The unquestionable question

Today an old question becomes relevant again. I read about a protestant vicar who says he doesn’t believe in God anymore, but keeps working as a vicar. In the Christian newspaper “Trouw” an interview was published with the famous Dutch poet Rutger Kopland who also says he doesn’t believe in God. And yet, if you read and listen to their thoughts, you recognize their feelings about God. They have indeed religious feelings, but at least Kopland doesn’t call them religious. The vicar says in very interesting words that “he believes in a God who doesn’t exist”. I come back to this later.

Now there’s also published the Dutch translation of the book by Francesco Carotta who claims by means of a lot of “circumstantial evidence” that the Gospels are inspired by the life of Julius Caesar, and that Jesus is not a historical person but made up of traits and characteristics of Julius Caesar.

And yet it belongs of course to the essence of being religious: that you believe in God. I can remember that we as children went to friends because they had a “holy mass acting set”: a little altar, toy holy mass accessories, and holy mass priest and acolyte clothing. So we could “play holy mass”. My parents found it a bit blasphemous, so we hadn’t got such a set. I remember that when my friend stood on the chair leaning on its back (the pulpit) as a priest to start his sermon, he never could be more original than shouting “God exists!” He always played the priest because the toys were his so he wanted to be the boss. I found it the dullest and dumbest cry one could utter as part of a sermon. Of course God existed, you don’t need to emphasize that so strongly. It was a given fact, and if you had doubts, then it was your fault and not God’s fault of being non-existent.

Now I hear that even the Dutch archbishop Cardinal Simonis has sometimes doubts. But what kind of doubts are we talking about when we ask the unquestionable question whether God exists or not? If we say “God doesn’t exist” do we mean the same as if we would say “Santa Claus doesn’t exist” or “it’s only a dream, these things don’t exist” or “miracles don’t exist” etc. Many religious people think that denying God’s existence is in the same kind of meaning. Something exists, and “exists” means that you can notice it, or could have noticed it if you were there, with your senses, it’s something touchable, visible etc. and if you can’t notice it, it doesn’t exist. Existing things and phenomena have something sacrosanct, non-existent things you can ignore, they don’t “matter”. Writing this – and hopefully you reading this – this reality starts to stagger. Are our senses trustworthy in deciding if something exists or not? Must something be existent in order to be real, and must something be real to be existent? This is not playing with words. There are realities (or, if you like, there is a reality) that we cannot notice with our senses, not even with the finest observation instruments, even the harshest “atheist” will acknowledge this. There were times during which scholars presented calculated and logically coherent “proofs of God’s existence”. What they did, was applying a human idea (the concept of “proof”) to God. And that ‘s also the reason why there are atheists: these people refuse to accept something for existent that cannot be described or logically deducted. People who pray to “The Lord” do accept this, without being able to describe Who or What He is. Of course, masses of religious people think they can describe Him, in an image that we all know: a man on a throne, ruling everything. You can’t see Him because He is some kind of Almighty Ghost, steering everything with His invisible hand.

I strongly believe that we humans are very good in telling Who God is not, and very unable to tell Who He is. I think that’s also the reason why God’s name is so important in Judaism and Islam: in Judaism He has one unspeakable name (you may not even mention it), in Islam Allah (God) has 99 names. In Christianity we use the metaphors of “Lord” and “Father”, which are rather role-names than names referring to an identity.

The only way, I think to approach a description of God is speaking in the “I’ and “me” – mode, and I’ll try to do so. Whoever thinks to be full of faith and absolutely without doubts, and speaks of “God will…” or “God is…”, and also whoever decisively rejects any talking or thinking about God, might both well be wrong in their idea of Who or What God is. Why can I say this? Can I assess another’s faith? No, my idea of God is wrong because as long as I (emphasis on “I”) think that my idea of God reflects the reality of God, I’m wrong, God is beyond any idea, I notice God, if I may say so, at least with my needs, not with my senses. God is there because I need Him. I could write a book about it, and it will not be sufficient. I think I understand the vicar who said: “I believe in a God who doesn’t exist”, but I don’t understand people who tell me that God exists or doesn’t exist. Next time part II of this deliberation on God.

