Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

PREPARING FOR COLLAPSE (6)

 Nothing is more conducive to cause COLLAPSE than war, especially the war in which you and I willy-nilly participate: our collective crusade against creation. Our hostile engagement against the very source of our existence is mostly one of passive failure to recognize our complicity and so turning a blind eye to our active involvement in the undoing of our natural environment. We blithely ignore that we are engaged in a war in which everybody loses because the first and foremost casualty is our aging mother Earth, now more frail than ever. Romans 8: 22 tells us that Creation has been groaning for a long time, and groans now more than ever. I have a dear friend who physically suffers when he sees wild life disappearing and species vanish because of our actions.

 And then there are shooting wars.    

Shooting wars speed up creational chaos. This past week US airplanes bombed and destroyed refineries and oil storage facilities in territory held by ISIS, an acronym now generally recognized by most people, standing for Iraq-Syria-Islamic-State.

ISIS’ fundamentalism reminds me of both the last book in the New Testament, Revelation, and the last book in the Hebrew Bible, Malachi. Revelation 22 says that “Let him that does wrong continue to do wrong – because the time is near – let him who does right continue to do right.” To me it suggests that this means that the opportunity for conversion maybe over as well, as it becomes more and more difficult for people to change their minds. Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, has a similar passage – just before describing The Day of the Lord, Malachi 3: 18 says “And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” Both point to the deeply digressing differences between those who serve God – and treasure creation – and those who live apart from God.

Today we see IRAQ I and II wars merge into IRAQ III. Most of us have forgotten that IRAQ WAR I in 1991 caused the largest oil spills in history: on the land, in the sea, and in the air. Massive clouds of oily pollution carried as far away as India. Was stability the outcome? Not at all: rather than a peaceful state, resentment worsened over the US behavior. Osama bin Laden cited the actions of the United States and transnational oil companies there as the reason for his launching the terrorist bombing on 9/11. Actually the destruction of the current oil refining systems also had an economic reason: oil is getting too cheap. The US Fracking Industry and the Canadian Tar Sand Companies need high prices to continue to operate in the black, even though both operations are among the most polluting in the world.

Back to IRAQ WAR I

At the time of IRAQ I, I wrote a song, which could be sung based on a sad melody in tune with the affliction felt by the Juda tribe exiled to Babylon as found in Psalm 137: By Babel’s streams we sat and wept. It is no coincidence that the Judean Exile 2500 years ago also played out in that same neighborhood: history is coming full circle, again a sign of the End of Times.  You may remember that Saddam Hussein upon his retreat from Kuwait set fire to the 500 oil wells there. Below follows my song of lament, a dirge actually. If you know the tune – Olive’s Brow L.M.-, sing it aloud:

Five hundred fires cover Kuwait

Five hundred fires contaminate

The sane, the sick, the cities, the sea,

Well, what’s this got to do with me?

Five hundred fires in the Middle East,

The Devil’s delight, his hellish feast

He looks on them with pronounced glee

Because they’re set also by me.

Five Hundred fires continue to rage

Their smoke, their soot they know no cage.

The battle is over, Kuwait is free

Free to furnish more fuel for me.

The war, the West at its secular worst

Was waged to quench my insatiable thirst

My feasting on fuel set the wells ablaze

On fire through my carboholic craze

Now dominoes fall both left and right:

The oil slicks, dying Kurds, Shiites,

Forgive me Lord for being to blame,

I pray that, yet, I may honor your name.

All of us who drive cars are complicit in this crime. Oil, crude, refined, in all forms causes fatal pollution by poisoning areas forever, spreading deadly fumes over large sections of land, killing humans, cattle, and plants for generations.

War is a waste of resource and money, which can be used for a solar revolution and now are fundamentally undermining the movement for renewables. To fight the Ebola outbreak requires a billion dollars, which is less than the Pentagon spends each day to pursue its warlike actions, but the Western world is hard-put to gather these funds. What is more important? Fighting ISIS which is no immediate threat to the USA or combatting a horrible disease such as Ebola, which, indeed, may become a world-wide curse?

Why all this bombing? So far neither the USA nor Britain has had casualties in their homeland. War is never a solution. Jesus prophetically proclaimed that those who use the sword perish by the sword.

The men in charge of the ISIS movement are not stupid. Their make-up is composed of professionals of the former Saddam Hussein army who were stupidly shunted by the American occupation forces when George W. Bush set out to destroy that regime. Bush-Cheney’s sole purpose then was to have unlimited access to the mostly unexplored Iraqi oil fields.

That war has had an entirely opposite result. The current initiative will also end up being disastrous, perhaps even more so. Now that Saudi Arabia is involved ISIS might target the Saudi oilfields, depriving the World of the last major oil reserves.

In terms of war and national security, a much more serious long-term threat is that of climate wars and infectious diseases. Money being spent on oil wars ought to be shifted to strategies to prevent climate wars by getting at the root causes of climate disruption, but that would intervene with our cozy life style, so we choose to be active participants in the Climate Wars: our way of life versus God’s creation, the cosmos God loved so much. (John 3: 16).

