Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

NOVEMBER 3 2018

DREAMS

Last week I, 90 years old, had a dream that centered on an event that my subconscious told me happened close to 70 years ago. The curious aspect of this dream was that this was the second time that I visualized myself as a 22 year old, engaged to be married, worried that I would ever earn enough to support a family.

I dreamed that scenario even though I, since then, had been a successful entrepreneur, starting a career from life insurance to general insurance, from real estate broker to professional Real Estate appraiser, specializing in commercial and industrial properties.

This dream brought me back to a time when I had completed 14 years of schooling, mostly academic stuff, had just been discharged from the Dutch army, as an infantry sergeant, but had really no marketable skills at all, and, in my dream, I desperately wondered how I would ever translate these experiences into some sort of a career.

I cannot recall that these thoughts ever bothered me at the time. I am now sure that this lingering uncertainty about my future life gave me the impetus to emigrate to Canada, then very much in vogue, especially in the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands, Groningen and Friesland.

Lately another dream, also dealing with the past, had popped up in my mind. Three years before that, when my wife and I were dating, she broke off the relationship. Apparently this affected me so much that even now I dreamed that I was biking past her house, only some 300 m from where I lived, hoping to get a glimpse of her. That dream too occurred a few times.

These nightly happenings made me curious, and I started to read a book I have by Carl S. Jung, probably the world’s most famous authority on dreams. His 73 page essay had as heading, The Approach of the Unconscious, with the subheading, The Importance of dreams.

I am not capable to give an explanation of my dreams. I suspect that in my old age suppressed feelings are emerging, perhaps a kind of mind-house cleaning.

The result of these current dreams was that I started to read, not only Carl Jung, but also other authors. From Dr. Jung I learned the concept of “Misoneism”, a term I have never encountered before, meaning “a profound and superstitious fear for something new”. This gave me the impetus to make a note in Jung’s book on the margin: “Is Jesus’ promise to make everything new, including Creation a subject of fear for many believing Christians?”

The other two persons I consulted were Thomas Berry and MLK, Martin Luther King.

First Berry and his “The dream of the earth”.

Berry was a Catholic priest who wrote THE DREAM OF THE EARTH.
I expected some biblical givens here, but was very much disappointed. He never mentions God or Jesus, never refers to creation or fall, never points to the evil one or Christ’s redemptive acts.

However, he correctly implies something that J.H. Bavinck also states that, “The End is in the Beginning,” and quotes with approval E.O. Wilson of Harvard, who said, “Scientific analysis points, curiously, toward the need for a quasi-religious transformation of contemporary cultures,” without commenting on this. Berry’s own suggestion is that we must return far beyond recorded history: “going back to the genetic imperative from which human cultures emerged originally”. Bavinck called this “THE URZEIT,” the Primeval – prehistoric – era, primordial time, that preceded the time when humanity began life on earth. Bavinck writes: “This “Urzeit” was the time when all things were put in place. What happened then became the measure for everything that would happen afterwards. In that era the basis was laid upon which all subsequent events rest.”

MLK, Martin Luther King, in his now famous speech, I HAVE A DREAM, gives a totally different picture. Here is part of his historic sermon:
“I have a dream today … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted. (MLK then quotes Isaiah 40):
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.”

His speech continues,
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be fine one day.”
So far MLK.

I too have a dream.

I have written a book which really is a dream in its entirety. The section below is based on Matthew 26: 29, “I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

In the episode which follows below, I envision a possible scenario, where Jesus implements the promise he made at the Last Supper. There he renews the Covenant with both humanity and all living matter, as outlined in Genesis 9, guaranteeing perfect life for all humans, all animals, all trees, all bacteria and insects, all microbes and fungi, every virus and amoeba, all protozoa and algae, forever freed from the curse Adam had brought upon creation. There is fulfilled the promise made at The Last Supper that He would not drink wine again until He would be united with His sisters and brothers and all creation in the Father’s kingdom, his so well ordered cosmos for which He had sacrificed his life.

Here is that dream:

“That moment has now arrived. The complete common-union is now to start. The marriage ceremony is about to begin and the sealing of the new and final Covenant is about to take place. Immanuel’s presence is everywhere, His mind penetrates all and our minds connect with His. All non-human living things, relieved of their groaning as in childbirth, joyfully embrace the birth of the New Creation. I see the trees stretch out their branches, as in prayer, the leaves vibrate in joyful expectation and the flowers sway in unison, even though there is no breeze. I see birds and all sorts of animals concentrate on Jesus in devout expectation.
The Son of Man, Immanuel. God everywhere.
Jesus rises above the crowd, His hands raised in a blessing. Gradually the singing subsides as slowly the music ceases. In the background a lonely bird continues its tune, asserting its independence. Jesus, smiling, begins to speak.
I am sitting on a rock, leaning against a tree, my arms neatly folded, as though I am again a kid in school, my eyes glued to my teacher. Jesus addresses creation and I know that what He conveys to me and the way I interpret it is all one experience. There is no possibility of misunderstanding or wrong explanation.
Jesus speaks to us and to all creation, a sermon without sound, a message without human words, transmitting ideas and concepts equally understandable to tree and human alike. He implants His love into the very core of the life of each woman and man, in fish and fowl, in plant and herbivore. Jesus imparts his love into all created matters, into the entire new creation, while holding up a chalice full of foaming wine.
My mind, starting to fill with His mind, receives a beginning of understanding the universal scope of our undertaking and the momentous magnitude of our mission. I feel the reaction of the tree against which I am leaning in the form of a slight shock of affirmation. I sense the approval of the earth in the faint vibrating of the rock on which my body rests.
A hush has fallen over the New Creation. All eyes are glued to the Son of Man, Who now raises both His hands, while holding that large golden cup full of freshly poured wine. In an instant we all have a long-stemmed, crystal wineglass in our hands, also filled to the brim with the fruit of the vine, formerly pressed by the human sole, now a symbol of the new human soul, creation’s most joyful gift to life. My glass is supplied by Cornelius, who is gone the next instant. It flashes through my mind that I am not the only person he looks after.
“A toast,” Jesus says, His voice echoing through the Universe, “a toast to you who have completed your journey and now are about to start a new life, a life of slowly and ever more intimately becoming united with the cosmos, God’s world, bought with my blood, of which this wine is a token. A toast to Our Father, Creator, who made this all possible through Me, the Lamb of God.”
We, radiating His smile, raise our cups to acknowledge the God-Creator. The Son of Man drinks from His cup. He then gently pours some wine on the earth, and also into the air, as birds everywhere circle around Him in perfectly maintained concentric circles.
We all drink from our precious glasses filled with a red wine so delicious that it fills us with an even greater sense of wellbeing. It is amazing that, just as His earthly ministry started at the wedding feast in Cana, so now our first encounter with Him is also a wedding feast, this time our wedding feast, the uniting of the saints of the Body of Christ with his New Creation.

