Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

JUNE 21 2015

LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

Every night, before I go to bed, I make sure our outside door is locked, even though it has a lock that will only keep an honest person out. Not that there is a lot to steal in our place: most of the stuff we have is of sentimental value. Nevertheless I make sure that access to our dwelling is somewhat more difficult during our sleeping hours. I once locked myself out and had no trouble finding a way in via a window.
If you are at all familiar with the Bible, you might recognize my title: it is used seven times there, all in the New Testament. My Dutch brother alerted me to this. It always refers to the return of Christ. Jesus himself mentions it twice in the Gospels (See Matthew 24 and Luke 12) and also twice in Revelation, all in the context of his second coming. The apostle Paul refers to it in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 2 and in verse 4 emphasizes again that the Lord’s coming should not be a surprise. Peter, when speaking about the last days writes: (2 Peter 3: 10) “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by a fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Perhaps he foresaw the nuclear bomb threat, the MAD thing, the Mutually Assured Destruction. The image of ‘thief in the night’ is also used in the Bible’s last book, Revelation. There, in Revelation 3: 3, Jesus warns that “If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief.” The same sort of language is used a few chapters later, Revelation 16: 15: “Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed are they who stay awake.”

We are totally unprepared for the return of Christ

It seems to me that one thing is clear: the world at large – and I dare say including the church – is totally unprepared for this event. There is a curious prophetic example in Revelation 18, where, in verse 11, it says: “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more…… “. In other words the return of the Lord comes at a time of economic depression. Could the Greek default be a factor there? Also today lots of retail outlets are shutting down: there’s too little buying going on!
Jesus often points to ‘nature’ when describing scenes. In Matthew 24 Jesus tells us what to expect during the final days that precede his Second Coming. In verse 32 of that ominous chapter he says: “Now learn the lesson of the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near,” suggesting that we can more or less predict his coming, because there will be definite indications preparing us for this cataclysmic event. But for most it will come as a total surprise: “like a thief in the night”.

For those who are caught unawares – and here I become really unpopular – there is judgement. Actually the Parable of the 5 wise and 5 foolish bridesmaids – the chapter in Matthew following Jesus’ warning about the Last Days – illustrates this quite strikingly. Those bridesmaids who were ready for a delayed arrival of the groom – something like today – had extra oil. Those who had not prepared were shut out of the kingdom. Some call that cruel. God is love but also just. He’s not a patsy.

That Christ returns ‘like a thief in the night’, does not mean that he is a thief. This shows good biblical humour, because exactly the opposite is true: he comes to chase out the thieves and to put the rightful owners in, which will be a painful process: it involves the ultimate war between the forces of darkness and the angels of light. Malachi, in the last Old Testament book, says: “Who can endure the Day of his coming? For Jesus’ coming will be like a refiner’s fire and purify the earth”. This cleaning process is utterly necessary because the present day humanity has left such a cotton-picking mess that only an all-consuming fire can force the filth out.

The last Bible book, Revelation, is full of that judgement stuff. Jesus himself said that he would intervene to cut short the suffering for the sake of his followers. For a discerning eye all these final elements are already in place, but somehow we ignore all these signs. WHY?
Somehow this collapse and ultimate judgement business goes against the human grain. You see we humans were created for eternity, to live forever. For the first human pair there was no threat, either immediate or long term. Even the Lord himself told us not to worry what to eat or drink because the Father will look after us. Well, he did not take in consideration the multinational agricultural business that has locked us up into an economic system that totally depends on money, has forced us off the land and into urban ghettos where self-sufficiency has simply become impossible.

Basically our worry is not for tomorrow but for today.

Our brains are powerful organs that allow us to walk, to think, to smell, to see, to reason, to become Olympic champions, to do whatever. Humans by nature see
everything from a human perspective, and reason that the future will be an extension of the past. We simply cannot process such concepts as long-term, civilization-threatening phenomena. We are proven miracle workers for our short-term survival of individuals, but our human brain sort of malfunctions when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change. Also somehow brains have not given us the ability to have faith. That is a God-given factor that has nothing to do with intellect or any brain-induced act.

And that brings me to the Pope.

So the Pope spoke of these matters this past week. He speaks from a biblical perspective. His basis is that “we must love our neighbours as ourselves.” The welfare of creation is basic to all human beings, from Bill Gates to the destitute African people who risk life and limb to come to Europe. The Pope is powerful, but he cannot give us faith. Nobody can, and only faith can give us the right perspective of the future. Without faith in the glorious ‘Hereafter’ we are incapable of grasping the large, looming, yes apocalyptic threats facing our societies.

“Our brain is essentially a get-out-of-the-way machine,” says Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, “That’s why we can duck a baseball in milliseconds.” That is, our brain seems to be programmed to react best to hard, certain information, but threats that unfold over generations fail to trigger our reactionary instincts. “Many environmentalists say climate change is happening too fast,” Gilbert says. “No, it’s happening too slowly. It’s not happening nearly quickly enough to get our attention.” If Climate Change was visibly happening we would take notice. Just imagine: politicians last week decided to eliminate fossil fuel by the year 2100, 85 years from now!!
Still, I think we will from now on see an immense acceleration in natural, climate change, disasters, all related to mass extinction, biodiversity loss and ocean acidification, which already now are becoming full-blown, civilization-threatening calamities.
So far we have been behaving like children, when it comes to these planetary threats. We have opted for instant gratification—guzzling oil, burning coal, razing forests, manufacturing plastic, all as if there is no tomorrow. Fundamentally we are fossil fuel fanatics fiercely fouling our future.

Even though NINETY SEVEN PERCENT (97%) of scientists agree that Climate Change is caused by us, about half the North American population is in denial. Even if you live on the vanishing shores of Bangladesh, in the tinder brush woods of the Australian outback, or the parched dustbin of the American Southwest, your brain is not making the case that climate change is going to kill you. Storms might kill, wildfires might burn us, drought might make us go hungry, the symptoms of a warming globe might do us in, but climate change itself remains impersonal, an abstraction, and registers little need for urgent action.
As I said, it is a lack of faith. Let me correct that. It is the wrong kind of faith. Hal Lindsey in his The Late Great Planet Earth laid it all out. Millions endorsed him by buying his book which was on the best-sellers list for decades. Lindsey taught the mostly Southern Baptist and Pentecostal people that our future does not lie in a New Earth, but in Heaven. There’s where the crux of the matter lies. And the Pope in his so important encyclical basically says the same.
Almost all church-going people see the earth as evil, and exploiting it as a God-given duty. Harold Bloom in his The American Religion has exposed this fallacy without offering an alternative. He calls the American society ‘doom-eager’. In his book he argues that the American Religion – of which the Tea Party is an outcome, I might add – masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian. The interesting part is that confirmed Roman Catholics, such as Rick Santorum, a Republican aspiring to become the next president, and John Boehner, the speaker of the House, are now also among the adherents of The American Religion, which, indeed, has ceased to be Christian.

Of course that begs the question: “What does it mean to be a Christian?”

