Karam Ram on Beyond Religion

The famous atheist Richard Dawkins said that many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense, but September 11th changed all of that. The people who attacked the Twin Towers were men of religion. Religion is often a cause of suspicion, distrust and conflict because religious people don’t always ask critical questions about their faith and can confuse religion and politics and culture together. What may just be cultural becomes invested with religious significance. So is organized religion about God, or is it really about maintaining community and identity? Can being Christadelphian become more important than actually being children of God?

Jesus’s parable of the Pharisee and the publican illustrates the “us and them” attitude and how we can simplistically divide the world into the good guys and the bad guys.  Paul says,

“don’t be wise in your own conceits”

but that’s exactly what the Pharisee does in enumerating his good deeds. He’s saying

“I am deserving of God’s favor because I do all these things,”

and in contrast, all the publican can say is

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Groupthink is a very deeply ingrained human tendency. Societies and communities maintain cohesion through groupthink. Religious communities are susceptible to it when they prioritize their own identity, their privilege at all costs:

“We are special. We have the truth, and because we have the truth, we are in God’s favor.”

The Pharisee in the parable is a very powerful example (as is the case of Al Qaeda and ISIS) of how groupthink enables certain views of the world and attitudes to become normalized, but to anyone outside that group those attitudes are just bizarre or immoral. Jesus’s parable is especially subversive because the Pharisees represented the popular ideas of piety within Judaism but in this case it isn’t the religious man who is right with God, it’s the sinner.

In Jesus’s time groupthink was probably much more powerful because of the Roman occupation. The foundational event for Israel was the Exodus from Egypt, so they could probably more justifiably mobilize religion in favor of their aspirations for liberation. They tried to draw in Jesus by asking whether it was appropriate to pay taxes to Caesar.  Jesus doesn’t criticize the Romans or Herod or Pilot, but Jesus was very critical of people who represented popular ideas of religious piety.  Jesus is trying to bring the Jews back into an authentic relationship with God rather than one that was just based on formalism or rituals.

If religion is just about how we appear to other people, then it’s only ever going to be superficial. Jesus makes the point that the Pharisees cleaned the outside of the platter but not the inside. There is obsession with respectability, with fitting in with the group, which results in hypocrisy. Jesus said in John’s gospel,

“I know you don’t have the love of God in you. You receive honor one from another, how can you receive the honor that comes from God?”

They were the children of those who murdered the prophets. They could celebrate the righteous and the prophets in death, but they couldn’t abide them in real life.

These are really penetrating and cutting criticisms of the way religion is co-opted and abused. We could apply it to our own community.  We may not be the worst offenders – I don’t know any Christadelphians who have flown airplanes into the sides of buildings! – but these words of Jesus have a lot to say about the state of religion today and the way that religion is mobilized as part of identity politics.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says

“I haven’t come to destroy the Law and the prophets, but I’ve come to fulfill”

because he was aware that the people who were listening to him wouldn’t actually recognize what he was saying. For them, religion was all that the Pharisees represented, temples, rituals, externals.  Jesus was aware that his message stressing a direct relationship with God without all of this other stuff would appear to be unrecognizable. It was beyond their concept of religion because it was about a personal relationship with the Father.

That idea of being the children of God should be important to us in a very personal and powerful way.  Christ made this very clear through his personal communion with the Father. There’s an incident in Matthew’s gospel where the Jews ask Peter

“does your master pay the tax”

and Jesus said to Peter

“what do you think? of whom do the Kings of the earth take tribute from strangers or from children?”

The implication of the question is,

“why are we having to pay this? Are we strangers from God or are we his children?”

The whole point of Jesus’s ministry is to bring us into a real, authentic relationship with God.

For the Jews of Jesus’s day, the one thing that represented God more than anything else was the temple. The temple was impersonal and vast, but that suited everyone because it kept God at a distance. Our challenge is to be up close and personal with God. That’s what Jesus came to do, to break down that wall of partition between us, to tear the veil of the temple. We need to cultivate hearts and minds that are less concerned with the appearance of respectability or groupthink, and more sensitive to the real presence of God in our lives.

To listen to the full interview with Karam and Steve please check out WCF A Little Faith podcasts

Blogging into the New Year

Blogging into the New Year, in a certain way as bloggers we might feel connected with other bloggers from all over the world. Its the magic of the internet that catches us.

How many bloggers are not on the internet willing to shine a light, not wanting to hide, hoping to bring some nice reading and some positive vibes to others, somewhere in the world. Some target a specific public, others do not mind sharing their diary with the world. Whatever reason they blog, is that what they write would be read by ‘some one’.

Janie Leeds writes

I happen to think that there’s a teensy bit of fear in all of us from time to time that squelches our ability to shine our heartlights and I’m choosing to figure out how to allow my heartlight to shine without fear! {This Little Light o’ Mine}

Many therefore just let the words roll over the screen, without fear. Perhaps they too think like J. Leeds that

we have to build our confidence and find someone trustworthy to shine with when we feel that desire to shine and to brilliantly explode our special brand of light into the universe. {This Little Light o’ Mine}

Though many might feel

It’s scary when we choose to be our authentic selves without fear. It’s being vulnerable which sometimes makes people feel uncomfortable. {This Little Light o’ Mine}

We always can wonder why or for whom those bloggers write. For themself? For their community/friends? For the world at large?

Judgy Young Pessimist or Jewish Young(-ish) Professional has the same question as us on her lips:

Maybe we write for different people at different times or maybe we write for all of them. {For Whom Do You Write?}

New Year’s Day finds one reflecting on some of their past resolutions and their outcomes. Bloggers might then perhaps think about what they wrote in the past year or how many blogposts they managed to create.

Lots of bloggers shall express and live by the hope that this fresh year will bring us something better than we had for the last years. So many want to forget Covid (though it is still not finished) and want to see an end to ‘that war‘ going on in Ukraine. Many bloggers leave that war in the fridge, only writing about other and hopefully also better things. Good tidings.

Let’s hope for the best and do our level best to make this year a memorable one for the people around us. Let’s resolve to spread happiness, empathy and goodness in the world. Let’s be humane and humble. {Happy New Year 2023}

writes a freelance writer who finds he is doing fine and has a lot to be thankful for, because “Allah, the Almighty” has been so kind to him. He is also aware we do not know much about the future. He thinks we can not predict the days ahead.

Can we not rid ourselves of unfounded fears? Can we not enjoy this precious MOMENT (present), instead of living in the past or worrying about the future? {Why Do We Worry About The Future? Why Don’t We Enjoy The Present Moment?}

Those who believe in God can find enough advice in the Book of books, the Bible, where the ‘bloggers’ of ancient times wrote down what we should know. In those books is enough said about times still to come, and as such do we know what to expect. Concerning those end times there are several bloggers on the net talking about how we can prepare for those times.

Many other subjects gain much more attention. Many blogging platforms are being used, but also many disappeared and bloggers had to change platforms again last year. The greatest change last year was the leaving Blogger and Blogspot by many bloggers, because those blog systems had become too slow and unworkable. This could be an asset to WordPress, but it was also discussed last year, due to its introduction of the less practical Gutenberg Block editor system.

Several bloggers let themselves be guided by prompts or requested tasks by other bloggers.

sometimes, prompts provide that inspiration for a piece that may have been ruminating,

writes JYP. We also admit some blogposts find their origin in something we notice on the net or some event that reached the news. In any case, the main reason to write such a post is for many to share something they find interesting or has something to do with their community or faith. As such, JYP for example wanted to share about Jewish community prompted by one of Fandango‘s Provocative Questions

– and it’s since become the basis for the whole pond/community/housing search tortured analogy saga. Prompts can provide both the inspiration for something I never expected to write and the necessary nudge to write something that were already ruminating. {For Whom Do You Write?}

Some bloggers like to tell the world about their very private things, whilst others prefer to stay in the anonymity or would not dare to talk about something personal. For some personal self-expression is the primary motivator for writing their blog and wanting to get an audience.

These are the posts that arguably could have been written in a private diary. These are the posts that might have less “polish” because sharing a message with an external audience isn’t the primary goal. These are the blog posts that feel less like public speaking, and more like casual conversation, or even just venting. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

These posts are the casual conversation, maybe even the therapy sessions, of blogging – intimacy, sweats, and all. Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-women-talking-to-each-other-4051134/

The problem with some of those blogs is that we feel more like in a café, catching up on some conversations. Others have a message they want to promote like we too have some good new to tell.

According to JYP promotional blog posts are those that:

• Have a message that the author wants to share externally. (eg. This is not a post that the author could have written in their private diary)
• Because the author wants to share this message, the post tends to have some “polish”. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

she rightly compares this to public speaking

– the most heartfelt, sincere, genuine speaker is going to make a point of revising and editing, practicing, and putting on more professional attire/ hygiene/ grooming/ makeup etc. (vs. brain dump whilst looking disheveled) to look more presentable to an external audience so the message comes across better. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

For her

the promotional vs. personal classification applies to all kinds of blogging {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

What we notice, looking at the Blogosphere and social media, is that lots of people want to be part of a community.

JYP thinks

the sense of community is probably the greatest strength of a well-run prompt. {For Whom Do You Write?}

In our globalising industrialist capitalist world, where there are so many people walking around, most people are just lost in the mass. Several people hope to escape their loneliness, but on the internet, they also find such an empty space. By blogging they do hope to have some reactions by which they would not feel so on their own. By writing a blog they want to break the silence and their loneliness.

Look, the internet is a big, lonely place. Blogging helps build community. Prompts can create a sense of community rituals and norms. It’s been fascinating to see the way bloggers will show up for each other, even within the simple forum of a prompt response. And it’s incredible to see how a prompt “ritual” goes beyond that, like when fellow bloggers share sad news with other prompt participants who respond with tributes and memories. {For Whom Do You Write?}

It is by such reactions the blogger may feel his or her work is appreciated and worthwhile doing. Responses on blogs also may trigger curiosity to go and look at that blogger his pages. If answers are given to a blog post, those comments may prompt the blogger to check his or her blog with that responding person. In this way, an exchange of ideas can arise among certain people who eventually become part of a small or larger group of regularly exchanging people.

To be clear, I think blogging without prompts can build community as well. But if you imagine the blog world as a religious community (bear with me), while you absolutely can and should socialize with fellow congregants outside of regularly scheduled services, some members will really appreciate the regular weekly meeting times to connect with their fellow congregants. {For Whom Do You Write?}

writes JYP. As such we can find bloggers who make it a custom to publish every week on a certain day an article. They even go to apologize when they did not. Or certain bloggers want to see for every day another sort of blog, be it a poetry day, haiku day, tanka day, garden day, short story day, thriller day, relaxation or meditation day  …. Some even want to have days for an amount of words.

We may not forget

Not all of our followers will care about everything we say. And even in blogging where we create more community through prompts, not all of our fellow prompt participants are going to be interested in our other writings. {For Whom Do You Write?}

Another aspect we may not forget or overlook

The reality is that almost none of us will become famous or make any real money from blogging, so you might as well write for yourself in addition to whomever else you’re writing for.

If, in the course of blogging and responding to prompts, you don’t feel like you’re writing for yourself, it might be a sign to take a step back and figure out how to incorporate prompts in a way that feels more authentic to you. {For Whom Do You Write?}

In our busy world, we have limited time to do certain things for ourselves, like reading. On the net there is so much to read, it is impossible to read everything or to follow every blog full-time. Even when we are following a blog or others are following our blog, we can not expect that they read every blog, and certainly not that they notice or look at every blog on the day it is written.

we’re not necessarily interested in every post that another blogger writes. {For Whom Do You Write?}

It is logical that everyone has their own preferences for certain subjects and will look for interesting literature in this area. In that respect, it is not bad that the internet offers such a variety of subjects so that everyone can find something to their own liking.

We from our site are happy you came to read this post, and honestly do hope you’ll have also got a taste for reading here a bit more than just this article.

Welcome to From Guestwriters in 2023, and hope to see you more.