Freely flows the wine which gladdens our hearts even more. A song from my schooldays plays through my brain: “lo vivat, io vivat, nostrorum sanitas. Hoc est amoris poculum, doloris est antidotum. lo vivat, io vivat, nostrorum sanitas.” Here the wine is indeed something which will make us live, which will increase our wellbeing. The cup is most certainly the cup of love, of the greatest love ever; no longer is it an antidote for sorrow or grief.”

End of that quote from my book, DAY WITHOUT END, of which an electronic copy is available upon request. (Already a group near Ottawa, Ontario is discussing this book).

A dream shattered.

Today we experience world-wide chaos, augmented by President Trump’s remorselessly cynical, jungle-style vision of how to conduct business and politics, which is ripping apart a society already impacted by generational, demographic, and emotional stress.

What we NOW are experiencing are the birth pangs outlines in Romans 8 verses 19-25. Welcome them!
Consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to son-ship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

We must have dreams. The beauty of biblical dreams is that they come true.

OCTOBER 27 2018

THE SLEEPWALKERS

I have never walked in my sleep. Over the years I have fought while slumbering, thrashing around in my bed, kicking and wrestling with some imaginary intruder, but sleepwalking? No.

So why do I broach that subject?

Well, in my previous blog, MURDER, Christopher Clark used the term in the title of his book, “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”. Clark writes, the European leaders were “watchful but unseeing.”

I like that phrase: watchful but unseeing. When people ‘sleepwalk’ they are careful not to bump into other objects, but they really don’t know where they are and where they are going: they sort of float without a defined goal, are watchful but unseeing.

That got my thinking, so I searched my book collection and came up with Arthur Koestler’s THE SLEEPWALKERS. He states that by abandoning religion, by leaving God out of the picture, by relying solely on REASON, we drift aimlessly in our world.

Koestler is of the Jewish persuasion – born in Budapest he lived in Israel for a while and settled in London– and writes that with earlier scientists, such as Kepler and Galileo, ‘Apart from reassuring the conscious mind by investing the universe with meaning and value, RELIGION acted in a more direct manner on the unconscious, pre-rational layers of the self, providing it with intuitive techniques to transcend its limitations in time and space by a mystical short-circuit, as it were.’

That is the central theme of the book. He deplores how the relationship between faith and reason, which existed harmoniously earlier in many of the greatest intellectuals of the West, is no longer evident today.

Koestler thinks that modern science is trying too hard to be rational. Scientists today allowed themselves to become “sleepwalkers,” by trying to be guided only by ‘reason’.

He concludes that within the foreseeable future – the book was published in 1958 –humanity will either destroy itself or take off for the stars, (a theme the late Stephen Hawkins seems to favor).

Sleepwalking into eternity.

Well, I am convinced that ‘sleepwalking’ is all the rage today. Not physically, not that everywhere people’s sleep is suddenly subject to erratic roaming, but more in the broader sense of being lost theologically, politically and especially ecologically.

Every day we read of another species under threat: last week it was insects. This week it is frogs.
When we moved to Tweed 43 years ago, the bullfrogs in our nearby pond would wake us up in the morning. They have long gone.

Last week’s New York Times reported, “Frogs are linchpins in the ecosystem, both predator and prey. And they are our watchmen, keeping vigil over our ponds, marshes, lakes and streams, our meadows and our woods, the quality of our water and our air. “If they go silent, there could be bad stuff happening,” says Christopher J. Raxworthy, a herpetologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Like honeybees, whose colonies began to collapse en masse across the United States a decade ago, frogs are portents of the greater ills that could befall our environment — and us.”
Indeed, we are sleepwalking toward the final apocalypse.

We also have become religious sleepwalkers, evident throughout the ecclesiastical spectrum.

One of my favorite books is Tom Hayden’s THE LOST GOSPEL OF THE EARTH. There Tom Hayden – a California legislator – passionately argues that we must reclaim our spiritual bond with the earth, a regular theme of my musings.

He writes, “We divide grace and spirit from nature at our own peril. When we worship a God above, the earth withers from neglect below. We develop a society where everything from human habits to politics and economics exploits the environment with callous indifference. Unless the nature of State is harmonized with the state of Nature our greed and ignorance will eventually take us beyond the capacity of the very ecosystems that support human existence.”

It is sadly true that all religions, from Protestant to Roman Catholic, from Buddhist to Judaism, have lost the earth affinity and so have thwarted the spread of the true gospel.

We automatically pray The Lord’s Prayer, where “Hallowed Be Thy Name” is the very first line after the salutation. We don’t realize that God is totally present in all his expressions: God’s name represents God in entirety. It simply means that whatever emanates from God is holy.

This really means that in our uttering of The Lord’s Prayer we actually say that Creation is as Holy as God is Holy, that by molesting his cosmos – as we do continuously – we curse God.

Yes, we constantly sleepwalk in church. Yes, we continuously sleepwalk through worship as if we are permanently doped up, unconscious, drunk and ‘out of it’. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” That is a typical sleepwalking exercise.

Two of my other favorite authors also point to Sleepwalking. Jacques Ellul is one of them. He was a liberated Christian academic, a professor of law at the University of Bordeaux, France, most famous for his book THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY which was written in 1954, appeared in English in 1964 and which I bought in 1965.

Among my six books written by Ellul is HOPE IN TIME OF ABANDONMENT, which truly is a Cri de Coeur, a cry of desperation, over the condition of the church. I prefer the French title: L’Esp?rance Oubli?e, the Forgotten Hope.

He writes that the church has forgotten the decisive importance of the promise, the approach of the Second Coming, the ESCHATON which comes. “Eschaton” is the Greek word for ‘The final event in the divine plan; the end of the world’, something we are rapidly approaching. He thinks that the church, by not mentioning the Hope of Eternal Life on earth, is totally in the Sleep Walking business, aimlessly drifting from one priority to another, without really going anywhere.

In this he echoes Bonhoeffer who, in his CREATION AND FALL wrote, “”The church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, it acts from the end.”

I was reminded of Jacques Ellul by one of my readers who sent me an article which appeared in The Tyee Magazine, written by Andrew Nikiforuk, dealing with Ellul’s classic, THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

Here are some quotes.
Nikiforuk writes, “Ellul, the Karl Marx of the 20th century, predicted the chaotic tyranny many of us now pretend is the good and determined life in technological society.
“He wrote of technique, about which he meant more than just technology, machines and digital gadgets but rather “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency” in the economic, social and political affairs of civilization.

For Ellul, technique, an ensemble of machine-based means, included administrative systems, medical tools, propaganda (just another communication technique) and genetic engineering.
The list is endless because technique, or what most of us would just call technology, has become the artificial blood of modern civilization.
“Technique has taken substance,” wrote Ellul, and “it has become a reality in itself. It is no longer merely a means and an intermediary. It is an object in itself, an independent reality with which we must reckon.”
Just a break from Nikiforuk’ s article.

