May 13 2023
THE NEXT SIX MONTHS.
A bold statement! The next six months will decide the fate of the world, thanks to the culmination of outright stupidity and lack of religious understanding. Human initiative has surrendered to Artificial Intelligence, signalling the end of learning, promoting the sovereignty of ignorance. Human stupidity manifests itself in the evil of Infinite Growth in a Finite World, and the continuous expansion of fossil fuels. The Christian religion has gone off the rails, has degenerated into formalism and dependence on institutions, evident in the rejection of sexual differences, and the crowning of Charles III in an Old Testament structure.
Consequences.
The war of Putin versus NATO is sheer human folly. Wars are waste, waste the world cannot afford. Wars are history-makers, now leading to collapse, not only of the victims, but of the victors as well.
The current hot war is but a small part of our total war against Creation, our war against God, a war we are destined to lose, of which the next six months will be decisive.
May 10 1940.
I write these lines in the week of May 10, a day grafted in my mind. Now 83 years ago, I can still vividly visualize what happened on that day: Germany invaded my country, the Netherland. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I was sitting, me, almost 12 years old, on a low brick wall, surrounding the large Reformed Church, located on the corner lot next to our house on the north and to my elementary school on the east.
In front of me was a triangle-shaped field, where we played soccer, giving me a perfect outline of the inner city, dominated by the 100meter high Martini Church Tower. A single-engine airplane circled overhead. The next day the German Army entered, the start of 5 years of brutal occupation.
That day the world changed for ever.
Today, May 2023.
Today we are in a similar situation: the world changing forever: the final change. Wars do that to society, as suddenly history accelerates. The outcome of that long, long war, from 1914-18, with a lull of 21 years, and its fateful conclusion from 1939-45, came at a cost of 100 million deaths, a full Ten Percent of those living on January 1 1900.
Now, May 2023, we face worse, much worse, as the fate of all living is at stake.
I like detours.
Detours expose me to new unexpected vistas. Augustine, that famous theologian in the 4thcentury, when the church was in her infancy, and Latin the language of the still active Roman Empire – it would expire soon – said, “Si comprehendis, non est Deus”, meaning in the new Lingua Franca, English: If you think you understand it, you are not talking about God.
The same is true about the future: if you think you know the future, you fool yourself. So, my heading is an impossibility. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six months, not in minute particulars. I even don’t know what my brain, my intuition, will write in the next few minutes.
But one thing I know: we live in apocalyptic times: the true nature of humanity and of creation is being revealed: the true nature of us, humans, is now plain: utter stupidity. The true nature of creation too, is revealed: sinning against creation carries its own penalty: suicide.
But there are trends. And there is the Bible, and there is humanity, well depicted there, as 1 John 5: 19 tells me, “The whole world is under the control of the evil one.” That is an undeniable truth.
Evil is Putin. Evil is Trump. Evil is war, especially our war against creation. The next six months will be decisive for Ukraine. It may rout the Russians, but we all will lose, because it cannot win the war: 40 million versus 160 million.
The same is true for creation. I dislike the word, ‘nature’, a human word.
So, where is ‘creation’ heading?
Already Western Canada is ablaze in early May. Already Siberia is ablaze in early May.
The next six months will be decisive. I am intrigued by the ARCTIC NEWS blog. Here is a quote:
“Conditions are dire, i.e. greenhouse gas levels are high, an El Niño is on the way and sea surface temperatures are high, all contributing to the threat of massive loss of Arctic sea ice. On top of that, there are developments that could make things even worse. Loss of Arctic sea-ice comes with loss of the latent heat buffer and loss of albedo that threaten to trigger subsequent eruptions of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. Consequently, a huge temperature rise threatens to unfold soon.”
The next six months? Remember Jesus’ words about the thief.