A woman in a bright green coat separates herself from the day-trippers walking along the Prinsengracht and crosses the threshold of the Westerkerk. She goes after the fragile sounds of a piano she heard coming out. She immediately seems entranced when she ignores the hedge of coffin bearers – eight men in black suits – who are already lined up in the hall to carry Huub Oosterhuis into the church in a few minutes.
It takes some effort for the undertaker to explain to the woman that the church is not open to visitors today. “What kind of music is that?” she shouts from the street, captivated by the melody unknown to her.
The Westerkerk is full of people who are also captivated by his songs, but know them very well, for example because they sing them in church every week. Loved ones and acquaintances of Huub Oosterhuis, who will sing one more time from his work in the presence of the poet himself – in total there are more than 700 songs that he has written.
His own requiem
The organ swells, and then he is carried in for his own requiem. On the chest a bouquet of large sunflowers and blue hyacinths. The choir of the Ekklesia, the community that Oosterhuis founded, starts with a Latin hymn, ‘Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine’, ‘Lord grant him eternal rest’.
His grandchildren are called to the coffin and asked to light a candle. “Only then can we really start,” says Kees Kok, who is affiliated with the Ekklesia as a theologian and who has translated much of Oosterhuis’s work into German. While the children are busy with the candles, he explains: “They stay awake with grandpa throughout the service.”
A song is played that son Tjeerd Oosterhuis, composer, put to music. His wife Edsilia Rombley sings it together with Trijntje Oosterhuis. ‘Sound remnants of an unfinished story. Stone syllables, traces in desert sand. Words of light, once received, but from whom – He shall not sleep, keeper of all souls’.
Sister Eugenie Oosterhuis reminisces about the wartime period in which they grew up together, and the time when the rebellious Huub suddenly decided to become a priest. That he was then dressed in a black habit, “very awkward if you are used to walking with your hands in your pockets”.
Attentive, non-judgmental and powerful
The children of the ex-priest also have their say. Trijntje says: “There was that calling to become a father stronger than that one calling.” They had a deep bond. “When I was born, my father Huub Oosterhuis gave me a gift just like that.” She says that she has always been able to rely on the overwhelming confidence she received from her father, even as a beginning singer. “Dad was there. Attentive, non-judgmental and powerful.”
She sums up his thinking with a phrase that comes up more often this afternoon: “Love your neighbor, who is a man like you.”
Afterwards, 83-year-old Babs Bouwman – black beret, red scarf – leans against a wooden pew. He talks to Mieke Damave (81), they know each other from the Ekklesia. She was “really bothered” by the death of Oosterhuis for three days. “It goes very deep,” says Damave. “You felt the unity, the connection that Huub was so for. Even with the family so close by.”
It was also the quality of the music and lyrics that really impressed Bouwman. “We are used to this in our church, but still: this is the crème de la crème. Just say the period from 1860-1910 in painting: Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet. But not in images, but in text – absolutely that level.”
The other
He almost stumbles over his words when he wants to impress upon the reporter the credo that has already been mentioned several times: “treat the other as you treat yourself”. You can’t repeat that often enough, says Bouwman. “Because damn, we forget that every day.”
Damave nods in agreement. “Yes, the other one, that’s what it’s all about. Whether they are yellow, brown or black.” She starts about the partners of Oosterhuis’ children, who have Caribbean and Surinamese roots. Bouwman wonders aloud whether he would have accepted this so easily for his own children in the past. “I think Huub really doesn’t see that color. To him, a person is a person.”
For him too, “of course”, Bouwman hastens to say, but there is still something for him to learn from Oosterhuis in this respect. “I definitely think Huub is a better person than myself.” Jokingly: “A better philosopher too. But he also acted accordingly.”
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Huub Oosterhuis (1933-2023), influential innovator and outsider against will and thanks
Theologian, poet and dissident Huub Oosterhuis (1933-2023) was a tireless innovator of the liturgy. He colored the cultural map of his native Amsterdam and developed a language of faith that touched many. He passed away on Sunday, April 9.