So this week the POPE came out swinging. I greatly admire the present Pope, because he is upsetting a lot of Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians, both clergy and lay-people, especially politicians, who say that he should stick to Religion and not meddle in matters of Economics and Climate Change, because, so say these politicians, these matters have nothing to do with religion. Pope Francis’ basic idea is that in order to love God, you have to love your fellow human beings, and you have to love and care for the rest of creation.
Of course. In my opinion John 3: 16 is the most important text in the Bible. God so loved the world. Finally the church connects the earth to God, finds back The Gospel of the Earth. We cannot love God if we don’t love the earth. A sin against the planet is a sin against God. That’s why my motto is “all of life is religion”.

I skimmed the entire 186 pages of the Pope’s sermon, paying special attention to the biblical references, of which there are many. I speed-read it because all this stuff was old-hat to me, even his apocalyptic tone so familiar to my readers. I agree with almost the entire document, except in the end where he, not surprisingly, falls into the ’heaven heresy’ portraying the old gnostic basis, the American Religion so well exposed by Harold Bloom.
Christ’s directive to us to “Seek first the Kingdom” had no place in the encyclical, even though it is the main theme of Jesus’ teaching. This illustrates the cardinal error of the Roman Catholic Church as it equates the Kingdom with the Roman Church. Although he calls the earth holy, and cites several bible passages to back that up, even mentions that God gave the earth to the human race, calls us one with the soil of the earth, there’s no New Earth theology. With heaven as our ultimate goal, mentioned on the very last page, the Pope’s entire argument is weakened because there is no mention of our ultimate glorious future: a renewed earth under a renewed heaven. Now with the earth beyond repair, and the heavens contaminated with satellites and other space junk, not to mention the C02 and CH4, methane, the most lethal of Green House gases, both need renewing which only Christ can do.

Still, of course, I am delighted with the outspoken analysis of the Bishop of Rome, also known as the Holy Father.
I wonder how the Politicians will see this encyclical. Here in Canada, Prime Minister Harper is an evangelical Christian but also the country’s greatest environmental polluter. In the States where Religion always is part of the political scene, the document may prove to be a turning point in politics.

Suffice it to say that we live in interesting times where the time is ripe for Jesus to return “Like a thief in the night.” Perhaps the Pope’s sermon was the last universal appeal the world will hear until reality catches up with the rhetoric.

JUNE 15 2015

MORE OF MY MUSINGS ON MONDIAL TERMINATION

OK. The title is a bit artificially construed for the simple reason that I wanted to continue the alliteration, just having a bit of literary fun. It’s not hard to guess, however, where I am aiming at: our way of life cannot be sustained. Our world suffers from a terminal malady: human greed.

Why do I even try? Now I read that people really cannot or will not grasp the idea of collapse. “Why,” as the science journalist George Marshall writes, “does the one event quicken the pulse, and the other induce widespread indifference?” He writes that our brains are wired to ignore Climate Change.” In the meantime I keep on going against the stream of human thinking. Perhaps I will convince a person here and there. More about that next week.
Believe me, my generation, those born between 1930 and 1950, is the last segment to benefit from the so-called ‘welfare society’. Take my example. I contributed to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) from its very start. As a self-employed person my first annual contribution was $75 + $75, the latter amount being the employer’s part. My last installment, just before I turned 65 was $750 +$750. In all those years I contributed about $15,000. Since interest rates during that period were high I added to each year 8 percent compound interest so I calculated that the Pension Board had about $32,000 in my pension kitty. I drew this out in less than 4 years and since then I have received about $165,000. In essence for the last 17 years I have been on welfare.
Pensions in general are based on two factors: life expectancy at 65 and return on investments. The first is much higher than the historic life span and the latter is much lower than in previous eras. Expect future pension payments to (1) be reduced and (2) to start at a later date, including OAS or Old Age Security, a payment, now about $535 per month that goes to every Canadian upon reaching the age of 65. This amount comes out of Federal (Ottawa) General Revenue. For this add another $100.000, thus so far I, one person of the many thousands of other senior Canadians, have received $265,000 from the welfare state. Add my wife and the figure comes to more than $400,000. Yes, our generation is the last to benefit from this generosity.
The Federal Government has initiated these rich provisions on the assumption that tax revenue will always increase as growth continues forever. But there are a few hitches in this reasoning: Gross Domestic Product is subject to the limits of growth which totally depends on the state of the environment. Also while the number of older people increases the younger taxpayers who must foot the bill are far fewer in number while they also earn a lot less, so there will come a real squeeze there.

In addition we are experiencing some other hiccups: the earth is no longer cooperating. It has reached the point where it not only no longer can sustain economic growth – which depends on finite resources – but we also are reaching the point in history where it now takes tax money to restore the damage done to our atmosphere, our water, our soil and air. In that sense this new condition reflects the Pension situation: both are unsustainable and self-defeating. In addition deflation rather than the inflation the Government would like to see spoils the game even further. All that ZIRP stuff, the Zero Interest Rate Policy will boomerang something big. Borrowing money at close to zero interest has created trillions of uneconomic assets which will be written off, with the result that industrial sector profits will collapse and the great inflation of financial assets over the last 27 years will meet its day of reckoning. For too long we have lived in a fool’s paradise.

Here’s a simple and very common example. Until now, when say coal was mined, the owners dug and dug and dammed streams and uprooted the trees, and, once the coal layers were excavated, went conveniently bankrupt and left the mess to society at large, including uprooted earth, sick miners and plenty of polluted streams. That same poisonous behavior takes place every day in the money world where the banks are blessed with trillions of assistance, supposedly meriting million dollar bonuses for these smart operators, but the final bill comes to haunt the taxpayer.
One of the signals of living in the Last Days – and we are – is that corruption now is universal, witness the FIFA scandal, an acronym which more appropriately stands for First In Fraudulent Actions. We all have experienced Internet crime where money is illegally obtained by accessing somebody else’s bank account or credit card. It is coming to the point where the entire financial system will be compromised. It makes common sense, if you had a few extra dollars in the bank, to take them out and put the money under the mattress and strive for a degree of self-sufficiency. Money that is generated out of nothing can just as quickly evaporate into the nothingness it represents, moneys that bought inflated real estate, inflated stocks and no-yield bonds. Suddenly these prices could collapse when the real value shows up which may be 50% lower. Then all that zero money will disappear as quickly as it was electronically generated, and sink society. Already almost half of the US population is under water because they cannot even write a check for $400 without waiting for the next paycheck and then starve for a week.