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond examines the environmental factors contributing to the collapse of advanced societies around the world, such as the Mayans in Central America and the Polynesians on Easter Island. The Mayans had a calendar dating back to 3114 B.C., built magnificent temples, and did sophisticated astronomy. But their population grew to an estimated 5 million, well beyond what the land could sustain, while huge amounts of resources were spent by chiefs trying to surpass other chiefs in building even bigger monuments. The leadership continued to misjudge the land stewardship and the food resource needs, and as a result several smaller collapses occurred before a large collapse around 900 AD, due in part to a severe drought. When Spaniards reached Mayan territory after 1500 AD, the temples had been abandoned and the Mayans scattered.

1. The peoples settling the isolated Easter Island around 900 AD met a similar fate after several hundred years of expanding their population and quarrying gigantic stone statues (weighing up to 270 tons) which they then moved to the perimeter of the island. They deforested the island and the surrounding waters filled with silt, while at the same time vast energies were occupied on rivalries over which clan could build the biggest stone head. The first-recorded European contact with the island was on 5 April (Easter Sunday), 1722, when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited it for a week and estimated a population of 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants.

When Captain Cook arrived at the island in 1774, he found a tiny population (down perhaps from a peak of 20,000) that he described as “small, lean, timid, and miserable.” The civilization had collapsed in a cannibalistic endgame.

Collapse there was caused by population growth beyond the capacity of the land to support it, by destruction of good farmland, and the use of resources in tribal conflict and monument building. Leadership in both societies failed to respond to the handwriting on the wall.

As we fail to adequately address climate change and its root cause, will our society face a similar collapse? All signs point to this.

We are looking at a “perfect storm” of conditions around the world that will lead to major conflicts and wars: growing populations, reduced food resource base, destruction of fisheries with dead zones and acidification, enormous deforestation, and the like. We are courting COLLAPSE, which will be sudden once a tipping point is reached, a moment nobody knows.

Already we see serious problems with ecological refugees trying to escape unlivable conditions in their homelands and get to Europe or North America. In Asia, India is building a huge fence along its border with Bangladesh, fearing massive fluxes of refugees as Bangladesh gets swamped by sea level rise and major storms.

Our fragmented knowledge keeps us from seeing the entire picture.  Everything looks normal. Newspapers, TV shows, radio reports, all major in minors, none want to sound the alarm bells, because optimism sells, and that’s what our world wants. Store shelves are stocked; traffic stagnation is still a headache in major cities. There’s simply nothing that would suggest COLLAPSE. Matthew 24 describes similar conditions: “For in the days before the Flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the Ark…. That’s how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24: 38-39).

Good News: The new book by Johan Herman Bavinck is available

Between the Beginning and the End – a Radical Kingdom Vision is out: I received my first 10 copies which have gone to my extended family and close friends. Go to EERDMANS.COM to obtain your copy or order from your favorite book store or on line. This book will revolutionize your understanding of your place and role in creation: no other book provides such a reliable and inspiring guide to make you navigate these last days.

PREPARING FOR COLLAPSE (5)

High Time for Change. Can we?

here’s a peculiar passage in Revelation 18, referring to the church, I believe, urging her to quit what she is doing and make an abrupt departure from ‘the world’. The text, verse 4, says Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you not will receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven. Is it a coincidence that Climate Change is a matter that is occurring in the heavens? Climate Change is a direct result of our sins against creation.

It seems to me that, prior to collapse we must recognize the situation and leave ‘the world’, something that is physically impossible, of course, but which must happen nonetheless. “You are in the world, but not of the world”, the Bible tells us. Adhering to the ‘world’ is a spiritual matter, because it pertains to the ‘religion of progress and unlimited growth’ Thus our ‘leaving’ is a foreswearing of worshiping the ‘idols of our age’ and returning to a way of life that is in accordance with the Spirit of God, the creator of heaven and earth.

The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities, also called “Babel”. Yet the New Creation is also called a city, “The New Jerusalem, so matters are not cut and dried, black and white. Actually, in the Western World the boundaries between country living and city dwelling no longer exist. I live in the ‘country’, but I am just as dependent on motorized transportation and the use of fossil fuels for electricity and heating as urbanites.

Was the past better?

I am old enough to have experienced a totally different world. My parents were born at the very end of the 19^th Century. I have known my four grandparents who started their lives about 150 years ago, an age before the advent of our carbon-driven world, an age before the rise of the consumer economy.

Raised into a large family – I was my mother’s fourth child in 5 years of marriage with another five children to follow – I was repeatedly farmed out when another sibling was about to be born. The only place always available was the farm of my maternal grandparents of which I have lasting memories.

