The Things They Carried by guest blogger Rod Richards

First of all: apologies to Tim O’Brien.  I begin with the disclaimer that I am not even attempting to do justice to his book that bore this title.  And if you have not yet read it, do yourself a favor and get a copy.

With that said, though this blog post is far different in subject matter than O’Brien’s book, I cannot escape the aptness of the phrase to describe my impressions of two museums we visited in one day in Amsterdam.

We had split it so that we were going to visit a museum that I had chosen first (The Bible Museum) and the museum that Hanje had selected next (The Museum of Bags and Purses).  It worked out well as they were not far from one another.

Among the things that I carried that day were the expectations that the Bible Museum would be something of a profound and inspiring experience, while the Museum of Bags and Purses would be a mildly amusing diversion.

It’s hard to say what exactly I expected the Bible Museum to be, but it is safe to say that I was somewhat puzzled by what it is.  First, much of what the visitor sees has little to do with the Bible, but rather focuses on the history of the striking canal house and its features (Left and Right Garden Room; Great and Small Kitchen) in which the museum resides.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that; I’m just reminded of Jesus questioning the expectations of those who were curious about John the Baptist.  “What did you come to see?” he asks.  Well, if you were coming to the Bible Museum you most likely came to see: Bibles or Bible-related material  And, in fairness, there are a few  Bibles in the aptly named Bible Room, while the other rooms host such things as a model of the Mosaic Tabernacle which the founder of the museum worked on for 23 years; “aroma cabinets” where one can smell things that are mentioned in the sacred Scripture; and a garden that hosts trees, plants, and flowers that are also noted in the Bible, though some of the texts seemed a bit vague to me. 

Maybe it was the seemingly scattered, irritatingly eccentric nature of the presentation, walking by “a sleeping Venus with her Cupids” in plasterwork on the way to sniff some frankincense.  Maybe it was the obsessive quality of the exhibits—the “life’s work” tabernacle project and the annotated garden.  Maybe it was the assumption that I should care about an aroma or a plant or a sort of clunky pre-Leggo construction simply because they were mentioned in the Bible…Whatever it was, by the time I left the Temple Mount Room with the display that showed how three religions claimed the same space and the video interviews with representatives of these three faiths that made it clear that there would be no peace as long as these religions believe that their Scriptures have promised it to the chosen people (the chosen people being, of course, the people that included whatever person was talking at the time)…By the time I left there, I was thoroughly depressed and dared to wish that there was no such thing as a New Testament, or a Qur’an, or a Torah, or a Tabernacle…no such thing as a Bible.  As long as people carried their sense of entitlement with a Divine Seal of Approval; as long as they carried their sacredly inspired prejudice; as long as they carried their damned certainty, what hope did we all have for the future?

I felt my opportunity for inspiration had been cruelly thwarted and I allowed as to how it might be attributable to my own bad attitude.  I welcomed some mild diversion so imagine my surprise when I walked into the Museum of Bags and Purses and quickly found myself…moved, awestruck, inspired!

I don’t know how to explain it exactly.  Some of it may have had to do with the precise focus of the museum (you guessed it: bags and purses)

 and yet the awesome span of history that the exhibits covered, exquisitely organized, clearly and concisely explained.  Some of it may have had to do with the jaw-dropping creativity and artistry of the people who had conceived and constructed these items, using seashells and velvet, melon seeds and cactus fibre, glass beads and pearls, and on and on.  Some of it may have had to do with the recognition of a human trait (e.g. we carry things) and the way we respond to that trait (e.g. we create something that is not only practical, but beautiful, comical, quirky, expressive).  There was one bag made of particles nearly as tiny as grains of sand.  Another, most likely carried by wealthier women of the 1600s, bore the message: “Remember the pore.”  And though I know that bags and purses are all tied up in class and politics and injustice just like every other thing we may own or want to own, I couldn’t help but feel buoyed by this panoramic view of how it is that we humans carry things.  As I viewed one pouch, worn under the skirt and meant to hold a Bible ever near to the woman that wore it, I thought to myself that what mattered was how we carried things.  How to carry a Bible?  With arrogance and ugliness and provocation?  Or with humility and reserve and beauty?   The history of humanity is a history of what it is that we cherish and choose to carry with us and what we learn to release are willing to lay down.  The creativity, the artistry, the imagination, the silliness, the beauty and the possibility are what I carried away from this museum.

And look at that; I carried them all the way home.