I believe that everything is insecure nowadays. And I am not a paranoid person, I believe. We live in a sick society, both mental and physical. Just imagine 95 % of the world population suffers from one disease or another according to Lancet Magazine – the influential British medical magazine – with a third having more than 5 ailments. When a pandemic strikes there is very little bodily defense left. It reminds me of the Black Death that decimated Europe’s population in the 14th Century, at a time when general health too was poor thanks to recent famines.
The world at large is definitely due for collapse. Remember the riddle of the 29th Day? Picture a pond where the growth of water lilies doubles each day. If it is completely covered on the 30th day, when is it half full? Yes, on the 29th day, when there still seems to be not a cloud in the sky because the pond is still half full with wonderful white lilies, so who cares. Suddenly…… ‘like a thief in the night….’ as the Bible puts it- we stand at the door of disintegration. That’s what’s happening with global pollution and the monetary situation. One day all is well, the next day boom or rather bust.
More and more voices are sounding a warning. Last week in my SLEEPWALKING blog I mentioned one source. Today being a doomster is becoming main stream.

According to a paper that appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, “Now, for the first time, a global collapse [of civilization] appears likely.” The paper makes, in a scholarly, peer-reviewed manner, many of the same points about the existential threats that I made in last week’s article. Also Paul R. Ehrlich recently wrote a paper, titled “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” He cites the familiar threats such as toxic pollution, land degradation, scarcity of water and oil, plagues, resource wars (perhaps nuclear), over-consumption, overpopulation and the overarching threat multiplier, climate change. I know this same Paul Ehrlich wrote in 1968 The Population Bomb where he predicted that by the year 2000 the world’s population would be reduced by half. It did not happen. Ehrlich says now: “When we (his wife was the co-author) wrote it, there were about 3.5 billion people on the planet; about half a billion of them were hungry. Today there are 7 billion people on the planet and about a billion of them are hungry. We’ve lost something on the order of 200 million to 400 million to starvation and diseases related to starvation since the book was written. How ‘wrong’ were we?” He continues: “A future global collapse … could be triggered by anything from a ‘small’ nuclear war, whose ecological effects could quickly end civilization, to a more gradual breakdown because famines, epidemics and resource shortages cause a disintegration of central control within nations, in concert with disruptions of trade and conflicts over increasingly scarce necessities. In either case, regardless of survivors or replacement societies, the world familiar to anyone reading this study and the well-being of the vast majority of people would disappear. Unfortunately, awareness among scientists that humanity is in deep trouble has not been accompanied by popular awareness and pressure to counter the political and economic influences implicated in the current crisis. Without significant pressure from the public demanding action, we fear there is little chance of changing course fast enough to forestall disaster.”

There is another book that sings the same tune. It is tiny book, more like an essay. It’s small, less than 90 pages. The name says it all: THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: a view from the future.

When I opened it the first thing I saw was a map of The Netherlands, shaded dark except for a small while spot in the center. The dark signifying the section to be covered with water once the polar ice has melted. The authors, both academics, one from Harvard, Naomi Oreskes, and the other from the California Institute of Technology, Erik M. Conway, have visualized the future and looking back from a century ahead see both Australia and Africa totally de-populated with the rest of the world somewhat supporting a drastically reduced number of people. With the Netherlands almost totally submerged – remnants gone north to Scandinavia – and large sections of North America’s east coast as well, such as New York and Florida the future of the world look damnably bleak.
A ray of hope?

Last week the G7 meeting in Germany decided to phase out the use of gasoline and diesel fuel in 85 years, by the year 2100. It’s like pumping penicillin in a person at death’s door or giving a complete blood transfusion to one breathing the last.
By now I don’t have to repeat the perils listed: they are all too familiar. I will cite the book’s last paragraph, an interview with the two authors. The question: “What do you hope that readers take away from your essay?”
Erik Conway: “Readers tend to take out of a text whatever it was they brought in. At best we can hope to have helped them think more clearly about the climate of the future.”
Naomi: “You can’t predict what your readers will take away. Books are like a message in a bottle. You hope someone will open it, read it, and get the message. Whatever that is.”
My own experience is equally bleak. For decades I have been writing for a magazine which calls itself Christian and Reformed. Even though I was not asked to quit, when I decided to do so – now close to three years ago – my going caused a sigh of relief.
Does the church offer an answer?

Last week I went back reading something by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man I always find utterly refreshing. He knew in 1944 that he lived in his last year of life – he then was 38 years old- and could at any moment be executed. In prison Bonhoeffer accused religion of offering only an escapist flight from the real world. “Religion,” he commented, “had pushed God to the boundaries of life, available on call to answer prayers of deliverance or favor.” He later wrote (from prison): “The religious act is always something partial: ‘faith’ is something whole, involving the whole of one’s life. Jesus calls a person not to a new religion, but to life. In the process religion has produced a distorted view of God, enshrining God in a world of metaphysical abstraction to be spoken of only at the edges of life: sin, guilt and death.”
Later he wrote that “The churches cowered behind their Bibles and buildings, offering self-serving piffle to the masses and failing to speak the prophetic words or to do the responsible deed for fear of losing what they most have to give, their lives in imitation of Jesus Christ.”
I repeat: “Faith is something whole, involving the whole of one’s life.”

That always has been my motto: Brace for tough times, times where only faith in the speedy return of Christ will sustain us.

June 7 2015

SLEEPWALKING into UNPRECEDENTED, ALL-ENCOMPASSING COLLAPSE

Christopher Clark wrote a book with the title The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. In it he traced how mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals led to a war that nobody wanted but nevertheless happened. The war caused another war, 1939-45. The after effects of both conflicts still live on witness the current chaos in the Middle East which might yet be the catalyst for something even bigger. The two wars inflicted hundreds of millions of casualties.
Today we are in a somewhat similar situation, except that the stakes are stupendously higher: instead of casualties in the hundreds of millions, now the fate of the entire world is in the balance, imperiling the lives all of the more than Seven Billion humans that live on the earth plus all that lives and moves and has a being.
Below follows an article sent to me by my youngest brother in the Netherlands and written by Dr. Jan de Boer. I fully share the pessimism or rather the sober-minded view of this academic.
The remainder of this article is a free translation from the Dutch, interspersed with some personal observations where indicated. By the way, Dr. Jan de Boer is head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics Division of the Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam.

“COMMENT TOUT PEUT S’EFFONDRER”

(My comment) “I better translate that. In Canada we have two official languages but for many French is as foreign as Dutch – well not quite since Quebeckers speak French all the time. ‘HOW EVERYTHING CAN COLLAPSE’ is what it means.”
The French phrase is a title of a book written by two French scientists, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens. These two men predict that the collapse of our civilization can no longer by prevented and will take place sooner rather than later.
Of course we have heard all this before. More than forty years ago (1972) Dennis Meadows wrote a report for the Club of Rome – the entire report is available free on the web, just look for “Limits to Growth”. Looking back into history we learn that civilizations arise, shine and die. That also applies to our situation. Dennis Meadows investigated five important developments: accelerated industrialization, enormous growth in population, wide-spread malnutrition, rapid disappearance of irreplaceable natural resources and degradation of the environment. The model may have been incomplete and far from perfect, but the fundamental issues dealt with in the report were so important that the conclusions were utterly relevant.
They were:
1. If the current trends in growth in the world population, in industrialization and climatic deterioration, in food production and depletion of natural resources continue without change, then the limits to growth in this earth will be reached within one hundred years. The most likely result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decrease in both population and industrial capacity.
2. It is possible to alter growth trends and to shape a situation where ecological and economic balance can endure far into the future. This condition of world-wide equity would have to be shaped in such a way that the primary material needs of every person can be satisfied and every person has an equal opportunity to develop his or her individual possibilities.
3. If all countries decide to aim for that second outcome instead of the first, the possibility of success would be greater the sooner it is implemented.
My comment: “The book LIMITS TO GROWTH was a rude awakening for me when I first bought it in 1972. That same year I read another book dealing with life after death, a Dutch one with the title “STERVEN…. EN DAN?” (After death…what?) Both totally changed my outlook on life. The first one convinced me that we live in a finite world. The second told me that life after death is not in heaven but in the New Creation. If there ever was a turning point in my life, it was in 1972. Subsequently in 1975 we relocated from urban St. Catharines, Ontario to rural Tweed, some 300 km to the north-east, 200 km from both Toronto and Ottawa where I bought 20 hectares of mixed vegetation and built an energy efficient dwelling.”