How simple was their life. Just imagine: no electricity, no running water, a foul- smelling outhouse at the back of the cow barn over the cesspool where also the cattle manure ended up, periodically scooped empty by hand for use in the fields as fertilizer. It reminds of a somewhat crude story, supposedly taking place in a one-room rural school, where the only teacher cultivated a large vegetable garden. The school inspector came and marveled at the luscious plants and wondered how. One young boy signaled that he had to go. The teacher consulted his chart and said: third row, fourth plant.

Back to the almost medieval conditions in which my grandparents lived. All cooking and eating was done in a special small building separate from the main dwelling, with the woodstove space split from the eating area. The walkway between the main dwelling and the ‘stookhut’ – the cook house – was paved with red brick where, in a corner, a hand pump was placed over the cistern which gathered all rain water. My grandmother, each Saturday, would broom fresh sand in the seams between the bricks.

There was, of course, a formal dining room, used on Sundays and when visitors came. There a beautifully colored oil lamp was suspended from the high ceiling, easily lowered or raised when more or less light was needed.

All worked long hours. Up early to milk a dozen cows, yielding perhaps 3 milk cans full, containers now only seen as antiques and used for flowers or to hold a mailbox. Each morning these cans would be carted to the platform on the edge of the canal, to be fetched by a horse-drawn punter and transported to the milk processing plant a few kilometers away, to be returned that same day with whey for the pigs and a small can of buttermilk porridge, a daily menu item.

Once a week my paternal grandfather would come calling, a grocer, in his two-wheeled horse-drawn buggy bartering eggs for coffee, tea, sugar. Very little money would be involved. A large vegetable garden and lots of canning would guarantee food for the winter, potatoes being the main staple. A pig would be slaughtered in the fall, the bacon hanging in the chimney for curing.

Simple living. Compared to today the lack of affluence and technology is striking. No carbon footprint. Deeply religious.

A century ago, economic activity took place primarily in the physical world of production. People made things: they farmed, crafted, cobbled, nailed, baked, brewed, repaired, knitted, mended. They created tangible goods and services whose value could be determined because they directly were related to their daily needs. They made their own entertainment: brass bands, lots of church meetings, home visiting. Nobody was rich. Everybody had enough.

We now exist in a-typical times.

How immensely different is life today. I was struck this past week again when the new Apple I-Phone came out. Long line-ups and 10 million sets ordered or sold. People live for the moment, crave immediate satisfaction. Buy now, pay later. Food comes from the store, milled, molded, made to look good, to last long, and leading to obesity and diabetes. Fake food fosters fake folks. We live as if there’s no tomorrow, which perhaps is the case anyway. We push problems forward to the future. Our political institutions, once capable of mobilizing resources and people to win wars – witness the 1940-45 conflict and the Marshall Plan that helped to rebuild Europe ruins – now avoid complex and recurring challenges, of which there are aplenty. We do nothing about education reform, ignore climate change, and pretend that ever expanding debt is healthy. The church, even though it loses members left and right, continues in the same stale format. The worst recession in three quarters of a century should have led us to rethink the current economic model based on automatic upgrades and short-term gains. Instead, we’ve continued to focus our economic energies, our entrepreneurial talents, and all innovation on getting the biggest returns in the shortest time possible. Worse, we’ve done so even though fewer and fewer of us can afford to keep up with the futile pursuit of ever-faster gratification—a frustration expressed in the angry populism now paralyzing the politics in the USA. From top to bottom, we are becoming a society ruled by impulse, by the reflexive reach for rapid rewards.

There is no doubt that our lives have become luxurious, affluent and extraordinary self-satisfying. During my life-time, and especially the past four decades, we have created a sophisticated, self-feeding socioeconomic system that is marvelously efficient at catering to our fondest desires. Even the poorest in the Western economies – provided they don’t smoke or drink – thanks to the miracles of cost-reducing business strategies and powerful personal technologies have achieved a high level of economic well-being.

As I suggested in my previous blog – citing Psalm 115 – our preferences, attitudes, and identities have become so intertwined with the offerings of the marketplace that we have internalized many of the market’s values and reflexes: we are becoming the machines that serve us. We no longer can function without them. True, it also spreads the gospel to the very ends of the earth, overshadowed by such things as the I-Phone craze which typifies our religious urge to possess the latest, the fastest and most up-to-date gadget immediately when it is available. In other words, the marketplace and the self, our economy and our psychology, are fusing in ways we’ve never before experienced. We have become an extension of the industrial system. It’s not that we need these mechanical means. We want them. They define us. Psalm 115 again: Those who make the idols and use them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. (verse 8).

We no longer are a ‘producer’ society. We truly have become a ‘consumer’ nation, which is rapidly also consuming us and our natural habitat, as our consumption is no longer driven by what we need – food, shelter, clothing – but by desire, by the ‘spiritual’ criteria of our inner worlds. Our aspirations, our hopes, our identity, are being cannibalized by the multi-media companies who are exploiting our cravings for the latest gadgets, and so succeeding in possessing our very souls.

