhausted house-mover, box-unpacker, mess-organiser to a content, mindful, rested and reasonably sane individual.
Here are the 2 key ingredients:

#1
After hitting my toe against a box, being grumpy to my dear hubbie and being crazy with exhaustion, I ran a tub full of water, stepped in, popped a Lush Bath Ballistic in it and bathed (what a luxury to even have a tub at all!!)
I even did some breathing meditation…
But!… It was no ordinary bath ball! It was the Big Blue:
Read with me and shiver with pleasure and ‘zen-ness’.

Lemon, lavender and seaweed for clear thoughts. Have you ever hankered for a minimalist space with plain walls, wooden floors, no mess, no clutter and no distractions? Escape into a world of pure, uncluttered thought by dropping a Big Blue into the bath. Lemon and lavender oils help to clear your mind, complete with skin-softening seaweed and sea salt to help you float away in your own warm, blue ocean of inspiration. (Lush)

Aaaahhh, only reading these promises beforehand made my sorry mind calmer already.

#2
Sleep

Do try this at home and tell me what you think of it!
Do you have any more ‘zen’ bathing tips?

Drop me a line in the comment section or tweet me.

5 fun FAQ’s about Sign Language

| Ester

video in Dutch Sign Language, ‘sign-danced’ by Mirjam Stolk

5 fun FAQ’s about Sign Language

My friend Laurien and I work at a school for the Deaf.

A few weeks ago, while sipping tea, she asked me: “Ester, what’s the first question people always ask you about Sign Language?” I said: “Oh, that’s an easy one! ‘Is Sign Language universal?'” And then I would answer: “No it isn’t!” and then they would counter: “Well, that’s dumb!” And I would explain:” Why? Spoken languages aren’t universal either *!” And they would look at me sheepishly…
Laurien chuckled exasperated: “INDEED! That’s what they always ask me TOO!!!”

That’s why I decided to write a post about Sign Language. Just for those who are curious and interested in different cultures.

1)Is Sign Language universal?

Answer: No it isn’t you dummies!@^$!
There are many different Sign Languages. In my country we have Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebaren Taal or NGT) and in the United States Deaf people and their friends use ASL: American Sign Language.
And here’s the shocker: In Britain, British Sign Language (BSL) is being spoken, but ASL and BSL are NOT mutually understandable!!!
What the heck is THAT for?:
Just think simple: Languages develop in communities living closely together. In the past, NGT even consisted of 5 different dialects! Thanks to webcamming and standardization the dialects sort of blended into each other.

2) But, you mean Sign Languages are REAL languages: they aren’t made up by some scientist-dude or teacher??

Answer: Duh! No, they aren’t.

They developed gradually. “For example: ASL [as well as all other Sign Languages] is a natural language as proven to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by William Stokoe, and contains phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics just like spoken languages.
The language continues to grow and change like any living language. In particular, ASL constantly adds new signs in an attempt to keep up with constantly changing [times and] technology.”#

3) But they DO have the same grammar as spoken languages, don’t they?

Answer: No they don’t, but it’s an interesting question though.
Here’s an example from NGT showing it has a different word order than spoken Dutch:

Ik eet een appel. (I eat an apple) Spoken Dutch

Ik APPEL EET ik (I APPLE EAT I). Dutch Sign Language (NGT)

While spoken languages are produced by the vocal cords  only, and can thus be easily written in linear patterns, ASL uses the hands, head and body, with constantly changing movements and orientations. Like other natural sign languages, it is “three dimensional” in this sense #[or simultaneous grammar instead of linear].

4)If Sign Languages aren’t universal how do deaf people from different countries communicate?

Answer: Good question again! I like curious scholars!
Since Sign Languages are communicated in visual/manual mode instead of auditive/oral, Signers are already very visually oriented and it’s often easier for them to communicate with each other ‘with hands and feet’ than say an Englishman and a Chinese person. Often they also learn another Sign Language, just like we would learn French.
That brings me to the last question that’s often asked:

5)Is it possible to communicate abstract topics like science or maths in Sign Language?

Answer: If you already know Sign Languages are natural, have a grammar of their own and highly developed on their own countries, then you might also guess that Deaf people and their friends want to talk about more than eating apples en can do so very well and fast too.

In this respect it may be helpful to discriminate between 3 types of signs:

“Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi have modified the common theory that signs can be self-explanatory by grouping signs into the following categories:”#

  1. Transparent: Non-signers can usually correctly guess the meaning (e.g. NGT sign: EAT: making shoving-food-actions towards your mouth)
  2. Translucent: Meaning makes sense to non-signers once it is explained (e.g. NGT: COFFEE: making a coffee-grinder action with your hands)
  3. Opaque: Meaning cannot be guessed by non-signers (e.g. NGT: HOLIDAY: repeating movements with your whole hand near the corner of your mouth)

And if you don’t know the sign, or want to sign names of people and places: you just use the hand alphabet. The Dutch and the American are mainly the same, but for example the one for BSL is different (it is signed with both hands).

admissions.gallaudet.edu

This was my first blogpost on Sign Language. I hoped it satisfied some of your curiosity and I also hope you liked Mirjam Stolk’s sign-dancing video. You can learn more about her on her website.