Back to de Boer.

The book – Limits to Growth – caused quite a stir in the world but the vested interests prevailed with the result that generally speaking the world having eyes lost the ability to see, and having ears was no longer able to hear the cries of creation (blinded by the idol of economic growth, I might add).
More comments: “the ‘eyes and ears’ are the exact words of Psalm 115. The rulers of this world – like true fanatics – lost their way but redoubled their efforts.”
The opportunity to avoid a general, world-wide – collapse and with it the demise of the entire human civilization has not been grabbed. On his 2011-12 European tour Dennis Meadows was more pessimistic than ever: “It is too late for a lasting development, we must prepare ourselves for unimaginable great crises: it is of the utmost importance to establish small flexible systems, or do what I prescribed in my book: “Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future.” We will survive as a human race but the question is for how many and under what conditions.
Now more than 40 years after the publication of LIMITS TO GROWTH the authors of COMMENT TOUT PEUT S’EFFONDRER present a very readable, well documented and scientifically responsible analysis of our current situation in the world. Their basic conclusion is that
we have reached the limits.

The French authors show with numerous examples that we never will experience the ‘normal’ situation of the preceding decades. The motor of our carbon-driven-industrial society, consisting of the marriage between energy and money, is sputtering and is about to quit altogether. We have reached the limits.
The era of the surplus of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end witness the expensive energy from unconventional fuel, such as Canada’s tar sand fuel obtained at great environmental expense. Having renewable energy – which also requires a lot of energy to manufacture- basically does not alter the picture.
All these circumstances point to the impossibility to regain the economic growth of yesteryear which will deliver the fatal blow to an economic system that is based on growth to pay for social benefits and debts which will never be repaid.
In addition the physical, exponential and linear expansion of our civilization has irreparably damaged the complex natural system upon which our way of life is based. There the limits have already been breached. The warming of the climate and, especially, the collapse of biodiversity, indicate severe difficulties not only in the food supply but also in the social -, commerce-, and health systems: resulting in massive relocations of populations, in armed conflicts, epidemics and famines. All these symptoms are already plainly visible.
Finally the ever more complex systems on which we rely for food, water and energy require an ever expanding energy supply. These infrastructures as such are interdependent and are extra vulnerable because of their aging conditions with the result that small interruptions can imperil the stability of the entire world-wide system. Their rippling effects can cause disproportionate damage.

Here are a few statistics illuminating the absurdity of our civilization living on a planet that is tiny and has limited possibilities:

1. A GDP (Gross Domestic Product) say of China with an annual growth of 7 percent means economic activity that doubles every 10 years. After 50 years this indicates a volume of 32 times the current Chinese economy, involving a volume of almost 4 times the entire current world economy.
2. A person born in the 1930’s has seen the world’s population increase from 2 billion to more than 7 billion. In the course of the 20th century the consumption of energy has grown by 1400 percent, the mined industrial minerals increased by 27 times and the building materials by 34 times.
3. An average increase in the temperature of the climate with 4 percent means that it will rise 10 degrees on the continents. Take note: NASA is of the opinion that we are well on the way of a planetary increase of 6 percent.
4. Scientific research has shown that 90 percent of the biomass of large fish has disappeared since the Industrial Revolution.
The time has come to prepare ourselves for a different society if we want to avoid a total catastrophe.
The three aforementioned factors: the approach of the limits to growth, the exceeding of these limits and the growing complexity are irreversible and in combination can only lead to a catastrophe. In the past the numerous collapses were limited to a number of isolated regions. (I might add that this was well described by Jared Diamond in his book COLLAPSE.)

However the globalization of our civilization has been accompanied by systemic global risks with the result that for the first time in human history a collapse of an immense, almost global scale can be predicted.
That collapse will not take place at once, but, depending upon regions, cultures and, naturally the environment, will occur with various speeds and develop and be expressed in different ways. When? In 10 years, 20, at most 50 years. Both authors are convinced that the present generations will see this happen. I too am of that conviction.
In our carbon-based – industrial societies only a very few people can survive without a supermarket, a credit card or a gasoline station. When in a civilization the majority of the population no longer has a direct contact with system EARTH (soil, water, wood, animals, plants, you name it) then these people are totally dependent on the artificial structure that maintains it. When that same structure, still growing, still powerful but also ever more vulnerable collapses, something that is totally inevitable, that simply means that the very lives of innumerable many cannot be guaranteed.
No wonder both authors propose that now is the utmost time to prepare ourselves for a responsible transition to the approach of a much different society of the future. This transition is the implicit acceptance of the demise of our carbon-fuel dependent industrial society and the promotion of new small ‘low-tech’ systems, independent of any other model or configuration.

This so necessary transition will temporarily have two systems, one that is dying and one in a state of being born, possessing a positive vision of the future, a prerogative for mobilizing both the people and their creativity.
Regarding the collapse of our carbon-based industrial society, both authors are doomsayers, yet optimistic for the future, perhaps, however, not in their hearts to avoid coming through as being too pessimistic. They understandingly want to generate hope and confidence in a different but livable future.
That also is the weakest and not really plausible part of the book. Jan de Boer – the author of this book report – is convinced that the transition from the carbon-based industrial society to a different community will be completely catastrophic as in densely populated and urban areas the vast majority of the population will perish through hunger, internal strife and sicknesses aggravated by radiation from the inability to maintain the nuclear power generating stations.
Perhaps we may share with Dominique Bourg in hoping – and certainly no more than that – that in that tumultuous chaos there may emerge some small determined ecological clusters able to maintain sanity, not unlike the monasteries in the early Middle Ages when the Roman Empire disintegrated and massive tribal movements ensued. Perhaps from there a new more egalitarian and environmentally respectful society may emerge.

My final comments:

We are indeed sleepwalking into the final judgement. The Bible has foretold all this, especially in Matthew 24 and most of Revelation. Repeatedly it warns to ‘come out of the system lest becoming victims (Rev. 18:4). The Bible has a very realistic view of humanity: our nature has never changed. The people of the world will always seek the short term benefit, guided by the Great Adversary whose sole aim is to destroy God’s creation. I believe that those who see creation as God’s work of art and dearly love it – just as God does (See John 3: 16) – will be part of the New Creation that Jesus will usher in.