Is that what the number 666 means in the book of Revelation? Does this development signify the final stage in human development?

Danger ahead

Jacques Ellul in his (1964) The Technological Society has foreseen this development. He writes that by not fully understanding the role of technique in the life of us today we modern human beings are beset with anxiety and feeling of insecurity. He prophesied that technology which we say is our servant, will overthrow everything that stands in the way in its quest to dominate the human race. Now 50 years later his words have come true. Technology is the victor and we are the willing victims.

For most of the 20th century, this merger between man and the machine proceeded at a gradual pace. But starting in the 1970s, the marriage moved into overdrive by two powerful shocks. The first was the collapse of America’s postwar economic boom in the face of high oil prices, inflation, and rising foreign competition. As corporate profits fell, it was clear that many multi-nationals had grown too complacent and inefficient to prosper in a faster, more global economy. With company shares trading at historic lows, activist investors launched an economic coup. They bought struggling companies, broke them up, and sold the pieces, often for substantial profit. As takeover fever spread even healthy companies embraced defensive strategies to boost profits and share prices and keep investors happy. Companies fired workers and began moving operations overseas. It was thought that the only way American companies could help society was to get rid of any separate, social obligations and pursue making maximum profit. The only way for government to make this happen was to cut taxes and regulations and allow the marketplace to find the most direct route back to wealth. Add new technology, the microprocessor, which made computing vastly more powerful and much cheaper, and here we are: the rich richer, the poor poorer, and no work for the middle class and no future for the young, by the grace of God forcing us to seek alternatives.

Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you not will receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven. Is it really a coincidence that Climate Change is a matter that is occurring in the heavens?

The most precious quality we have is our humanity. With every sinew of   our existence, we are tied to the earth, which bears us, feeds us, and is our abode forever. By destroying the earth, we destroy ourselves; by separating our lives from the earth, we become estranged from our very source. My grandparents sensed this. It is to the life-giving earth that we must return that precious work of art our God created and gave us for safe-keeping.

PREPARING FOR COLLAPSE (4)

Is my Theology all wrong?
My Bible tells me that Collapse will come suddenly: bang, there it is! That’s the reason why Jesus keeps on telling us to be on guard all the time. Actually his return to earth- where he belongs as the Son of Man, Humanity Personified – is something he looks forward to. Why? I base this on theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Johan Herman Bavinck whose book Between the Beginning and the End – a Radical Kingdom Vision- will be released on October 31. Both categorically state that Jesus, Humanity and the Earth belong together. To explain that concept is the main reason why we have the Bible, confirmed in Psalm 119: 105 which says that God’s word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. Where do we plant our feet when we walk? Here, on our very earth, sometimes muddy, sometimes rocky, but by and large a very agreeable place. The Scriptures are there to help us in exploring this world. Let me remind you that when the Psalms speak about God’s Word it refers to the 5 books of Moses with a few prophets thrown in. Yet even these few books give enough illumination for us to navigate God’s creation unhindered, enabling us to treasure the trees and the bees and appreciate the plants and the ants.

In order to prepare for Collapse – and the coming of a renewed world – we need both biblical knowledge and intimate insight into nature both sorely lacking, witness the heaven myth, Climate Change and world-wide pollution.

Here is human history in a nutshell.

In the beginning God gave the earth to us as our special possession, but we sold it to the Enemy. Fortunately Christ bought it back with his blood (that’s where the Cross comes in) and will restore it to its former glory when Beginning and End again coincide, because the Beginning is in the End and the End in the Beginning.

It is my deep-felt belief that God wants to unite all fractured parts of his creation into his kingdom to come. Forget about individual salvation. Sal­vation is universal: it’s all about the restoration of Paradise Lost. Forget about us personally enjoying God and be saved in him. The sole goal of our life is that we again become part of the wider context of the King­dom of God, where all things are again unified under the one and only all?wise will of him who lives and rules for ever. Jesus, in the Sermon of the Mount, said that our foremost priority is to “Seek the Kingdom and everything else will fall in place.” For us this means to seek the welfare of creation and build our life on that premise. That’s also why in the Lord’s Prayer the first plea is “Thy Kingdom Come!” By praying that line we must actively implement it otherwise it is just a throwaway phrase.

If I am right, does that mean the end of the institutional church?

Look at the church today: it’s usually old people. Seventy percent of church services take place without children or young people. This past week I read in our daily newspaper that three United Churches in Belleville, Ontario – the larger town 45 km from us- will combine into one, citing falling attendance. This simply means more drop-outs, as the average age attending church is 76 and old people hate to change worship locations. That’s happening all over the Western world.

I am increasingly convinced that the decline of the church can be traced to its failure to integrate the Written Word with the Created Word, which is a direct result of refusing to see our very earth as our eternal habitat and seeing creation as God’s Kingdom.

