Love Leiden

Life in Leiden’s river?

Last Wednesday I was at a prayer meeting for Christian leaders in Leiden.  We were all busy praying, well most people, I was feeling rather unwell from having a cold.  You know the feeling when you’re in a group praying and you’re trying to think of what to pray out loud for and someone else jumps in and prays about the topic that you were thinking about.  Well I had that happen to me a few times.  That happens to me partly because I am not only thinking about what to pray about, but how to formulate that in Dutch.

Anyhow, as I was wondering what to pray about a picture started to formulate in my mind.  I got thinking about the river Rhine that flows, or rather used to flow, through Leiden.  It’s a famous river and it forms an important part of the character of Leiden itself.  Just before it arrives in the city it splits in two and the arms then surround half the city centre.  These two arms then come together right in the heart of the city and then it continues flowing on through the city centre and towards the sea.

In Roman times the Rhine through Leiden was the main channel to the sea.  It carried rainwater that fell in the Alps and throughout Germania and directed it through the city and out to sea.  The river silted up during the middle ages and further upstream it decided to find a new course and flow through Rotterdam.  The river was so large and important that the Romans decided to stop here and make this their Northern border.

The ‘Old Rhine’ as it is now known is largely agricultural run-off water, full of pollutants.  The river is also dammed at Katwijk where it meets the sea.  The Rhine is much smaller than it used to be and has been crafted into a canal by human hands.

Whilst the waterways in Leiden remain pretty and are an important charm for tourists, the waters are very slow moving (part of the river is now called the Still Rhine) and largely devoid of life, seldom carrying boats other than pleasure crafts.  Most of the canals in the city that were dug for trade have now been filled in.

Once this picture had fully formed in my mind I knew that it was right to share it with the rest of the prayer meeting, just as I know that it is right to share it with you.  However, exactly what this picture means I am still not sure.

Personally I felt led to two interpretations.  Firstly, I sensed that God wanted to bring clean fresh water through our city once again.  That the water that tourists came to see would not be still, man-made and dead, nice to look at, but not the real deal.  Rather that the water would be life giving.  I was reminded separately the same day of Revelation 22:17b

Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.

Secondly, I felt that God needs canals/channels (same word in Dutch) for his water to stream through.  This is his church; his followers; us.  Will we be open to let streams of life-giving water flow through us?  Or will we be found silted up (maybe through centuries old arguments) that mean that God has to find other courses for his water to flow through?

Please would you consider praying about this picture and share with me what thoughts, impressions or words you feel that God is revealing.