A little book by Naomi Oreskes of Harvard and Erik M. Conway of the California Institute of Technology with the title of THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION says essentially the same, even though there the timeline is set in a more distant future. So does Paul Ehrlich.

More about that next week.
See also my book “Day without End,” free on the web.

May 31 2015

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.

Almost everybody knows that there is something like The Lord’s Prayer. In our church reciting it is routine, introduced as the prayer the Lord taught us. I don’t think that the Lord really appreciates the sometimes mindless mumbling that is the result, the automatic mouthing of words that is the logical outcome from a weekly routine. I think the Lord meant that we use the words as an example of how we should pray, and so develop our own style of praying rather than merely repeating words that have become too familiar.

I believe that one line sets the tone for the entire prayer. After the introduction (Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name) that line is the phrase “Your Kingdom Come.” It comes first for a definite reason. In our life every single act, every thought and idea, indeed THE goal in our life should be dominated by the coming of the Kingdom. And what is that goal? It is the new creation that Christ is preparing for us and will give us when he returns.

The Chinese have a saying: “If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk; if you want to be happy for a week, kill a pig; if you want to be happy for a month, get married; if you want to be happy for life, be a gardener.” I would expand it with: “If you want to be happy for eternity, for this life and the life to come, follow Jesus’ advice “Seek first the kingdom and everything else will fall into place.” That kingdom is the new creation to come. That certainly involves being a gardener, which is possible for everybody even in a high rise: now already surround yourself with plants: use the balcony for outdoor planting, grow simple lettuce plants or tomatoes in addition to flowers, of course.

But I digress. My headline is FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.
Some translations use the word DEBT. It would be nice if our debts were forgiven – and by that people assume the money they owe, which, generally, is substantial. More about that later because DEBT in the money sense is something Jesus did not have in mind at all when he gave us The Lord’s Prayer. I prefer the word ‘TRESPASSES’ because it is more in line with the original meaning.
We often see signs which say “trespassers will be persecuted.” This means that when we go beyond that sign, we enter into forbidden territory, something we do all the time. Let me start with an everyday example.

When I walk into a grocery store, smart merchandizing displays the fruit and vegetable isles first. I always look where the produce originates. If it comes from China, I never buy it, because I know that it usually is heavily polluted. If it is available I buy organic. Why? Because I don’t want my body to unnecessarily trespass into the health system. Our first duty as a human being is to treat our body as holy: prevention is better than healing. Medical healing involves the government, as least in Ontario where healthcare is financed publicly and is the largest single expense in the provincial budget. Since in my opinion the economy no longer will grow, will most likely shrink, that also means that tax revenue will go down and so will the money available for the health care system. Often bad health is the result of bad habits. I emphasize the word ‘often’ because we all know many examples where cancer strikes seemingly at random and where tumors appear in the most unlikely persons.

This week the Canadian Cancer Institute predicted that cancer would increase by 40 percent in the coming years, mainly because of an aging population. I believe that when we indulge in unhealthy practices, we are in a trespassing situation which we must avoid and for which we must pray for forgiveness.
Basically there are two types of sins: sins of commission and sins of omissions. Smoking, bad eating habits and excess drinking are sins of commission. We commit sins of omissions when we ignore matters we are supposed to do or fail to learn. I think we, as modern persons, have a gross deficit of creational knowledge. By and large we know very little which foods are good for us and which ones are bad. We are what we eat for good or ill. Our wrong living habits have caused a new situation called “metabolic syndrome.” Here is a frightening statistic: “More than a third of adults in the U.S. suffer from “metabolic syndrome,” which involves a combination of risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.” That means that in the foreseeable future the health system will be inundated with sick persons, waiting times will skyrocket and health care deteriorate. The best insurance to avoid that is acquiring a thorough knowledge of what is good and what is bad in nutrition and general living habits. Also, I believe that it is the Christian thing to know as much about creation as possible. It’s in our very own world, here exactly where we now live, where we will enjoy eternal life. Then there is:

Environmental Debt

My study Bible explains the words of FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES by commenting that this applies to our MORAL sins. That is so typical of church-talk, so anthropocentric or ‘man-centered’. There’s much more to it than that. Take Plastic which I hate with a passion. I am not referring to credit cards. I mean plastic as in bags and in wrapping. It often ends up in the world’s waterways, the oceans and rivers and so is choking our future in ways that most of us are barely aware.
Plastics are now one of the most common pollutants of ocean waters worldwide. Pushed by winds, tides and currents, plastic particles form with other debris into large swirling glutinous accumulation zones, known to oceanographers as gyres, which comprise as much as 40 percent of the planet’s ocean surface — roughly 25 percent of the entire earth.

The calamitous consequences of humanity’s “plastic footprint” are many, some known and some yet to be discovered. We know that plastics biodegrade exceptionally slowly, breaking into tiny fragments in a centuries-long process. We know that plastic debris entangles and slowly kills millions of sea creatures; that hundreds of species mistake plastics for their natural food, ingesting toxicants that cause liver and stomach abnormalities in fish and birds, often choking or starving them to death. We know that one of the main bait fish in the ocean, the lantern fish, eats copious quantities of plastic fragments, threatening their future as a nutritious food source to the tuna, salmon, and other pelagic fish we consume, adding to the increasing amount of synthetic chemicals unknown before 1950 that we now carry in our bodies. By using plastic we are trespassing into the territories where the sea life is, which we killing by the billions: 90 percent of large sea animals are gone!! Simply frightful. Forgive us for trespassing into areas where we have no business. When I recycle my plastic- even I cannot avoid using it because it is everywhere- where will it end up? In the ocean?

The problem is compounded by the aquaculture industry, which uses enormous amounts of plastic in its floats, nets, lines and tubes. Think about that when you eat fish. The best way to combat the use of plastic is to grow your own food which eliminates packaging, the major source of plastic, or by going to farmers markets.
Primary Productivity

There is such a thing as Primary Productivity. It points to the original natural resources available to the human race. In the very early human stage when only a few million people roamed the earth and their diet was gathered from the existing fruits and wild animals, the so-called hunter-gathering stage, Primary Productivity was 100 percent. Nothing of the earth was disturbed. The seas were in a pristine state, the air was sweet aroma and, as Genesis, the first Bible book, tells us, some people lived almost One Thousand years: Methuselah clocked in at 969 years, thanks to pure air, food and water. Today cancers are proliferating, soon shortening the overall life span, while general poor health sets the stage for a devastating pandemic. Now Primary Productivity is approaching 50 percent, meaning that we humans have deprived all other creatures of almost half their habitat. No wonder species disappear in droves.
Forgive us our environmental trespasses, in the same way that we forgive those who trespass against us. We all are in the same boat. There is not a person in the Western world that can plead innocence here. We have allowed ourselves to be sucked into such a dangerous situation that there is no longer a safe exit.