The demise of the church is also something that must happen. In the one but last chapter of the Bible (Rev. 21:22) it simply says that in the New Creation there will be no temple, no synagogue, no mosque, no cathedrals, thus no places of worship at all. The church, denominations, sermons, preaching, popes, priests, the entire religious rigmarole will have disappeared. We are well on the way to see that: a clear sign of Collapse.

Even though Christ’s return will be without warning, there will be lots of hints.  “Will I find faith on earth when I return?” laments Jesus, who gave a decisive indication of the Last Days in Matthew 24, where he warns of ‘The abomination that causes desolation’ (Matthew 24: 15). In that context Jesus uses the phrase ‘let the reader understand’. From this I conclude that

(1) This desolation refers to Capitalism, Climate Change, world-wide pollution, wars, human indifference, all the great destroyers, all man-made abominations. The outbreak of Ebola is also part of this eschatological phenomenon.

(2) We can only understand this when it actually happens: Let the reader beware. My parents and grandparents would not have had a clue what Jesus was referring to.

Do I really have to rehash this again?

That we have new climatic conditions is beyond dispute. NASA’s Earth Observatory recently commented on the extreme temperatures we were experiencing in North America this summer. The months June to August were the world’s hottest ever. NASA also states “In places where it should be seasonably hot – the eastern and southern United States and western Europe – it’s just been warm. In places where weather is usually mild in the summer – northern Europe, the Pacific coast of North America – it has been ridiculously hot.”

A study recently published in Nature warns that the two-headed dragon of air pollution and Climate Change will likely result in severe damaged crop growth, indicating that our world is rapidly moving toward a state where nobody can survive. One bright spot: (I am kidding of course) tourism is coming to the Arctic, where people can take a cruise now for a trip through the ice-free water of the Northwest Passage.

Speaking about water: we know water is essential for the survival of all life – but it’s not just about drinking water. Seventy percent of world’s freshwater use is for irrigation. While each person drinks an average of one liter of water daily, it takes 2,000 liters per person to produce the food we eat.

In the United States, examples of “peak water” abound. Nowhere is peak water more evident than in California, where more and more farmers lack enough water to maintain their livelihoods. The record-breaking drought across the Golden State is hammering the lake and river tourism industry there, where marinas and boat ramps are becoming high and dry, and is causing fires as never before. Entire cities in California are now under threat of running completely out of water, and country groundwater levels are falling at higher rates than is normal as a result of the severe drought.

Scary scenes abound

July saw new all-time heat records in the Siberian town of Norilsk, which is just above the Arctic Circle and known as one of the world’s coldest cities. Yet this past summer temperatures there were on par with those in the Mediterranean. What’s worse: several massive methane blowholes left craters in Siberia. They have caused much of the scientific community to fear the worst because the escape of methane is the ultimate danger. One of the craters is 60 meters – 200 feet –across, and appears bottomless. Russian scientists found extremely high concentrations of methane at the bottom of the first crater found.

Why is methane so menacing? In the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas that, on a relatively short-term time scale, is far more destructive than carbon dioxide. It is 23 times as powerful as carbon dioxide per molecule on a 100-year timescale, 105 times more potent when it comes to heating the planet on a 20-year timescale – and the Arctic permafrost, onshore and off, is packed with the stuff.

NASA has already reported about the threat posed by the distinct possibility of a massive amount of methane being released from the Arctic – which holds five to six times the carbon equivalent of that humans have burned in our entire existence on Earth – along with the fact that most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable top soils within 10 feet of the surface.

Moving beneath the Arctic Ocean where methane hydrates – often described as methane gas surrounded by ice – exist, a March 2010 report in Science indicated that these cumulatively contain the equivalent of 1,000 to 10,000 gigatons of carbon. Compare this total to the 240 gigatons of carbon humanity has emitted into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began. In other words: we are in the process of unleashing hell on earth, thanks to our devotion to the gods of our age.

Psalm 115 comes to mind. It mentions idols and suggests that the danger is that we become like them. This is now becoming the case: we have mouths but we cannot speak, eyes but we cannot see, ears but we cannot hear, noses but we cannot smell, hands but we cannot feel, feet but we cannot walk, nor can we utter a sound with our throats. In other words: we have ceased to be human.

That same psalm says (verse 16): The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to man. Where we failed, Jesus, the Son of Man, was able to do the perfect thing.

Is my theology at odds with the church?

PREPARING FOR COLLAPSE (3)

September 15 2014

Addiction

I had a close friend who was an alcoholic. For a time he relied on me to help him with his weakness. I couldn’t possibly protect him from his addiction and, tragically, he died instantly in a collision, swerving in the path of a fully loaded log-hauling truck. His alcohol count was double the legal limit; he wore no seat belts.

He once told me that the murderer on the cross next to Jesus on Calvary was his model: he thought he could live it up and in the end, with a quick deathbed conversion, make everything right with the Lord. Well, it did not turn out that way. Frankly I doubt that the conversion of the criminal who hung next to Jesus was all that sudden anyway. I imagine that, while in jail, or even before that, this man had heard of Jesus, witness his rebuke to the  criminal hanging on Jesus’ other side. He defended Jesus and asked the Christ on the cross to remember him once he is in his kingdom. Yes, that conversion on the cross, was a miracle- any conversion is – but it was also one of those ‘eureka’ events, when suddenly the truth was recognized, when out of the blue disjointed facts came together.