Ellul’s real message fits in with my theme of SLEEPWALKING. He writes that technology which supposedly is humanity’s servant, in actual life will overtake human development unless we take the necessary steps to move beyond ‘technique’ to reclaim our humanity.
Today that prophecy has been fulfilled: we have become enslaved to our gadgets. We now more and more resemble the situation painted in Psalm 115,
“They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.
They have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.
They have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk,
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.”

Actually we have gone beyond what the poet of this Psalm visualized: our robotic devices CAN walk, CAN feel, CAN talk, which makes them all the more dangerous.

Back to Nikiforuk:

He argued that propaganda had to become as natural as breathing air in a technological society, because it was essential that people adapt to the disruptions of a technological society.
“The passions it provokes — which exist in everybody — are amplified. The suppression of the critical faculty — man’s growing incapacity to distinguish truth from falsehood, the individual from the collectivity, action from talk, reality from statistics, and so on — is one of the most evident results of the technical power of propaganda.” So far the The Tyee article.

SLEEPWALKING AND ENTERTAINMENT.

“Amusing ourselves to death”.

Neil Postman, the author of the book by that title, states that in the entertainment television provides us with “soma”, the fictitious pleasure drug in Brave New World that famous book by Aldous Huxley, where the citizens’ rights are exchanged for consumers’ entertainment.

The most striking point of this important book is that “form excludes the content” which means that TV can only convey a limited amount of ideas and knowledge, as opposed to books and literature. Reading allows for reflection, tickles the brain, gives opportunity to go back and memorize, thus allowing for gaining wisdom.
Owing to TV’s shortcoming, politics and religion are diluted, and “news of the day” becomes a packaged commodity. Television de-emphasizes the quality of information in favor of satisfying the far-reaching needs of entertainment, by which information is encumbered and to which it is subordinate. In other words, TELEVISION is the ultimate mind-killer, enhancing sleepwalking.

THE GOOD NEWS IS……

So, after all this negative stuff, after outlining why we sleepwalk in the dark, why we go about our lives as zombies, why the entire society is conspiring to prevent us from becoming what we are – the Devil’s ultimate aim – there is good news.

The Good News is that it is possible to find GOD again: we cannot find ourselves and cannot become what we are unless we find God. Bonhoeffer repeatedly has stated: God, we ourselves and the earth belong together. The Belgic Confession beautifully has formulated that belief:

“Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God

We know God by two means:
First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:
God’s eternal power and divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.
All these things are enough to convict humans
and to leave them without excuse.
Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly
by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,
for God’s glory
and for our salvation.

Let me concentrate on that first aspect, because I believe that today the church, by exclusively dealing with the Bible, has forfeited to be the gateway to salvation.

We must go beyond the Bible, the Scriptures, because interpreting it has led to nothing but confusion, that’s why, in this late stage of history, Creation is more important. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5: 5) “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth”. The ‘gentle’ are those who treat the earth with tenderness, with the utmost consideration, who love it as Jesus did.

For now, the Bible makes clear – 1 John 5: 19 – that God’s opponent rules. The evil one has created the perfect conditions to prevent us from coming to God-knowledge, by putting us to sleep, by sleepwalking through the world, making it almost impossible to learn THE TRUTH.

Fortunately the environmental crisis is a wake-up call. Informed people know that Planet Earth is about to die, and Christ is the only answer for remedying this dreadful situation.

The Truth is that Christ died to save the world he made because he loved it beyond anything else. By following his example, by loving creation, and thus loving the Creator, we can inherit eternal life in a totally restored and perfect world.

Only in Him can we do that: it means giving up all sleepwalking, squarely facing the true situation, acknowledge our SIN and start a new life NOW.

OCTOBER 20 2018

MURDER

In the Beginning: Cain murdered Abel.
Sarajevo 1914: Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Istanbul 2018: Murder of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
GLOBE Twenty First Century: Murder of CREATION.

Cain murders his brother over a religious dispute.
In June 1914 a radical anarchist killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Their assassination in Sarajevo sparked a series of events that eventually led to World War I.

In October 2018, a Saudi murder squad, on orders of Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, known colloquially as MbS, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, killed journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who had criticized him, comparing him to Putin. This murder, I believe will lead to the dissolution of Saudi Arabia.

Creational Murder. Twice this year surveys have indicated that arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. In Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest with data taken during the 1970s scientists found that biomass had fallen 10 to 60 times. Identical declines have occurred in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and studies indicate that Climate Heating is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web. Earlier surveys in Germany tell the same story. As the insects go, so do we.

Unintended consequences.

Abel’s death distorted creation forever.
The 1914 murder led to World War I, which killed millions of French, British, German and Russian soldiers. Its aftermath caused a complete realignment of the world, with the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappearing, countries splitting mostly along linguistic and ethnic lines, while the German African colonies were divided between France and Great Britain. The Czar was killed and Russia became a Communist state.

The harsh conditions imposed on Germany after WWI, eventually led to World War II, 1939-45, which again caused untold millions of death and wounded and the displacement of many more.

Saudi Arabia fuels the world. It has the largest deposits of precious petroleum of any nation. The world needs the Saudis and its ruler knows this all too well. It has filled MbS, that young Arab prince, with untrammeled hubris, thinking that he can get away with murder. Pride comes before the fall.

Cosmos-cide, due to our love for fossil fuels – of which a good portion originates in Saudi Arabia – spells the death of humanity, as EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE.

THE MURDEROUS 20TH CENTURY

In the years prior to World War I Europe was a divided continent. Kaiser Wilhelm was closely related to the British throne, an admirer of the Anglo-Saxon way of life, and fond of everything military. His status of high royalty had isolated him from common sense and thorough insight, which led to foolish actions and stubborn persistence in following the wrong path. His generals catered to his militaristic tendencies and encouraged his battle plans to attack France, prepared decades in advance.

Based on books such as Christopher Clark’s “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914” it is clear that, as Clark writes, the European leaders were “watchful but unseeing.” He feels that all world leaders then were equally foolish.

In “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914” Margaret MacMillan wonders why this war occurred at all. In the years prior to 1914 there had been minor crises that had not burst into full-blown war such as in the Balkans, Bosnia, and Morocco. These incidents actually had brought a new dedication to defusing conflicts, as Andrew Carnegie and Alfred Nobel bent all their powers toward promoting peace, yet this GREAT WAR happened for no real apparent reason. She concludes that Germany was more responsible for starting the 1914-18 conflict than France or England, whose commercial interests too played a role.

World War II was a direct consequence of World War I. Eric Hobsbawm, a noted historian, saw World War I and World War II as one event, also expressing the belief that the 20th Century started in 1914, and ended in 1989, with the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Empire, making it the shortest century in human memory.