Thanks to us trespassing into the space of the large animals, we have almost eliminated them all. Thanks to the use of pesticides, especially eonicotinoid, we have managed to kill half the honey bees that pollinate our fruit trees. The paradox is that by using that particular poison which is supposed to kill bad insects only (so that our factory farms are can prevent flies and other pests from harming the Monsanto seeds) we are well on the way of committing global suicide. Those are the unintended consequences of promoting a life that is supposed to be free of intrusions by nature.
There is a lot of truth in the saying “Trespassers will be persecuted.” This past week those US states that deny Climate Change are being persecuted with storms, tornadoes, deadly floods. I don’t know why India must suffer from lethal heat with thousands dying: that poor country, among the poorest in the world.
So what will be the after effect of

Monetary debt.

Right now, we’re living in a make believe world as debt is the main source of growth. Without a pick-up in final demand a lot of bad debts are never going to be repaid. Thanks to excess capacity in the commodity production bad loans will proliferate throughout the system. That means that governments must keep on issuing new loans to cover old loans. Look at all the money that Chinese banks have invested in real estate: there’s no way that they are going to be repaid. China is bankrupt.
You want to see real growth in the U.S. economy? Forget about real estate, technology or manufacturing: The real American and Canadian growth industry is debt. While gross domestic product has lingered in the 2 to 2.5% growth range for years, the level of debt as measured through credit market instruments has exploded. As the nation entered the 1980s, there was comparatively little debt—just about $4.3 trillion. That was only about 1.5 times the size of gross GDP. Then a funny thing happened. The gap began to widen during the decade, and then became basically parabolic through the ’90s and into the early part of the 21st century.
Though debt took a brief decline in 2009 as the countries limped their way out of the financial crisis, it has climbed again and is now, at $58.7 trillion, 3.3 times the size of GDP and about 13 times what it was in 1980, according to data from the Federal Reserve’s St. Louis branch.

Forgive us our trespasses which are much more than moral matters. By trespassing on the life of animals we have killed almost half of all living; by trespassing in the air we have killed almost half of all bees and birds as well as poisoned the very air we breathe; by trespassing on the seas we have soiled the seas beyond repair and killed the animals there in unprecedented numbers.

We are heading for Armageddon not only economically but ecologically as well as spiritually, as by and large the church and whatever is left of the Christian press fail to see the signs of the times.
Our fervent prayer should be FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES. Lord have mercy. Maranatha, Lord come quickly.

PRETENSE

MAY 24 2015

Or is it PRETENCE? That too is acceptable because the one with the “S” is American while the one with the “C” is English. In Canada both versions are current because we not only are a country with two official languages, in our English we also enjoy a double solitude, where both the American and the English spelling are used. However as far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it is the same in both spellings.
Pretens(c)e is defined as: a false reason or explanation that is used to hide the real purpose of something. It can also mean an act or appearance that looks real but is false.

Let me start with an economic matter. Governments pay out wages and pensions which are increased in line with the inflation rate. For governments the lower the inflation rate, the easier it is for them to balance the books. Even though they prefer inflation to deflation, they don’t want to see prices go up too much, so they manipulate the inflation rate. In Canada and the USA and I presume everywhere in the Western world they have changed how it calculates inflation more than 20 times since 1978. Each and every change drove down the official inflation rate, masking what was really happening as prices rose and your wealth eroded. Right now the official rate is under 2%, but if they were to switch back to the way inflation was calculated in 1980 we would have seen 7% to 8% inflation in recent years.

In other words, as far as inflation is concerned, we live in ‘pretense’ times.

Interest rates are another pretentious issue. It used to be that they were calculated based on the inflation rate with an added 2 percent for administration and real gain. Thus if the inflation rate were 3 percent, people like me with a bit of savings, would earn 5 % on their money. Today we are lucky to get 2-3 percent, and some banks charge people for holding their money. Basically those of us who have a few dollars invested actually get a negative return.

In other words, money wise, we also live in “pretense” times.

What is true about interest rates is also applicable to the unemployment statistics. There too it is beneficial for the rate-setting agencies to have a low figure: it looks good to the outside world, it saves money because it limits the payment of Unemployment Insurance. In the widely reported unemployment rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the US BLS) only counts those who have looked for a job in the past four weeks as unemployed. Once they haven’t looked for a job during that time they are no longer counted as unemployed. As a result, the real or true unemployment rate is much higher. If those who want to work but cannot find a job are counted, in April 2015, the real unemployment rate was 10.8%, exactly double the widely-reported unemployment rate of 5.4% in the USA.

In other words, employment wise, we too live in ‘pretense’ times.

We and our machines.

We are changing. Anyone who has been to a party where everyone was using a cell phone can attest to this reality. Modern technology is already rewiring the way the human brain works. Sixth-graders who went five days without any digital screen exposure did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who spent hours every day looking at their electronic devices. When a New York Times reporter asked Steve Jobs how his kids liked the iPad he said, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
It’s clear that technology has intruded deeply into our lives. If we do not act now, we will lose our ability to communicate with each other and the ability to enjoy meaningful employment. We are in the process of losing our humanity. And that’s exactly what the Great Adversary wants. Satan believes that technology is unambiguously good: it is “the wellspring of human progress.” Yet thanks to “progress” no net new jobs have been created in 15 years at a time when the American population increased by 40 million.

In other words, ‘progress’ means the opposite: pretense rules.

Should I mention Iraq?

Thanks to American politics and the entering of Jeb Bush into the presidential race for the Republicans, Iraq is back, especially now that ISIS, that radical, utterly evil, totally satanic bunch of fighters – in the name of religion – is gaining ground. You may remember the younger Bush, the son, George W. who, in his relative inexperience, was duped by the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld into a war with Iraq, playing up the theme that Father Bush has left it unfinished, even though the general staff warned against it. Pretense entered there as in no other war. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. If there ever was a war launched under false pretentions, it was this one.
The invasion of Iraq is a crime at par with some of the World War II crimes, with the difference that the aftermath is still being felt today and will be for years to come, perhaps will lead to nuclear war as Saudi Arabia is said to be ready to purchase a nuclear bomb from Pakistan in response to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In other words in politics ‘pretense’ ruled then, and still rules now.

The pretense of battling Climate Change

We recently passed 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; business as usual will take us up to 1,000 ppm, raising global average temperature (from a pre-industrial baseline) to as high as 5.4 degrees Celsius. According to a 2012 World Bank report this will lead to “extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise,” the effects of which will be “tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions,” stalling or reversing decades of development work.
But that’s where we’re headed. It will take enormous effort just to avoid that fate. Holding temperature down under 2°C — the widely agreed upon target — would require an utterly unprecedented level of global mobilization and coordination, sustained over decades. There’s no sign of that happening, or reason to think it’s plausible anytime soon.