We all have had those moments of sudden discovery. It happens when all the factors are present, but not quite assembled. Jesus’ attitude on the cross, his active passivity toward suffering, his concerns for others, even in utmost agony, his majestic bearing while dying, suddenly clarified the man’s picture of what was happening to him and who Jesus was.

What has all this to do with Preparing for Collapse? Quite a bit. The murderer on the cross finally connected the dots. It’s about time that we, as a society and as individuals, do the same, realistically look at the conditions we have created, acknowledge the consequences, and have a conversion.

The word Collapse indicates something like a lightning out of the blue sky event, totally unexpected. Our society too suffers from several addictions such as total dependence on carbon-based fuel and an incurable infatuation with economic growth, both fatal. Collapse, like a heart attack, can occur without warning.

I am reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Its subtitle is The Impact of the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE. Taleb’s main thesis is that Collapse cannot be predicted, and I agree with him. But when it does happen, it is analogous to the death of society because our life, yours, mine, everybody’s, depends on a guaranteed supply of liquid fuel and electricity. Eliminate the one or the other of these energy sources, both Black Swan events, and within a day total chaos ensues, followed by deaths in the billions. These are not the only dangers: our entire financial system too is built on trust. Once this is gone, so goes our economy which cannot function without money.

Why we cannot change

Can we change our risky behavior? My friend found it impossible. Can society? The short answer is “NO”.

There are several reasons for this. One is plain lethargy. Another is a line Upton Sinclair wrote: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’ Take our beloved motor vehicle. At least 20 percent of all jobs are related to our highly polluting automobile, from traffic cops to insurance agents, from highway construction to TV ads, from its manufacturing to money lenders and salesmen of new and used cars. I should add funeral homes and our medical system to this list as well. One million people die in car accidents while 20 million are injured. Yet we love our cars, and refuse to own up to our dependency. No wonder that Green House Gases are higher than ever.

That Heaven Thing Again

There’s another reason why we refuse to face reality: Religion. Most, I’d say, almost all church goers believe in going to heaven, even though there is not a shred of evidence in the Bible that says that this is the case. On the contrary John 3: 13 explicitly says that No one has ever gone to heaven except the One who came from heaven, the Son of Man. Billy Graham, our Protestant High Priest, has drilled heaven into the minds of his followers, and nothing will convince them that this earth, the very soil on which we move, is our final resting place and our eternal habitat. As a kid in the Christian Elementary School in the Netherlands, I was taught a song: “Sluit U aan, sluit U aan, wie mee will naar de Hemel gaan”; “Get in line, get in line, then follow the ‘to heaven’ sign.” Consult any hymn book: multiple songs glorify heaven. The church is seen as the Gateway to Heaven. That’s how our religion works. When I once wrote in an article for a mainstream Protestant church paper that going to heaven is a heresy, a reader replied that I was the heretic. This very heaven heresy is also the reason why almost all church goers have no real compassion for the earth. Nothing can convince them that there is something wrong with our energy-gorging habits. Canada’s P.M. Stephen Harper, a born-again Christian, is also a confirmed creation destroyer.

Reason does not work

On the whole nobody will change their belief systems, no matter the evidence.  When people are misinformed, giving them all the facts in the world to correct the errors of their ways only makes them cling to their beliefs even more tenaciously. People who thought WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.

Take the most serious issues today: Climate Change and Limits to Growth. Another friend of mine somewhat sneeringly told me that “Fracking” has forever solved the Peak Oil issue. Denial can only be described as business-as-usual for our brains; more and better facts don’t convert badly informed church members or voters into better thinking people.  It just makes them more committed to their faith and beliefs. When there’s a conflict between faith and beliefs, and plain evidence, it’s the beliefs that win.

My friend died: no death-bed conversion for him. The church still clings to heaven: too set in her ways to change. Society will collapse still convinced that Climate Change is a political ploy and Infinite Growth still possible.

PREPARING   FOR COLLAPSE (2)

September 8 2014

I had long suspected it, but now a Dutch scientist, Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis of the University of Amsterdam has found proof that we have much smaller brains than our ancestors. That doesn’t mean that you or I are dumber than our forefathers, but it does mean that, on the average, we, the human race in general, have gotten more stupid. His study indicates that we have lost 14 I.Q. points on average since the Victorian era, which roughly covers the 19^th Century.

How did he do it? Dr. te Nijenhuis and colleagues analyzed the results of 14 intelligence studies conducted between 1884 to 2004. Each study gauged participants’ so-called visual reaction times reflecting a person’s mental processing speed, considered an indication of general intelligence. In the late 19th Century, visual reaction times averaged around 194 milliseconds, while in 2004 that time had grown to 275 milliseconds.