Including the HOLOCAUST an estimated 100 million people died violently in the 20th Century, ten percent of those alive in the year 1900.

The 1989-2018 Interlude.

I am now starting to see that 1989-2018 is merely an interlude to the LAST EPOCH OF HUMANITY, with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and the global incidence of COSMO-CIDE as opening bells.

So what is my reasoning?

There is mounting evidence that Mohammed bin Salman, de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia sent a 15-man death squad to the Saudi consulate, armed with a bone saw, to murder and dismember Khashoggi, who was a member of an influential and prominent Saudi family.

This past week I had an almost 2 hour discussion over coffee with a friend, a retired Political Science Professor at McGill and the University of Toronto, centering solely on Jamal Khashoggi. He feels, and I concur, that dismembering his body, allegedly while he was still alive, portrays a religious fanaticism and a heinous hatred, that suggests that these murderers wanted to expunge the very soul from his body.

In the Middle East history as we know it began started with a murder fueled by religious differences when Cain killed Abel.
I also believe that there, in the Middle East, history as we know it, will end.

That needs clarification.

I believe that Khashoggi was killed, with one of the reasons being religion. I base this on the fact that Muslims, like Christians, believe in an afterlife.

Khashoggi’s death, as reported, suggests a religious ritual, an exorcizing execution as he was seen as an infidel/dissident. His torment was cruel. First his fingers were cut off, so that he could not write anymore; then his tongue was removed, so that he could not speak anymore; then his head was severed so that he could not think anymore. Perhaps they also cut off his penis. Yes, as my wise friend suggested: it was a ritual murder.

We also wondered why Khashoggi entered the consulate at all, suggesting a naivety that led to his death. It seems to me that he had a close friend there, a Judas, on whom he relied for security, and that this man betrayed him.

Khashoggi was no innocent, knew the workings of the Saudis. He was intimately acquainted with the methods the Saudi consuls and ambassadors employed. He himself had worked in two of them: Washington and London. He knew the beast, the way it thought, the way it acted, the way it smelt.

He also thought he knew the rules. He had worked for Turki bin Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief. The rules of the game were brutal, but they were rational. There were clear red lines. If you knew about them, you could calculate the risks you were taking.

Totally unaware.

Khashoggi had just bought a flat in Istanbul. He was going to get married the day after. The couple was still waiting for the furniture to arrive. He might have thought the worst they would do was to question him. But would he have risked kidnap, let alone his life, for a piece of paper that would allow him to remarry in Turkey? My learned friend suggested that they could have gone to Las Vegas to be married, if they really wanted to be formally united.

Khashoggi told his friends that he had left the kingdom because he could not stand the prospect of prison. That was why he felt a moral duty to speak out. If he was free, and thousands like him languished in jail, then it was his duty to speak.

I believe Khashoggi’s murder was a sacrificial act, carried out by a religious fanatic, a man for whom there was no rationality, no rules, no restraint, a man who could act with total impunity, and from whom no one was safe.

I believe that the 33 year old Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, by ordering Khashoggi’s execution, has unleashed Satanic forces, and sealed his own death sentence, and, since he has a wide following, the entire Saudi Arabian ruling clan is in disarray, especially since the country is so religiously divided. It has a sizable Shia minority of roughly 10 percent and also millions of adherents of a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism that is an enemy of Shia Islam, the ruling religion there.

Tom Freedman of the New York Times writes, “I believe that the promise of M.B.S….. is finished. He’s made himself radioactive. All of his reforms had intense conservative opponents. This is not Denmark, and yet, without sweeping social, economic and religious reforms, Saudi Arabia could well become a huge failed state. Remember, one of ISIS’ biggest sources of young recruits was Saudi Arabia…..It’s a mess….”

The Middle East: as the cradle of life, is it also its death scene?

What will happen? Why do I see this event as so calamitous?

I believe that Mohammed bin Salman’s actions will lead to a religious civil war within Saudi Arabia, a nation already at extreme odds with itself. The fuse is creeping not only to this brazen prince, but also to the oil riches the nation hoards, a substance the world cannot do without. Civil wars are among the most cruel, the most atrocious, the most ferocious of all conflicts.

This comes at a time when we see that world-wide RELIGIOUS OPINIONS are becoming more entrenched: people are becoming more fanatic and less accommodating.

So, yes, I see a fitting parallel with Cain and Abel, with 1914 and Sarajevo, an unfortunate murder which made the 20th Century the bloodiest epoch ever, with 100 million people dying in or because of war. I believe that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi will unleash an even greater fury, unparalleled in human history.

Why?

At stake is the fate of the world, because the world’s fuel is in danger. Once the globe’s population is deprived of the billions of barrels of Saudi oil, the West will starve in a matter of months.

Combine that with CREATION lacking its POLLINATORS, and thus preventing fruits and grains from forming, together with abrupt warming from exploding Arctic methane, and the doom of society is certain.

God’s Providence.

The Lord, in his wisdom, after the FLOOD, foresaw all this. He solemnly promised never to destroy the earth again. That doesn’t mean that the earth is now safe. No, as Bonhoeffer writes in CREATION AND FALL, “The extent of the (human) fall is such that it affects the whole created world.”

God voluntarily surrendered his ownership of the earth and let humanity have its way. As Roman 6: 23 tells us that “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” These wages include the death of creation, for which we are responsible.

MURDER

In the Beginning: Cain murders Abel.
Sarajevo 1914: Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Istanbul 2018: Murder of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
GLOBE, Twenty First Century: Murder of CREATION.

The world is a wicked place. Its wickedness will cause it to be destroyed. “Stronger than Lover’s Love is Lover’s Hate: incurable, in each, the wounds they make”, wrote Poet Euripides 2400 years ago. The love so evident in the Garden of Eden turned into hate for God, for humanity and creation. The unfortunate consequence of sin is death. Fortunately God has made exceptions: “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

By the grace of God the incurable becomes curable. The wounds we make and have made throughout the ages in ourselves, in others and in creation can be healed when we turn to Jesus, the Redeemer.

That’s what makes John 3: 16 such an important text in the Bible. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.

OCTOBER 13 2018

ABRUPT HUMAN CHANGE? NO AND YES.
ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE? YES AND YES.

Almost a 1000 moons ago I portrayed Sisyphus in a school play. It was partly a musical, and one of the songs I had to sing centered on Sisyphus’ infinite punishment for displaying scorn for the gods.

Sisyphus was no saint: he was the ultimate trickster, lived by deception and dishonesty, thus his sentence too was specifically in line with his life: an endless effort to redeem his shortcomings and waging an eternity of hopeless struggle, deep down in the underworld.

After so many years I still remember one song which, translated, depicts his particular punishment.