Here is reality. Politicians want good news. They want to hear that it is still possible to limit temperature to 2°C. Even more, they want to hear that they can do so while avoiding aggressive emission cuts in the near-term — say, until they’re out of office.
Climate scientists feel pressure to provide fake figures. While I am writing this in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, scientists are protesting because the Harper regime is muzzling them. Governments don’t want to hear the truth. There is not a politician on earth who wants to tell his or her constituents, “We’ve probably already blown our chance to avoid substantial suffering, but if we work really hard and devote our lives to the cause, we can somewhat reduce the even worse suffering that awaits our children and grandchildren.”
Many climate experts are now arguing that 2°C is an inadequate target, that it already represents unacceptable harms. We are facing a situation in which limiting temperature even to 2°C requires heroic policy and technology changes, which won’t happen, because the status quo rules.

In other words, in Climate Change too, ‘pretense’ rules.

Is the church any different?

The nation of Israel was in exile for 70 years when a remnant returned to the old country and Jerusalem. Malachi – the name means “my messenger’ – was the last Old Testament prophet. The book is short -4 chapters – and ends with “The Day of the Lord”
That was God’s final message to his people about 500 years before Christ started his mission. During that interval the church was supposed to prepare the people of Israel for the ‘sun of righteousness with healing in its wing’ (Malachi 4: 2) describing Jesus, the firstborn of creation, humanity personified. God granted the people of Israel 5 centuries to prepare for Christ’s coming. Over these years the church devised all sorts of statutes and regulations, making religion a matter of strict observance to rules and outward appearances. Its weakness was revealed when the three magi appeared from far away, following the star, looking for information where the heavenly king was born. The then priests and bishops and theologians knew the exact location, but refused to connect the dots, because it did not fit into their organizational setup. The baby-king did not conform to their expectations, and, when he went public after 30 years, they arrested, judged and killed him because he flouted their ecclesiastical rules. The then church utterly failed to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

Theologically speaking, the church then lived in ‘pretense’ times.

On October 31 1517 Martin Luther, the Catholic priest turned whistleblower, attached 95 theses on the front door of his church in Wittenberg, Germany. On the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth in 1983 – he was born in 1483 – my younger brother, my wife and I were in Wittenberg. On the steps of the church, in front of the very door where he had affixed his defiant statement, were two young people shooting up drugs, perhaps a metaphor for the state of religion in what was then the former East Germany.

We are more than 30 years beyond 1983 and very close to the 500th anniversary of October 31 1517, commonly called “Reformation Day.” During the 500 years prior to Jesus’ mission, the church failed to prepare for his coming. On the contrary it crucified the Savior. Now, 500 years after Luther shook up the Roman Catholic Church a remarkable man has emerged: Pope Frances who is using his office to take on Capitalism and infusing both Roman Catholics and Protestants with courage to take on the forces that are destroying creation. I wholeheartedly endorse the Pope’s valiant efforts to battle those who are bent to destroy LIFE for the sake of money.

The Final Battle

It is THE battle of the 21st Century and that at the very time the world is more confused and confusing than ever. We’re now in a post-imperial, post-colonial and, in many places, post-autocratic age. Large sections of the world are in total chaos. Just as the oceans increasingly have dead zones where life has gone extinct so the earth too is filled with regions where nobody can live anymore. No one wants to touch these disorderly zones because when they do, they suddenly are responsible for feeding tens of millions extra mouths, and that while money at home is running out as well. The West prefers them to die quietly.
I pray that the Pope will be successful. We are engaged in the last battle: the battle where the rich West fights on two fronts: the West versus the Climate, and also that same West fighting the world’s poor: a war in which we all are losers. We pretend to help the climate. We pretend to assist the poor. In the final analysis we do nothing else but protect our temporary relative advantage. We try to be the first. Somewhere in the Bible it says that the first shall be the last. We are so dependent on fossil fuel and electricity which powers our Internet and computers, that, once these cease to function – and some hostile virus will cause this – within three days we are totally dysfunctional. We pretend to be invincible. In reality of all the people ever lived, we are the most vulnerable.

How about the Church now?

The church is supposed to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and tell the world of the Kingdom – the New Creation – to come when Christ will appear again.
Sorry to say, the church today almost without exceptions, still clings to the Heaven heresy.
I admire Pope Frances whom I believe will be much in the news this year. Will he tell the people, will Christianity at large tell the world to prepare for the Kingdom to come? Will the church’s main message be, in line with Christ’s teaching, both in word and action, to prepare for the transition into the pure, pollution-free, pristine planet that is about to come?

Or will humanity kill creation, just as it did with Jesus when he came? The French saying comes to mind: Plus ça change, plus ça la m?me chose: The more humans change, the more they remain the same.

MAY 17 2015

RESILIENCE

Where are we?

It seems to me we are in a state of denial. Everywhere I see signs that business as usual is no longer possible.
Of course the reigning mantra all over the world is still the pursuit of economic growth. It bears repeating that only total fools and economists believe that infinite growth can take place in a finite world. Politicians, banking on an ignorant public, also keep on proclaiming this fallacy as a God-given right. Jeb Bush – aspiring to be the next Republican president – said last week: “My focus is going to be about how we, if I run, how do you create high sustained economic growth.” This Bush (Number III) also has no feeling for language. The naked truth is that all governments stand and fall with this gospel. No growth or even worse negative growth puts a stop to the entire welfare state from which most of us are benefiting immensely. We want growth. We need growth. The financial wellbeing for all of us except the very wealthy depends on governments being able to pay pensions for the elderly, medical bills for everyone, support disabled persons and small children, all items totally dependent on economic growth. And all that at the time when cities everywhere are clamoring for untold billions of tax money to install subways and rapid transit and dealing with aging bridges and crumbling highways.
We seems to be blind to the obvious fact that we live in a world that is rapidly wearing out, is suffering from lung cancer, is becoming emaciated by the constant clamoring for more, is drying out as wells are depleted, aquifers being emptied, topsoil being stripped, trees being eradicated. Yes, those trees. We can live without food for 30 days, without water for maybe 48 hours, but oxygen we inhale every minute. Killing trees is like choking ourselves, a most cruel death, but that’s what we are doing.

Why do we act so suicidal? Now that the majority of the people live in cities, people have lost touch with the once living, now dying earth. Also all governments are big city institutions, so the plight of the earth goes unnoticed. The church? It long ago lost the Gospel of the earth.

We must quit wishful thinking. Pollution will persist. Weather will get worse.
Don’t for a minute believe that suddenly Big Business will stop polluting, stop making cars, stop drilling for oil, stop felling trees, and the media, TV, radio, papers, stop advertising. Don’t for a minute believe that the majority of the earth’s inhabitants will stop driving cars, stop fueling up, stop being influenced by the Boob Tube. Mass conversion is not happening and no longer can happen: we have simply gone too far. We have built an infrastructure based on an infinite supply of life-destroying fuel. All our suburban and exurban houses and high rise condos need power, need four-wheeled transportation: there is no going back, there only is the unavoidable abyss.
So what should we do?
Resilience is the key, especially spiritual resilience, belief that we await a new earth, thanks to Christ. The word ‘resilience’ comes from the Latin verb ‘resilio’ which means ‘spring back’. Resilience is required when threats arise. We then know how to cope with them. Resilience involves being aware, honestly assessing the situation. Only when we come to terms with the true state of affairs can we prepare ourselves to some extent.
Forget about Sustainability, the modern buzz word. Sustain what? Our current way of living? It’s exactly that sort of energy-rich life that has brought us where we are today, with the CO2 count now exceeding 400 ppm, part per million, up from 280 where it was before the Industrial Revolution, guaranteeing Clime Change Disaster.