Why are we getting dumber?

Here are some indications:

(1)        Toxic chemicals in the environment can reduce intelligence. Examples include flame retardant everywhere in furniture, lead(found in many lipsticks), certain pesticides,  fluoride – used in many city water systems – and radiation, which can reduce brain size. When a tsunami overpowered the Fukushima nuclear plant, radiation spread covering the Pacific, now reaching the shores of California. Expect even dumber TV shows and movies to emanate from Hollywood.

(2)         Humans used to eat a lot of Omega 3s when wild game animals were part of their diet. They have much higher levels of these essential fatty acids than domesticated animals. If we only eat the modern, mostly processed food stuff without getting enough omega 3s, expect even more health and intelligence problems.

(3)        The Science Daily notes: Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment increases learning behavior. We ingest these bacteria when we spend time in nature. Since most of us are city dwellers, we don’t inhale any of these good bacteria. Also most native culture used a lot of fermented foods containing healthy bacteria. Eating lots of yogurt and sauerkraut is good for the brain.

(4)        Exercise boosts intelligence. Run, bike, walk. I get my best ideas when I run. Our forefathers and –mothers – were always physically active. Television has mostly been a curse for society. Shut the boob-tube down and start reading.

(5)        Stress reduces sound thinking. With many people working several part time jobs high levels of cortisol – the chemical released when one is under continuous, unrelenting stress – and poverty can physically impair the brain and people’s ability to learn.

(6)        Relaxing activities, such as meditation, keeping a journal and prayer have shown to enhance growth in certain areas of the brain.

(7)        Lack of sleep reduces our thinking capacity. Many of us suffer from a chronic sleep deficiency.

We must prepare for collapse

Why do I list these items? They are all prerequisites for preparing for collapse, where we’ll need all our wits. Not surprisingly they also are necessary for entering the Kingdom to come. It seems to me that the Lord wants people there who are alert and open to new ideas.

You will notice that many of these 7 conditions have one feature in common: live close to the earth, grow as much as possible our own food, don’t be afraid to get dirt in your system, all of which promote intelligence. Listening to the earth is our holy duty.

Here is a new-old- idea. The Bible on several occasions state that The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. (Proverbs 1:7; Prov. 9: 10), which, in essence, says that intelligence starts with ‘fear of the Lord.” This is another reason (#8), perhaps the most important one, why we are losing our marbles: we got rid of biblical religion.

A word of warning. Today, in a totally different society than when these words were written 3000 years ago, we have little idea what ‘the fear of the Lord’ means anymore, so we give these words a pious twist and leave it at that. What do they really signify? First the word ‘fear’. It has nothing to do with anxiety, being afraid, trying to avoid an encounter with God. The opposite is true. The world’s greatest composers and painters are a good example. The ‘fear’ of Bach, Rembrandt, van Gogh  – fill in your favorite artist – is the beginning of getting to know them better by listening to their music and admiring their works of art. “Fear” here means ‘awe, admiration, deep respect.’ The same is true of “The Fear of the Lord”. By closely studying God’s work of art, his creation, we can only state: “How great Thou art.” Proverbs states that “In wisdom He made everything.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, because getting to fully know his creation takes more than eternity.

Our Western civilization, which is often called Christian, has a faulty view of reality. We correctly believe that God and humanity have a relationship. However for most church goers ‘nature’ is subject to human exploitation and has little or nothing to do with God, so we can destroy it freely, which we do and continue to do in spite of creation suffering severely. Again the “heaven” notion plays dominant role, something which I will touch upon in the next blog. Here is how we usually see reality.

GOD

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HUMAN

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EARTH

We have a connection to God, but, based on an erroneous interpretation of  Genesis 2: 15 where the old translation used the word ‘dominate’, we eagerly implement this faulty view, forgetting that, just like Jesus who came to serve (Matthew 20: 28) we too must ‘serve’ creation. This is shown in the triangle below.

GOD

HUMAN  ————–                 EARTH

This basically illustrates that God is supreme. We depend on him. So does the earth. But the earth also depends on us and we on the earth. We all are mutually dependent, a truth that is valid for eternity. Bonhoeffer has said: God, Humanity and Earth belong together. The Earth- not heaven – is our eternal habitat. Therefore we must treat it as such.

More about this next week.

PREPARING   FOR COLLAPSE

September 1 – Labour Day 2014

Start of a new weekly column

Nothing makes sense anymore

The hand formed to feed us has become the fist that fights us. 

Now that the summer is over – well for students of all ages and teachers on all levels at any rate – and with about half of my veggie harvest stored away (it’s been a great growing year) it’s time to return to a weekly routine of writing a column after having posted 3 long monthly articles in June, July and August. I was glad to see that the number of visits on my blog has remained quite high during these three months: well over 12,000 with more than 26,000 hits, some days numbering more than 350 visits and 500 hits. Only the Lord knows whether I have influenced anybody.