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Preceding

Asking for a Re-Blog

When you think you have nothing to say or to show

Readers, likes and comments

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Additional reading

1. WordPress appears to have fallen off its best horse
2. A Classic Editor versus Block Editor
3. From old times and sites to new linkings
4. Five years on WordPress
5. From MSN Groups and MSN Spaces via Multiply to Blogspot now transferring to WordPress
6. In case Blogger goes further with her new interface
7. Blogger seems too slow to be practical
8. Our World on Blogger coming to its end
9. “Our World” Moving from Blogspot to WordPress
10. Walking alone? (Our World) = Walking alone? (Some View on the World)
11. What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
12. Companionship
13. Presenting views from different sources
14. Newspapers: Dying or Changing
15. Pleased to find Christadelphian World on the net
16. 2010 – 2014 in review
17. First blog post
18. My World…
19. Blogging in the world for Jesus and his Father
20. Immanuel’s first two years of blogging on WordPress
21. If no one died because of War – how different would worlds appear to be

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Related

1. WordPress on Linux Servers
2. Why I will be writing a blog, and why you should too.
3. To blog or not to blog? (Asha Seth)
4. To Blog or Not to Blog? (The Lolatalks)
5. To blog or not to blog (Miss A.J. My thoughts exactly)
6. My 2022 Year in Books
7. What kind of blog reader are you?
8. This Little Light o’ Mine
9. The Potpourri of Blogging Comments
10. Draft Queen
11. No Way Home
12. 4 things that helped me make affirmations work for me
13. Carol Anne asks
14. An Ode to Courage
15. 2022 Wrap Up | 2022 Favourites and 2023 Goals
16. A Fresh Start
17. A Brave New Year
18. Happy New Years
19. My New Year’s Resolutions 2023
20. Daily Blog #412: It’s been weeks (Part Two) Weird Dreams, Manifestations/Goals, New Years Blog
21. As Horrific As Lord Of The Flies
22. guest posting is super OK
23. December wrap-up!
24. The Morning After
25. 3 Reminders for the New Year
26. About Those New Year’s Resolutions …
27. A random memory
28. Happy New Year!
29. Share Your World 2nd January: my response
30. Share Your Blog 2023
31. Author Journey (January 2, 2023)
32. Confusion Rant- Not my best Post, a break from PVX
33. My first collaborative project !

The Social Media Kindness Project

 

Talin Orfali Ghazarian

The Social Media Kindness Project
by: Talin Orfali Ghazarian

Social media has become a big part in today’s society and some people use it for goodness, positive and inspiration, but others not so much. Some people tend to use social media in a negative and toxic way to spread hate, bullying, rudeness, and sending terrible comments to anyone. As previous generations have taught “If you have nothing nice to say or do, do not say or do anything at all”. That is the golden rule.

So, with that I have come up with the social media kindness project. You have no idea what someone is going through in their lives. It is always a good idea to be kind and use social media in empowering and positive ways. This is going to take a village to do. Social media needs a big makeover and we need to start somewhere.

I…

View original post 760 more words

Creating Community and Togetherness

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To remember

basics about us as humans = very social creatures.

• massively increased our population > more & more find ourselves to be rather lonely.
• western cultures > normal for a child to move out when they’re 18 and to begin their own lives
•  focusing on careers => families + friends pushed aside
• very toxic view of life
• time to reach out to those you love, those you care about + maybe those you don’t know

God calls us His people, and we call Him our God

The Bible’s frequent refrain — ‘His people’ and ‘our God’ — repeatedly reminds us that we are a community — part of God’s family. Like a body, each part has a vital role to play. The Lord has formed us for a collective purpose. We are dedicated to adopting the values of God. We are committed to doing the works of faith we have seen in Jesus, and the very ones we hope to perform with His constant aid.

Faith can grow abundantly when we understand and fully embrace the fact that God has put us together on purpose.
Accordingly, the Christadelphian community is committed to a vision of Cultivating Faith Together.
After some hard thinking about how they can make the biggest difference, the WCF got structured to advance that vision as effectively as they can.

Like our Christadelphian ecclesia in Belgium the WCF is focused on faith because it is the bedrock of our relationship with God and His Son. It is what compels us to walk with them for good, for a lifetime. And our faith  is what is tested in the daily trials and decisions of life.
The WCF and our Belgian ecclesia is committed to cultivating more faith together.
We hope you will join us in this great cause. We seek those who want to give their hands, their hearts, their financial resources. We know that, together, we can truly grow more faith.

°°°
All financial help is welcome
BE37 9730 6618 2528
BIC ARSPBE22
“Preaching funds”

Are you having such days?

At last the sun is showing herself after a very long grey period.

As the Director of Missions at Centreville (Virginia) Presbyterian Church, Sharon Hoover probably encounters enough people who also feel that the days are pulling at their end. She too has to make her way on this planet, amidst the joys and struggles — and also sometimes at a glacial pace — toward maturity as a Christ-follower. Through God’s grace, she also has stumbled upon some wisdom in her five decades.

It’s my joy to share thoughts, raise questions, and explore doubts. {Life’s path meanders}

She managed to take beautiful photographs of the world which tries to give enough signs of the Hand of the Most High Divine Creator. There you can find a.o. God’s paintbrush dipped into all the colours when creating the Rainbow Hot Springs (Yellowstone National Park)
But you might also be confronted with the human beings making an impact on the planet. Some good, some not so good.

She is passionate about creating space where people can experience God. This drive motivates her to disciple new believers, speak, and encourage women in their faith journey.

In her region she has to face the same flight away from church like in our regions. She, like many pastors in West Europe, has struggled as people walk away from her home church.

Relocation for employment or family reasons have taken some members. Others have chosen to leave due to differences of opinion, theology, or purposes. Regardless of the reason, it hurts nonetheless. {Why Choose the Church?}

She is been on a church staff for more than 20 years and has heard many people’s stories.

Their faith journeys often include at least one unhealthy church encounter. In my discussions with leaders of other churches, I know this is not unique to my faith community. Church nomads travel into new places of worship every week. Discouraged from a previous church experience yet wanting to be part of the larger family of God, they consider the possibility of new church home. {Why Choose the Church?}

People may be restless. In some countries they may be lucky to find different denominations, having a choice of lots of churches. In the so called Catholic country Belgium every village had its own Roman Catholic church and in cities different Catholic denominations also could be found as well as different protestant churches. Today most Catholic churches are  most of the time empty. The protestant evangelical churches which attract youngsters with their shows and entertainment services still manage to get some few at the service, for which people are prepared to travel some kilometres.

In the United States, of which we so much think of the mega churches, according to Barna’s Trends 2017, church attendance is at an all-time low in that so called Christian State. A mere 35 percent of Americans surveyed reported attending church in the past week. Two-thirds of us chose activity other than being with a faith community. Barna researchers probed further asking why people no longer attend church. Millennials’ responses were especially telling. Their top three answers were:

•   the church is not relevant to them
•   they find God elsewhere
•   they can teach themselves

Sharon Hoover at the Redbud Post writes

Somewhere along the way, we have developed the shortsighted view that church is about our personal experiences. What is in it for me? Choosing to follow Christ is indeed a personal decision, but never was the journey meant to be a solo or private one. After our initial encounter with the Living God, continued growth depends on commitment to a local body of Christ. The church. Internet resources, best-selling books, and a walk in the woods can nurture faith, but it is in community where we learn to love, be patient, show kindness, receive correction, and so much more. {A Love/Hate Relationship with the Church}

Roman Catholic Eucharist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, lots of people have a quaint feeling about religion. Many have a love-hate relationship with God and with the church. Though lots of people still claim to be Christian, we can not see much of a Christian attitude.  You would think that as Christ-followers they would belong to the family of God. Today there is not much to see of them loving such an association with the Body of Christ. Though

God created us to be in community (Genesis 2:18; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; 1 Corinthians 12:27). This universal Church, the one that includes all who call on the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, draws us into a most unique global space of connectedness. {A Love/Hate Relationship with the Church}

In this globalising world we are constantly confronted with world news and lots of languages. Lots of people can go to many places.

Friends and ministry partners allowed me to travel and experience new cultures. I heard languages I had never heard before, ate exotic foods, and found fellow believers in all corners of our planet.

My husband and I faced several life changing circumstances. We became empty-nesters when our daughter headed out for college. I broke my first bone (ouch, my ankle) and he graciously took care of me. Most profoundly, my precious father-in-law Bob passed on to glory. Bob was loved by all who knew him. We mourn our loss but know that Bob is dancing with the Lord and organizing car trips from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same. {Dipping into Memories}

She still can live with many memories, but for many life goes so fast and they are carried away by social-media and their workload, that they forget to live really and before they know the time is gone, and memories have faded by the overload of junk information.

We notice that there are lots of people who struggle but do not have it in them to write it off or to have positive contacts with others pulling them out of the gutter. When Mrs. Hoover struggles with something, she tend to write a lot.

My initial entry typically makes little sense. It’s an attempt to catalog the crisis. Anger or frustration or animosity emerge in my inability to string words into a legible sentence.

After a while — in some cases it’s the end of that day’s entry, but in other cases, it is weeks or months or years later — my thoughts flow more gracefully. I’m able to find the words. Although the hurt may still be present, I found the ability to grasp my emotions through my journaling. {Journaling: Healing through Private Words}

We may be lucky when we can surrendered emotions onto journal pages, however, the pain flows through the pen and somehow becomes validated.

Pain and confusion take on the form of words. Once we put words to the difficult undercurrents, we begin to move forward in the path of healthy grieving. Faith emerges. A sense of calm replaces the distant and empty feelings. {Journaling: Healing through Private Words}

We get some of those days we can miss like toothache and other days we wonder what we are doing here, whilst other days we would love to happen something here on this earth with us in the centre.

Another day to get dressed, go to work, make dinner, and do the dishes. Also another day to chat with neighbors, meet a friend for coffee, and curl up in my warm bed at night.

But it’s also another day with no burning bush moments like Moses, no Damascus Road experiences like Paul, and certainly no angels like Mary’s Gabriel declaring I had found great favor with the Lord. Again. {Finding Ordinary Perseverance}

Steam phase eruption of Castle Geyser in Yellowstone National Park. The steam from the geyser casting a shadow ot itself creating crepuscular rays. Français : Eruption de vapeur du Castle Geyser à Yellowstone. La vapeur créé un jeu d’ombres et de lumière rappelant des Rayons crépusculaires. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some may have their mantra of the day suggesting they ought to have tweetable thoughts throughout the day, sprinkled with Facebook-worthy posts of witty text message screenshots, along with at least one Instagram photo of their food (even if it’s a failed Pinterest attempt) or their outfit-while-standing-with-hand-on-hip-and-leg-slightly-bent. {Finding Ordinary Perseverance}

How many do not let their thoughts been carried away to dark alleys instead of letting them wander on sunny beaches. Either they find it is again a day they do not want to have any more, or they think it was again a day like any other one, wasted … just another day.

We make ourselves crazy when we feel like we have to “be brave and do something courageous” everyday, or face the pressure of “make today the first day of the rest of my life” everyday, or “be the change you want to see in the world” every moment. It’s exhausting. {Finding Ordinary Perseverance}

It is impossible to make of every day a marvellous day let stand an incredible day. It is also not possible to tackle every day on our own. Some days we need others around us to carry us through the day. Not every day can be totally new and different on all parts.

Sometimes, Friends, the bravest thing we can do is to repeat yesterday. The ordinary. One day at a time.

When we look for momentous events daily in our friendships, parenting, job, marriage, and even faith, we set the stage for disappointment. Contentment remains unreachable when the search for adrenaline rush moments becomes our source of significance and fulfillment. {Finding Ordinary Perseverance}

Let’s just work together to take care of our 3rd rock from the sun.

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Sensitive trees for insensitive man

even, dense and old stand of beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) prepared to be regenerated (watch the young trees underneath the old ones) in the Brussels part of the Sonian Forest (Forêt de Soignes – Zoniënwoud) in Belgium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For years already, I claim we should treat plants and animals as subjects but also as living beings created by the Divine Creator, who has given them for our use but not mis-use or maltreatment. I always claimed they too have feelings and ways of communicating. In the 1970ies I followed many scientists who tried to proof and did proof how plants also have feelings and communicate with each other.

Though at regular times people seem to be reminded of it. Because too often man forgets that he is not alone having feelings and able to communicate with others of their own sort properly.

It is long known to biologists that trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbours; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.

The German Peter Wohlleben studied forestry and spent over twenty years as a civil servant in the forestry commission. For him trees are his life and for that reason he also gave up his job by the state forestry because he wanted to put his ideas of ecology into practice. He now runs an environmentally friendly municipal piece of woodland in the village of Huemmel, holds lectures and seminars and has written books on subjects pertaining to woodlands and nature protection so those interested can accompany him through the forests of his homeland and the whole world.

The Hidden Life of Trees describes how trees are like human families. We as human beings only think of ourselves being able to make a nice family, though many make a mess of it, and when watching Danish television series I even wonder if there are normal Danish people walking around in the North, who can have a normal family life. In the series we come to see they all seem to be unfaithful.