”I, Sisyphus, am always dead beat,
I roll this rock up, in the hellish heat,
And when I’m near the summit
The rock hops down without a stop:
My actions always a terrible flop.”

We too live by deception, and will also suffer the same fate as Sisyphus, our actions also are always a terrible flop, because we’ll never reach the summit of carbon-free bliss.

Why are we bound to fail in preventing ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE?
We fail because we are humans, and we cannot change human nature: ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE REQUIRES ABRUPT HUMAN CHANGE, something that will never happen because of the words drilled into me when I was a youngster at Catechism lesson, “We are conceived and born into sin, and therefore children of wrath”.

That wrath we now face, as the last generation. This may sound downright ugly, but it happens to be the truth. What we are experiencing today is the culmination of the sins of the fathers, augmented with our own failures.

The sign of true religion is captured in one sentence, “Love God – and thus his creation – above all, and our neighbors as ourselves” (Matthew 22: 38). By fashioning our lives on the fallible foundation of carbon fuel, we no longer can change direction. The grim reality is that we have created a society totally opposite to the aims of the kingdom, the New Creation. This means that our conversion too must be all-encompassing.

Since our foundation is faulty, we, like Sisyphus, are doomed to try, as the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – did again this week – and also doomed to fail.

IPCC explained.

Ah, to be a permanent member of the IPCC, a United Nations body. It’s a dream job. These scientists are stationed in one of the most desirable and most expensive cities in the world, Geneva, Switzerland, and enjoy a high, tax-free salary. So to preserve this situation, they simply have to deliver an optimistic report, because telling the world that we now live in unstoppable Climate Change will automatically suspend their lucrative employment, even though, deep down, they know this is the case.
And then there are these annual conferences where some 2000 delegates come from everywhere in the world where there is weather, to hear reports and make resolutions, and cause untold tons of Green House Gases through flying –possibly first class – and being buried under an avalanche of paper.

I know all about it: I had first-hand experience there because I attended such a conference in the year 2000: COP 6, in The Hague, Netherlands, from 13–25 November 2000.

I had a press pass from the regional paper for which I wrote a weekly column: no expenses spared as long as I paid for them myself.

The conference took place right after the disputed election of Bush, and his ghost dominated the discussion. Had Al Gore come out as the winner, history might have been closer to a climate victory, but the Bush’ platform was anti-climate while Gore had written a book on climate which I bought and NEVER read, ‘THE EARTH IN THE BALANCE.”

Later Al Gore became famous for a film. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which became quite popular, but, like Sisyphus, the book and film never really had an impact large enough to change the course of the world.

Now 18 years later, nothing has been accomplished on a world-wide scale. Like Sisyphus the world picks up that rock again, makes another try, gives the can another kick, and, looking at human nature, and the addiction we have to OIL, we know that another failure is in the cards.

But the politicians love conferences as long as their governments pick up the expenses: visiting a beautiful city, staying at a nice hotel, enjoying good meals, take in a different culture: that’s a bonus, not to pass up.

All sorts of NGOs also attend. In The Hague I visited the INNUIT group, showing those interested that the Arctic was changing fast. Remember that was 18 years ago!

In 2015 the COP took place in Paris, and resulted in THE PARIS ACCORD, hailed as a breakthrough.

Empty words.

And there we go again. Another IPCC report and they all keep getting more alarming than the previous one. And then nothing substantial happens, until the next report is issued and makes everybody’s headlines for a day, or two. Rinse, spin and repeat. “Now we really have to do something! World leaders have a moral obligation to act!”

Oh boy. To start with that last bit, world leaders don’t act because of moral obligations. They act to stay in, or get in, power. And they all know that to achieve that goal they must keep their people happy, even if dictators do this differently from ‘democratically elected’ leaders.
Leaders, politicians, think short-term. They may see further into the future than the next election, but that is not useful information. If they enact measures aimed at 10 years from today or more, they risk being voted out in 2 years, or 4. It’s not even their fault, it’s how the system works. It is different for dictators, but not even that much.

So a false foundation fosters more falsehoods.

My life is dominated by the coming of THE KINGDOM. All my actions are geared to reducing my carbon footprint, in preparation for the Kingdom to come.

I know that I am in a privileged position, living away from the city, able to heat with recycled wood from the local pallet factory, and having enough land to grow food.

But I drive a VW diesel. I trusted the authorities and believed that with driving a diesel car my environmental impact would be less.

The lesson in diesel is that Big Business cheats: the bottom line on the balance sheet is more important than THE TRUTH.

By buying a diesel I still cause air pollution, so today I drive a lot less. So far this year, I have driven less than 5000 km and will probably do less than 7000 km for the year, even though we live close to 6 km from the nearest store.

We only have 2 meals per day, breakfast – organic oats cooked in a slow cooker, with added flaxseed and fruit – and a noon meal, usually home grown stuff, salads, 2-3 per week, potatoes- vegetables or soups: no meat at all. The evening snack is home-made yogurt with our own maple syrup.

Tipping points.

The scariest issue today is the melting ice that uncovers and destabilizes permafrost. This layer is known to contain vast quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with a warming effect many times that of carbon dioxide. Melting permafrost will release that gas into the atmosphere, with lethal consequences.
Arctic News reported that “On October 2 and 7, 2018, peak methane levels were as high as 2838 ppb and 2859 ppb respectively. Methane levels over the Beaufort Sea have been high for some time, and have remained high at very high altitudes.
“The threat is that a number of tipping points are going to be crossed, including the buffer of latent heat, loss of albedo as Arctic sea ice disappears, methane releases from the seafloor and rapid melting of permafrost on land and associated decomposition of soils, resulting in additional greenhouse gases (CO?, CH?, N?O, water vapor) entering the Arctic atmosphere, in a vicious self-reinforcing cycle of runaway warming.”

Can we do anything? Yes.

Pray.

Pray for what? Pray that abrupt climate change will occur, so rapid that it speeds up the COMING OF THE KINGDOM. That is our only hope because The Coming of the Kingdom, the wonderful appearance of perfection on earth will also herald Abrupt Human Change combined with Abrupt Climate Change, back to stable, perfect weather.

But not yet.

Big trouble lies ahead. Sam Canara – who edits the ARCTIC NEWS – believes that by 2026, a mere 8 years away, we will see a rise of 8 degrees Celsius, sufficient to fulfill the prophesy of 2 Peter 3, among others.

Eight years is a bagatelle in terms of eternity. But it allows time for conversion. The Lord is good to us, and gives us plenty of warning. With Noah and his Ark, the warning was also decades, as long as it took the Noah clan to construct that huge vessel. He also used lots of outside help, and constantly preached disaster, but, hey, the money was good, he was a good employer, but heeding his warning? No. Life was too good.

So, today too, very few will heed the warning. Nevertheless those who have their ear to the ground and hear the rumbling, (soon the BIG ONE will come, shattering the earth as no earthquake before) and believe what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians: 17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here”.