A grey autumn day

Thursdays are my days "off". That is to say, I'm supposed to do the laundry, shopping, walk the dog, take care of my son during lunchtime, repair and maintain things in and around the house etc. There were times I took work with me from school but I don't do that anymore unless it's very urgent. The problem is that I got hooked to photography. Not the laborious work with tripods, lenses, photoshop-processing etc., but simply taking a light camera with me and snapshot what I find interesting to register. Today the photos got my priority and after this post I'll take care of the laundry. This is contrary to what's taught in time management courses, but I also learn that if you first do the "important things" ("urgent and relevant", and "not urgent but relevant") then you never can do unimportant things such as writing a post on your blog. Anyway, after my son and wife left the house for their work and school, I asked my dog Joris "Gaat-ie mee?" (Dutch for: "Will he be accompanying me?"- who said that English is shorter than Dutch?) and of course he didn't say no. Did I have my shitspoon (don't know the right word but you know what I mean) with me? My keys? My camera? I close the door behind me for a 90 minutes walk. It isn't a bright day, outsiders would say: this is no weather for taking pictures but I know better (see my photoblog, the reedland series). The shining sun gives a lot of restrictions: sharp contrasts, fragmentation of what you want to picture as a whole, etc. First I walk through our prosperous, but rather dull living quarter. People from poor countries wouldn't find it dull because there's maintained green everywhere around, and all houses have well maintained flower gardens. Despite it's 1 November, there are still flowers here and there. Then I walk along the railway street (parallel to the railway), and cross them to arrive in the countryside on a road called "Slachtedyk". I don't understand why I mention the road name because readers in the USA wouldn't find it important, but this is an unimportant walk, so let it be. On the other side of the railroad I stunned because what did I see? A protest meeting of cows! They were gathered around a protest sign and watched me silently with their eyes full of accusation. The only thing I could do for them was taking a picture and send it to the local newspaper (I did both before starting this posting - both? Redundant information, because I can't send it to the newspaper if I didn't shoot the picture before, sorry for this extra reading). I think it's more relevant for you to know what they were protesting against. It was against the construction of a new road which is intended to lead the traffic around our village, instead of going through it. But this road would go through their land and this was of course more than the ultimate they could bear. Then I decided to walk along the Slachtedyk. Joris was sniffing and trying to stop us at every tree because of the interesting odors that tickled his nose, and I was looking around for interesting picture material. Here our interests clashed, but I am the boss so the eye won over the nose, although he tried to annoy me a hundred times ( I didn't count) by pulling the belt I held him with. Yes, nice trees, yes, nice views, but here it was a lamp pole, there a car, and / or a traffic sign spoiling the potential picture. Then, after going to the right into a narrow alley, I got a new surprise. Would this be my once-in-a-lifetime picture? A whole crowd of hundreds of geese were sitting in a large meadow. We had been walking behind a rather tight wall of vegetation so they hadn't noticed us, but coming near an open spot in it, I noticed how all of them had stretched their necks to monitor what we did, ready to take off. I quickly attached Joris to a branch behind a shrub and prepared my camera, and I was just in time to capture the take-off. They flied in two groups: one to the North, the other to the South, and I realised this was a survival technique, developed in thousands of years being hunted by my fellow-species specimen. I captured first the North group, then the South group. Later on it appeared that they could have been closer for the ideal picture, and that I needed a better camera to get them crisper on the screen, but I'm satisfied. Walking further through the lane I arrived at a tree wall in nice colors with a red hay shaker which I of course pictured. On our way back I was charmed by the wheel prints of a tractor in the mud, and pictured the trees along the Slachtedyk after having hidden a lamp post behind one of the trees, if you look closely you see the lamp seemingly attached to a tree instead of its picture-disturbing pole. Walking through the streets of our living quarter I couldn't help taking pictures of a hydrangea flower bush and some rose hips, beautifully enframed in yellow leaves.

Of course I had to immediately process the harvest of pictures, which are shown above, fresh from the field, picked today. Enjoy!

Three cases

1.
A friend of mine is in Afghanistan at the moment, not to fight but to cure: he is a surgeon in a military compound. There they treat under dangerous circumstances the many severely wounded with modern equipment. He regularly sends e-mails with pictures to his Dutch friends in which he, like in a diary, describes what he and his colleagues are experiencing from day to day. His e-mails let themselves read almost as a novel. You know that there are doctors over there, you know there's fighting, etc., but when you read the daily reports about the accidents, the injuries, the amputations, the failed operations (luckily they are few because the very dangerously injured die during transportation, if you survive this, you have a reasonable chance to make it), the way the doctors pass their scarce leisure time, etc. you really become aware how foolish war is in fact. Although the field-hospital is primarily intended for military, most helped are Afghanistans, and even the civilian hospital in Kabul sends patients to them because of their medical skills and advanced equipment.