In nature we see better build ups. Tree parents living together with their children, communicating with them, and supporting them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warning each other of impending dangers. With their newfound understanding of the delightfully complex life of trees, readers will never be able to look at a walk.

The deep dark forest One of the tracks through Pantmaenog Forest. There are prehistoric tumuli marked on the map here but they are difficult to find among the dense conifers. The trees here were planted after Bellstone quarry closed in 1908 and some of the old quarry workings are also concealed by the forest: human beings making their mark on the landscape in a variety of ways. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since it first topped best-seller lists last year, Mr. Wohlleben has been spending more time on the media trail and less on the forest variety, making the case for a popular reimagination of trees, which, he says, contemporary society tends to look at as “organic robots” designed to produce oxygen and wood.

Though duly impressed with Mr. Wohlleben’s ability to capture the public’s attention, some German biologists question his use of words, like “talk” rather than the more standard “communicate,” to describe what goes on between trees in the forest. But no matter how you want to call that communication we should come to understand that it is really communicating, no matter if you want to call it talking or something else.

It is also different with human beings who think they communicate and are on social media, thinking they have so many friends, but in reality do not have many friends nor comrades and do not really have any real communication going on between all those people. We did not mind to run around in that what God had created us and did not have to hide anything for others, always able to keep faithful to the one we loved and where we choose for. But to day they want to shine and glitter in fashion clothes but are fast to take those cloths of in the hidden to do things we would have found inappropriate when there was not a strong connection with each other. But to day they seem to change of girl like they change of underpants, and often there is not much conversation going on and lots of time it is just a one night stand with no further communication at all. They have become worse than animals. (Are am I looking at it too pessimistic?)

Whilst I do believe those trees have much more communication going on than their human counterparts who are not afraid to kill more and more of those air-cleaners, not seeing that they are polluting more and more their own environment, making it poorer and poorer. Even those Germans who are reputed to have a special relationship with the forest are a kind of a cliché and it can well be that those Germans do not love their forest more than Swedes or Norwegians or Finns.

When I lived and worked in Germany, for relaxation I went into the woods around Köln and went swimming in open air. Then I could encounter many like minded nature lovers who wanted to be one with it and, like me searched for ways to respect it and to make properly use of feeding us in a clean and appropriate way. No chemicals, no additives, all pure whole grain and pure natural food.

Young musicians living in a shared community in Amsterdam.

Though when I look at how enthusiast we where in the 1960–70ies and had so many dreams, being called ‘flower power‘ people, many not understanding our idea of sharing and love and making a collective community, kibbutz or commune, many of them have gone far away from their idealism and the last few months we see many things we fought for, being undone in a very short time.

Though might we see somewhere some light shining in the dark, perhaps getting back some younger ones again being interested in nature and how we should behave in it? Can it be that there are again seeds planted for people willing to reconsider our human behaviour in the big universe?

For sure it is high time that people are going to understand the need of forests and green spaces around our busy roads and living estates. Yesterday it was again on the news that in the Kempen 122 ha of woods has to be offered for sand-winning, as if it is nothing. Man also thinks it is alright to artificially space out trees, but forget that shall not give the same intensification as wooded areas. The plantation forests that make up most of West Europe’s woods ensure that trees get more sunlight and grow faster. But, naturalists say, creating too much space between trees can disconnect them from their networks, stymieing some of their inborn resilience mechanisms.

Intrigued, Mr. Wohlleben began investigating alternate approaches to forestry. Visiting a handful of private forests in Switzerland and Germany, he was impressed.

“They had really thick, old trees,”

he said.

“They treated their forest much more lovingly, and the wood they produced was more valuable. In one forest, they said, when they wanted to buy a car, they cut two trees. For us, at the time, two trees would buy you a pizza.”

But where are all those very thick trees gone, I wonder. In Belgium some years ago you could find also many places where you could enjoy the view of masterly or kingly majestic trees. The last two years , in the region where I live now (Leefdaal, Flemish Brabant), we have seen hundreds of trees being cut and not replaced.

Deep in the forest something stirred Go Ape, a series of aerial walkways, swings and zip slides in the forestry land north of Aberfoyle. Note – human beings included for a sense of scale. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mr Wohlleben had also difficulties with the ministry of forestry but it turned out that Mr. Wohlleben had won over the forest’s municipal owners. 10 years ago, the municipality took a chance. It ended its contract with the state forestry administration, and hired Mr. Wohlleben directly. He brought in horses, eliminated insecticides and began experimenting with letting the woods grow wilder. Within two years, the forest went from loss to profit, in part by eliminating expensive machinery and chemicals.

We should enjoy those trees going to grow in all sorts of shapes, creating all sorts of designs in the air. When we look at ourselves, we should see that we also do not have a life going in straight lines. We also not all grow up straight. Why should trees have to grow up in those particular straight lines indicated by people in the office. The same as the right 25 cm cucumbers, the bananas with the drawn out moon shape, the tomatoes and apples which may not be too big or flat… everything should be according to the book and numbers indicated,  … but life is not according the book of man … but should be according the Book of life …. with not everything exactly the same, and not always according to the books of man….

When is man going to see we should come back to being close to nature and to be part of nature again? And when is he going to understand we do need much more green around us … to have a colourful life full of health and joy?

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Please also find to read:

1. World Agenda for Sustainability
2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #1 Up to 21st century
3. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve

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Related articles

• Forest resilience; can microbes help combat climate change issues faster than genetic adaptations?
• New drive to restore forests in Eastern and S. Africa countries launched
• Data from 1800s can help researchers, forest managers maintain healthy forest ecosystems today
• International Day of Forests 2016: What’s the state of the world’s forests?
• Seeking Peace in a Healthy Environment
• Woodworms threaten Europe’s last pristine forest
• Forests Help Quench Urban Thirst
• Hug a Tree: International Day of Forests
• Forest / Wild Fire – Asia – Nepal
• Report On International Day Of Forests

Tolerance Ends When There Is No Tolerance Shown Towards Us

German TV channel ZDF documentary about people who arrive in Germany with the idea that their ideology stands above the German constitution

The documentary does question if Germans are maybe too tolerant towards immigrants from non-western and Islamic regions, and the documentary implies that they might be too tolerant because of the terrible history of Germany.

 

A community where people want to live in peace together requires respect from the citizens for each other and respect for the democratic rules of the ‘guest’ country.

We may not forget that respect also has to be earned and to say that tolerance ends where no tolerance is shown to us is creating a danger zone. Better is that there were no tolerance is shown to some one, to try to find out the reasons why there is such attitude against such people. Often no tolerance comes from taking a wrong attitude because there is a fear being fed by not enough knowledge about those people. Too many Westerners do have a wrong idea about Islam and have also prejudiced ideas about people fleeing the war zones in the Middle East.

Several difficulties between the different groups trying to come to the West have their seeds also in their will to stay strongly to their own believes and not willingness to open themselves to other believes or ideas.

From the beginning those who want to enter the European Union have to learn this has to be a place where there is demanded an openness to different ideas, different believes and where there is a demand to give everybody a fair chance to develop in total freedom, respecting the freedom of the others. Freedom can there only be when everybody is willing not to restrict the freedom of the other. Though there have to be some limitations which demands that there can be found a consensus so that everybody can live undisturbed.

*

To remember

• documentary maker thinks: we should make every refugee understand that if they want to stay => they have to accept our system of values
• if they don’t => leaving the country
• having rights but also duties

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Preceding articles:

To find ways of Godly understanding

Refugees At The Border- A Blessing Or Burden?

Poster: Please Help The Refugees

The World Wide Refugee and Migrant Crisis and a possible solution for it

My two cents on the refugee crisis

Helping to create a Positive Attitude

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Additional reading:

1. Faith related boycotts
2. Quran versus older Holy Writings of Divine Creator
3. Migrants to the West #6
4. Migrants to the West #10 Religious freedom
5. ISIL will find no safe haven
6. Wrong choices made to get rid of Assad
7. Doubting and going astray
8. Answering a fool according to his folly
9. Charlie Hebdo, offensive satire and why ‘Freedom of Speech’ needs more discussion
10. Being Charlie 7
11. Being Charlie 8
12. Being Charlie 10
13. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
14. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
15. Our way of life
16. Sharing a common security and a common set of values
17. Propaganda war and ISIS
18. Continues Syrian conflict needing not only dialogue
19. Can We Pay The Price To Free Humanity?
20. Are people willing to take the responsibility for others
21. Because of doing too much social work put to silence
22. If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for
23. State of Europe 2015 – Addressing Europe’s crises
24. Schengen area and Freedom for Europeans being put to the test as never before
25. Europe’s refugees just follow the ancient routes for the peopling of Europe in the Neolithic

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Related articles

• BOOM: German Town Shows Surefire Way to Keep Muslims Out… This Is BRUTAL
• European Officials Says Migrants Can Help Stem Europe’s ‘Demographic Suicide’
• Commotions Erupt at Reception Site for Migrants in Croatia
• VIDEO: Why are migrants fleeing Middle East now?
• Isis, Refugees and the Expansion of Israel
• European ministers agree to relocate 120,000 refugees
• Russian EU ambassador: EU interested in broad anti-terrorist coalition
• John kerry and philip hammond to hold talks on defeating is
• Brazil Quietly Welcoming Syrian Refugees

To find ways of Godly understanding

Chad Graham of Onetheology.com is not affiliated with any religious organization, denomination, or church. He thinks

pastors have a responsibility, just as doctors and mechanics do, to become experts in their field for the benefit of society and the expansion of the kingdom of God. {Pulpit Authority}

In his article Pulpit Authority he looks at our world where people try to find specialists in different fields. For him it seems theology, doctrine, or philosophy are essential parts of a church community. It looks like a church cannot exist for him without such leaders who have gone to colleges where they were trained to become specialists in theology, doctrine, and/or philosophy.

He also gives the impression that people are not able to get authority without such an education. Though he forgets for the Word of God, they should not so much receive their education from man but more from God Himself. It seems that a lot of religious leaders, pastors and priests exclude God Himself from the educational field. Too many forget that it is the Word of God as given to mankind in the Holy Scriptures which can educate and edify man. Real knowledge about the True God can come straight ahead from the Bible itself. We do not need lots of theological works to give us an idea about Whom God is and what He has done. All is written down in the Bible. That Book of books is sufficient enough. though we do agree other books may help further to give more insight or to make the way of understanding shorter.

Also when we have several believers it is best that they do come together at regular times. We may not forget one of the tasks Jesus had given his followers was to come together, to  assemble or to gather with like minded, at regular intervals. The followers of Christ had to become part of the Body of Christ and should find unity in that body (the Church). Organising such a system or community demands work and organisation itself. Wherefore certain people can take charge to organise those meetings and to make the arrangements to keep that community of believers alive. Pastors or elders may well be the persons to do such a thing.

Pastors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Church needs pastors and leaders who wield their pulpit with authority. {Pulpit Authority}

writes Chad Graham, who also finds that

We need pastors who see their lack of knowledge and work hard to remedy it. {Pulpit Authority}

For him it looks like everything in the church-community turns around a or the Sunday service.

Next Sunday is right around the corner and congregations will show up to hear their beloved pastor deliver his sermon—with authority. {Pulpit Authority}

He does know that reason is not necessary for, or is even opposed to, faith.

However, this position will be showed to be false and the enterprise of apologetics shown to be biblical and worthwhile through the survey of the theological justification for it. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

It is not because the Elohim frequently throughout the Old Testament got His prophets use rational arguments and verifiable evidence to justify their beliefs in God, that today we do need people to show up arguments ,by having full proof of they being educated by a college enabling them to reason about those matters.  Those prophets in the past, not all, went to a high school (universities did not exist yet). God also used non-educated people to go out and to throw out the fishnet for man. Jesus his disciples were not all doctors in medicine like Luke, or doctors in philosophy, nor where the apostles or preachers learned scholars like Paul, but were also ordinary labourers, men and women who used their hands to earn their living.

The writer seems to overlook what he himself quotes:

God, speaking through His prophet Isaiah, said,

“’Come now, and let us reason together’” (Isaiah 1:18). {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

Clearly it was the Most High who invited man to reason with Him. Together they had to plan things. Today it is not different. We too, ourselves have to reason with God. We ourselves have to go into conversation with God. We do not need priests any more, other than the high priest Jeshua (Jesus Christ).