That means: A new Life style, in line with the New Creation.

We have to let our imagination go wild and picture The New Creation, and how we will live there, because that situation is to last forever. This means that we NOW, October 2018, must start the NEW LIFE.

That entails change.

Our constant attention must focus on the New Creation. That includes exercise, sleep 8 hours, eat healthy food, not too much, preferably local, mostly plants, suspend watching TV or limit it to a minimum, and pray without ceasing. Love the earth and love its people. Buy fewer things and consume less. Recycle wherever possible and – even better – reuse things. Demand a low carbon option in everything you consume, from clothes to food to energy.

Remember the ancient Greek fable involving Sisyphus.

”I, Sisyphus, am always dead beat,
I roll this rock up, in the hellish heat,
And when I’m near the summit
The rock hops down without a stop:
My actions always a terrible flop.”

The IPCC portrays this mythical figure. For decades now it has produced reports. We know the score. The panelists always express optimism: they sound upbeat, because being negative angers the rich who, themselves, are building bunkers and buying hideaways in far-away New Zealand. But with every IPCC report the rock rolls back to zero, and a new report is written, more ominous, more specific and the cycle goes on.

The Bible is clear: this world will go up in flames, because we are playing with fire. We simply are creating hell on earth: there’s no escape anymore: the die is cast: there won’t be a ABRUPT HUMAN CHANGE: there will be ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE before the Lord returns.

TWO IMPORTANT CHANGES

Then two important permanent changes occur: ABRUPT HUMAN CHANGE, as “The Redeemed of the LORD shall return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away, (Isaiah 51: 11).
Isn’t that wonderful language! Isn’t that a marvelous message!

And the other ABRUPT and permanent change will take place on our planet: perfectly restored! Perfectly in shape to receive the redeemed of the Lord!

Perfection at last, thanks to Christ: John 3: 16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

AND THANKS BE TO GOD.

OCTOBER 6 2018

ATONEMENT instead of THANKSGIVING?

The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27-28), was the day on which the high priest performed elaborate rituals to atone for the SINS of the people.

The word speaks for itself. It’s a word I like: ‘atonement’. It suggests making amends, straightening out something that is out of kilter, and returning it to its proper place.

Celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend is out of touch with the times. It implies that matters are fine, that there is cause for rejoicing. Thanksgiving Day is one for celebration, for praising our accomplishments, for believing that we have done great. Atonement advocates apology and penitence and sacrifice, uttering expressions of regret, while thanksgiving contains seeds of self-congratulation, of being prideful and positive and prosperous.

So should I list the perils we face? Should I recite what is in store for us? Should I enumerate the dangerous future we face because of our greed, our stupidity, our SINS? If we are really in tune with the times, we should weep, we should pray to God on our knees, asking forgiveness for the acts of aggression we persist in doing to God’s creation.

JESUS WEPT

Jesus wept (John 11: 35) is the shortest text in the Bible. That’s how the editors liked it, I guess, to make it stand out that Jesus was an emotional human being.

Of course he was a man like all other men because Jesus wept. You know what? Jesus still weeps.

Did he ever laugh? Of course he did. He chided others for not showing how they really felt, “We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” (Matthew 11: 17.) Nobody dances with a long, unhappy face, no, laughing, elation, clapping, exuberance go hand in hand with dancing, just as shedding tears go with sounds of weeping, with exclamations of sorrow and pain.

Did Jesus ever fall in love? Yes, he did, because he was human: nothing human was alien to him. How did he deal with that delicate situation? How did she? They both frankly talked about it, and decided to wait until meeting again in the New Creation.

Being a human is being emotional. When was the last time you cried? Me: I am a tear-guy, cry very easily; my eyes moist at the least tragic news, or good news, for that matter.

Today is the time for weeping.

Why did Jesus cry, even though he knew that in the next instant he would call Lazarus back from the dead? Jesus did not cry because Lazarus had died. He cried because he knew that the wages of SIN is death, including the death of the creation, the cosmos he loved so much. He cried because of us, the humanity of the world, so callously sowing destruction everywhere, so that now not a spot on the planet has remained spotless.

Oh, that heaven heresy again. It is at the root of our global disaster. In my youth I was totally indoctrinated in the heaven heresy. At the Christian School I attended, each Monday morning my mother made sure that I could recite the assigned hymn, one of them being: “In the hemel is het schoon, waar men zingt op blijde toon”, which I translate as, “Being in heaven is the best: there we sing with joyful zest,” or something to that extent.

That sort of song, made me, as a 6-8 year old, ask my mother why Jesus would call Lazarus back from heaven where things are so much better than on earth? There’s where the germs of my conversion started, as a pre-teen boy. Perhaps my query stayed with my mother: just before she died she asked me what would happen then. I told her that she would be with Jesus.

So why did Jesus weep? Why is that short text in the Bible?

True, Jesus also wept because his friends were distraught. He did not weep for Lazarus: his tears were for Mary and Martha and today they are for us and for creation for which he was responsible, as Colossians 1:16 tells us, “For by Christ all things (ta panta) were created.”

Jesus is still crying because much of what he created is in a sorry shape, is in a state of decomposing, and threatened with annihilation. The earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, the floods in the Carolinas, the wanton war in Washington, the hurricanes, the typhoons, the melting of the Arctic, the methane madness in Siberia, all are the results of THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE.

Proverbs 29: 18, “Where there is no vision the people go hog wild, but blessed are they who heed wisdom’s instruction.”

Take North Carolina, the home of 10 million hogs and untold millions of chickens, generating sewage equivalent to the City of New York. When animal waste gets into the water, it causes a deluge of nitrogen, phosphorous, copper and other nutrients that throw the rivers out of balance. The damage can be immediate and dramatic. In the 1990s it filled the Neuse River there with millions of dead fish, bleeding from open sores. It could well be that large sections of the Carolinas will become inhabitable thanks to the floods that have poisoned much of the two US states.

One Hundred Million Barrels per Day.

I have a book, SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, bought it in Stratford July 1 2001. Dr. J. R. McNeill, professor of History, sees our addiction to Carbon and the resulting Climate Change as something new.
Among other things he traces the Energy History since 10,000 B. C. Here’s a quote, “My very rough calculation suggests that the world in the twentieth century used 10 times as much energy as in the thousand years before 1900 A.D.”
Now in 2018 the pace of oil use has accelerated, so that we, 7.6 billion earth-dwellers, DAILY use 100 million barrels of oil.

WE SHOULD GET READY TO LIVE WITHOUT CARBON-BASED FUEL.

We did during the war 1940-45, in the last frosty and snowy winter in occupied the Netherlands. For cooking we had an hour of coal-gas, hardly enough to cook a meal. For lighting we had some candles as electricity was no longer provided. Churches still had it, and since we lived next to a large church, we stole it from them via an extension cord: one light only.