When in the Netherlands somebody is shot in the street, all newspapers and TV report exensively about it. This week there were two casualties: one schizophrenic patient escaped from his guidance during an outing in the city, ran to the police station and stabbed the officer at the counter, after which he tried to stab her colleague, who shot him before he could do so; on his way to the hospital he died. The stabbed officer survived after medical treatment. The night after this happened, there were protest demonstrations against the police who allegedly "murdered" the man who entered the policestation. Two days after this event, a 14 year old high school pupil killed his classmate with a knife because he didn't like him. These casualties cause waves of upsetness and sorry in the whole country - in Afghanistan things like these occur hundreds of times more often - . And in Iraq it's still worse.

My friend the surgeon explained before he left that he went there voluntarily, the Netherlands were bound to provide a certain amount of medical support, and contributions to this support were given by regular hospitals throughout the country by means of a system built on free will and equal distribution of burden.

2.
Nearer to home, I saw on TV teams of volunteers recruited via a special Internetsite, who help people without money in deep trouble. Since about ten years, our government subsideses so-called "care far"ms": those are farms provided with the needed housing facilities, to house people like homeless and difficult life circumstances, not able to lead a normal civic life. In exchange for farm work - to the extent of their abilities - these people get housing and professional guidance leading them to a life with a job and income, if needed, with extra education. The farms are far from the cities and they have proven to be effective in most cases. Next to the professionals, also volonteers work on those farms. On TV one vould see how a teenage mother was in deep trouble because she was pregnant of her second baby and the welfare authorities would take the baby away from her because she had no house. Her family was poor and she stayed for the time being in a small bedroom with one of her familymembers. She put a help call on the Internetsite, and got an invitation from a "care farm": she was so happy, and could keep the bay, while her young husband (also a late teener) would get coaching for a school where he would learn a job.

3.
Another help team from the Internetsite was shown while cleaning up the mess in a house, and restoring it (it leaked, there was draught everywhere, the electricity cables were not in order etc.) because there, too, a kid would be taken away because of the miserable living circumstances. The boy (I estimate around 10) would "never" leave his parents he said, and his mother would flee the country if they would come and collect her son. The mother was 46 years old and the father 72. The help team was welcomed whole-heartedly, they cleaned up and repaired, and the family could stay together.

You see, these are the people who put everything in practice. They deserve a medal and a guest seat in Oprah's show.

Smartest question ever

After a lecture on globalization students of our school had to write an essay on this topic. In one of the essays I came across this question which I find very intriguing and which I myself couldn't have figured out, I also don't know the answer yet:

How come we are able to transport every product and all bits of information around the world and yet we are unable to transport incomes and knowledge equally over the world?

A sad happening

Wendy returns from her holidays. On her doormat she finds an envelope which looks like containing a sad message. Indeed, the message said that her grandfather had passed away at the age of 95. Not only was it sad, but it made her also upset because the funeral already had taken place during her holidays! She jumps into her car and drives to grandma to apologize for not being at the funeral and to ask how this could occur so suddenly, because granddad was still a very active man, doing his garden, sailing out to fish, going to the pub regularly etc. Grandma says: Oh darling, what can I say, it happened during, er…, well you know what I mean you are grown-up, so… Wendy replies: Oh no, what happened, then? Grandma: Well, of course we are not that young anymore and need some support when doing it, and preferably we do it on Sunday mornings because then we get support from the big church bell. Bing-bong, bing-bong, the rhythm was so nice and slow you know, and (and here she couldn’t stop her tears, and Wendy felt so sorry for her), wha-wha-your granddad would still be alive when that stupid ice cream seller didn’t pass outside in the street with his stupid little bell!!