The Supreme Being was,

and is, not opposed to reason when it comes to God, the truth, and the Bible. It is even possible that the account in Genesis 1 of creation was written as an apologetic against the mythical creation stories of other cultures in the Near East. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

As written already in earlier writings, each individual is created in the image of God and has some inner feeling to look for his own being and for that Divine Creator Who made it possible to be, without Him “The I am Who Is the Being” there is no life possible. Chad Graham knows what we all should come to know, that

The stars, oceans, mountains, and planets were not gods nor were they controlled by gods. Rather, the one true God, Yahweh, brought those things, and everything, into existence and continues to sustain them in their existence. This latter element is a testament to the fact that God exists and has a plan and purpose for creation. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

“The Old Testament does not often dwell on why we need to do apologetics, but rather it simply sets out its apologias for those with eyes to see. {Philip Johnson, Apologetics, Mission, and New Religious Movements: A Holistic Approach. electronic edition (Salt Lake City, UT: Sacred Tribes Academic Press, 2010), 125-26.}

It is handy and best to have some one to encourage people in the community of faith to engage in spiritual warfare and intellectually struggle for religious truth. But it surely do not all have to be people who had a university degree in theology. It is not to have much knowledge about the different gods and about different human theories about those gods and forms of worshipping. We do need people leading a congregation who have sufficient knowledge and belief in and about the Only One True God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. Other gods are not really of any importance. Scriptural knowledge must lead in the forefront and not a knowledge about all sorts of human fantasies and human writings around godheads.

From the evidence in the Old and New Testaments, the examples of Jesus and His apostles, and God’s character in wanting Himself to be made known, there is much theological justification for Christian apologetics. Thus, fideism and any other argument against apologetics fall flat. Rather, it is shown to be a duty of the Christian to “contend for the faith” and “give a defense.” And it is also shown to be useful in evangelism since many biblical accounts record people being saved after hearing a reasoned account of the gospel. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

That reasonable account of the gospel is best given by some one who truly believes and lives according to that faith in the gospel, being the Word of God. We can find many priests and pastors who earn their living by ‘holding church’, but do not really belief in God and some even not in Jesus (the son of God). Also we may find lots of priests and pastors who are as weak as any other man, also elders, who are not able to live up to the faith, Christ and God requires from godly man. The last few years lots of scandals came in the news and many priests, pastors and so called educated theologians became defiled by atrocious things they had done. Church can do without them. Church can better use people who really belief in what they preach and do what they demand from others to do.

In the world of theology we can find lots of different writings bringing words against each other, words for sure which could potentially spark a lot of controversy, but worse, also lots of words which could bring people further away from Biblical truth.

Some theologians do know and

oftentimes think what seminary enrollment would look like if they pose a picture of Dr. King dead on a balcony on their fliers. What if they made a banner of Bonhoeffer hanging from the gallows? What if they Really showed what happened to Paul, Peter, James, and our Lord? What would enrollment look like if they showed us what would happen if we truly allowed our academics to be the impetus for our actions?

They know exactly what would happen.

That’s why our brochures are filled kids playing ping-pong. {The Subversive Scholar: The Danger of Being a Theologian in the 21st Century}

Theology without spirituality is a sterile academic exercise. Lots of countries do have universities offering courses in theology, where more time is spend on human writings about philosophy and theology than on the study of the Holy Scriptures themselves. The spiritual factor is often missed out and mostly the courses are given from the only point of view to be taken, that of the own denomination. As such in Belgium most Christian universities are Roman Catholic and offer theology to form people thinking the Roman Catholic way. In Leuven there is also an opening for protestant thinking, but also there only one way or protestantism is allowed to be the backbone to succeed end of year tests.

Street pastors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is not so much the words of human beings we do have to study, but we should make sure that we come to know what is written in the Bible, God’s infallible Word and take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Elohim commanded to God’s people. If we want to belong to God’s people we should live up to it and love the Adonai, Almighty God and worship Him as our only One God, walking in all His ways, keeping His commandments. It is not required from any person to be a follower of any other man than Christ Jesus. He is the cornerstone of the church and not a theologian or some one who can proof that he has received a degree in theological studies. We have to follow Christ Jesus and to hold fast to his heavenly Father, Jehovah God. We do not have to serve churches of man, but be part of the Body of Christ serving the only One Eternal God with all our heart and with all our soul.

We should remember Joshua who gave the departing ones from Egypt a word of exhortation,

Jos 22:5 RNKJV  But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of YHWH charged you, to love YHWH your Elohim, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

The writer of etsop95.wordpress.com remarks

You will note in this word from Joshua two important ideas. First, the Israelites were to pay attention to the Lord and do exactly what He said. Second, they were to have their motivation (love) properly in place. This is the idea behind what some people disparagingly call “pattern theology.” Those who do so speak about that which the Lord set in place! {The Pattern}

When people do find God and decide to become baptised, receiving a “new birth”, we and theologians may not forget that it is the work of God and not of us, elder or theologians

since one can’t “join” the family of God (a work of man, presumably), it is a work of God when one is “born” into the family of God. {The New Birth (2)}

Portrait of a pastor at the age of 35. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Too many people stay in the tradition of their family and keep to the faith-group they were born into, though they may not believe or not practice their views. Real faith should come from own choices being made by adult thinking and wise decision.

It is not the result of parental descent, of one’s own willpower, or by “any of man’s religious creeds, systems, or ceremonies.” The new birth is of God; it is a miracle and only God can perform it. {The New Birth (2)}

It is by allowing the Power of God come into our body that our soul (our being) can be transformed. It is the individual who has to make the right decision and allowing God to work in him or her. Only then a spiritual birth, not a miraculous one, can take place.

Nothing in nature has been suspended for one to be “born again.” {The New Birth (2)}

It is when one hears God, and is prepared to do what He wants form His creation that one can become whitewashed and be baptised by the Spirit. Those receiving the Spirit of God than can take up the tasks Jesus has given his disciples and go out to the world, to others, so that they too may find God and convert to the true faith.

Without the foundation in place the strength of a local congregation is only perceived (imagined), not real. {Strength in the Local Church}

It is not necessary by an education institute that we shall come to the God of gods. All Christians should recognise that it is Jesus is who is the way. The Bible tells us even more, that he is the truth, and he is the life. Not the theologians are going to be able to give us life.

Thus, if anyone would know of truth, if anyone would know the way, if anyone would enjoy life, then one must go through Jesus.{Strength in the Local Church}

Furthermore, Jesus said,

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46)

We should believe what Jesus says and not so much what theologians say, certainly not when in contradict with what Jesus says. so, when we go to a church where things are preached which contradict Bible sayings we should sincerely reconsider what we want to do and where we want to stay. Do we want to follow human doctrines or Biblical doctrines?

We should look at those theologians and question their thoughts and remember what some students could say about their college

With so many of our finest finishing up at denominational institutions, however, breathing the air of seminaries and schools of theology and salivating at the feet of theologians, we’ve lost our mettle against the idea of theology. {Harding University, twice}

As members of the Body of Christ we never may forget that in the church “educated” men also make mistakes.

There are numerous instances when you have two highly degreed men on the opposite sides of an issue. Some do not have an understanding of the implications of certain “facts” that they read. For example, if someone says

“Scholars believe that Mark was written before the other gospels.”

Would we question that? Is it even important? Some may teach that Mark was written first and have no other implication in mind; however, there is a large group of religious scholars that do not respect the inspiration of the Bible and the dates of the completion of the gospel is one of their places of attack.{Systematic Theology, Rex A. Turner, Sr.}

Too often in theology the focus is not on the subject we as members of the Body of Christ should worry about. It does not matter when and by whom a certain book is written. We do need to know the content and where to look for. The order in which the gospels were written is not the issue per se. What matters most is what is written between the lines and not a Pharisaical theological explanation and historical facts. Historical facts may help to place everything and to see the truth of it, but are not the main issue.

G.C. Berkouwer said:

“We live in a time when even theology is exploding with new and revolutionary problems. There is a danger that the serious student will be so impressed by all the problems in theology that he will circle all certainties by a ring of questions. When this happens, an inverse Pharisaism sets in. The doubting student says:

I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as certain as those naïve people. Let Luther say it again: Spiritus Sactus non est scepticus. Indeed, the Spirit is not a skeptic.” {Bales: certainty is not Pharisaism}

Example of appendix from New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures, study edition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the ecclesia, our Christian community, house church or church-hall or other church-building, we can come together, meeting with brothers and sisters in Christ, having elders, pastors or priest, non-educated and educated people, all together in humbleness wanting to share the same gospel. In that gathered community, the parish, it is not so much the teaching of a theologian, but the teaching of the Spirit which will unsettle false positions and false attitudes,

but it unsettles them by means of truth and not by means of relativism.  {Bales: certainty is not Pharisaism}

It are all members of the ecclesia who have to work together and to share ideas together, not one thinking the other better or worse to give gospel messages. All should follow the task given by Jesus to explain to the lost who the people of God are and why we have to make the right choice to be distinct from the false religions that exist, including those that call themselves Christians but are not, fail to do their duty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ or the gospel of salvation and of the Kingdom of God.

We do not have to have a special platform or pulpit and especially trained people as the only speakers in our community. All people do have to have their ‘input.’ all have to make an effort to help each other to grow in the faith. All have to help the ecclesia to grow and have to make sure that the Body of Christ can continue to grow.

Lets make work of it!

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Preceding articles:

Living in the Wilderness

Getting out of the dark corners of this world

An uncovering book to explore

May we have doubts

Passover and Liberation Theology

Daring to speak in multicultural environment

In Defense of the truth

Looking for a shepherd for the sheep and goats

It takes years to learn

Believe today and now!

When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

What’s inside matters..

Not making yourselves abominable

Where are the female writers

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

What Should I Preach ?

Preaching Christ Is Not Enough

How To Get Started In Sharing Your Faith As a Christian

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

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Further reading

1. The gods or mighty ones
2. Jehovah God Almighty – greater than all gods
3. People Seeking for God 6 Strategy
4. God giving signs and producing wonders
5. Elohim, Mar-Yah showing His wonders
6. Necessity of a revelation of creation 12 Words assembled for wisdom and instruction
7. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
8. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
9. Church has to grow through witness, not by proselytism
10. Which Christian sect is the only true Christian church?
11. Not everyone in the churches of Christ are “ungodly”
12. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
13. Why think there is a God (4): And the Rest …
14. The Presence of God
15. By temptations, by signs, and by wonders we can see the Works of God
16. Bible, best Book of books to get to know the truth
17. The importance of Reading the Scriptures
18. Bible God’s Word – to edify
19. Looking for wisdom not departing from God’s Word
20. Bible in the first place #3/3
21. The holy spirit will bring back to your minds all the things told
22. True God giving His Word for getting wisdom
23. Words to inspire and to give wisdom
24. Eternal Word that tells everything
25. Bric-a-brac of the Bible
26. We should use the Bible every day
27. Feed Your Faith Daily
28. God’s wrath and sanctification
29. Bible containing scientific information
30. The mythical conflict of science and Scripture (2)
31. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
32. Atonement And Fellowship 1/8
33. How Many were Bought
34. Genuine Christians content with going through motions of ritualistic religion
35. Approachers of ideas around gods, philosophers and theologians
36. An anarchistic reading of the Bible—(1) Approaching the Bible
37. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
38. Van Til’s An Introduction To Systematic Theology
39. Van Til interacting with Bavinck and Calvin on Natural Theology
40. Christianity without the Trinity
41. Position of the Bible researcher
42. Missional hermeneutics 1/5
43. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
44. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
45. Christendom Astray The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being
46. Catholicism, Anabaptism and Crisis of Christianity
47. Some one or something to fear #3 Cases, folks and outing
48. Theology without spirituality sterile academic exercise
49. Myth 12: The Hyper-Grace Gospel Makes People Lazy
50. Pulpit reserved for the pastor
51. May the Lord direct your hearts to …
52. Victory in rebirth
53. Rebirth and belonging to a church
54. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
55. Intentions of an Ecclesia
56. Congregate, to gather, to meet
57. Meeting – Vergadering
58. Contribution – Contributie, bijdrage
59. Faith is a pipeline
60. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
61. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #17 Sorts of prayers
62. Being Missional
63. Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church
64. Theologians and a promised Spirit to enlighten us
65. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
66. Politics and power first priority #2
67. Denominationalism exists because?
68. Belonging to or being judged by
69. Writers needed to preach to non-believers
70. Good or bad preacher
71. What Should I Preach ?
72. Determined To Stick With Truth
73. Oratory Style
74. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy

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Continued reading:

• Would You Speak?
• The Pattern
• The Setting of the Mind
• There are no members of the church
• Systematic Theology, Rex A. Turner, Sr.
• How to be sure your baptism is valid
• April 19 Poem: Together We Become
• Preaching the kingdom, would Paul have spoken of the church?
• Losing the kingdom of God
• A Mistake in Interpretation
• A Word To The Wise

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Related articles

• Spritual Training (alisamassey.me)
• The Difference between Religion and Spirituality (eagleman6788.wordpress.com)
• Dominion Theology Begins and Ends with Lies (endtimesprophecyreport.com)
• A year after Ferguson, a practical theology emerges around ‘Black Lives Matter’ (religionnews.com)
• Supra-cultural Theology and Feelings of Alienation (munsonmissions.org)
• Journal of Practical Theology (blogs.timesofisrael.com)
• What is Distinctive about Christian Analytic Theology? (cwoznicki.com)
• Male Feminist Theology: Table of Contents (prodigalpaul.com)
• Do you have Paper theology or People theology? (redeeminggod.com)
• The Revelatory Body (prodigal.typepad.com)

May we have doubts

Not all of us are sure about all things. Lots of matters may bring questions onto our mind.