Oh, yes, I know that Jesus said that “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” using KJV language, the KJV standing for the 1648 King James Version of the Bible. My NIV, the New International Version, says it a bit more plainly. The passage comes at the very end of Matthew 6, part of the Sermon on the Mount. There it says “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” supposedly indicating that we should not make provisions for tomorrow’s different future. Jesus in the preceding texts – verses 25- 32 – tells us not to worry of what we shall eat or drink, or where we will get our clothes. He then says something that has thrown us all for a loop: He tells us that our priority in life is ‘to seek the Kingdom’. Supposedly if we only had concerned ourselves with implementing the Kingdom option we would have never ended up where we are today.
So what does it mean when Jesus says that “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and you’ll never have to worry about food or drink or clothes or shelter” as all that will come automatically when we pursue the Kingdom goals.
A long time ago I happen to listen to what is called the Christian Radio and heard a preacher proclaim that if we pray, read the Bible, go to his church, tithe especially to his program and his church, then God would bless us. That has been the essential message in the Bible belt. I was brought up with the then gospel truth that Home, (Christian) education, Church and other Christian organizations comprised the Kingdom.
The confusion about the Kingdom is almost total. Fortunately J. H. Bavinck, in his old-new book Between the Beginning and the End: A radical Kingdom Vision has cleared up the misunderstandings. Here are his words:
“In the first place we must realize that God’s Kingdom has a cosmic character, which means that it comprises the entire world as we have come to know it. Not only are we humans part of that Kingdom, but it also includes the world of animals and all plants. Yes, even the angels are part of this wider context: they too have a place in the harmonious totality of God’s Kingdom.
“This implies that all parts of the world are attuned to each other. Nowhere is there a false note, a dis¬so¬nant that disturbs the unity, as everything fits harmoniously into the greater scheme of the totality. This applies both to each individual specimen but equally to the various circles or spheres found in creation. The celestial bodies have their orderly trajectories and do so according to God’s royal will, obeying his voice, and so, in their course they sound a melodious note in the great concert in which all creatures participate. The mountains rise up high above the water satu¬rated earth, their summits piercing the clouds; they stand there in proud loftiness but even these mountains are nothing but servants of Him who has planted and secured them by his power. On every page the Bible makes plain that the meaning of creation lies only in the one overarching motif: the motif of God’s Kingdom. That is why Scripture and Creation are never at odds: they always form a unity where the one reinforces the other”

Even now the world as we know it, as we experience it every day, the trees, the air, the water, the soil, the animals, and us humans, comprise the Kingdom, now distorted by us sinners. To follow Jesus’ words: “To seek the Kingdom and its welfare” is the first and foremost task of the Christian. Pretty radical stuff!! Yet the essence of Christianity!!
And there is where ‘resilience’ comes in, the capacity to ‘spring back’. Today we have shaped a society totally dependent on fossil fuels. Once they are gone – or once we are forced to foreswear them because of its highly poisonous nature – we have nothing to fall back on: no chance to spring back, no resilience whatsoever.
I can’t tell you what to do, but I can ask questions. What does it mean to pursue the aims of the Kingdom? Does it mean to go totally green? Remember the Kingdom is God’s creation. “Seek first the Kingdom” essentially means to do everything for the benefit of creation, God’s Holy Temple. Does that mean a total paradigm shift in whatever we do? We now realize that the Carbon-rich road is ‘the way of death’. Resilience means having an alternative, possessing the only alternative: the way of life eternal.

Let me give my thoughts free rein. God’s creation has all sorts of back-up systems. It is ‘resilient’ to the nth degree, but only if we live according to the rules of the Kingdom, as outlined in the covenant God made with us. What are these rules? Micah 6: 8 tells us what the covenant requires of us: “To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.”
To act justly not only applies to humans of whatever race and orientation, but also to trees, soil and air. To love mercy applies not only to humans of whatever race and orientation but also to animals, cows and chickens. To walk humbly with our God also involves obeying his laws in creation, following his rules for preservation, for permanence, for eternal sustainability.

Let me make some more guesses. Being resilient means freeing ourselves from having carbon-slaves. The USA fought a disastrous war within its borders to abolish human slavery. The North was victorious, and the Africans became African Americans, yet basically still remaining second class citizens. Slavery today is thriving more than ever. Over the years the Western World acquired a totally different form of servitude: engaging the carbon-based slaves that heat and cool our houses, and that make it possible to travel in comfort by car or by air. The American Civil War was the bloodiest USA war ever. Now the Universal bondage depending on carbon-based fuel has become the War against creation with the potential to wipe out most of the world’s people and species, because of the total lack of resilience: there is no Plan B, no back-up system.

Jesus tells us that to seek first the Kingdom which will guarantee us food, shelter and clothing. Do we really believe Jesus’ words?
The Gospel is a very down-to-earth affair. We are told to love our neighbors as ourselves and God- his work of art, his creation – above all else. Using substances that endanger our lives is the opposite of loving ourselves. Loving creation means getting to know where and how creation can help us to survive. Creation is there to serve us, and we are there to serve creation. Forget about dominion. I am told that the Hebrew verb used by God in his charge to Adam and Eve to cultivate the earth is the some word that Joshua uses in his farewell address to the Israel people: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Back to the “Seek first the Kingdom” mandate that Jesus gave us. It is not surprising that the church has not pursued this. It is perhaps his most puzzling statement. Perhaps seeking the kingdom was possible in his age and time, when matters were simple and straightforward. Then all food was organic, damage to creation minimal. Then people lived in community, often sharing food and residing close to each other, with weddings that lasted 7 days, funerals that involved the entire community.
Today matters are so different. It used to be that in my neck of the woods, before automobiles, people depended on their neighbors. From where I live I can see across the road a house where a trucker lives who parks his rig there on weekends. I don’t have a clue what he looks like. The only people I really know are the ones I see in church on Sundays and often during the week for various activities, and they live all over the place.
So how do we go about seeking the Kingdom together and, as a community, seek salvation? Frankly I must confess I have very little to say about it.

I have headed this column with the word Resilience. The word ‘resilience’ implies that we have our defenses ready, that we know what to do when the ‘last things’ start knocking at our doors, when the Apocalypse comes calling without warning, the prelude to the coming of the perfect Kingdom.
Sorry for not being more clear-cut. I am as much at a loss as you are, perhaps even more so, but it is a situation I am struggling with because I know one of these days or years we are confronted with Collapse. Will we be ready? Will I be ready?