Posts in category Organization

I have skipped the last meeting of our christian society. It appeared that many people have skipped that as well, and the organizers have encouraged us "to keep the flame". So I did my best to attend the meeting on November 19, despite overlapping appointments.

It was interesting. Karel Terwel told us about his parish in Delftshaven: old town being now a part of greater Rotterdam. It dwels in a neat old church (http://www.pelgrimvaderskerk.nl/). The parish life is active and flourishing, including missionary and social work in the town. It was nice to learn that the parish is growing and full with young families.

Karel is a busy person: he is a teacher at TU Delft, he is a chairman of the parish council, and, as if it is not enough, he does a PhD study. He hardly has a free evening, and feels bad about: he thinks he should do more for the parish. He got various advices. For instance, it was noted that his TU Delft activities whlist done properly, is also work for God, since He dispatched Karel to Facultly of Civil Engineering. Another advice was not to do PhD studies in the evening: right, evenings are hardly productive as far as intellectually involved work is concerned. A PhD student has compared his lifestyle with that of his Chineese (en thus unbelieving) fellow-students to conclude: they’ve more time to work, it costs time and perhaps quality of PhD thesis to be a Christian.

Well, at least for me the time spend on the meeting was not a waste on expence of my work: I was freshly recharged by seeing my friends in Christ and praying with them. Glory to God.

I should have posted this four days ago. However, I was on trip and the internet connection was such that I could not do it. Ok, it’s better late than never.

The feast of Nativity of the Mother of God is celebrated in Orthodox church on Sep. 21 (two weeks later than Catholics do: the calendar is shifted). This is the first feast from the twelve great ones in a yearly cycle of church celebrations that starts on September 1. This is how must people know it.

As to me and my family, this feast has a special significance. On this mere day I was appointed for a permanent position at Delft University of Technology. This has ended a difficult nomadic period in my life. I have got a possibility to do research and support my family, thanks to the Mother.

Why do I write about it now? Well, this took place 15 years ago, a kind of jubilee. Do you think it was a joyfull day for me? Not quite. In this less ideal word, if one gets some, another does not. There was a job search by that time, four people on the list. Me. My student with whom we did splendid physics and were having a good time. He could not find a research job in the Nethrelands and is now a prof in Grenoble, France. My good friend who has actually brought me to Delft and has helped me a lot. He could not stay in research he liked and works for a soft company.   

I’ve already mentioned in this blog that I’m a Christian. The time has come to reveal more: I’m not the only one among the scientific stuff of TU Delft. We’ve a kind of small organization that does not advertise itself. It’s called Crux. Once in a month we meet, trying not to attract much attention.

Why not to attract? For forty years passed since Great Secularization of Dutch society it did not feel quite proper to talk about religion within university environment. The students are of course allowed to have interests, and there are several active student Christian organizations. As to the stuff, the common opinion was that faith is so deeply personal and so irrelevant to any academic acitvies that any mentioning of it is improper, very much like mentioning, discussing and promoting personal physiology. This is why we’re still a bit cautious. Although times seem to change: more and more academics actively and publically discuss questions related to interactions between science and religion and even provoke such discussions. Cees Dekker, prof of molecular biology at our Kavli Institute, is especially famous for this: see his site www.ceesdekker.net.

So two years ago Cees Dekker and Hans Hellendoorn, prof. in applications of computational intellegence, have founded Crux, In our meetings, somebody usually gives a (short) presentation that ignites a friendly discussion that can be about everything: from the best ways to handle Ph.D, students to what Scriptures say about environmental issues. Starting this year, we also invite postdocs and Ph.D. students: this is called Crux II.  

Today we got very deep in philosophy. Kees Roos told us about Wittgenstein and Goedel. Yet everybody find it interesting and can say something about. Glory to God.