Some may say doubt originates in a double minded person. Others say it is because a person is not enough believing in God. Others say he is not believing in Christ. Several Christians look at a doubter as a person not trusting Jesus.

Is this really so. Are we less better than other Christians when we have questions about certain matters? No, not at all.
Is doubt a sign of lacking faith? Perhaps. But it can be that you really do your best to walk in faith.
Is it because you do not believe in Jesus his victory over circumstances and trials? Perhaps, but not necessary so.

Is it because you cannot see the victory in your life you are seeking? Did you try already to check if you are really looking for the right victory?

Have you ever tried to think that what you would love to have and to see for yourself might not be in God His Will?

We are all human beings with our limitations and ‘malfunctions’.  We all have our little problems and as such we should know that every house carries its own cross.

Having all those difficulties coming over us, no wonder that we sometimes worry and question of we are doing it right or if we are following the right coarse.

In the Holy Scriptures we are advised to question everything. This means that God does understand that we more than once shall have questions with what we hear or read, and that is good, because we should question all those sayings.

For many life is an ongoing cycle of wandering and restoration. And though many would wish it were otherwise, this makes many sometimes going to and fro, coming close to God and at other moments being far away from God. Though some may desire to never depart from God, they keep losing track. Also for Jesus it seems for many Christians often difficult to keep feeling him nearby. On many occasions confronted with the realities of life we may have lots of doubts about many things.

The reality of our sinful human condition makes it so that we also have periods where our relationship with other human beings, with Christ and/or with God is disturbed a lot.

In our technological age of communication it looks like many have lost the good communication with the Most High Divine Creator.

James Paulgaard, a fellow traveller on the journey of life, also sees some problems of this time and age. He writes:

For centuries, up until the Sixties, the Church was perfectly designed for our culture. When a group of immigrants settled in a new area, one of the first things that they did was to build a church in the centre of the community. People valued going to church as a good thing. It made people into good citizens. Encouraging the Christian faith was seen as a valuable in our society at the time. There were benefits to going to church. You could build your network of social and business contacts and perhaps even meet your future spouse there. The church was perfectly designed to develop people in that environment into followers of Jesus. {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things}

Today people have found other networks which they do find more important.

This bridge was a well-designed and fully functional bridge, but in 1998 Hurricane Mitch dumped 36 inches of rain on the area in just a few days and amidst all the other damage caused by the hurricane, the deluge of water carved a new channel for the river around the bridge and the bridge now spans dry ground. It is a perfectly designed bridge that doesn’t work anymore because the river moved. (Photo from the article: Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things)

Now, being part of a Christian Church is no longer seen as a desirable by our culture. Encouraging the Christian faith is no longer valued by our society. People do not need the church for social or business contacts or to find a spouse. We have websites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Plenty of Fish for all those things. A church that was perfectly designed to make disciples in the world of sixty years ago and older struggles to engage with the mission of Jesus Christ in the world of today because the river has moved. {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things}

When you follow the articles on Our World and perhaps form your newspapers or journals on television, you are probably aware how bad the state of church attendance is. All over the industrialised countries we do find a secularized community. In some countries there may still be a solid core of people continue to value faith; but a growing core do not. { find a.o. Reginald Bibby, A New Day: The Resilience and Restructuring of Religion in Canada (Lethbridge: Project Canada Books, 2012), 5, 10, 34.}

Lots of people got to hear from their preachers that Jesus is God because no human being is ever able to follow God’s Will. Because of that lie, people have no trust in that Jesus any more and do find it rubbish that at other moments priests or pastors say they have to take the armour of Christ and become like Christ. That then would mean they  had to become like God, which is something impossible.

And in case it is impossible fro any human being to follow the Will of God, what use would it than be to even try, if no man ever could succeed.

Lots of people do forget that Jesus was a man who lived some two thousand years ago. He was a real person, others could see and not fall death (In the Bible is written that people cannot see God and live). That man, born in an Essene family from the tribe of king David, had to learn everything. People should know that God knows everything but this Jesus did not. He also had to disappoint those who wanted to know where they would be seated with him in God’s Kingdom. In case Jesus was God he could have told them because he would have known, but Jesus did not know it and had also to disappoint those who wanted to know when he would come back. Jesus always wanted to do the will of his heavenly Father and did not want to lie, like his heavenly Father does not tell lies. Not knowing when the end times or Last Days of this time system would fall, Jesus could not tell them, nor us, when he would be coming back.

In the Gospels we also can see that Jesus at moments had doubts and even wondered why God had abandoned him. So, in case Jesus dares already to ask God why He had left him, why should not such thoughts may or could come up in our minds.
What is important is how we cope with such thoughts. How we cope with our questioning God? And how we dare to question God.

We may ask God lots of things, but we have to do it in a proper manner. We also may request Him things, but we should know that God knows best for us.

Jesus has already done the hard work of living a perfect human life, dying on the cross and rising from the dead to reconcile all of creation to God. Jesus is the one doing the supernatural work of drawing people close to him and planting faith in their hearts.

as Greg Finke, {Joining Jesus on His Mission: How to Be an Everyday Missionary (Tyler TX: Tenth Power Publishing, 2014), 42-43} and James Paulgaard  {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things} puts it.

A statue of Jesus Christ at a church in India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus paved the path to God; He restored the relation between God and man and has become our mediator, now sitting at the right hand of God (notice: not on God’s throne).

The problem of today is that most people do not know the real Jesus.

To help to find Jesus and to get to see better the importance of what he really did, dying for us all, whitewashing our sins, there has been started a new website. “Messiah for all” wants to show the world that Christ Jesus was and is there for the whole world. He does not want to miss any body. He gives everybody the opportunity to get to know him and to get to know the way to the Kingdom of God.

“Messiah for all” is there for you to help you find Jesus and to find he is worth all your trust and all your faith.

Please do find that site for you and me, and start reading: Are people allowed to have doubts

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Find additional reading:

1. What’s church for, anyway?
2. Obstacles to effective evangelism
3. To be prepared and very well oiled
4. Impediments in our way
5. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
6. Looking for Free Blogs and blogging
7. Those who love Jesus
8. Humbleness
9. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God
10. Humility and the Fear of the Lord
11. No time for immorality

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• Most Blessed State of Being for Now (relijournal.com)
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Get up & Move on

Many rulers have tried to knock down the people under their government. Lots of ruling systems have been tried out throughout the ages, but not ever one human government succeeded to do everything good for everyone in the community. Lots of governments tried to silence many voices. For those who dared to speak out and to stand up everything after they had been tortured we should have respect.
But we too should not let roll over us and should try to make a world around us worth living for all creatures, man, plant and animal. Each time we become disillusioned we should continue to look for the light in the darkness and when we fell down each time we should get up again, in the knowledge that it is by falling and standing up that we can grow.

R A V E

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Lonely in the crowd

Population growth rate world (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I started writing this article there where 7 238 080 161 people on this globe. When I finished writing there where already 7 238 100 805  living human beings, thriving on only 17% of the earth its surface. Find out how many there are now when you reading this, at Worldometers info: world-population. Current UN projections show a continued increase in population in the near future with a steady decline in population growth rate; global population is expected to reach between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050. {“World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision – “Low variant” and “High variant” values”} {“World population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 – UN report”}

World population (Photo credit: Arenamontanus)

With the millions living around us we are like a very tiny ant or even more like a microbe. But those microbes which we know are often more in symbiosis or unity than those human beings.  With six of Earth’s seven continents being  permanently inhabited on a large scale, we may find Asia as the most populous continent, with its 4.3 billion inhabitants accounting for 60% of the world population. In our own region many people do think they are already with too many living on the small space which is around them. Though finding themselves living in an overcrowded area, many of those people do feel so lonely. Even when they search on the internet and add so many people on their social media profile, many people feel very lonely. You could not say they are really isolated, but what matters is that there is no real connection with the others in their surroundings.

Many invite people they meet on the internet to join as ‘friends‘ and to ‘register’ on this and that and to ‘vote’ for this and that. Voters can start and join voting blocks for the issues, sites, and groups they care about, and gather massive followings. But hose followings do they bring up something? And do the joiners really feel connected, supported or find they all can work for the same good cause?

Looking at this world Darrell Creswell notices that there are many people who never happy with where they are at in life. He recognises that many dwell on the negative, instead of visualizing the positive. In the midst of this Saswata Mitra admits he is feeling lonely.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have 509 friends on Facebook, but I still feel lonely.

he writes in Look Up and See the World Around You at his jukebox of writings by him and by the straight forward and happy go lucky girl of sixteen Navneet Kaur. Saswata Mitra is an eighteen year old (or was) who declared himself to be selfless and caring about everyone. He also feels like everybody else the need to feel that others also would care about him. And that is normal; We all need that feeling. We all need to feel that somebody else cares about us. this feeling or want to be cared and loved does not always get answered. People to get more satisfaction from having the assurance that many like them, got so entangled or chained by social media where they can build up friends like nothing.

facebook (Photo credit: dkalo)

On that virtual platform many “friends” are made, but not so many contacts made into silver and even less are converted in silver or redeemed for gold.

I see what they do everyday yet I barely know them. In this Global Neighborhood, we share and post everything we see, hear and experience. We have somehow managed to convince ourselves of the illusion that updating everything we do will get us connected to everyone around us. But hey, life your head from your screens and look around you. You’re alone. {Look Up and See the World Around You}

Having 509 friends on Facebook does not say anything about having real friends or having real communication with others. As such in this world there may be many who have lots of connections on their social media sites, but who still feel very lonely.

The whole virtual worlds sucks many into a world of belief but even more of a world of wishful thinking. On one site there are those who boast with their holiday trips to far away places and with all the gadgets they may retrieve. Lots of chit-chat and backbiting or malicious gossip can be found at those social media platforms.

We may see what they want us to or like us to see. Do they let us see their own self? Give they really something from their own which they want to share to get into a better relationship with the other?

Do those people in their everyday postings on that Global Neighbourhood really share and post everything they see, hear and experience and how much are they involved with it or want to be involved with it?

How many do not live in that illusion that updating everything we do will get us connected to everyone around us? Or is that really the intention of many?

As you say we better come to look for real connections by looking around us in the real world, living our head from our screens, seeing but also willing to become connected with that real world.

Though I think lots of people today prefer to stay connected in their virtual world, playing games and ‘doing as if’. They seem to find more indulgence by enjoying the distraction by the games and chit-chat, instead of going to spend time in having serious discussions or a real serious talk. Lots of youngsters can not read or concentrate on long texts any more. It has to be all telegram style short messages, and by preference not asking too much thought.

In a certain way all those people looking for friends do have in common that they want to be loved. They ask themselves mostly the same questions others everywhere in the world ask themselves. In the quest for life we are all the same. In our hearts and minds uncover very similar ideas and are fired the same questions day in day out. All over the globe we can find people who worry, who have doubts created in their own minds.

some of those questions may be

“I wonder if there is something better for me in life than this?”

Doing this will many times keep you from enjoying where you are in God’s plan for your life.

writes Darrell Creswell in God’s Will and Design For Your Life – Inspirational Bible Verses, who is well aware that one of the problems might well be that most people use not their eyes to see further than this world around them personally and do not want to grasp a little bit of what the Plan of the Planner of this universe might be.