To keep the house warm in that horribly cold spell, we had a meagre ration of black coal, carefully burned for a few hours, and so spent long hours in bed, under many woolen blankets and walked around in double layers of wool, even indoors.

With a curfew from 8pm to 6am, we played monopoly games, chess and checkers all the time: TV had not yet been invented and all radios were confiscated, so entertainment was strictly home-made. It was energy and food starvation in slow motion, but we knew it would get bad and were mentally prepared for hardship.
It was different in farm country, where people had cows, chickens, pigs, grew grain or potatoes, had stuff to barter, but city people with no country connections fared badly.

Will history repeat itself? Don’t be too quick to dismiss this scenario. We survived the war because we knew that the future would be different. Next time there isn’t that prospect.
So why do I start reminiscing about events that happened 70 years ago, in faraway Europe?

Times have changed.

Eighty years ago there were 2.5 billion people in the world. Today there are three times as many. Then the majority was rurally based. Now, thanks to industrial farming, even farmers need the city for food, while we need 10 energy calories for every food calorie we consume: we eat OIL. We are so OIL dependent that once the oil is gone – a finite item – we too are gone. When the next extended black-out happens there won’t be a future.

A hidden peril.

Thanks to our oil use we have created a global haze that prevents the full power of the sun to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere. A drastic global recession, a sharp curtailment of oil use will lift that curtain in less than 2 months, giving the sun extra power to heat up the earth: it’s called Global Dimming.

Here are the hard facts: there’s no reason to celebrate and every reason to ask God for forgiveness with a heartfelt DAY OF ATONEMENT.
1. The earth is finite. Fossil fuels are not renewable. In earlier times the energy supply was maintained by careful cultivation: that’s no longer possible. Fuel used is gone forever.
2. When collapse comes, it comes without warning. The Bible is quite definite on that score. Matthew 24 unequivocally states that “they –the rest of the world – knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took all (the sinners) away”. In other words, Rapture is reserved for SINNERS. 2 Peter 3: 10 reiterates that, (verse 10) “The Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Revelation 18 illustrates how the Capitalists will be fooled with (verse 14) their stock in trade suddenly being worthless as the economy collapses.

Just as the people in Noah’s days were shown a certain sign – that enormous ship being built with no sea in sight, by that family known for their godliness and impeccable reputation, so Jesus too, in that notorious Matthew 24 Chapter tells us that there will be plenty of warning signs out there, but people will ignore them.

Like old Simeon and Hannah (Luke 2:28), we all must constantly look for his coming, are daily called to repent and pray without ceasing both for forgiveness and for THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM.

That concept, THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM, is the central theme of the Bible. That’s why the Bible is so necessary in these days of expiry dates. Jesus is very explicit in his message, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6: 33)”.

That gives us our mandate, even though this direct indication has become a blurred directive. We must always keep John 3: 16 in mind. There the Lord tells us that God the Father offered his only Son as payment for buying back the cosmos which we sold to the great adversary.

Loving Creation assures us eternal life. Loving creation is fulfilled in seeking the kingdom, by constantly striving for the betterment of creation, and following the creation laws, so well captured by Dr. Barry Commoner, who coined the 4 laws of ecology,
1. Everything Is Connected To Everything Else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all. Humans and other species are connected/dependent on other species. With this in mind it becomes hard to practice anything other than compassion and harmlessness.
2. Everything Must Go Somewhere. There is no “waste” in nature, and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown. Everything, such as wood smoke, nuclear waste, carbon emissions, etc., must go somewhere.
3. Nature Knows Best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, “likely to be detrimental to that system.” The Creation, one can argue, has an intelligence, and to tinker with that “unintellectually” we get global warming pollution, etc.
4. There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms. In nature, both sides of the equation must balance, for every gain there is a cost, and all debts are eventually paid.

Oh, I know that all this is old stuff. Nevertheless it’s not what we SAY but what we DO that finds favor with God.

The time for repairing the planet is past. Only prayer can save us. The Psalms say it so beautifully, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51: 17)

Still Thanksgiving is in order, not for our wealth and health, but for Jesus’ sacrifice and death to assure eternal life.

SEPTEMBER 29 2018

THE OLDER, THE WISER?

In a few weeks I will turn 90. Ninety years sounds old, but the time has gone by as a shadow, reminding me of a song I learned while in school – Latin of course – Horae, dies, menses, anni, sicut umbrae fugiunt – translated as Hours, Days, Months and Years fly by as shadows.
They have, indeed, flown by quickly. When Jacob was presented to the Pharaoh his words were perhaps typical: Genesis 47:9, “And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”

I like that word ‘pilgrimage’. It portrays Jacob’s wisdom, his learning through trial and error, through deceit and subterfuge. He tricked his brother out of his birthright and used clever lies to cheat on his father-in-law, who was not a stranger to this himself. Through sorrow – losing his beloved Rachel – and trial – the cruelty of his sons – he gained wisdom when he recognized that we are pilgrims on this earth, eagerly awaiting the coming of the Messiah and with it the glorious new creation, where we belong. It is not, as the old-fashioned hymn has it, “We are strangers here, within a foreign land, our home is far away upon the golden strand”, whatever that means. Our home is not far away: it is right here, but it is in foreign hands as the Evil One has temporarily taken possession.

Jacob was also right in saying that his years were few and difficult compared to his father, Isaac, and his grandfather, Abraham who both lived a lot longer and lived tranquil lives compared to Jacob, with this two wives, his troublesome sons, and the heartache involving the disappearance of Joseph.
In that sense my 90 years are different: they have seen only blessing: children doing well, grandchildren doing well, we ourselves doing well, considering our age.
My wife of 65 years recently had a mastectomy but recovered well, and for some years has suffered from short-term memory loss, but otherwise is fine. Our doctor is amazed that it has not resulted in more severe symptoms.
I, well, last week, I ran the Terry Fox 10 km in about 67 minutes, not bad for an old man, even a tad faster than last year. Perhaps they shortened the route to make people feel better. And my mental facilities and memory are still in perfect order, even though some may dispute that.

I have been very blessed with my marriage partner, who always encouraged me to take courses and learn more. She herself did that too, becoming a master grapho-analyst, a hand-writing expert, giving courses and even writing a column. She also became a celebrated public speaker through Toastmasters, took courses in English and assertive training, and, especially nowadays, loves reading, something we both do all the time. No television, except for the occasional newscast.

The older, the wiser?

In the Bible the office of “elder” is honored. The Old Testament frequently refers to ‘the elders in the gate’ pronouncing their verdict on a matter of law. They certainly were seen as wise and able to make sound decisions in a matter of dispute.

Not anymore. Today old age is equated with obsolescence and irrelevance, and the young call the tune, as they are the pushers of new technology and the inventors today of what makes the world go round. The role of the old is delegated to TV viewing, a bed in the nursing home, and voting conservative.