It seems to me from my rural perch in Eastern Ontario that the world is stuck in a destructive pattern where any fundamental change has become almost impossible even though different thinking and action is sorely needed. The reason is that any attempt to fix dysfunctional systems steps on the toes of deeply entrenched vested interests that profit from the broken down Status Quo because people in charge of institutions devote every resource in their command to water down, co-opt, divert or defeat any reforms that reduce their share of the national income or curtail their political power or affect their powerful position or outdated doctrines.
As a result, true reform has become impossible, also because (1) politicians are elected to give everyone more of what they want so nothing changes while economic conditions deteriorate, and (2) corporations’ profits suffer when environmental controls are enacted. Alberta’s Tar sands and North Dakota’s Oil Fracturing boom are prime examples. The result is that sooner than later societal institutions will break down and no amount of make-believe or bogus statistics or happy talk can mask the rot.

Nothing makes sense anymore

Take the stock market.

In spite of slumping retail sales, static or declining income, rapidly shrinking workforce and dreaded deflation, the stock market is again close to an all-time high.

Makes no sense.

Take money.

When I studied Economics at Queen’s University, the money rate was then seen as the current inflation rate plus 1 percent for administration, plus 2 percent real return, for a minimum of 3 percent above the Cost of Living Index. My first and only mortgage in 1962 was $15,000 at 6.25% and that was seen as normal. My payment was $100.67 per month. Now the rate is 3% so my $100 now buys $30,000. No wonder house prices are up, but it means a negative return on my savings, and foreclosures when rates go up, which they will.

Makes no sense.

Take Climate Change.

More than half of US citizens don’t believe that this is taking place with politicians and church leaders out in front denying this man-made curse. Consequently America does nothing to combat it while the rest of the world pays lip service.

Makes no sense.

Take food.

It now is saturated with sugar and salt while most meats contain contaminants harmful for humans and, filled with antibiotics, have made this medicine ineffective. No wonder cancer and obesity are rampant. With a rapidly aging, unhealthy population health problems will skyrocket.

Makes no sense.

Take politics.

In name we are a democracy. In reality the lobbyists for financial institution, the arms industry and the big corporations call the shots. No wonder people have become cynical especially about politicians.

Makes no sense.

Take our soil, air, water.

We now use each year in natural resources the equivalent of close to 2 earths. How long can this last? We are increasingly using more than the earth can deliver.

Makes no sense.

Take economic growth.

Politicians and economists want, demand, do everything possible to foster economic growth, forgetting that in a finite world infinite growth is impossible.

Makes no sense.

Take war.

We know from history that nobody gains from waging war, yet today, while environmental conditions are deteriorating globally, war is everywhere, including in the USA where racial strife is still rampant. Fifty days of fighting between Israel and Palestine solved nothing. Two thousand people dead, destruction galore. Should I mention Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine?

Makes no sense.

Take wars on cancer and drugs. There billions have been spent ever since Pres. Nixon 40 years ago, declared it, yet cancer and drugs are still proliferating.

Makes no sense.

Take the fracking business or the Tar Sands.

Optimists now call North America Saudi America, but extracting its oil is very costly, very polluting, and very fast depleting. It has created the impression that we can burn oil ad infinitum, ignoring decades of warnings that by burning through the Earth’s finite reserves of fossil fuels just as fast as they could be extracted, the industrial world has backed itself into a corner from which the only way out leads straight down. White’s Law, one of the core concepts of human ecology, points out that economic development is directly correlated with energy per capita; as depletion overtakes production and energy per capita begins to decline, the inevitable result is a long era of economic contraction, leading to the collapse of most economic and cultural institutions.

Infinite growth in a finite world makes no sense.

Take the church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer starts his book Creation and Fall with these remarkable words “The Church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end. The church should be there to prepare ourselves for the Coming of the Kingdom, God’s Perfect Cosmos. Instead its main message is heaven oriented, in essence calling God’s world evil. Believing that Heaven is our final destination is the greatest heresy. Exploiting the earth is the greatest sin.

Makes no sense.

The Teacher wrote in Ecclesiastes some 3000 years ago “There is a time for everything… a time to be born and a time to die”. That also applies to our era where we witness the last gasps of humanity as it speeds towards extinction, foolishly accelerating the inevitable, ever faster running toward self-annihilation. Einstein’s observation is now more relevant than ever: “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
Our stupidity – bewitched as we are by having 200+ energy slaves at our disposal night and day, provided by coal, oil and gas – has caused the earth itself to become our enemy, the very source on which our life depends: the hand formed to feed us has become the fist that fights us. The struggle for the remaining energy slaves has placed us and the planet in mortal peril, thanks to oil, which is a finite product, and also highly polluting.

Now our entire world is in suspense, anxiously suspecting that the next phase for us is the arrival of the unexpected, the improbable, the final stage of humanity. All sorts of hints are out there, but few take them seriously.

No wonder nothing makes sense anymore.