We only see mere seconds in part of God’s plan as a whole. As such we cannot grasp what is the blueprint for our life. We all have a definite past, but with God we have an indefinite future that is infinite by His grace, full of hope and wonder. There is unity and harmony in God’s plan for our life and we must embrace it. So, have faith in the Lord and in His providence as all things work together for good for them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. {God’s Will and Design For Your Life – Inspirational Bible Verses}

How many people ask themselves this question

  “How did I get so blessed to be where I am in God’s will for my life?”

How many people in their life are willing to place themselves in an open environment where they are willing to allow God planning their life? Most of the people do want to be in the centre of their own world. Everything has to turn around them. How many are willing to turn around the others? Even more important, how many are willing to give themselves to the Creator of the universe and to allow Him track their path and to bring them in contact with the right people?

Lots of people forget that being in the centre of God’s will, no matter the circumstance, shall make them as one of ‘the luckiest persons on earth’ (if I may use that expression). Luck is hidden in a little corner. Happiness is hidden in each of us. It are we, human people who create borders and difficulties to get in constructive personal contact with others.

Being so self focused many of us have you become so tired, worn out, broken down, frustrated, stressed out, hopeless and discouraged that they feel like they can’t even make it through the day and dread facing tomorrow.

We all know that feeling of being pushed in the corner by others, or by awkward situations. Many of us even have the impression it are they who are in the picture for the bad.

Sometimes in life it seems that the only experiences that we are having are all bad ones. There are times that it seems that today is worse than yesterday, and we are in fear of what tomorrow will bring. Life seems to be one disaster after another, and we seem to be going from crisis to crisis. There are times when life drains all the energy from us and we find ourselves wiped out from the stress we are dealing with on a daily basis. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

All of us seem to grow fearful and anxious as we wait for things to get better. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

Many think they shall find answers in their virtual world of the internet social media. After work, or many already at work, do not mind forgetting what they really have to do at the workplace or at home, and get into their own little world of virtual friends and games of building farms or villages. They try to forget the real world with its many stressful situations.

We rush through life without stopping to check where we are going, or what we are doing.{Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

We should know that we better get into the real world and dare to face all its problems. We for sure can not solve all those problems. We should not worry that we are not able to solve everything. We should just try to do our best and get together with others to help each-other to grow strong in this tempting world.

The Nazarene Jeshua (Jesus Christ) was a Master-teacher, who was totally not concerned about himself. He put himself totally at the side and only wanted to do the will of his heavenly Father. He brought the Words of his Father to many and asked them to spread the same Good News he gave them. Jesus asked them to go out in the world and to look for like minded people who are willing to share the same hope as he gave them.

He warned them they also could feel lonely and hated, because others would not like it they being followers of him, worshipping the Only One God of gods. But he assured them that when they would come to look for each other and join in meetings, they would find the brotherly love he gave them and which could bring us all united in a world where there would be no war or pain any more.

By sharing that love Jesus gave to us, and finding believers who also want to worship that Only One God we shall be able to find those friends who can build us up and together would be willing to build up that community in which Jesus is the cornerstone. There we shall be able to find the real friends, who we shall be willing to call ‘brothers‘ and ‘sisters‘. With them we shall be looking forward to the fulfilment of God’s Plan.

Part of the process of God’s wondrous ability to bless our lives is you and I taking the time to slow down petition the throne of Grace and listen for His voice. As we slow down and wait on Him, we will be reminded of our complete and utter dependence on His strength. When we take the time to stop, pray; slow down and wait on Him – He will bring the resolution to our problems as and reveal His plan for our lives. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

As disciples of Christ we can come to counting lives and friends dear to us. Today this can happen in a less dangerous manner than in the first century of this era. The message did keep the same and the reason to make friends in Christ has become to be quickened, because time runs out. Day by day we shall be coming closer to the end times and when World War III will be a fact, it would be to late. Today our priority should be to form a loving brotherhood. It is now that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us by sharing true riches with as many as we can. Knowing that tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair we should be giving out our hand to many around us in love speaking words of kindness. Willing to walk with all kinds of people in love by faith, not by sight, together making church as united people under Christ.

When you are feeling lonely do know you are not alone. Tsundukani Baloyi writes:

The thing about feeling lonely is that it doesn’t matter who you choose to waste your time with whether it may be with friends, a lover or any significant other, you will still feel lonely. You could be in a room filled with people and still not feel as though you are part of the crowd. I don’t know, feeling lonely sucks at times. It drains the living hell out of you and the worst part of it is that you won’t even know why you feeling lonely in the first place. {Lonely}

When you are feeling lonely then, it is perhaps because you do not feel the mediator Jesus close to you, nor his heavenly Father who shall always be there by those who are looking for Him.

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When this article was published there where: 7 238 140 550 people on this earth.

Additional literature:

1. Internet absurdities
2. Changing screens
3. Words to push and pull
4. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
5. When you think you have nothing to say or to show
6. Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings
7. Putting your feelings into words and sharing them
8. Hello America and atheists
9. Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day
10. Be Honest
11. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #12 Prayer #10 Talk to A Friend
12. From Winterdarkness into light of Spring
13. To be chained by love for another one
14. God won’t ask
15. Man’s plans prevailed by God’s purpose
16. A goal is a dream with a plan
17. If You want to start winning the war
18. Engaging the enemy
19. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
20. We should use the Bible every day
21. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
22. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
23. A participation in the body of Christ (CdEcclesia)
24. A participation in the body of Christ
25. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
26. Congregate, to gather, to meet
27. Meeting – Vergadering
28. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
29. Reasons to come to gether
30. Fellowship
31. Integrity of the fellowship
32. Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
33. Making church
34. What’s church for, anyway?
35. The Church, Body of Christ and remnant Israel synonymous
36. Many churches
37. Synagogue, Church or Ecclesia for the Christian
38. When we love we do not need laws
39. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
40. Priority to form a loving brotherhood

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  Lonely is forever.
• Philly’s Population Still Growing (phillymag.com)
  “In its estimate for 2013, the Census Bureau put the city’s population at 1,553, 165, an increase of about 25,000 residents – or two percent – over 2010.  … Nineteen of the nation’s 20 largest cities rose in population between 2010 and last year. The lone exception is Detroit, which saw its population decline by 3 percent.” Here’s the full list of America’s biggest cities and their growth since 2010.
• ‘Lonely’ bacteria increase risk of antibiotic resistance (scienceblog.com)
  Scientists from The University of Manchester have discovered that ‘lonely’ microbes are more likely to mutate, resulting in higher rates of antibiotic resistance. The study, published today in Nature Communications and jointly funded by The Wellcome Trust and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, explored the mutation rates of E.
• Lonely (tsundukanibaloyi.wordpress.com)

Helping to create a Positive Attitude

From the previous postings you could come to see how serious we have to take the people around us, because they will influence us in one way or the other. It would not be so much a problem if those out there would have naturally positive attitudes. But we also have to face those with negative attitudes. They might be born with no sunny signs for them or could their dispositions having destroyed or distorted by the negativity of others (parents, teachers, siblings or friends) as they grew up.

We also showed that everything is in the mind of each person him or herself. Everyone can bend the coarse of negative thought in to the line of positiveness. We all have to take up our responsibility to help those who are totally caught up in the negative spiral. We can help them by showing our positive attitude.

By coming to the knowledge that we ourselves are the only person who can create and control our attitude, we ourself can get on the way, but also show to the other that he or she also has that possibility to change her or his track. By showing the importance of the belief in the self, we can get them to reconsider their own position in their own life.

Remember The Duck, Keep Positive !! …item 5.. Law Enforcement Prepares For FSU / Miami Game (Fri 7:05 PM, Nov 01, 2013) — The phone number, 850-645-JERK (5375) … (Photo credit: marsmet463)

When we ourselves can get ourselves and others to believe that outside events can’t create our attitude, we can come together to build up together a good attitude. It is wrong to think that we all have to do everything on our own. We should come more to think of a group, helping each-other on the  road to success.

Having come to more non-religous persons, most people have no connection any more with their ‘community‘. Most of them are not part of a parish or an active community. Lots of people live in a neighbourhood but do not know their neighbours personally. Often lots of activities in the community even happen without them noticing it. Sometimes this is also the fault of the community or the parish itself, not inviting the people which live in the neighbourhood, or restricting contact only to those who are member of the church. Lots of churches have forgotten to go out and to do preaching work or investing time in missionary work at their own place. You might find churches having collections for places far away and talking about mission work in countries far away, but their eyes are closed for their own region. There there has to be done lots of missionary work today.

It is important that a person gets that feeling of being part of a community. We need to feel part of something which is bigger than ourselves. We are not made to stay on our own. It does not mean we do have to be married or living together with somebody else. But there has to be a connection with others living around us.

The outside world will always throw challenges in its surroundings and we may not close our eyes for them plus we also do have to open eyes of others for them. Some Christians do think we may not involve ourselves in the politics of the world, but we can not close our eyes for the politics in our own surroundings. We should be aware of it and should protect the weaker ones for those who try to get power over others.

We have to create our attitude in response to how we think about the events going on in our environment. Living in a communal society we do have to decide how we are going to respond to those challenges and to our entourage. Here we do have to make our first choices, how to look at things, how to let it influence ourselves or others and to choose whether to respond negatively or positively to the things it shall come to bring to being. Everything which is said or done  shall request a reaction and shall have an influence on those around it.

Being aware of your position in the community is important to the feeling of yourself but also for the reaction you will create onto others. Having much more in your hands than you might think, you should come to see that really you too can bring lots of changes, not only to your self, but also to others.
This request a strong attitude form yourself and a willingness to help others.

We shall not deny that maintaining a positive attitude in the face of all of the daily challenges in life can be daunting. We may differ with each other, but we shall have to find ways  to live with each other. By respecting the thoughts of the other you too may gain respect from the other. You both can come to the conclusion that each of you might find way to live positively with each other.  It does not matter if you are white or coloured, if you are very highly educated or have a poor education, each one of you can contribute to the community.

Many challenges may be offered to us and the community we are living in. But when we join hands we shall be able to do more than just on our own. Each of us can do it. It’s a personal choice to believe the best about any situation. Start to become aware of what you are thinking and saying, and check in yourself what effect it can make what you our saying.

As soon as we come to the understanding that we all works in progress in we are on a good way to come to changes which can be positive. You should work at it – gently correct yourself when you’ve gone the wrong way and praise yourself when you get it right.

We should be aware that common notion such as ‘long hours and many years’ counts also for us. but we have to be careful how such idea would dictate our life patterns. Believing on ourselves we should pursue our dreams, letting also others know that dream and prove it could be possible to succeed and on our own terms.

In case the surrounding looks boring or unappealing to you, why do you not try to change something to it. Consider more pleasurable surroundings that involve activities you may like, but also know you yourself can bring changes in your own environment. Your attitude and energy level are at their best and your attention span is very keen since you are focusing on something you like.

When you meet people who have grown to believe they can not achieve success due to a variety reasons, why do you not show them too that other side of the coin you have found. Let them and come to see yourself that in fact they put more effort into producing reasons as to why they can not succeed than others may invest into becoming successful. Our and their focus should come onto the vision of success.

Teaching yourself to have a positive attitude takes gentle but consistent work, just like training a young pets or toddlers. Do it for yourself and help others to get on the process of developing a positive world together.

A positive attitude changes everything. (Photo credit: deeplifequotes)

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 Complementing reading:

1. Intentions of an Ecclesia
2. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
3. Breathing to teach

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1. 3 Vital Character Traits
2. 5 Ways Your Mental Attitude Affects Your Success
3. Fostering A Positive Attitude

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• Beware of bad attitudes at the Church service (mahustlerszone.wordpress.com)
  You need to beware of bad attitudes at the Church service. Let me make this clear before I elaborate on this topic, that the church is not limited to a physical structure but in fact is every person who believes in Jesus Christ. Also a church service can happen even outside the walls of the church building. A bad attitude at the Church service won’t do you any good. Having lack of faith and trust in the Lord is not helpful. However, this can be corrected as your faith can increase while hearing from the preaching of the word of God.
• Attitude (darkhighlander666.wordpress.com)
  a good attitude is when you are to do something and you do it without any reluctance.
• The 5 Ways to Have a Great Attitude Despite a Bad Situation (davidsbodytemple.wordpress.com)
  Have wisdom to know when to have a bad attitude. After all, we are human, but we need to have wisdom when we can’t go anywhere but negative.  Jesus got negative when He entered the temple and drove the moneychangers out.  He got negative when the Pharisee’s tried to make Him look bad.  Pick your battles wisely.  The Holy Spirit will guild you.  We should always strive to be positive; negative should be a last resort, not the first resort.
• What’s with that attitude? (motivatingdaily.com)
  We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”
• I Got a New Attitude (changedmindchangedlife.wordpress.com)
  We spend our entire educational journey learning how your attitude determines your altitude.
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  My attitude is one of my biggest enemies. It tells me how to look at others and judge, it tells me how to criticize no progress, it tells me how to blame others for my failures, it tells me, I’m always right. What my attitude fails to tell me is,  at the end of the day I will be alone, because I choose to keep my attitude instead of my life.
• ‘Love transforms everything,’ Pope tells sick, disabled (catholicnewsagency.com)
  “Jesus teaches us to live the pain by accepting the reality of life with trust and hope, bringing the love of God and neighbor, even in suffering: and love transforms everything,” the pontiff told the members of the Apostolate of the Suffering and the Silent Workers of the Cross on May 17.
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  Pope Francis said this positive attitude towards suffering was lived and taught by Blessed Luigi Novarese, who believed in “educating the sick and the disabled to value their suffering through apostolic action, carried out with faith and love for others.”