Let me know if you have any questions or remarks on the topic of Sign Languages or about Deafness.

You can leave a comment on my blog or tweet me at : @E5ter

* A failed attempt at a universal spoken language is called Esperanto.

#Source: Wikipedia.org, text between []-brackets mine.

Declutter your input!

| Ester
http://www.puur-puravida.nl

All year I have been carrying my ubiquitous capturing tool: my paper notepad everywhere, becoming a ‘Capture‘-ing blackbelt. But something kept nagging at me….

Eventually I noticed my Weekly Review consisted of a lot of Someday Maybe’s related to consumerist wants on the one hand and quotes for blogging on the other, which I was dutifully entering into Evernote and Nozbe. At some point I started losing sight of the bigger picture and didn’t have time to actually complete my Review.

My friends Tara Rodden Robinson and Augusto Pinaud suggested in my fun interview with them on @Context (episode 16) that I could buy an Iphone to make data entering easier. We even joked I would blame them if I eventually couldn’t resist buying one 🙂

…….Bigger – faster – harder – stronger!!!!!!!! was ringing in my ears….my head was spinning..it had to stop!…….

“She said run, but I’m not running no I’m not running.
Let ’em come, let ’em come but I’m not running, no, I ain’t running no more.
No more!” Children 18:3 (@Youtube)……..

It turned out I didn’t need a more sophisticated capturing tool but an other view on what was actually worth capturing at all.
These were Fr. Roderick’s epiphanic words from the Health and Holiness Bootcamp-podcast episode 33 for me:

“What is decluttering your life? Getting rid of anything you have in abundance, living a life detached from stuff. Because that can be hampering to living a happier and holier life. I mean, getting to inbox zero is amazing but I wouldn’t trade it in for more important things like family, workout, prayer(…)
Decluttering is also letting go of the desire to be always up to date with everything that happens, constantly mastering the stream of communication, keeping tabs on all that I have.”

I listened to his words, sitting on the side of a canal in Amsterdam, dangling my feet and smelling the Summer air, my eyes unfocusing on the water.
Then and there I decided to slow down and change my ubiquitous capturing to not writing down every detail, every shop I want to visit, every restaurant to remember, every thing I want to have and buy buy buy, but instead go for the quotes and ideas that come up in my creative mind and not to obsess over collecting everything like a teenager keeping pictures of her favorite boyband.

So there it is! Now I am very relieved! But it’s only the first step. I want to set my mind on:

“whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—anything excellent or praiseworthy” (Phillipians 4:8-10)

“Let ’em come, let ’em come but I’m not running, no, I ain’t running no more.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Please leave a comment below or tweet me @E5ter

Never quit – live strong

| Ester

Once in a while I encounter a story that is so encouraging and motivating I want to share it with everybody.

This summer holiday I read 2001’s ‘It’s not about the bike’ by Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France-winner and fulltime cancer fighter.

It’s a real pageturner and it made me re-evaluate the topics of hope, endurance and courage in my own life.

Most of the quotes below are from his book.

Don’t ever quit

Lance’s mother, a single mom, raising her only child Lance, was working as a secretary. Lance sensed that she was underestimated by her boss and asked her one day: ‘Why don’t you quit?‘. Her simple but powerful answer was

‘Son, you never quit.’

So ‘Never Quit’ became Lance’s life adage.

When he was 25, the doctors discovered an agressive testicular cancer that had already spread to his lungs and his brain. He had 12 tumors in total and was given little hope to survive.

Hope

‘When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell.’

He chose the latter. Lance went through a stunning 4 cycles of chemotherapy and brainsurgery, fighting like hell to LIVE.

‘Don’t let go, don’t give up hope
All is forgiven
You’re breathing in, you’re breathing in
We call it living’
(Switchfoot- Needle and Haystack life)

Believe

‘Anything is possible. You can be told you have a 90-percent or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight’

His strength to survive was so great and he believed that he could beat cancer, and so he did.
Although surviving cancer depends on many things, like sheer luck, moment of diagnosis, and a lot of things we don’t yet understand, to believe that it is possible is crucial.

Jesus said in Matthew 19:26: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Lance’s wife at the time: Kristin (Kik) Richard was a christian and prayed.