Yet, more than ever in the history of the world wisdom is needed. More than ever, given the intractable and unsustainable issues we face, such as an over-indebted world economy, resource depletion, species loss, Arctic Ice melting, Methane emerging: near term human extinction, just to name a few occurrences. To cope with these threats, more than wisdom is needed. Are we up to it?

That is the burning question today.

If wisdom were a matter of numbers; if wisdom and the quantity of old people were to go hand in hand; if wisdom were to depend on sheer volume of aged men and women, then there would be no problem, but that is simply not the case.

Perhaps this is because old people never had it so good: they belong to the more avid participants in the political system, and that’s why the elected rulers have favored them above any other class.

To prepare myself for this essay, I read Jimmy Carter book “The Virtues of Aging,” not a great help. He mentions that, “It is interesting to note that Prince Otto von Bismarck, age seventy-four, first set the retirement age at seventy in 1889 in Germany, when the average lifespan was forty-five. If we had the same twenty-year interval beyond present life expectancy our government checks wouldn’t begin coming until we were almost a hundred years old.”
(I detected an error in Jimmy Carter’s reasoning: Bismarck either set it at 65, or the interval was 25 years.)

This promise of receiving handouts at 65 will someday backfire. There never have been so many old people in the world as there are today, and never, in proportion, so few young people whose contributions in taxes are supposed to finance the pensions and the accelerating medical outlay for the seniors.

Demographic imbalance

My wife and I live in an area where the young leave and the old people stay. Apart from education, the health clinic- 3 doctors, many nurses – and the local Hydro One department, there are not a lot of well-paying jobs here. Farming has become too mechanized to employ many. Perhaps we will see an influx from city people because urban air pollution plays havoc with our brains, a new study shows. At least here we have good air, living among the thousands of trees and drinking the pure well water gushing up in our well – 150 liters per minute. Combine this with the home-grown food and we keep somewhat saner than our urban friends and families.

It always amazes me how few people attend church even though being a member of a church creates fellowship and communion, a necessary ingredient for a long and healthy life. Around 1900 more people lived in our area than today, in spite of an influx from ex-urbanites. Then churches flourished and locally-produced entertainment was thriving, which generated more wisdom through intimate contact with the earth and with people, the most difficult and complicated species around.

Wisdom and religion are closely related, and with religion receding wisdom too wanes. The world defines wisdom as “the ability to grasp human nature, which is paradoxical, contradictory, and subject to continual change”. I prefer the biblical saying, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, a line that appears repeatedly in the Bible- Proverbs1: 7; Proverbs 9: 10; Job 28: 28; Psalm 111:10. The fear of the Lord points to pious devotion to his creation, a gesture that is increasingly missing in church and society. John 3: 16 affirms this.

Dr. Paul Tournier.

In addition to reading Jimmy Carter’s book, I also dug up a book I bought in 1973, when I was exactly half my current age. The author, Dr. Paul Tournier, a medical doctor and psychiatrist, practiced in Geneva, Switzerland. Judging by my notes and yellow markings, I read The Meaning of Persons twice before.
Dr. Tournier is a sincere Christian and believes that being a confessing person gives him a better grasp of the human psyche. He states that it is impossible to totally fathom what goes on in a person’s mind, not even for a psychiatrist.
When I read that, I gained a grain of wisdom realizing that when Jesus returns we meet him in eternity as incomplete persons, and that it will take eternity to fully understand ourselves. Only Jesus possesses perfect wisdom; only Jesus is the ultimate in wisdom. Imperfect is our self-knowledge, but we will be perfect in our desire to learn more, not only about ourselves, but also in our desire to explore creation, which also is an eternal quest. There we can readily and eagerly consult Jesus, our constant companion.

Today we live in the Information Age, of which T. S. Eliot, many decades ago, wrote,
“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
In eternity knowledge, information and wisdom will perfectly fit together, no longer items in isolation but all complementing each other.

Now Wisdom is lost.

I believe there is a direct connection between Paradise Lost and Wisdom Lost. The further we stray from Paradise, from the “Urzeit”, the further we distance ourselves from wisdom. Christ’s coming is a return to the Urzeit, the original state of creation, the state of the utterly pristine condition, where harmony is guaranteed and maintained forever. Then our wisdom and God’s wisdom in creation will go hand in hand. The further we stray from God’s creational wisdom, the further we distance ourselves from true wisdom.

The End is in the Beginning, and the Beginning is in the End. In the End we can observe evolution, can ascertain the development of human and animal, plants and microbes, stars and planets. In the End, which also is the Beginning, we will learn about ourselves, our bodies, minds and spirits: and that at our leisure, totally at ease, a perfect meeting of minds. No more personal ambitions, no more trying to compete, no more vying to outsmart each other: complete cooperation, completely united to probe the eternal mysteries of God’s infinite wisdom: that’s how we slowly and surely attain perfection, a journey that will never end.

Our task today: SEARCH FOR A NEW WISDOM.

That journey to perfection starts today. The road to wisdom is infinite: our searching and probing and learning never stops regardless of age. The fight is made more difficult by television and Google and Facebook and the Information Age, all conspiring to prevent us from acquiring true wisdom.

One of our current problems is that experience is no longer an asset. Our young people can no longer turn to the wisdom of the elders because, by and large, they don’t have it anymore. They are mainly responsible for the present state of affairs. “The faith of our fathers” has become a misnomer.

Also the so prevailing RAPTURE belief expresses the opposite of wisdom. It is a direct denial of God’s promise and a negation of his judgement. Aiding, abetting and silently condoning this heresy is contrary to “seeking the Kingdom” the most explicit command the Lord left with us.

Proverbs 1 contains words of WISDOM, eminently applicable to today.
20. Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
she raises her voice in the public square;
21. on top of the wall d she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:
23. “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?

That’s the state today! The foolishness of the world is evident in our quest for endless exponential economic growth on a finite planet. It is not simply senseless but self-destructive, and therefore, clinically insane. And yet we persist, in spite of ever clearer signs that we are killing the earth and ourselves. This summer the West has sweltered and baked through 50 degrees Centigrade, and that’s now lurking as a regular condition. This is our new normal.

So who are we in these times? Who do we want to become? Where do we find NEW WISDOM? I believe that Galatians 6: 15 contains the answer, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”

This means that today the choice between infant baptism and adult submersion is irrelevant. It means that today being Jew or Muslim, Protestant or Roman Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist matters no more. The old religious wisdom no longer counts: all religions have gone astray.
Only the New Creation counts.
In Christ we are a new creation, and that newness is evident in living that new creation NOW, today, 2018, by being true to the Earth, God`s Holy Temple, God`s direct and primary Word.

How? That’s for you to decide. How? That’s for me to decide, the most important decision we will ever make, because on it depends our eternal life.