  “He would always say: ‘The sick must feel that they are the authors of their own apostolate,’” recounted the pontiff. “A sick person, a disabled person can become support and light for other people who suffer, in this way transforming the environment in which he lives.”

  Pope Francis urged the sick and disabled to give witness to the example of Christ in their own lives. “With this charism, you are a gift to the Church,” he said.

• 4 Reasons Why People Don’t Respect Their Leaders (enmast.com)
  Many leaders are not aware of the great power and influence they have over their team. Both directly and indirectly, leaders set the tone, pace and emotional climate of a workplace. Consequently, their actions and attitudes are absorbed by every sponge-like staff member.
• Maintenance as a Mission (engagethroughgrace.wordpress.com)
  God has given each of us unique callings – ways that He expects us to be involved in His mission of drawing lost people to Himself. He also equips us uniquely to accomplish our callings.
• Healthy Living A to Z: A is for Attitude (espirational.com)
  Thoughts are highly contagious. Hang out with negative people and you will become negative. Find a group of positive people and you will find staying positive much easier. Watch the online communities you join as well.
• We all got Attitude (pastorleonard.wordpress.com)
  Our attitude determines so much for us.  Here is a short list of where our attitude impacts the life we are building.

  Attitude is a huge influence in…

  Fait, Effort, Energy, Determination, Courage, Faithfulness, Relationships, Partnerships, Health, Peace joy and hope, How we treat others, How we handle adversity, How we parent, How we approach marriage

Passover and Liberation Theology

by Jonathan Granoff 

There is a dynamic relationship between identity, community, and grace-awakened values, which, if they are authentic, are universal and without regard to nation, tribe, gender, race, or religion. In other words, God’s love is for all, wisdom is without prejudice, and justice properly wears a blindfold when she weighs deeds. The Passover moment is as an example of how the specific group in which one lives can and should be used to expand one’s circle of compassion. Tribalism is a distortion of God’s grace. The expanded heart alone is capable of knowing a reflection of the Unlimited Heart of God’s love for all.

Jewish Community Festival, Downtown Park, Bellevue, Washington. “Jew-ish.com” and Seattle Kollel booths. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being Jewish and being part of the Jewish community can be a blessing or a curse. If being part of a community helps develop compassion for others, a sense of being loved, and expands one’s capacity to serve others, then it is surely a blessing to be in such a community. If being anything increases one’s capacity to experience God’s qualities and to share them then that too is a blessing. If being part of anything gives one a sense of arrogance then developing wisdom will be thwarted and authentic understanding of one’s relationship to God as well as one’s fellow human beings will he occluded. Liberation from any identity that separates one from one’s fellow human beings and God is necessary for authentic peace. Commitment to caring for others is a prerequisite for spiritual and psychological growth. Whatever identity one receives from birth or choice will have value based on these principles.

Rights, rituals and practices can deepen one’s sense of gratitude and appreciation for all lives.

For example, Passover can be experienced as liberation theology at its best. It is about social justice, freedom from slavery, crime and punishment, patience and fortitude, courage and God’s grace. It is also about overcoming the Pharaoh of egoism with faith. It is a multilevel source of inspiration for those who participate in its dimensions of family, community, teaching, and eating.

It is for many an affirmation of the intervention in history of God on behalf of a people God protected and to whom He revealed Himself. It can awaken gratitude for being a descendent of those people and not being a slave today. It can create a sense of duty to help free others. It can inspire to uplift us to a clearer awareness of the presence of the sacred. It can help us remember God.

It can create a distorted sense of identity. It can make one think that based on blood one is closer to God than others. One might ask: Is being a Jew a necessary part of being close to God? Only a fool would think so. One might also ask: Does being Jew distance oneself form God. Only a fool would think that. So, if you are a fool, stop reading, otherwise, join me in these reflections.

A heart filled with compassion and a life lived from that place of goodness where the presence of God is remembered will do just fine. So, then the question is what value is there in being part of a community, like a several thousand years history of stories about that community’s relationship with the mystery of life we inadequately call God. It could be good and it could be bad.

Good includes being accountable to people who know and love you. Bad includes thinking that by virtue of being part of that community, or tribe, you are specially blessed and better than anyone else anywhere. Good includes gratitude for the teaching that God is with us and One with all. Bad if that teaching makes one feel different from any of God’s other human creations.

Compassion does not have a boundary of blood, religion, race, caste or gender. It resonates like the circles from a pebble in a pond from the center of the heart where the intention to honor the lives of others and God’s sacred gift awakens when the pebble of that purity descends into the human heart.

So, here are few thoughts for your thinking:

Why do we need a tribe when the message is love and unity with and for all? Is not our God the One God of the one human family and is not the calling of those who accept the calling to love and serve all? Of course, and is that realization not a liberation from the slavery of egoism formed of separation from the overwhelming blessing of the oneness of life’s bounty? The ego mind that identifies with all that we cannot posses forgets what we can really receive, the radiance of the soul.

Crossing over the sea of blood ties into the open space of wisdom:

 

~And This Too~

love without action is

hollow

action without love is

dangerous

love with action

that’s

plenitude

each breath, deep love in action

each thought, deep love in action

each moment, deep love in action

Deep Awake

 where gratitude lives,

 salt changes to sugar

tears of sorrow, sadness and separation

changing to

tears of joy, love and union

a mere whisper of the grace of deep awake,

listen carefully

this whisper is a thunder of healing light

oh may God’s resonance be known.

in love’s way of peace

 

Jonathan Granoff is president of the Global Security Institute and reachable at granoff@gsinstitute.org.

– From Tikkun Special Seder Messages for Passover

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Related articles

• Queer Passover Seder Helped Me Reclaim Judaism (blogs.forward.com)
  At the time, it didn’t occur to me to be offended or concerned that I was being circled by the cheerleaders and other popular girls who held hands, bowed their heads and prayed for my soul. They were part of “Christian Life” at my high school in Olympia, Washington. I recall several instances when they earnestly attempted to save me from eternal damnation. I didn’t refuse their efforts or consider the implications of their actions. I just wanted to fit in.I grew up Jewish in the Pacific Northwest. But not in a religiously observant family, or a proud intellectual family, or a family of labor organizers who taught me early and often never to cross a picket line. My family was on the fast track to assimilation, and by high school, being Jewish was simply a reminder that I was an outsider.

  By the time I was in my late twenties, I was reeling from a spiritual crisis. A decade of organizing and social change work had left me feeling hopeless and burned out.

• What Passover Means to Young Adults (ejewishphilanthropy.com)
  Passover is a unique moment. As we learn every year from the hundreds of Birthright Israel alumni who host Seders for their friends through NEXT’s Passover initiative, the holiday provides young adults with a whole new space in which to explore identity, experiment with tradition, and build community.What moves and motivates these young adults to create their own Passover experiences, and what can we learn from their stories? We dug through a trove of qualitative data contained in hosts’ post-Seder surveys to find out. Their stories illuminated important lessons and questions for the entire field of engagement.
• This Passover (danielswearingen.wordpress.com)
  You tell me to look outside me this Passover, to actualize an infinite need. It seems strange, you asking me for holiness, for blessing a harvest, you of oneness, the lock of my key.
• RAC Blog: A Fifth Cup ??? Going Beyond What is Required (blogs.rj.org)
  Today, as many of us are busy preparing for Passover, I find myself less occupied by the meticulous aspect of the holiday’s demanded mitzvot, but searching instead for ways to supplement the narrative and to find meaning in a modern context. I commend those who find deep meaning in cleaning out their kitchens and sterilizing their homes, making sure that all leavening ceases at the 18-minute mark and [in the Ashkenazi tradition] nothing that could resemble wheat flour – such as legumes – will be consumed during Passover. However, I would like to offer an additional perspective on Passover by suggesting some meaningful ways to supplement the seder.

  Zionism and living in Israel were the answers to my search for Jewish identity, and to me, Passover became a holiday of peoplehood. The central narrative became the one that we clearly state after we sing “Dayenu,” that B’khol Dor VaDor: “In every generation we must see ourselves as if we went out from Egypt.” In the traditional Haggadah this statement is followed by a biblical and liturgical reading.

• The Evolution Of Passover – Past To Present (jewishengagement.wordpress.com)
  Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is the most widely celebrated Jewish Holiday. It begins on the 15^th of the Hebrew month of Nisan and lasts for either seven or eight days depending upon location and religious orientation. In Israel, all sects of Judaism celebrate Passover for seven days with one Seder (Passover ritual feast and in Hebrew means “order”) on the first night, while in the Diaspora (communities outside of Israel), traditional Jews celebrate it for eight days with two Seders held on both the first and second nights. This year Passover will commence at sundown on Monday, April 14^th with the first full day celebrated on Tuesday the 15^th. Passover is a Biblical Holiday, which commemorates the story of the Exodus—G-d freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and bondage; establishing the Covenant with them as a people not just as individuals as in the past e.g. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and in turn creating the beginning of our sacred history as a Jewish Nation.
• The Worm Moon- Nisan 14, and Happy Passover (ireport.cnn.com)
  “Passover commences on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nisan.
  In Judaism, a “day” commences from dusk to dusk, thus the first day of Passover only begins after dusk of the 14th of Nisan and ends at dusk of the 15th day of the month of Nisan.
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  Passover is a joyous holiday, celebrating the freedom of the Jewish people.
  http://www.policymic.com/articles/31025/passover-2013-5-things-to-know-about-the-jewish-holiday
• Taking Passover Back to Its Roots (algemeiner.com)
  the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nissan, they’ll wait for the kids to recite Mah Nishtana, the four questions; pucker up to inhale the bitter herbs; relish the sweet Charoset; dip herbs in salt water; sing rousing renditions of Dayenu and Chad Gadya; and knock back four cups of wine.But none of these rituals are part of the Passover observance of Israel’s Karaite and Samaritan believers, who observe the biblically mandated holiday in quite a different way.
• Review: Two Messianic Passover Haggadoth (messianic613.wordpress.com)
  There’s no lack of Passover Haggadoth for Messianics. The best known are perhaps The Messianic Passover Haggadah by Barry & Steffi Rubin, and the more recent Vine of David Haggadah published by FFOZ. [1] There are many more, especially in internet editions. Some show a beautiful lay-out and are richly illustrated. There seems to be enough material available for all styles and tastes.

  To our taste, however, the materials offered thus far show many liturgical defects and inconveniences. Despite many serious efforts that have been made we haven’t seen a messianic Haggadah which successfully and convincingly integrates the traditional Jewish and the typical messianic features of the Seder. It is our perception that the difficulty of doing so is often underestimated, and that authors and editors are not sufficiently aware of the decisions involved in such a project, or the halachic and theological problems connected to these decisions.

• Passover: A Time To Remember (jacksonandrew.com)
  The basis for a Christian interpretation of the first of the Seven Festivals as the decisive component in God’s plan for redemption pivots upon the identification of Jesus with the paschal lamb (Ross 2002, 409). There are, in fact, strong associations between Jesus and the Passover lamb in both the Old and the New Testaments. Centuries before the Crucifixion of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah declared that the when the future Messiah appeared, he would be “led like a lamb to slaughter.” (Isa 53:7). As John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching him he proclaimed: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Similarly, Peter described Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God (1 Pet 1:18-20). According to Augustine of Hippo, “The true point and purpose of the Jewish Passover . . . was to provide a prophetic pre-enactment of the death of Christ” (Rotelle 1995, 6:186).And not only has Passover been connected to the death of Christ, but also to the Lord’s Supper, which is also obviously a symbolic pre-enactment of Christ’s death as well as an re-enactment celebrated by the Church since that time. After Jesus’ sacrifice, Paul assured the early Christian community at Corinth that they have been saved “for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). Of course, the context of this passage points to the man who is living in persistent sin and thus not being allowed to receive the Lord’s Supper. Cyprian of Carthage also connected Passover to the Lord’s Supper and to the root, being the unity of the church (Baillie 1953, 129).