Courage

‘ I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage. The definition of courage is: the quality of spirit that enables one to encounter danger with firmness and without fear.’

In his book Lance says he even needed more courage to conquer the Tour de France title than to go through his cycles of chemo.

Joshua says to his mates in Joshua 10:25 “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the LORD will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.”

What are your enemies right now?

Endurance

‘Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me’

‘So when I  feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with? Facing up to that question, and finding a way to go on, is the real reward, better than any trophy.’

This is so profound and true, I hope, believe and pray that I will start living more like that, from this moment on.

With his enormous drive and endurance, Lance also won the Tour de France 7 times in a row in his newly gained life and started the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a foundation to help cancer patients and survivors of the disease with information, encouragement and raising money for research.

Unrealized capacities

‘The one thing the illness has convinced me of beyond all doubt- more than any experience I’ve had as an athlete- is that we are much better than we know. We have unrealized capacities that sometimes only emerge in crisis.’

In 1998, I was going through my studies to become a speech-language therapist. We had a professor: Wouter, who was always fiercely debating with one of his students: Kym, in order to stimulate her to further realize her capacities as a student. He would always provoke her to stretch her limits.

A few months later, he died of bowelcancer, being under the wrong impression for too long he had picked up some parasite in Tanzania, where he worked voluntarily with deaf children.

A few months later still, it was October by then, Kym too was diagnosed with metastasized ovary cancer. I saw her for the last time in January of 1999. She came to school, with a peaceful smile on her lips, a translucent complexion and a wig.
When she told us she was going to die, she had to comfort us. She was strong and we were shattered. Later, we all got the chance to say goodbye to her.

I was going through a depression at the time and asked her for advice. She said the same as Lance: ‘ If it is one thing that I have learned, it is that we are far more capable than we know, to cope with bad things that happen. Just remember you are way more powerful than you think you are’. A month later she died. I’ll never forget her wisdom and her grace.

When our class graduated the next year, we tied her diploma to a white helium balloon and send it to heaven.

‘We believe in life.
Your life.
We believe in living every minute of it with every ounce of your being.
And that you must not let cancer* take control of it.
We believe in energy: channeled and fierce.
We believe in focus: getting smart and living strong.
Unity is strength. Knowledge is power. Attitude is everything.
This is LIVESTRONG.’

– the LIVESTRONG manifesto
* or anything else negative: addictions, the past, self-pity, procrastination, negative self-image etc

We have only one chance to live our lives in this life on earth, I encourage you as well as myself to wake up everyday thankful and eager to make the most out of every minute, don’t quit, live strong.

For me living strong is:

Be focused
Be courageous
Be strong
Be hopeful
Be thankful
Be alert
Be productive
Be creative
Be positive
Be full of life
Be-lieve

If you want to know more about the Lance Armstrong foundation you can visit: http://www.livestrong.org or follow Lance on Twitter.

I also highly recommend:
‘It’s not about the bike‘ his story of surviving cancer and winning his first Tour
and its sequel: ‘Every second counts‘.
Both available at Amazon.com

If you want to leave a comment to me or tell me your story please do so in the comments section below or on Twitter.
Thanks a lot!

Do it anyway!

| Ester

It’s holiday time for me, which means I’m browsing through old photos and videos on my hard drive. Trip to memory lane…That’s where I found the video above. For me it symbolizes amongst other things the fact that I was scared stiff to sing in front of a packed church with all my friends and some family, but that I did it anyway. And I loved it!
It was an exhilarating experience for me!

I want to share this with you to encourage you people to do the same. Chase your dreams! Do it inspite of your fears!

Maybe you want to start a business, but fear failure. Do it anyway!
Maybe you’d like to do a presentation at work, but fear blackout. Do it anyway!
Maybe you want to write a book, but fear that it won’t be good enough. Do it anyway!
Maybe you want to dance at a party, but fear looking foolish. Do it anyway!
Maybe you want to do a flamenco, salsa or ballet presentation in a big theater, but fear failure. Do it anyway!

Maybe you want to get your butt out of bed, but are afraid of the day… afraid of failure… shame… looking foolish… not being good enough…

Get yourself together, take a deep breath, surround yourself with happy and positive things. Even pray if you can… Build your life on love and trust. Do it anyway!

God loves you just the way you are, you don’t have to be different, you are okay, you are amazing actually!

And now move your behind and get going!!!

For further clues on overcoming fears check out this wonderful blog post by Leo Babauta:
A guide to beating the fears that are holding you back.

Please leave a comment or leave me a tweet. Thank you!

p.s. the video was shot on the 7th of May 2006, at the service of the public confession of my faith in the Oosterparkkerk Amsterdam. It was a year after I became a Christian.

The song is by Day of Fire – Cornerstone.

See lyrics here.