• In the evenings, we’re continue our journey with Better Call Saul (2015-2022). Midway through season 3, it’s finally beginning to get a firm grip on our attention span again. I loved the debut of Gus Fring, the way he lingers in the background, out of focus, voiceless, before landing, so to speak. I find this one of the finest roles in television history.
• Less reading this week.
• Struggling with discernment this week: what do I do when following Jesus when it gets hard interferes with my boundaries and sense of safety
• Beaming at work
• Beaming at home
• Sunday is amazing. First, I meet Kélian for a drink at Bar Bario. I met him at Omek and was inspired by his relationship to money. He gave me great tips and a few resources to boot. I aim to make 2024 the year in which I learn to be more comfortable in my relationship with money.
• Sunday continued at Bar Buka, where I met Erin for a drink. She, in an act of bravery the level of which I will never possess, left her Canta unlocked. I was able to open the door and take out the keys. I admire people who have such faith in the city of Amsterdam and the people who inhabit her.
• Erin and I eventually made it to church, which was surprisingly full. I met Rev. Jacque Williams, who is apparently running a great thing over in the part of the country I tend to avoid.

• This week marked the week I got back into the swing of things at work. I tend to find the holiday season quite boring because things slow down quite a bit. Now that people are returning from their winter break, my to do list is filling up again with exciting projects, opportunities for collaboration, and research endeavors. As usual, a conversation with my manager reminded me how much I love my job.
• I finished Angela Davis’ Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (2015) and read a few chapters of Out There Screaming, An Anthology of New Black Horror (2023). I had forgotten how much I love gothic horror. Echoes of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties (2017) were in my head as a result all week.
• I also began reading Saving Jesus From the Church (2009) again after first picking it up last Summer. It’s a special book, one I’ll return to again and again I’m sure.
• In 2023, my Wednesdays at the office varied from busy to overwhelming: lots of interactions, many meetings, few moments to myself. By the time Bible study came around at 6:30, I was ready for bed. The Wednesday this week was radically different: I had very few meetings, got to concentrate on my task list, and I attended my first Omek accountability circle event. I found Omek, a community for people from the African diaspora, in the Autumn of 2023, and immediately considered it too good to be true. I found out this week that it isn’t. It’s actually a community of Black people from all over the world, all professionals at various stages in their career, and many of them live in Amsterdam. The accountability circle had me eat a desk lunch. and check off a large portion of what I had been looking to accomplish during the entire week. Awesome.
• Our dear friend AR from Stockholm came to stay at our place because she was attended a weekend-long dance workshop in Amsterdam. Five minutes with her and I remember there’s an entire portion of myself that I don’t tap into enough. Our conversations flow flawlessly, as if the last time we spoke wasn’t three years ago. I appreciate the depth we so easily reach, the air that I feel around myself, my relationships, my choices. We spend three evenings over candlelight, talking about work, family, love, trust, faith, Judaism, the war, and so much more.
• Another great thing about Wednesday was that I had the energy to attend Bible study, which started out small with the usual suspects, and became something different altogether when two other queer people of color showed up. They didn’t even realize there was only one straight person at the table until later. It was a very sweet experience to hear about their journeys. I hope I’ll see them again. We talked about the part in John when Jesus calls Philip and Nathanael and it made me think about feeling seen, wholly.
• On Saturday, I had the good fortune of meeting NB, a person I met at Omek. Over chicken and waffles we got to meet each other and it felt like we were old friends. It’s spectacular to hear about the experiences of a Black person who grew up in a white environment.
• Nice IndieWeb discovery this week: Rachel Smith.

I delivered this sermon today at All Saints Amsterdam.

A few months ago, along with much of humanity, it seemed, I went to see Barbie. Walking out of the theatre and forming an opinion on this intro to feminism, I renamed the film to a title which I will use again today: “Blueprints: a pamphlet against simplicity”.

It’s nice to see all of your faces here today. I’ve met most of you before, but let me make an official introduction. My name is Zinzy, I’m 35 years old, I live in Amsterdam, and I work in the tech industry. I’m an interaction designer at a medical technology company, which is to say that I design the ways in which doctors and nurses interact with my company’s software. My job is to find out how we can improve the lives of essential workers. It involves a lot of research, empathizing, and imagining. The phrase I repeat over and over again is: “How might we…?”