   

Spring in sight

Welcome

 

 

There was not much of Winter in Belgium and signs of the approach of Spring seem sparse.

Quiet keepers in Waiting for spring and in Keeping faith when spring is late let us know that the keepers of time tell us “Spring is here”.

We have passed that notch in the calendar when light and darkness are given us in equal measure. Winter is past and we can breathe a collective sigh of relief and begin to enjoy longer days and the sight and smell of things getting about the business of growing. For now, though, that is only a hope, and what we see is not quite what we’ve been awaiting. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

Wapen van Vlaams-Brabant / Coat of Arms of Flemish Brabant (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For us it is like our seed is still in the clay of Flemish Brabant. We do feel the wetness and are eager to germinate. At last the sun has brought some warmth giving us the power and the spirit to come up. The landscape starts changing her palette of various hues of brown into green spots and since a few days the whites, yellows and other fresh colours shout for our attention. The sounds in the air start changing and are willing to come over lord auto-mobile. We also can not wait to bring an other sound.

Absorbed in this state of waiting, many of us are edgy, irritable, and anxious, even as we try to remind ourselves that spring must come eventually. We glance outside and then look at the calendar, counting the days until the equinox. Still bundled in our winter coats and scarves, we gaze longingly at spring merchandise in stores. We rejoice and celebrate the occasional mild day, even as our hopes are dashed by another snowstorm or cold front. {Waiting for spring}

The cold fronts in Western Europe are more brought by the politicians and the materialism people are caught by. Everybody very busy to earn as much as they can or having to work many hours to be able to survive in a country which has so many taxes, people more than half of the year just work to pay for the deficit of their country.

Many could have enough reason to dawdle over their food the government is offering them. Instead of picking at our food we tumble all the garbage of this spoiled world in the wasteland. We would have loved to start with a clean slate, but we are all born with the legacy of our previous generations. Living in an area were the battles of Europe were fought and being conquered by foreign troupes many times, we take an aversion to everything that may smell of trying to restrict us or to modify our free thought. We do not like to be confined to one set of rules or to one set of ideas an do not like to be talked into regulations or was of life. Some may like to be talked round, but we appreciate it that every body can talk freely and may utter different ideas than ours. We are not afraid of possible contradicting ideas or different ways of life. The variation of thought brings colour in life and we do not mind to discuss all those variations if time permits and when it cold be worth to consider matters.

Remains of a canal lock tower, quay and watermill in the fields in Weerde, Belgium. Weerde, Zemst, Flemish Brabant, Belgium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We appreciate the variation in the world and consider it as a richness and not as a limitation or a shortcoming or fault of our society. We are aware of human shortcomings but do not want to be at a loss for words. We do not think words are no adequate to give some spirit and fire to life and give us joy in a world full of variation. We do not want a grey world where every body thinks and feels the same.

Problem for many in our society is that often people might have lots of expectations and being disillusioned not many come through. Then the question may arise “what do we do when life doesn’t work out as we had dreamed it”. We all want to reach a high point in our life. Who does not want to reach the top? But we often become limited because we do want so much to compare ourselves with others. What do we do when our status is inferior to that of others and the community around us including our family point this out to us?

On this site we do hope to have people to come to accept that every body has something good, but also can have something bad, but more important that every individual has his or her role and importance in this universe of variety and trial. We would like to avoid entering ourselves or having others entering a “winter of discontent”. We would love to show the world there is so much beauty in it and so much richness in it for every one to share in abundance.

Many people might also be tempted to cling to stories they heard from their ancestors, the world of their previous and ‘old dreams’, waste their talents on nostalgia, religious feeling, liturgical formalism, institutional activism, fundamentalism, nationalism, rationalism and more. Often they cling on to their dreams and eat their heart out with choking hopes of their ego placed in the centre of the world. By not accepting that others might have other ideas they  become goofy about bagatelles and scowl at mere trifles. Our of fear others might subdue them they go in counter attack.

We would like to offer some small notebook, where some ideas may be scrabbled in and where people can look at without having to look what others would think or without distress. You may find toddling and fluttering here this communal place, a joint property of different minds, people who feel themselves united by the forces of nature and by their open mind and willingness to share thoughts with each other without offending some one, but with concerted attempt to show the world the beauty of diversity.

Undismayed we would like to offer you a lucky bag or a bran tub where people are free to scramble. Any passer-by can rummage in what we do have to offer. Feel free to grope in the lucky dip. We hope every body who comes along shall be able to grope and find something of interest.

United States (Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn)

Those interested in adding their words are very welcome to do so. In case they would like to regularly write some note or thought or would like to share a reflection, they may let us know and we will invite them to come a co-author. Our mother-tongue is Dutch, so do not worry you speak an other language than ours. We have chosen English to be the  language of communication because we ourselves are not so good in the other business languages Spanish and Mandarin. If you would prefer to write in your own language, and this would be one we can understand or speak ourself, like French, German, Afrikaans, you are welcome to write in those languages.

The main joint writers shall place their articles under their and this ‘guest signature’ in the lifestyle magazine Stepping Toes. We also do invite you to come and have a look there and to find also other co-authors.

May we give some incitement to join us, so that you could perhaps reach other people than on your own regular blog and that you with us can give incitement to others to share their thought in a community of people who are not afraid to be together with other minds.

We would like to offer our readers articles on social, spiritual, cultural, political and sometimes economical affairs. All matters could be spoken off here and all sorts of guest-speakers or guest-writers are welcome. If you would like to present us, at regular or irregular times, with some nice prose or poetry, you are very welcome.

We would be honoured to find writers to join us who could write like QuietKeepers, who writes:

Now is a time of preparation for what is to come, to gaze on the stark canvas around us before it begins to burst into color and growth. After all, when it does, life will get very busy, not only in the natural world, but in our lives. Activity will ramp up as schedules swell with graduations, weddings, and ball games. Homeowners will frantically pull out coolers and grills, uncover deck furniture, and fuel lawnmowers for the first of many cuts of the season. Gardeners will feel an urgency to ready their beds and plant even as the local greenhouses warn them to heed the frost-free date. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

With her and others we would love to see everything coming to life again and in full colours. So that we can be

enjoying the cacophony of chatter from a flock of blackbirds or the song of a single robin as the sun amazes … with yet another spectacular rising or setting.

We would love to see that many may join us on between the dawn and the dark of night to walk on the many roads who lead to the same point. As wise men, like closetoeighty can send words in the world, whilst trying to stay young and fresh in mind and share the beautiful pictures of a China Sojourner Randall Collis, who notes:

The wisdom of Jerry Garcia resonates with me as the wrathful fingers of winter turn into the chilly, wet hands of spring.  I search for my path.  A place to watch and dream from afar; to quietly witness the darkness of winter transform into the dawn of spring. {Dreams Between Dusk and Dawn}

It is this strange contradictory nature of dawn and maturity that makes life interesting.  In our youth, we revel in the late night/early morning hours.  Intrigued by the peace of a post-midnight sky and the eerily quietness of the streets and the wilderness.

Breathtaking to feel so alive with energy in the dead of night, as if this moment was created for the young: the world waiting to be explored.  All the action and chaos of the previous day and night comes to a crescendo and slowly unwinds in the peaceful stillness of darkness. {Dreams Between Dusk and Dawn}

Together we would love to take a closer look at

what appears to be nothing and am noticing the winter feathers of the male Goldfinches start to turn yellow, buds on the branches of an Elderberry bush, and the first leaves of Bee Balm at the base of the brown stalks from last year’s growth.

In the belief that anticipation is often the best part of a vacation or a happy event, {Keeping faith when spring is late}

we would like to fill our glasses and bring a toast to drink

in this time and appreciating it in its somewhat awkward adolescent phase because (we) know without seeing that it holds the promise of something quite wonderful that is yet to come. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

We would love to devote ourselves to the cause of allowing ourselves to grow by the wisdom of others and sharing our knowledge and experience, working at bettering others.  We want to find enough reason to be happy with what we have and with what we can share with others, without wanting something in return.

Why should we waste it on pleasurable pursuits alone?  We should be making this world a better place for our children.

In case we could bring other people in the picture who are also willing that we would grow into a world where every body can live next to each other in peace, though they may be from an other race, culture or religion, than we shall be pleased and could find we succeeded in fulfilling some of our dreams, seeing people all over the world united with each other.

May we welcome you as a guest and may we look forward to meet some more guest-writers as well?

Looking forward to sharing ideas and sharing lovely thoughts and love itself.

Join us as Bloggers for Peace

In case you would like to join the Bloggers for Peace
you are welcome to take contact with some of them.

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Note: We do hope the writer of Waiting for spring and Keeping faith when spring is late does not mind we used some of her beautiful writing to bring over our own ideas. It is namely also our intention to bring some good bloggers into the attention of others, so that those visitors and we in our limited time can find something interesting to read and perhaps also can find some one they would like to follow.

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Preceding articles:

Guestwriters for you

Welcome to “From guestwriters”

About Guestwriters

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Additional reading:

1. A new year with hopes and challenges
2. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve
3. Economics and Degradation
4. Our political systems and juggling with human laws
5. Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
6. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
7. Time for global change
8. Words to inspire and to give wisdom
9. Reframing health
10. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
11. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
12. Embracing the Body as a Spiritual Path
13. Growth in character
14. Wisdom lies deep
15. Secrets of Wisdom
16. Wisdom = Generosity
17. Wisdom by A Schoonbee
18. Wisdom from Matthieu Ricard
19. Wisdom From Above
20. The Value of Wisdom
21. A Fool
22. Live …
23. A living change
24. Preparedness to change
25. A learning process for each of us
26. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
27. Choices
28. Always a choice
29. We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace
30. Those who make peace should plant peace like a seed
31. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
32. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
33. Only I can change my life
34. Change from within
35. We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory
36. Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
37. Everything that is done in the world is done by hope
38. Food as a Therapeutic Aid
39. Input – Output effects on Physical Health
40. Every moment, every thing is spiritual
41. Living With(out) Regret and Negative Feelings
42. Be happy that the thorn bush has roses
43. There is no true and constant gentleness without humility
44. Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it
45. Be like a tree planted by streams of water
46. A time for everything
47. Better loaves when the heart is joyous
48. Joy is not in things, it is in us
49. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
50. Be kinder than necessary
51. The thought of losing rekindles the joy of having
52. Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark
53. Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook.
54. Faith and trial
55. A Living Faith #8 Change
56. Can Faith Ever Be Rational?
57. Cosmos creator and human destiny
58. Feed Your Faith Daily
59. Gloomy Thinking Can Be Contagious
60. You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone
61. The task given to us to love each other
62. Unarmed truth and unconditional love
63. Love turns one person into two; and two into one
64. Love envieth not
65. When we love we do not need laws
66. Spread love everywhere you go
67. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
68. Love and cultivate that which is pure
69. If we love one another, God lives in us
70. Love will cure more sins than condemnation
71. Blessed are those who freely give
72. Feed the Body and Nourish the Soul this Thanksgiving – Eat with an Attitude of Gratitude!
73. Who are the honest ones?
74. Greatest single cause of atheism
75. What’s church for, anyway? (by Marcus Ampe)
76. A Bad Reason for Thinking that Atheism is not a Religion
77. Debating with theologians and preachers and their somewhat constricted views….
78. #PreachersofLA: As Real as It Gets
79. Why can’t I warm to street preaching?
80. “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle
81. Political Correctness and “Bashing”
82. Moderates, good deeds and religious fanaticism
83. Julian Baggini – Can you be too intelligent?
84. How To Avoid Spiritual And Mental Indigestion – Harold Herring
85. Here’s to Your Health!
86. What is the happiest person in the world saying?
87. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
88. Act as if everything you think, say and do determines your entire life
89. Remember that who you’re being is just as important as what you’re doing
90. How we think shows through in how we act
91. When Your Actions Don’t Match with What You Have Underestood
92. How To Set Rules for Your Life Without Becoming a Party Pooper
93. If you want to go far in life
94. Raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair
95. People should know what you stand for
96. “A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.” — Tom Stoppard
97. You are not limited to who is in charge

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• In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
• Embracing Everything Spring (and all the in-between)