Two happy days

Our dog Joris is jawning, sooo boring! (picture taken a month ago, now we had to wear jackets)

Last week Sunday we celebrated the last day of Menno's "birthweek". His official birthday is September 3, and on that day he became 10 years! During the whole week the guirlands were hanging from the ceiling, as a welcome to adults and children. This last day we went with a group of little friends to the movie, made cheap by the supermarket chain of Albert Heijn: for every x Euros spent, you got a free second movie theatre ticket, so we only had to pay half the total price. We watched "The Simpsons" so the adults among us had also a good time and didn't have to watch computer-made "plastic" puppets experience adventures liked by children alone. (At least it's not my first choice for a movie).

Yesterday the weather was 1st choice for a sailing day: wind force 4 and a brilliant sun, so the three of us spent the day on the water. Up to then, it was one of the nicest sailing days. Janine took sailing lessons from me and Menno kept himself busy with all kinds of little jobs such as taking care of the "willen" (cushion-like devices to protect from bumping - most younger sailors use the English word for it but the older people still use the good Dutch word for it, I forgot the English word) and other things that had to be done.

This week I have to make an appointment to have the boat put on land, at a shipyard owned by the son of the designer / builder of the boat, Lodewijk Meeter. He built only around twenty of these boats in the 19seventies, and he still has the original drawings. Then it will be much work to get the boat in a better condition by sandpapering (rust!), painting and improving the rigging! Everything advised by Lodewijk, and if craftmanship is involved, he could help us very well.

Photoblogging and psychology

I always admire people who can make an unequivocal choice: they choose their profession at ten years old, at fourteen they make a CPM network schedule for the rest of their lives, they are always optimistic and motivated, are creative, and a pleasure for their family, friends and colleagues.
They always have been working at some project(s) in Africa or India (“they have fallen in love with it”) and know what poverty and self discipline is, but at the same time, having passed their 40th year of age, they drive a USV 4-wheel drive, own at least two houses and a yacht.
Because of the success they had in their career, they are often asked as a keynote speaker on conferences. They have been asked to become a politician many times, but they preferred the business world with network connections to education and universities.
Next to their business positions they are chairperson or board members of at least one charity foundation.
They have written and published at least one book, mostly a book about how something can and must be improved (your career, your personality, society, business, management, always “spiritual” and are now busy with a second bestseller. They are wonderful parents and their children are proud to have such a father / mother.

This is what they do. Now what they don’t do.

They don’t waste time with irrelevant hobbies such as fishing, cooking, horses, dogs, collecting stamps, etc. Of course they have a hobby (cooking when they cook once every three months, or dogs if they own a dog they never walk with – ever seen a celebrity walking with his/her dog in the park? They never do useless things such as counting the tiles in the bathroom while doing what they have to do, maintaining a photoblog, watching TV, doing the dishes, searching the whole city and Internet for a special item they need for a repair job, and other dull John Doe activities.

They don’t read articles about successful people, instead they call them for appointments or simply a chat.

I envy these people because of what they have, not because of what they do. I would also like to have all these things: celebrity, houses, yacht, charisma, the skills to immediately know what the trends are and knowing how to respond on them, clearly visible in word and image. I don’t like doing what they do and/or I don’t master the competencies needed for it. Having your agenda completely filled with appointments, meetings, travels, storing everything in your or your secretary’s memory, always showing strong motivation for things I find taken for granted, boring repetition or fashionable hot air. Hot air? What a disdain! Look how much money you can make out of hot air!

But sometimes… I read about somebody who actually HAS all these things, and also hates the things I also hate, and also does what John Doe also does. And then I get an indescribable feeling of failure. Why not me? Oh, I should have lived like he did! If only in 19.. I wouldn’t have done this-or-that, if only I wasn’t so stupid to…, if only …

And I fall in the trap of relentless ego-lamentation. Poor me! And I look helplessly around me. And then I discovered the photoblog. It really helps, you feel accepted and sometimes even admired! Make a good picture, look around at other pictures, discuss the content, admire other people’s products and get admired, enjoy visual beauty, get stunned about free and super-fast communication, get hooked.

But then, after half a year of photoblogging, the old feeling comes back. You see that somebody owns a couple of Canons and Leica’s. You have started with a mobilephone, and now you have a small pocketcamera. You see that these Leica’s produce better pictures. You hate Photoshop, because it’s fake, you think. And you see how Photoshop can make a piece of art out of a bad picture, and how these artifacts are admired…. The little devil whispers: buy also such a beautiful camera with a couple of lenses. Why? I think I postpone it, I know it’s the old feeling again and I don’t like that. It’s all psychology.